new year's eve

i don't have an image that properly portrays the goodness that was my new year's eve. we'll come back to that in a moment.

i usually spend new year's eve with my family. laure's family joins my family for an evening of games and food, culminating in sparklers at midnight. it sounds low key, probably. that's because it is. we have a relaxed evening and a lot of fun. this year, however, i had to work on new year's eve and new year's day. living 2.5 hours away, that made being with the family impossible. so, what to do? make an evening of fun in indy, of course.

back to the inadequate photos. i don't know what an adequate photo from last night would be. catching that errant piece of pizza mid flight on its way out of the oven and onto the floor? us laughing like school kids as we went into kroger for no reason other than to buy 20 grapes? weighing and counting the grapes because we only needed 20? (thankfully, we did get some extras since once we got home we realized that we actually needed 24.) watching brian's awesome new year's video? multiple times? sitting around for hours watching youtube videos and listening to snippets of random songs? realizing at 2am that we never opened the champagne at midnight? finally crashing about 90 minutes before i had to be up for work?

we had a great night. and i leave you with the video. i know i'm partial because i took some of the photos, i'm in some of the photos, and i happen to think brian's an amazing artist. but watch it, and try to tell me it's not amazing, okay? ;) may you take the time to reflect on where life has taken you this past year, and may your new year be filled with happiness, peace and joy.

W is for White Christmas

"but it's only one verse, so i added one extra one," she says. love it.

S is for Shake It

N is for Narwhals

F is for Fabulous

yes, i originally wanted to post this for D, but i couldn't get it uploaded in time. however, i'm pretty sure i could come up with a complimentary adjective for every letter of the alphabet that describes it. so Fabulous it is. :)

macarthur park

as we were riding the subway on tuesday, brian noticed there was a stop for MacArthur Park, which triggered a Donna Summer song in his head. so that night, we looked up the song and sure enough, it was talking about the MacArthur Park that's in LA. so we went back the next day and spent almost two hours taking photos. brian than turned those photos into the video above.

yes, we might be the biggest nerds ever. we flew a thousand miles to go on a vacation where we went spent a chunk of our afternoon photographing a cupcake in a park. but you know what? we had so much fun. :)

daydreaming

i would estimate i spent at least 2 hours today doing nothing more than sitting and daydreaming. mostly daydreaming, at least. there was a little analyzing going on there, too. but not in the overcritical way i usually analyze. (people often make the mistake of thinking i turn a blind eye to the possible ramifications for my actions. in truth, i spend a lot of time concocting in my mind the worst possible consequences for the things that i do. once i know i can make peace with the possible outcomes, it's easy to make the next step. but i digress.) it started as i was waiting for a phone call from a friend. i was idly clicking around on facebook, and then just started to let my mind wander instead. and you know how a mind can wander. i have no idea where i started, but i ended up dreaming about a little bit of every thing. after the phone call and running a quick errand, i came home with no real plans for the evening and seven or eight new thoughts running through my mind. it was gorgeous outside, so i took a glass of wine onto the deck and settled into one of the patio chairs. another hour or so passed by, and it wasn't until i came inside to make dinner that i realized this song had been running through my mind.



there are, of course, lots of youtube options for this song. this one's got good audio, a little bit of background about the song and a decent angle to see that JoCo looks like a muppet when he sings. :)

it's all in the last eight lines.

So enjoy yourself, do the things that matter
Cause there isn't time and space to do it all
Love the things you try, drink a cocktail, wear a tie
Show a little grace if you should fall

Don't live another day unless you make it count
There's someone else that you're supposed to be
Something deep inside of you that still wants out
And shame on you if you don't set it free

did i mention ...

that i'm going to LA?

sleeping in

i slept for about 10 hours last night. it felt great.

dreams included the house being under seige during a rodeo-themed birthday party, seeing frank walking down the street hoping his fake mustache would successfully disguise him (it did not) and listening to dave talk about why he still showed up for work four months after he'd been laid off.

and i woke up with the Cheesy Blasters jingle in my head. thanks, Meat Cat!

vd'o - adventures in babysitting

ahhh, vincent d'onofrio as thor. this movie came out 4 years after The First Turn On, but i can't get past how young vd'o looks. in fairness, there aren't a lot of close-ups in TFTO to really study his age, and he's in the midst of a bunch of other young actors and his height makes him seem older. in AIB, however, he just looks like a baby! i mean, you can tell that he's clean-shaven (as opposed to not needing to shave), and you can see that he has chest hair, and he still has his ridiculous height (the man is 6' 3") - but he looks so young. perhaps it's his skinniness coupled with his skinny jeans (which are too snug to be outside his work boots) in addition to his flowing blond hair? regardless, those are three minutes of cinematic beauty.

as a side note, marlana says we can't name our dog vincent, but we can name him thor. i'm comfortable with that.

and no, we don't have a dog.

if i had a theme song

and it played aloud each time i walked into another room ...

okay, now sing that to "if i were a rich man" from fiddler on the roof. it's kinda funny, right? but no, i don't want "if i were a rich man" as my theme song. stop talking such ridiculous nonsense.

if i had a theme song, i would want it to be something instrumental and weighty. something with power. something that really made people take notice. like the theme to star wars. or m*a*s*h, though it has lyrics and they're depressing. to go another direction, perhaps pink's song so what? or mahna mahna from sesame street?


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visit these pages for more on today's topic: april, erin, fred, marlana.

free day

one that's a little creepy ...


one that's extremely hilarious ...

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visit these pages for more on today's topic: april, erin, fred, marlana.

lead role in an already-produced movie

and just for the record, johnny depp wouldn't have to be in the movie and i would still choose to have this lead role. although, he is nice icing on the cake. chocolate cake.
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visit these pages for more on today's topic: april, erin, fred, marlana.

wednesday morning math

JoCo + great typography = video bliss

happy wednesday!

television-show home i want to live in

so my box of topics is in the office. i'm on the sofa in the living room. today was a long day at work, and i'm feeling lazy. that's right, too lazy to go get the box of topics. so, instead, i asked marlana what she wanted to talk about. she found some listing of topics online and started reading them off. the first was "model organisms" or something like that. and then she went on to find the one asking in which television-show home would you want to live. so that's what we picked as the topic. but, as soon as she said model, i wanted to post the clip from Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip's premiere episode. i'm sure it loses some of its greatness if you don't know the background story. but you can fix that by just watching the entire episode. it's on netflix for streaming ... look it up. ;) but for now, watch this clip:



oh, and apparently i'm supposed to "actually answer the question" today. you people are so demanding. stop trying to box me in.

unless you're boxing me into charlie's house on Two and a Half Men. without charlie, please. i just want the house.
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visit these pages for more on today's topic: april, erin, marlana.

18. take at least 3100 photos

as it turns out, taking 31 photos a day for 31 consecutive days quickly raises the total number of photos taken. especially when i take a couple hundred photos to create stop-motion videos like the letter s. and when i rig up my camera to shoot in continuous mode while on a tripod? well, then i take more than 700 photos in a span of less than 15 minutes. and you get to watch me make chex mix. ;)


i like the end, when i'm tossing the goodies with the sauce. it looks like i went in with photoshop and used the smudge tool. :)

claymation v. animation

as a computer art nerd, i have to give a highly respectful nod to computer animation. the abilities of computer animators is amazing, and i'm a sucker for pixar movies for that reason alone. however ... i have even more respect for those who make magic with claymation. tweak the models to show a fraction of a movement; shoot the frame. repeat 47.8 billion times. the dedication is amazing. regardless of whether the models are made out of clay or not - the stop-motion process is ridiculously awesome. (says the girl who recently started playing with the process herself.)

did you know i'm a tim burton fan? i love his work. his movies The Nightmare Before Christmas and Corpse Bride are both stop-motion films. so is Vincent, which i just recently stumbled upon and present to you here.

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the letter s

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my guilty pleasure

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national anthem

my friend fred (whose long-dormant blog is linked to the right) sang the national anthem at the RailCats game friday night. i recorded it so you could all be impressed with her mad skills. :)

i went home this weekend and had a fabulous time. besides the RailCats game (which they lost), i got to see a lot of family at a 50th anniversary party and celebrate my mom's birthday. all good stuff.

last night i watched the movie Julie & Julia. in the movie, Julie blogs about her year cooking through Julia Child's cookbook. i don't see myself cooking my way through Julia Child's cookbook ... but i like the basic concept. i'm obviously a fan of having odd goals, and i like that it gave her blog some really good purpose and theme. i think my blog needs more purpose and theme.