bend it like the mystic cosmos area

I think the fact that i've been doing all these relatively permanent home-improvement projects without having a level is not a sign of arrogance or stupidity. It's given me a good, lucky feeling (like telling a kid 'good guess' every time they get a math problem right). It's also giving me a good, vertiginous feeling; everything's like a Mystic Cosmos Area in my condo!

While I'm updating: I saw 2 great movies this weekend. I know, they're SO one-year-ago, but I think I'll have a policy where I wait a year to see a movie, and that way I won't waste my time because I'll collect enough opinions I value. Not like Pirates of the Caribbean. What the hell, man?? What I saw: TransAmerica and The Squid & the Whale. What I have from the library: The Devil and Daniel Johnston (did you know he did more than that one song? Well, he did) and Bend it Like Beckham. I'm going to start watching a lot of soccer movies to learn the rules. I thought first of ones I've already seen. Bend it Like Beckham seemed like a better choice than Shaolin Soccer. SS would just confuse me about the rules, I think. Of soccer, and of physics. But what are some other soccer movies?

punctuation cannot capture the comic timing of space ghost. Nonetheless:

• is it bad if a chicken bites you?
• (sighhh)... did a chicken bite you?
• no!! ........ but he's gonna!
• then go away from the chicken!

boy crazy.

i had to meet some contractors somewhere, and the architect was comically, ridiculously handsome. i mean, maybe you wouldn't look at him and think that, but he was all: 9 feet tall (approx. maybe like 6 something actually), perfectly bronzed, with matching bronze hair in a ponytail, with blindingly white teeth which he unsheathed winningly, and often. I felt hypnotized into some kind of feminine stupor!! (is this what they used to call love?) THEN, as we left, he got onto his red motorcycle, and the spell wore off. I just thought "really? A motorcycle? That is just too much." besides, i have to remember my Irrational Crush #1. I must remain faithful. to IC1 (which is henceforth the crush's secondary, subtitular name)

Locked self out of car. Updating from phone. Joining soccer team. Cold now. Will practice soccer kicks on any would-b attackers.

(soccer fever)

sooo, i already told my mom (aka 50% of my readership), because i just have to tell someone, but i have SOCCER FEVER! not that i can watch or play soccer. but i keep thinking about watching or playing soccer, and i keep just wanting to tell people that i have SOCCER FEVER. i wish instead of battlestar galactica tonight, the drafthouse were showing a movie called SOCCER FEVER, and it starred me!

the reason i can't watch soccer is a) i am in america and b) i don't have tv and c) i do have a tv, but it's in my gym, and see next paragraph.

the reason i can't play soccer is because i pulled a muscle in my leg (possibly, ALL of the muscles in my leg), and can barely walk. i did this to my leg through the magic of SOCCER FEVER.

monster hands

we went to this great divey bar that's dressed like christmas all the year round. anyway, i went to look at what all their trophies were for, but i couldn't reach there. i did notice that inside this giant wooden box, under glass, and hard to see with the glare of the christmas lights, was an odd assortment of toys and a scary cymbal-monkey. i made katy come look, and we were fascinated. an eldery gentleman came up and looked with us. i explored what we were looking at and finally realized it was a grand piano! so i said "it's a grand piano!!!" and the elderly gentleman said "Well, of course it's a piano!" and i said "but where are the strings at?" and he said "what?" and i said "i mean, where are the, you know, piano strings at--there's monkeys in there!!"* and he started giggling and went away. i thought that was the end of it, but he came back with a flashlight, so we could better see the piano innards. there was a puppy that did a back flip, that scary monkey doing something obscene with another puppy, a few gorillas, a few santa clauses, and a plastic hand giving the finger to a santa claus and a dachsund. i asked the elderly gentleman if he worked there, and he said "it's pretty, isn't it?" talking about the christmas-tree face he had coaxed to sing by plugging it in.

that will be katy's standard response to people asking her if she works somewhere, except at wal-mart, where they might take that for a 'yes.'

*for some reason i felt like i momentarily was possessed by someone from another era or region, like the time i yelled at my brother "i'm lookin f'you a job, ya bum!!"

Also, I forgot this graffito in the ladies' toilet:

Chuck Norris destroyed the table of elements because Chuck Norris only recognizes the element of surprise.

It turns out there's a whole website. I had no idea.

also blogworthy

i forgot to say that:

i am famous, along with my mom! i feel comfortable blogging this a week later, because that photo is much smaller online. in the paper, we were enormous goons, front and center!!

and if the avatar didn't make sense, to be more clear, i kind of have blonde hair now. leigh said "what?? what happened?" well, there was a terrible accident at the lab...

we used to make FUN of people at the cat's meow!!

wait, this seems like such blog-fodder, i can't believe i didn't already say it, but just in case i didn't, i sang karaoke for the first time. lauren sang Thriller (have you ever just sat down and read the words to that, as though it's a poem? perhaps you should, for the coming Halloween season), and after long deliberations, i chose "take a chance." i mean, what else could i have chosen? it's been stuck in my head for a month. and it was the right choice, because someone bought me a drink, and i even thought he was cute! but i didn't accept it because we didn't stay. anyway. that. and m has listed karaoke as a potential activity for when k's in town, and i was all like 'yep, no problem, i am a seasoned pro.'

lauren mused: have you ever noticed that michael jackson's kids are white? like white? not, like, mixed? and no one ever questions this? i mean, michael jackson's NOT WHITE.

Anyway, if you listed the categories of top 40 songs, you'd get like 56,714 in 'love' and 20,455 in 'depression' and 15,600 in 'hate' and then, Thriller:

It's close to midnight and something evil's lurking in the dark
Under the moonlight you see a sight that almost stops your heart
You try to scream but terror takes the sound before you make it
You start to freeze as horror looks you right between the eyes
You're paralyzed'

Cause this is thriller, thriller night
And no one's gonna save you from the beast about to strike
You know it's thriller, thriller night
You're fighting for life inside a killer, thriller tonight

You hear a door slam and realize there's nowhere left to run
You feel the cold hand and wonder if you'll ever see the sun
You close your eyes and hope that this is just imagination
But all the while you hear the creature creepin' up behind
You're out of time'

Cause this is thriller, thriller night
There ain't no second chance against the thing with forty eyes
You know it's thriller, thriller night
You're fighting to survive inside a killer, thriller tonight
Night creatures call
The dead start to walk in their masquerade
There's no escapin' the jaws of the alien this time (they're open wide)
This is the end of your life
They're out to get you, there's demons closing in on every side
They will possess you unless you change the number on your dial
Now is the time for you and I to cuddle close together
All thru the night I'll save you from the terrors on the screen
I'll make you see

That it's a thriller, thriller night'
Cause I can thrill you more than any ghost who would dare to try
Girl, this is thriller, thriller night
So let me hold you tight and share a killer, diller, chiller
Thriller here tonight

Rap:(by Vincent Price
Darkness falls across the land
The midnight hour is close at hand
Creatures crawl in search of blood
To terrorize y'all's neighborhood
And whosoever shall be found
Without the soul for getting down
Must stand and face the hounds of hell
And rot inside a corpse's shell
The foulest stench is in the air
The funk of forty thousand years
And grizzly ghouls from every tomb
Are closing in to seal your doom
And though you fight to stay alive
Your body starts to shiver
For no mere mortal can resist
The evil of the thriller

you had me at "secret room"

before i go to work (yes), it's important that i update about my trip to the Halloween Store. At work, they said "we're going to the Halloween store, because it's friday the 13th, and then we'll get lunch. I'm not sure where we'll get lunch, but maybe Amaya's." Even though I love Amaya's Taco Village (both for the food and the name) I stopped her from the hard sell with "Stop, stop, you had me at Halloween store."

I really want monster hands!

We went to Baby A's, furthering my impression of that chain as: sticky. The right kick and left punch buttons on the Tekken machine were permanently stuck down, likely from something disgusting. What a waste of 50 cents! I only know one throw-combo that don't involve those buttons.

Speaking of bad eating experiences, I went to the sandwhich shop TB worked at when she first moved to Austin. The permanent impression of that place seems to be "That place is going down," which was TB's impression both upon getting the job, and upong quitting the job. And it is my impression upon my return. The salad tasted exactly like unwashed hands, and I was unable to eat it. I got sick anyway.

i am "doing my economics homework"

this week, i have been enjoying the sorting capabilities of having so many of my favorite songs converted into iTunes compatability. My iPod still doesn't work (hopefully that will be taken care of tomorrow; third time's the charm, right?), but after hooking up my computer to my speakers, I have enjoyed my P section and my 1997 section very much. 1997 was a great year!!

P: Paul Curerri, Paul McCartney, Paul Simon, Pedro the Lion, Phish, Pink Martini, Pixies, Pizzicato Five, PJ Harvey, Poe, Polyphonic Spree, Portishead, Postal Service, prefab sprout, prefuse 73, Propellerheads, Puffi Ami Yumi, Pulp.

1997: Homogenic, Blur, Fifth Element Soundtrack, Be Here Now, The Saint, OK Computer, Surfacing.

I guess 1997 isn't a very big category. But I like everything in it, anyway. It made me think of the LOOONNNG car ride through West Texas this summer when L and I listed every 90's band we liked, and we realized: the 90's were pretty great. Add that to my list of favorite decades of the last century (70's, 50's, 40's, 20's, 10's, 00's-- catch up, fellas!)

But a continued list of 90's music, as they are currently sorted in my iTunes; many of these in need of more detail, but who has that kind of time??: They Might be Giants, Frente, Jeff Buckley, Luna, The Orb, Tom Petty, Emmylou Harris, The Jayhawks, Moby, Spacehog, Stereolab, Trainspotting soudtrack, Belle and Sebastian, Air, Beta Band, Superior, Beck, Liz Phair, Propellerheads, Broadcast, Aimee Mann, Rufus Wainwright, UNKLE, smog, Ben Folds Five, Chemical Brothers, the Corrs, Emiliana Torrini, Gay Dad, Gorky's Zygotic Mynci, Marine Research, Morcheeba, Muse, Old 97's, High Fidelity Soundtrack, Sigur Ros, Travis, Underworld, Wilco, XTC

So, this is my new look, as rendered by Yahoo Avatar. It's pretty straightforward, except for the rat. That is pure fantasy! Wha' happened?

• Watching Lost is like playing Myst.
• Today I was surprised to find out about Grace Park (Boomer) and Lucy Lawless's heights. At the BattleStar Galactica premiere someone mentioned to me that Lucy Lawless was actually shorter than Renee O'Connor (Gabrielle) in real life, but that's not true. LL is quite tall.
• Willie's friend/singing partner won the Delia's model contest! Wow!
• IKEA has everything you need, and cheap!
• ONLY READ THIS ONE IF YOU HAVE WATCHED 2 SEASONS OF BATTLESTAR GALACTICA: at the alamo drafthouse, there are bumper stickers that say: don't blame me, i voted for roslin. This keep cracking me up.
• There were many antique cars at the Continental Club. They look cool and are fast, but they take 4 minutes to warm up. Also at the Continental Club was a wonderful guitarist, known to some as the "Caucasion Sensation." One man told me this 3 different times! The same man! Three times!
• Baking lemon squares in the oven is a time sensitive operation.
• Mom likes about Battlestar Galactica that the ladies are strong, and they really are strong! Or at least, you can believe they are. Like some TV ladies are "strong" but you look at them and know in real life, they couldn't bruise a feather. Well, to be honest, who could? Well, Katie Sackhoff might possibly be able to bruise a feather.
• BC came out during book club today, and he is very soft now.
• After tomorrow, my hair will be the color of Starbuck's.
• Last night we visited an office, and someone had made a pyramid from their La Croix cans (see phone picture). I feel my alphabetized conversation hearts have been challenged!