Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in Megan's LiveJournal:

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Tuesday, June 30th, 2009
12:55 pm	San Diego Zoo Outing Yesterday evening I had a lovely visit to the San Diego Zoo. I'm keeping myself entertained while Daniel's off in Dubai for work, so I'm doing things that he doesn't really enjoy, like going to the zoo and watching Torchwood. :) It was such a nice evening -- I went down after work, got to the zoo around 5pm, found a close parking spot (since people who had been there all day were leaving), and got in for free with my membership card. The zoo just extended their hours to 9pm for the summer as of last Friday, so I can actually come in the evenings now! I had a coupon for a free bus tour ride that expired at the end of June, so I figured I better use it (I'll take almost anything for free, heehee). I took the ~40-minute bus tour around the park, which is not something I would normally do (since it costs like $10 or $15). But it was an interesting way to see the park, and kinda cool to hear some of the commentary stuff that they tell you. I didn't get to sit on the top level because it was already full, but I don't think it mattered much. When we drove by the polar bear exhibit, there was actually a polar bear in the water! I swear, for an exhibit deemed "Polar Bear Plunge," I only ever see the bears lying around on the land. So it was neat to see one swimming around, even if it was from a distance. After the bus tour, I went over to see the naked mole rats, and a couple of them were actually active this time! So freaky, and yet strangely fascinating creatures. One was especially active in scurrying around and moving bedding from tube to tube, going backwards and forwards. Crazy to watch. Then I took the Skyfari skybuckets thing up to the top by the polar bears. The polar bear was no longer swimming by then, but it was eating carrots, per usual. Then I walked over the newly-re-opened hill to go to the Elephant Odyssey exhibit/area that just opened a month ago! It's a huge new area for elephants and other "prehistoric"-type animals. It was cool to see everything looking so new and nice. It looks like the elephants have a nice big home -- they were happily drinking water from a little lake, eating hay from a thing hanging from a tree, and taking dirt baths by tossing dirt onto themselves with their trunks. There were also CUTE capybaras, a little spotted leopard, and some tapirs and whatnot. I also had a 20% off coupon for food, so I figured I might as well try out the new food place in Elephant Odyssey as well while I was there. So I got a burger and fries for dinner and ate my dinner out on the patio area while I watched the elephants some more in the sunset light. It was a pretty cool view. :) After Elephant Odyssey, I walked back towards the front and stopped in to see the koalas. There was a cute little baby koala hanging onto its mom's back, and they climbed from one branch to another and were eating a bunch of eucalyptus leaves. Baby koalas are adorable! From there I visited my favorites, the visayan warty pigs (the little babies are so cute!), as well as the new baby red river hogs (although they were all sleeping rolled up against one another -- like pigs in a blanket, heehee!). I saw how a hippo sleeps, with its body in the water and the top of its head out of the water, against a rock. Yeah, it turns out that when the sun starts to go down, a lot of animals turn in for the night. Imagine that! :-P As the last thing I got to do, I went to a bird show at 8:30 and saw some cool birds fly around. They're still working on training the birds (apparently the show doesn't ACTUALLY open until next weekend because they're behind schedule), so we got to see more of the training part than the actual show, but it was still interesting. And the show went long because it took them awhile to get some of the birds to do what they wanted. So I got out at 9:15 instead of 9 when the zoo actually closed! Woo hoo! :-P So all in all, it was a pretty cool day. It wasn't too crowded on a Monday evening (yay for being a member and living right here!), the bus tour was a cool way to mix it up, Elephant Odyssey was neat to see, and all the animals (especially the babies) were awesome! I quite enjoyed my evening out. :) (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, June 18th, 2009
12:13 pm	HUZZAH!!! The news was released last night that DAVID TENNANT is going to be at ComicCon this year!!! Holy crap, I can't believe it! He was on my list of "people I really hope will be at ComicCon but will never actually show up" -- but now he's showing up! For a Doctor Who panel!!! Oh man, I can't wait until the end of July! The panel is going to be on Sunday, so it turns out that Sunday may just be the best day of the con this year. CANNOT wait, I'm SOOOOO excited!!!!!! :) :) :) (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, June 15th, 2009
4:53 pm	Awesomeness So, it's been awhile since I've updated. Here's a basic rundown of what's been going on lately, and what is soon to come: Awesomeness #1: I sprained my left ankle a week and a half ago. Daniel and I went for a run at night (note to self: never go jogging in the dark), and despite my attempts to be "safer" by wearing a headlamp (my mom cracked up at the mental image of this), I still stepped right on and rolled right over a pine cone while running. I got a nice loud pop out of my ankle as it turned on itself, it was great. Except, not so great in that I couldn't walk all the way home and had to make Daniel run back home and get the car to come pick me up. A week and a half later, most of the purple has turned to yellow and it's only slightly swollen still. I don't even limp when I walk anymore! I can run on it with a brace on, and I've stepped up my "rehab" regimen at the gym. Stupid ankle. Stupid pine cone.... Awesomeness #2: Trying to run more in preparation for an attempt to run a half marathon in October. HAHAHA. Half marathon. That's like 13 miles. At once. I mean, give me 3 days and I could probably do it, but finish in a few hours? Right, that's going to take some training this summer. Daniel and Grace convinced me to do it. I mean, I'd like to lose a little weight and trim/tone up a bit before I fit myself into a wedding dress, and running is the best way for me to do that. So I guess to make sure I actually do it, training for this half marathon thingy is the way to go. Or something like that. We're gonna run the Detroit Half Marathon in October. It's a cool race cuz you get to run to Canada and back -- international! Hopefully I can finish in under 2 hours 30 minutes. We shall see, we shall see. Hopefully there are no pine cones on the course. Awesomeness #3: I get to go to Dubai next month! Daniel's going for work for a couple weeks, and I get to fly out and meet him at the end of his duty to hang out and tour around a bit. Granted, I will be there for a grand total of 3.5 days (I hate having such little vacation time), but I think it's worth it to just take the opportunity and go with it. I'll probably never go to Dubai or the United Arab Emirates again, so I might as well take my chance now and just do it, even for a short time. Daniel already gets to go on the company dime, so it's at least not as expensive as it would be if we just wanted to go as a random vacation and had to pay for both of us! On the plus side, I get to take a direct flight there from LAX on the fancy Emirates airline -- award-winning with multi-course meals and brand-new airplanes, etc. Should be pretty nice! At least I hope so, as it's a 16-hour flight.... Awesomeness #4: UCSD commencement was last weekend and Chad got his PhD. Pretty crazy. Makes me wonder if I would ever want to go back and get a PhD... and then I slap myself and say, "what, are you crazy?!" I don't think it's going to happen. Once you leave school, you don't go back. I have no desire to spend another 5-6 years back in mind-numbing school. I enjoy my working life, thank you very much (I have free weekends AND money to spend! now if I just had more vacation time...). Awesomeness #5: my weekends are booked from June 27 - July 25. A busy summer is shaping up quickly. I'm already getting all kinds of ComicCon hype from various people for the end of July. Can't wait!!! I wish the schedule would come out earlier. Main goal of the Con: see Alan Tudyk. Heehee! Awesomeness #6: wedding-planning update -- bridesmaid dresses acquired, and cake tasting completed. I am already looking forward to some yummy wedding cake. Okay, I think I'm done now. I need to stop buying candy to keep in my desk at work. Too tempting. But oh so tasty.... I do love "just a little" piece of chocolate. Mmmm, chocolate.... (7 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, May 31st, 2009
11:58 pm	May entry Just squeezing in one entry for the month of May. Ha! Two minutes to go. Things have been busy and fun lately. Maybe I'll write more in June. :-P (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, April 26th, 2009
11:49 pm	Wedding Checklist to Date date - check (Nov. 22, 2009) location - check (http://www.lindleyscotthouse.com/) wedding party - check wedding dress - check minister - check save the date cards mailed - check guest book - check website - check photographer - check basic guest list - check Need to do: flowers/florist cake tasting find bridesmaid dresses DJ/MC? invitations favors etc.... Seems okay for still having ~7 months to go, right? I think we're ahead of schedule. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Tuesday, March 10th, 2009
11:51 am	Dodgers Spring Training in AZ This past weekend my mom and I went out to Arizona to catch some spring training action in the Dodgers' inaugural year in the Cactus League. It was a long 48 hours, but very fun and awesome to see baseball again! I left San Diego at 8pm Friday night and got home ~10pm. We went to bed around 11:30pm and then got up at 3:30am and hit the road by 4am. Ahhh, the early morning road trip through the desert. We arrived in Glendale at Camelback Ranch by 10am (and that was with losing an hour due to the time difference -- so it really only took us 5 hours to drive there!) to hang out and try to get some autographs before the 1:05pm game. The first indication that things were going to be different here than at Vero Beach was that we had to stand in line to GET IN to the gift shop. At 10am. We just wanted to buy a baseball to be able to have people sign it, but we had to wait in line to even get in the store, and then wait in a longer line inside to check out. Sheesh! Vero Beach was never that crowded. We eventually bought baseballs and headed over to the practice fields where they were doing some pitchers drills and a little batting practice. Manny walked off of one field to the clubhouse, and people took off running across the complex to try to get close to him to get a picture or an autograph, it was crazy. Camelback Ranch is a nice, brand-new facility (Opening Day was just on March 1st, and we were there on March 7th! BRAND-new!), so I'm sure all the amenities for the players are superb. But as a fan, I think it's definitely missing a lot of the character that Vero Beach had. There are no 'Dodgertown' signs anywhere, no streets named for famous Dodgers within the complex, you don't just see Tommy Lasorda driving a golf cart around all the time (we didn't see him at all -- I don't know where he is), although Manny Mota was still getting around on his bike. In Vero Beach you can wander on paths through the complex, get right up to the practice fields to lean into the dugout to get an autograph from someone, etc. You can sit around by the batting cages to watch people come in and out and to watch the kids get on the bus to head out for an away game, while Rick Honeycutt is standing right out there as well. In Arizona, they have people penned-in much more, and you can't walk on all the paths or get close to many practice fields. It makes it seem much more crowded that way, and the players seem much less accessible. Pretty much, you can stand at the rope and watch them walk by as they go to and from the clubhouse to the fields. In Vero Beach, this is where everyone would stop to sign autographs; in Glendale, NO ONE stopped to sign anything. They must have told them not to for some reason because no one did it. It was so sad. So where the heck else are you supposed to get autographs if you can't get close to the players anywhere else?! Kind of sad. I guess we got some good pictures of players walking by, but that was about it. Manny Ramirez walked by and was talking Spanish to someone in the crowd, so it was cool to see him up close, but it was only for a few seconds. Sigh. We saw two games while we were there. Saturday they played the Mariners, and while we were hoping to see Ken Griffey, Jr., apparently he didn't make the trip for this one. Adrian Beltre was there, though, so it was good to see him again, too. The Dodgers had a one-run lead with 2 outs in the 9th inning, and 2 strikes on Bryan LaHair. LaHair!!! (remember him from the AAA game we saw in Vegas last June?). Apparently he got tired of us heckling him, because he launched a 2-run home run to put the Mariners up by one and to give them the game. Sigh. Stupid LaHair. So the Dodgers lost that one in a close game. On the plus side, Maury Wills ended up sitting in front of us for a little while, so we got his autograph at least. Hey, if you can't get the current players, at least the old guys are still wandering the stands. He was MVP in 1962 or something like that -- he made base-stealing a real statistic because he was so good at it, pretty impressive. On Sunday they played the White Sox (with whom they share Camelback Ranch as their "home" facility). We had good seats right behind the dugout for this game, so it was nice to be pretty close there. We had 3 foul balls come right near us, but we didn't manage to get any of them. In Vero Beach, the dugout is uncovered and you can just reach over and get autographs from the players while they sit there before the game starts. Here, the dugout is covered with a big block of concrete and the players are pretty much invisible. Sigh. We did manage to get James McDonald's autograph from there before the game, but that was it! Two lousy autographs for the whole weekend. In Vero Beach I filled up 2 baseballs with ~20 signatures. Yeah, WAY more accessible there. The Dodgers lost this one pretty handily, without really giving much competition. Promising things of the weekend: Billingsley pitched a good 3 innings on Saturday, and Kershaw pitched a good 3 innings on Sunday, so the starters are looking good at least. Raffy played both games and didn't look like his back was hurting or anything. Orlando Hudson made some amazing defensive plays at 2nd base, plays that Jeff Kent never would have made, so it's good to see that he's quick and has large range. It could be exciting to watch him play. Jason Repko looks good, too. Outfield prospect #75 Xavier Paul also played amazingly for both games -- good batting, good fielding, etc. Too bad they have so many outfielders already, because he could be good as well. Also as a plus for Sunday, Carrie and Jimmy came to the game. It's always fun to see them. They're getting a dog, too! Mal, a browncoat puppy. :) How exciting! I want a dog someday, too. We left AZ about 4:45pm, soon after the game was over, and we got to San Dimas around 10pm (no time change this time, as Daylight Savings happened over the weekend). I left around 11pm and got back to San Diego at 12:30am! Lots of driving and very little sleep, but it was a fun weekend. So, my final opinion: Vero Beach was better. It will be nice to be able to go to see the Dodgers in spring training every year now because they're so close, but I would trade that for the accessibility and character that Vero Beach offers, even if I could only go there once every 5 years or so. Oh well, there's no going back now. I'm just glad I got the chance to go to Vero Beach in 2007, before it was too late! (Comment on this)
Friday, February 20th, 2009
10:20 pm	Engaged! Well, it's old news to most of the world now, but I just wanted to document it here as well, since my livejournal is a little more easy-to-follow than my facebook profile. As of Valentine's Day, Daniel and I are officially engaged! He surprised me with a ring and a proposal while we were just staying in on Valentine's night. He had promised to cook me dinner, but before he did that, he got me flowers, a sweet card, and got down on one knee and proposed to me. Awwwww, it was very romantic. :) We're looking at getting married in October or November, in the LA area somewhere. I guess those are the first things to figure out -- when and where. The rest of the crazy wedding planning shite can hit the fan after that's decided. So my question goes out to you, if you're married -- how big was your wedding? How many people? We're looking at maybe 200-ish people, but we may want to pare that down a bit and go for a slightly smaller wedding, we'll see. Daniel's ready to splurge on a big, long, fun honeymoon, though, that's exciting. Where should we go? :) So for now I'm just enjoying the "being engaged" part of everything before actually diving in to planning mode. It's fun to tell people you're getting married and to watch their faces look shocked, surprised, and happy all at once. Or to hear it in their voice over the phone. Heehee. And my last question: can you picture me as Mrs. Wu? I mean, my friends have always said I was "whasian", but maybe they didn't think I'd go so far as to become Megan Wu, hmmmmm.... :-P (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, February 9th, 2009
3:50 pm	I do love Weather Finally, some real Weather has arrived this past weekend in San Diego! It's been rainy, windy, gray, and stormy since last Thursday, and it still continues today! I am mostly excited because I actually got to stay home this weekend, and I didn't have to go OUT in the rain/storm. :) That meant I could just curl up and stay cozy inside while listening to the rain outside. Ahhhh, I do love getting to do that during the winter. It's so peaceful. :) My mom came down to visit me for the weekend this time -- hooray for visitors! Daniel went skiing in Big Bear on Friday and then went to Claremont for the weekend (and to Irvine for work stuff through Tuesday this week), so we had a lazy girls' weekend. Thursday night we went to Coronado to see a play of The Wizard of Oz, and it was surprisingly good for a small community theater! The Dorothy was amazing -- she's a high school freshman who could do it all. And real dogs for Toto were extra cute as well, especially since we were sitting in the front row! Friday I worked a short day at work and then hung out with my mom -- we went to the grand opening of my new local BevMo! (yay free chips, caramel corn, and good coupons), saw Coraline in 3D, and had Pat & Oscar's for dinner. Coraline was really good, despite the addition of a boy as a character (Coraline figures everything out for herself in the book!). I still like the book better (how can you not? It's Neil Gaiman!), but the movie was good as well. Afterwards we took dinner home and hung out, played games, listened to the rain, etc. On Saturday, it was more of the same! Sweet sweet indoor activities included booking our hotel for our upcoming stay in Washington, D.C. in March (good deal on the Hilton, yeah!), watching hummingbirds eat from my hummingbird feeder on the patio (apparently they do go out in the rain), watching Radioland Murders (it's been too long -- best movie EVER, I swear), playing more games, reading comic books (I'm all caught up on both Buffy and Angel comics now! quite some amazing stories going on there...), reading novels (working on Ender in Exile right now -- it's awesome to be wrapped back up in the Enderverse again :) ), etc. We tried to take Penny for a walk once (she came to visit, too!), but it started raining hard on us after about 5 minutes and we had to pick up the dog and carry her home quickly while the downpour continued. We ordered a pizza for dinner and hung out some more before mom went back up to San Dimas. A most excellent visit. Sunday I had an indoor day to myself while it rained on and off outside. I read some more, as well as went on a little Firefly-watching spree. I hadn't watched that show in awhile either, and the episodes are just so good. I made it so far that I only have one disc left of the entire series, which I plan on finishing tonight. :) I did go to the gym for a little while as well, but apparently it closes at 4pm on Sunday (so early!) so I didn't stay as long as I would have liked. Oh well. I spent some quality time with the rat on the couch all day instead. :) And this morning I woke up to the sound of rain outside my window still, which made it oh-so hard to get out of bed and get going. It stopped raining long enough for me to drive to work, but then late this morning it opened up and really started storming! It's super windy now and it has poured rain off and on all day long. Oh, so great. I plan on going home and cuddling back up on the couch with the rat, a cup of tea, and my book, and staying cozy while it continues to rain outside. Heehee! I love rain and Weather when I can stay inside and enjoy it from under a blanket. :) (Comment on this)
Friday, February 6th, 2009
3:06 pm	The Wonderful Wizard of Oz My favorite quotes from seeing The Wizard of Oz play on Coronado last night: -"She put an enchantment on my axe!" -Tin Man (and it didn't quite sound like he said axe....) -"What makes the muskrat guard his musk? Courage!" -Lion Happy 70th Anniversary to the Wizard of Oz! (Comment on this)
Tuesday, January 27th, 2009
12:36 pm	A Dork or so to Speak Phoenix Comicon 2009! I went this past weekend to visit Carrie and Jimmy, and we hit up some hard-core dorkage. It was extremely awesome, as Carrie is my true nerd soul-mate. The event was held at the Mesa Convention Center, so it was way way smaller than San Diego ComicCon. That was both good and bad -- there were fewer stars and celebs overall, but the ones that were there were MUCH more accessible than anyone in San Diego. So I guess it's a trade-off. We only went on Saturday and Sunday (missed everything Friday, as well as Thursday preview night), but that was really enough time to see everything. There were a couple Friday panels that would have been interesting, but besides that there wouldn't have been much else to do. Headline star #1: Aaron Douglas, aka Chief Tyrol on Battlestar Galactica. We got in line only 45 minutes before his panel started in the biggest room in the place (actually, we STARTED the line -- no one else was there yet), and we got to sit in the very front row (but off to the side a bit). I am quite certain I will NEVER sit in the front row of any panel at San Diego. This was incredibly awesome. It also made it a bit awkward because I was listening to my mp3 player for much of the time so as not to hear any spoilers (I'm only halfway through season 2 right now). But I did hear him tell some funny stories, and he really is hilarious in person. He's also very HAIRY! He had a full beard and curly hair that was practically a 'fro. I almost didn't even recognize him. I guess his hair grows REALLY fast and he hates shaving, so he lets it go when he's not filming. His one word answer to "why do you look like that?" was "Laziness." It was awesome. :) Headline stars #2-4: Brent Spiner (Data from Star Trek: The Next Generation), Marina Sirtis (Deanna Troi), and Wil Wheaton (Wesley Crusher)! This panel was conveniently in the same room right after Aaron Douglas, so we had front row seats for this one as well. The three of them were hilarious together, and a little strange and random as well. They were awesome in that they didn't want to sit behind a table the whole time, so they had the tech guys move the tables away so that they could just stand on the stage and walk around up there for an hour. It was great. Wil Wheaton and Brent Spiner were in some twittering war about how Wil Wheaton stole Brent Spiner's girlfriend and married her or something like that. They were all quite funny and they all do a really good Patrick Stewart impersonation. It was fun to hear some stories from the TNG days. Brent Spiner speculated that if there had been another NextGen movie, we would have seen DATA return, not B4. I sure hope so, because Data's death was so so sad. It was an entertaining panel for sure. And the room actually filled up for this one -- they weren't letting people in because the room was at capacity by the time it started. Another thing I found fairly amazing was that you didn't have to line up at a microphone to ask a question -- you just raised your hand and waited to be called on so you could shout out your question to the people in the panel. The rooms were so small that no big screens were necessary to show what was going on on stage to the people in the back of the room -- even the people in the back of the room could still see the stage. Pretty crazy after spending a lot of time in hall H at San Diego (the 6000-person capacity room). In the afternoon, Carrie and I got our picture taken with Brent Spiner -- we are true geeky Data lovers, it's true. He greeted us with a warm and loud "Ladies!" and proceeded to put an arm around each of us while getting our picture taken. Quite awesome. He has lovely gray-white hair now and looks very distinguished. I would love to see him doing some Shakespeare. I also made my rounds around the artists corner and found Ben Templesmith (the guy dresses like Doctor Who and just did a Doctor Who one-shot comic that's coming out in a couple weeks -- how can you not love him?) -- I had to get my picture taken with him to join the ranks of Jason and Mom (and Ryan?). We took our traditional Templesmith picture British-style, so that was awesome. And I also got to meet Jo Chen, who does cover art for Buffy Season 8 and Runaways and some other stuff. She's very nice, has amazing artwork, and it turns out that she's a big Lord of the Rings fan with a soft spot for hobbits and especially Frodo. Her husband made sure to point out that he was a big fan of the books BEFORE the movies came out. Love it. Sunday we went to the theater room first thing to see the "trailer dump" panel, in which they just showed a BUNCH of trailers for upcoming movies. It was cool to see them, and to hear how the audience reacted to each one. Star Trek, Watchmen, and Wolverine got LOTS of cheering, while the Pink Panther 2 got the most booing, I think. But the best part about this panel was that everyone got free stuff! I scored a Watchmen poster and a Coraline tee-shirt here -- it was my best free schwag. We also went to a couple smaller panels just for kicks -- a Comics to Film panel about how to get your comic book made into a movie; a how to do voice-over panel, which was interesting to hear how they do it for video games and cartoons and movies and stuff; a Trek Talk panel where 3 guys (including a guy from the geology department at ASU, in full Kirk costume, who is also apparently the president of the Phoenix chapter of the Star Trek fan club, who knew) talked about upcoming Trek stuff -- everyone's really excited about this movie, too; and a Watchmen panel, which should have been cool but was instead really lame. It was just a "comics director" guy sitting up there with a copy of Watchmen being like, "so, let's talk about the book." But people really wanted to know about the movie, and he didn't know anything. In fact, people in the audience knew more about it than he did. And he had promised free posters and free stuff, but he didn't have any of that, so we didn't even get anything out of it. Unfortunately, lame. But the movie is still supposed to be REALLY COOL. Apparently Alan Moore is actually involved with it now? Sounds fishy to me, but maybe it's actually true. And they say there won't be a giant squid at the end, but some other appropriately-terrifying disaster scene. I was kind of disappointed not to get the real inside scoop. And of course there's always fun stuff to see just by walking around. I'd say nearly 50% of the people there were in costume (lots of high school kids in anime costumes who were very strange), so just gawking at everybody was fun. I just wore dorky tee-shirts all weekend. There were a few Doctor Horribles walking around, and even a Captain Hammer. We also saw the guy who played Chewbacca in Star Wars, Lou Ferrigno (when is he NOT at a convention?!), and some other smaller-time actors. There were storm troopers and Jedi running a Star Wars thing for kids outside, an R2-D2 "life-size" robot rolling around (making the right noises and everything!), a Delorean parked outside, etc. All quite entertaining. Whew, I guess that's enough of that. Comicon is always fun, no matter where it is or how big it is. Next year the Phoenix Comicon is actually moving to the Phoenix convention center, so it will be bigger and right downtown instead of way off in Mesa. It's also moving to Memorial Day weekend next year, so I don't know if I'll be able to make that work as well as a random weekend in January. But I'd like to! A full-con pass is only $20! I mean, how can you beat that?! (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Wednesday, January 14th, 2009
10:44 am	It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year Yeah, it's January 2009, and I'm still writing about Christmas. So sue me. It's just about right, actually -- I'm generally about 2 weeks behind on things I want to accomplish, so I'm still doing pretty well for myself. So anyways, here's the fun Christmas season wrap-up that I've been wanting to write for weeks now. :) -Christmas fun started the week of Thanksgiving with Daniel and I watching It's A Wonderful Life on DVD and then going to see a play of it at a small theater in San Diego. It was not only a play, it was a play/"live" radio broadcast of the play, so the whole set was like a 40's radio station set, and all the actors walked up to big microphones and read their lines off of paper, just as if they were doing it for the radio. And not only that, but there was a sound effects guy who made all the sounds, with all kinds of cool props. That was probably the best part. :) It was a very festive set, and the lead actor did a good Jimmy Stewart impersonation, so I was quite happy with the outing. -The Saturday of Thanksgiving weekend I got to go to April's house for her annual gingerbread house-making party. I missed it last year, so I was excited to get to go this time! My gingerbread house was pretty terrible, but it was fun to play with frosting and candy and get to see some high school friends that I never get to see. And April always cooks wonderful food to eat and snack on, too. :) -I helped my mom decorate our house for Christmas (in 80 degree weather!) before I went back to San Diego after Thanksgiving, and then I got to decorate my own apartment for Christmas once I got home! I love putting up Christmas lights and putting out all of my candles and decorations and whatnot. So festive. :) -December 5th was our MSSS company holiday dinner. It was at some fancy hotel in La Jolla, and this year we had a banquet room all to ourselves. It was pretty good food and company, although somewhat awkward because no one (not even Malin) stood up and said "thank you for coming" or "happy holidays" or anything like that. Rather odd, but whatever. Yay for a free meal on the company dime. ;) -My mom came down to visit on Saturday the 6th and helped me pick out and decorate my Christmas tree! We got a small one this year (~5 ft), but it was the perfect cute size for my apartment. I have lots of exciting ornaments to decorate with now. -That afternoon/evening we made our annual trip to the December Nights festival in Balboa Park. Just us and 300,000 other San Diegans, it was great. :-P We planned it out much better this year and had a game plan for all the food we could eat. That's really the best part -- the international village and all the different foods you can get. We had mini-donuts, meatballs, potato soup, latkes, shortbread, cider, winter pudding, a bunch of other Scottish desserts, sausage, etc. Oh man, so much food. We went in the San Diego Automotive Museum (cool cars, motorcycles, and scooters!) and the Air & Space museum (got to see the cool lobby of the Star Trek exhibit!). We heard a handbell choir do some Christmas carols, so that was pretty cool. And of course all of Balboa Park was decorated with lights and music and was full of festive people, so it was just fun to be there. -On the 7th we went to Chad and Carrie's Christmas concert for the community orchestra that they're in. It's always fun to hear them play Christmas music and to marvel at them playing the French horn. Pretty nifty! -Friday the 12th was Daniel's company party, which was much fancier than mine, by far. NGC put on a "Winter Ball" this year, so we got to get all dressed up and go to a party at the Hilton that was very reminiscent of prom, or at least Winter Formal. There was a buffet dinner (yummy!) and then casino games to play (with fake money, of course). With your winnings you could "buy" raffle tickets to try to win an XBox at the end of the night. I did fairly well in roulette and Daniel did well in Blackjack, but we didn't win an XBox, oh well. It was a fun party and good to finally meet all of Daniel's work friends. -I went home on the 13th and helped mom get and decorate her Christmas tree (almost in the rain!), and then that night we went to look at lights and have movie night with the Bucks and the Coxes and the Browns. It was fun to go out to Upland and walk around and look at the decked-out neighborhood, like usual. I got to wear my new coat while walking around since it was so cold out. Then it was back to the Bucks' house for Christmas tamales and to watch Nightmare Before Christmas. All of the Cox kids were there (at least for awhile), which is a miracle in and of itself. -The 14th was our extended family Christmas party, which was okay. We're never thrilled about going, but hey. The homemade gift exchange was about the same as normal, except mom actually picked #1 this time. And in singing the 12 Days of Christmas, I only had to be a 7 so that wasn't *too* bad. We need Ryan to go next year so we can all wear our Death shirts together. ;) -On Wednesday the 17th I took a sick day (*cough cough*) and went to Disneyland for the day! Natalie signed me and mom in, and the 3 of us spent the day there. It was raining ALL DAY LONG -- I swear, it never let up even once, it just changed in intensity. But we were bundled up with raincoats (I even had rainpants), so it wasn't too bad, despite being really cold as well. But the rain meant that hardly anyone else was there, so it was fun to have an empty park all to ourselves! It was a great day -- we did everything (except some of the rides -- not so good in the rain) and had plenty of time to spare. We hopped over to CA Adventure and tried out the new Toy Story ride, went on Soarin' Over California, and got some free (warm) tortillas to warm up our faces and hands with. :-P At Disneyland we did all the fun Fantasyland rides with hardly any wait -- I even got to go on Dumbo, which always has a HUGE line, but this time Natalie and I were the ONLY ones on the ride. It was ridiculous. We also got very wet while riding it, but I've been wanting to go on it again for years and I've always been deterred by the long lines. Oh, AND we got to see the Billy Hill show at the Golden Horseshoe and sit right up front to have the right Billy make crazy eyes at us the whole time. Oh, it was great. That is by far my favorite part of Disneyland. I love Billy Hill. We also ate chili in a breadbowl, chili cheese fries, and 5-layer chocolate cake while we watched. :) We went on Small World once it got dark and we could see it all lit up -- thanks for making it look pretty, Danny! :) They closed the park two hours early and canceled fireworks because of the crappy weather, but that was okay -- we left earlier anyway. We saw the castle light up with white lights/"snow" and the Main Street Christmas tree light up in white lights all special, and then we went home. I bought myself a stuffed animal (Natalie's employee discount convinced me to do it) -- the dog with a ring of keys in his mouth from Pirates of the Caribbean! He's so cute, I love him to death. :) And we found the perfect wedding present for Jenni, too. It was an awesomely fun day, despite being wet and cold. I love Disneyland at Christmas. -On Saturday the 20th Daniel and I threw a Christmas Open House at our place and got a bunch of people to come over and eat a lot of food and play games with us. We played Scene It, Taboo, and Cranium, and ate all kinds of junk food. And our little apartment can hold enough people, yay! -I went home on the night of the 23rd, after work and after packing myself up. The 24th was the usual busy, starting early in the morning with last minute Christmas shopping, then exchanging gifts with the Bucks, visiting Grandma, lunch from McDonald's, Glenkirk, watching A Muppet Christmas Carol, eating spaghetti dinner, and going to the Cox's house for their annual Christmas Eve party (more games, food, fun, and visiting). Then back home for our other Christmas Eve traditions! -Christmas was the usual level of awesome -- we had a lot of fun opening stockings and gifts in the morning. It was pretty much raining all day, so that was a nice change of pace from some of the 80-degree Christmases we've had lately. And I got a new teacup for Christmas, so I got to try it out right away to have tea and coffee cake for breakfast. :) We went to Joe & DeeDee's for Christmas lunch to hang out with the family (just the way we like it), and we even got Grandma out of the home to come over for a few hours, too. It was a nice and relaxing day, as Christmas always is. Daniel came over in the evening for a bit, and we tried out mom's new Raving Rabbids TV party Wii game for a bit. Plus we played with all our other new toys, too. Yay for Christmas! -The day after Christmas mom and I ventured out on our usual early morning shopping trip to hit up after-Christmas sales. We did well this year, and then went to pick up Aunt Lora to go to tea at the Huntington! It's so expensive these days ($25!) that we can only afford to go like once a year as a special treat, and we decided to make it a nice Christmas treat to ourselves. We got to sit at a nice window table at the front, the food was delicious, and we were there early enough where it wasn't terribly crowded yet. Walking around the Huntington is always fun, too. -Saturday the 27th Natalie and I went over to Kimi's house at night to celebrate her birthday (and her mom's), and we got to eat more food and play more games (Apples to Apples and Taboo). Their house is always cozy at Christmas -- I do love the fireplace. :) -And then it was back to work in San Diego for the 29th-31st. On the 30th I took myself to the Wild Animal Park to go to the Festival of Lights since it's the last year it'll be there (it's moving to the Zoo next year). It was nice to walk around and look at all the cool light displays and have a cup of hot chocolate. I like being a Zoo member. :) -I drove home straight after work on the 31st to make it home in time for our Hogmanay party. Yes, we celebrated Scottish New Year's this year. My mom and I had kilts and plaid sashy things to wear, and we had steak pie and stew for dinner. And at Cost Plus we bought a YARD of shortbread to have, so there was that in abundance as well. Keith was sick and couldn't make it, sadly, but he sent a cardboard cutout of his head in his place instead... and oh my did we have fun with that all night long. See my pictures on facebook for some of the excitement. :-P At midnight we did poppers and champagne toasting and then did some sparklers in the driveway. I drank half a bottle of rum, but couldn't get drunk. Hmmmm. So much for "copious amounts of alcohol." :-P Hogmanay was quite a fun party. :) -On the 1st we watched the Rose Parade on tv, then went to Shirley's/Grandma's house for lunch and the afternoon. We had fun playing Apples to Apples and watching Marissa put noise horns in her ears and nose. Quite amusing. Grandma got to come again, and Val came over for awhile, so that was nice. -On the 3rd we went up to Pasadena with Aunt Lora to look at the Rose Parade floats up close and personal. They're all very impressive! -And the rest of my vacation (through the 4th) was spent relaxing at home and reading my new books, playing with Penny, etc. New Year's vacation time was much more relaxing and low-key than Christmas vacation weekend was! But all very much fun. And that's it! That's my entire December and holiday time. Mostly these are just notes for posterity, sorry if anyone actually read the whole thing. :-P But I do love Christmas and New Year's and love getting to celebrate! (Comment on this)
Monday, December 1st, 2008
11:56 am	Thanksgiving weekend in review I just spent the last 4.5 days at home in San Dimas and had a most lovely time. We did lots of stuff, had lots of fun, ate a ton, and slept very little. Here's a brief review of the long weekend: *Wed., Nov. 26 -- drove up from San Diego in the rain ~8:30-10:30pm. Got home in time to play the annual game of Lord of the Rings Risk with mom, Ryan, and Jason from about midnight to 4am. Snacks, cookies, tea, and lembas bread were in order, of course. Sadly, I was not the lord of the ring this year, but I did avoid being annihilated. Jason was the champion. Perhaps it does all hinge on Moria, hmmmm. Didn't go to bed till 5:30am. *Thurs., Nov. 27 -- Thanksgiving! The family gathering was held at our house this year for the first time ever, so I got up at 8:30am to help my mom get the house and food ready. We had the usual core family come over to eat and hang out all day, so that was very exciting. Thanksgiving is my favorite family gathering. :) We even broke Grandma out of the home for a few hours to come eat with us -- I think she was glad to get out. There were appetizers and the usual turkey dinner (my mom can cook a turkey, who knew?), plus pumpkin pie for dessert of course. Then we hung out and played Wii and ping pong and just sat around and talked for a long time. At 5pm it was time to head over to Daniel's parents' house for Thanksgiving meal #2 -- more turkey, potatoes, stuffing, etc., plus sushi (not for me, though, thanks). Got to hang out and watch a big, fancy HD TV, see Edward's nifty photos, and play with the Shens' doggies (one of which looks exactly like Mr. Muggles, heehee). Got home and watched the Chumash episode of Buffy (traditional Thanksgiving at its best) and went to bed by ~midnight. *Fri., Nov. 28 -- Got up early (6:30am!) to meet with Ves, Johnson, and Daniel for breakfast. Ves had a screwy flight that kept getting moved around, and he ended up having to head back to Delaware on Friday at 11:30am. So the only time we really had to get together was ass-early for breakfast. They all came to San Dimas and we walked down to Roady's in downtown San Dimas to have breakfast, and then came back and played Wii for awhile before taking Ves down to Orange County to drop him off at the airport. In the afternoon mom, Daniel, and I walked down to Wal-Mart to do some Black Friday shopping, but avoiding the crazy early-morning crowds. We found way more stuff to buy than expected (always the case), and then had to carry it all home with us. We played Wii Fit in the afternoon and then Mexican Train/dominoes all night long. I am the champion of Mexican Train, woo hoo! :) Got to bed around 11:30pm. *Sat., Nov. 29 -- Got up around 8:30am. Headed down to Costa Mesa with mom to have lunch with Ryan at Beach Pit BBQ. QUITE good food, and lots of it. Hung out at Ryan's and listened to records for awhile before heading back. At home, I got to go up on the roof and bag up the turbines/vents for the winter, and mom and I put Christmas lights up on the house. At 5pm Kimi picked me up to head out to April's in Stevenson Ranch for her annual gingerbread house-making party. It was awesome to get to spend some time with my high school friends, and even Robin (newly married!) was there. My gingerbread house is pretty sad looking, but it was fun to play with frosting and candy and to just get messy. April also fed us delicious dinner and snacks, it was perfect. :) We played Apples to Apples afterwards and didn't leave April's till after midnight! Got home and went to bed by 2am. *Sun., Nov. 30 -- Got up by 8:30am to enjoy Sunday morning tea and coffee cake with my mom before getting busy for the day. We rode our bikes down to Cost Plus to get a free candle that they were giving out that day, and we did a little Christmas shopping (such a fun store). Back at home it was time to decorate the inside of the house for Christmas, so we turned on John Denver & the Muppets and got busy! The living room/dining room/kitchen are now all clean and totally decked-out for Christmas. I can't believe it's the Christmas season already! So hard to believe. We also finished putting up lights outside by putting the no L sign up and getting the Christmas seal out on the lawn. Yes, we have a light-up seal with a yellow bow tie on our lawn for Christmas this year -- we're working on getting a hand and a swatch to put next to it as well, and if you understand why this is so hilarious, then you are truly well-versed in high forms of comedy. And if you have no idea what I'm talking about, then you should WATCH ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT because it's the funniest show ever and things like seeing a seal with a yellow bow tie on a lawn will make you double over into hysterics. It's just that easy. :) In the afternoon Daniel and I went to Pasadena to Aimee's farewell party, as she is leaving and moving up to Seattle this week. It was good to see her and some other random Techers again, as well as get to eat some good food and play more Apples to Apples. We also scored several new things from her box of free stuff that she was giving away, so that was exciting too. Good thing Aimee and I are about the same size in clothing! ;) And then we stopped back in San Dimas real quick to pick up the rat and pack up the car, and we drove back down to San Diego. Getting in at 10pm was a bit later than we would have liked, but I think it was worth it to have a full day at home and in Pasadena the rest of the day. Whew! See? Quite the packed weekend! I am thankful for my friends and family and for having a stable job and relationship to round out my life. All is quite well these days! I guess I can just say that I am thankful that I have a comfortable life that looks to be stable and unchanging for awhile now. I like knowing where I'm going to be. :) And now on to Christmas, I guess! It's December 1st! I won't have time to decorate my apartment until Wednesday, but then I shall be truly ready for the holiday season. Such fun! (Comment on this)
Wednesday, November 19th, 2008
3:10 pm	The End of an Era Well, it's finally over. Last night I finished watching Angel season 5 -- my time in the Buffyverse has come to an end! What a trek it's been -- it's taken me about 9 months to watch 7 seasons of Buffy and 5 seasons of Angel. It's been quite an entertaining trip. Joss Whedon is great (ad nauseam), although clearly he does not like happy endings (which I knew already, duh). I guess that just makes it all more "realistic", at least as far as the characters go (how realistic can vampires and demons and apocalypses be?). Now I just need to get my hands on the Angel comic when I'm home next weekend so I can see how the story continues. So sad that these shows got taken off the air! They could have done so many more great things with them. They were just getting into the groove with Spike and Angel fighting side by side and yet annoying the crap out of each other. I do love Spike. I won't rant and rave too much, I just want to say that I've enjoyed watching it all. I think overall I like Buffy better than Angel, but I really like how the two shows share the same world and have crossover characters and plots and all that. It's pretty nifty to see your favorite character from Buffy show up again on Angel. I think I'm already going through withdrawals (I'm sure Daniel is shaking his head already), but I shall have to buck up and move on. Afterall, we start watching Battlestar from the beginning on Friday night! (6 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, October 10th, 2008
11:18 pm	Fall is Here! Tonight, for the first time this year, it finally felt like fall. I had forgotten how much I love the feeling of cool, crisp air, the sound of my windchimes on the patio tinkling in the wind, and the smell of candles burning. It was a nice, cloudy and cool day today, and was windy and almost stormy tonight. It was full-on Halloween weather, and I enjoyed it immensely! It makes me want to sit around and drink hot cider all night long while burning candles around the apartment. Curl up with a good book, work on a cross-stitch, or watch some postseason baseball! It's all intertwined into a wonderful appreciation for fall and the changing of the season. Never mind that the Dodgers lost a horrible game tonight -- it's October 10th, and I'm enjoying postseason baseball! Now it really is the Fall Classic. Hopefully the Dodgers can pull off wins for me on Sunday and Monday nights at Dodger Stadium when I'm there to cheer them on.... That would make my fall complete! :) And now to go read some scary stories and enjoy wearing pajama PANTS to bed for once (it's finally cool enough!). Hmmm, I'm thinking I'll read Poe this year.... :) (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Tuesday, September 30th, 2008
11:47 am	Wake Me Up When September Begins Is it really the last day of September already? How did that happen? I swear, time passes oddly at this job. Well, first of all, living the life of a "normal" person and not a student makes all time seem the same. There's no ending of terms, finals to take, new classes to begin... each day is pretty much the same as the last, week after week, month after month, etc. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but there are far fewer distinctions in time that way. And second of all, this particular job makes time seem skewed. For example, it is currently September. However, I've mostly been working with CTX data from July and August still, so my brain is still processing things from a couple months ago. And yet, I'm targeting new data to be taken in the month of October already, so I'm worrying about dates and orbits all the way out to October 25th already. So I'm constantly in the past and out into the future, but hardly in the present here at work. I had hardly even noticed that it actually WAS September, and now the month is over already! I guess that's all right -- it still feels like summer, but I do love fall, and perhaps it will begin in earnest soon. And of course, this means that tomorrow is the start of... OCTOBER BASEBALL!!! :) Of which I am happily a participating fan this year. The Dodgers better give the Cubs a run for their money, that's all I'm sayin'. :) (Comment on this)
Thursday, September 25th, 2008
3:26 pm	Dodgers Clinch the NL West Title!!! It's official -- the Dodgers are the 2008 NL West Division champions!!! Arizona oh-so kindly lost their day game in St. Louis today to allow the Dodgers to clinch the division before they even have to play tonight. That's probably a good thing since they're facing Jake Peavy, although I think they should go out and beat him for once just to cap off their victory celebration which will undoubtedly take place after the game tonight. I'm so excited, this is fantastic! And even better cuz I already have tickets to all possible NLDS and NLCS games at Dodger Stadium, so I hope they go far and do well!!! It feels good to be back in the postseason, especially as division champs and not just the hard-luck wild card winners. Granted, they only have a .525 record right now, but that's all it takes to win the division this year. And now that they're in, the overall record doesn't matter anymore -- they just have to play up to their full potential in each and every game of the postseason and they can go all the way! Go Dodgers! Go Blue! I can't wait to go to my first postseason game on October 4th!!! :) (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, September 14th, 2008
9:25 pm	The Day Needs My Saving Expertise Greetings! It's been a long time since I've written anything on livejournal... things have been good lately! Just average day-to-day life, but a very happy average that I am loving and appreciating. :) For example, tonight Daniel and I cooked teriyaki chicken kebabs on the grill and spent a nice evening on the patio eating dinner, enjoying candle and twinkly lights, and making smores for dessert. This occurred after a lovely day spent bargain-shopping, where I spent a lot of money but got lots of stuff and even some very useful stuff (i.e. running shoes with soles still attached!) that I've been needing for awhile. Yesterday I had to work for a few hours, but after that we went and played baseball for awhile with Chad and Carrie, and then went to dinner with them and Stephanie (who is living down here now, yay!) at Olive Garden -- yay for never-ending pasta bowl time! Then we went back to Chad & Carrie's and played Wii for awhile. Man, I love weekends. :) I also finished a book this weekend, Me Talk Pretty One Day, by David Sedaris. It's pretty funny (although I think I like Bill Bryson better) and a quick read of a collection of essays. A guy at work recommended it to me, and I liked it. It was nice to read something quick and amusing, too. Last week I got to go to two Dodgers/Padres games down here -- Tuesday night we went with Chad, Carrie, and Stephanie (and the Dodgers won! and we saw a Manny home run), and then Wednesday night my mom came down and just she and I went to the game. This time was much better than the last time she came down for a game, as the Dodgers had an overwhelming victory with Derek Lowe pitching, and Manny hit TWO home runs, both into the sand at dead-center field! That's no small feat in Petco Park. Actually, the first home run went OVER the sand and into the bleachers, but the second one sent a bunch of kids scrambling for the ball in the sand, it was quite funny. And we sat in a section out in left field (Manny country!) that was dominated by Dodger fans, it was great. And then on Thursday I took the day off so my mom and I could go to Balboa Park for the day -- we saw a Georgia O'Keeffe exhibit at the San Diego Museum of Art and then went to the Zoo for the rest of the afternoon. We hit it at just the right time for their annual White Elephant sale where they have huge canopies set up with all of the stuff they're pulling off the shelves on sale for super cheap and then plus 50% more off of the lowest marked price. It was an awesome deal, and we bought lots of stuff (some fun things for us, and lots of Christmas and birthday presents for people, it was great). There's nothing like getting a good deal, and I'll never buy anything full price from the Zoo or Wild Animal Park ever again. I'll just wait till it's time for this sale again next year, heehee. It only lasts a week, so we had good timing! :) And then Thursday night my mom, Daniel, and I went over to Coronado to attend a free Shakespeare Festival at the Coronado Playhouse (a quirky little community theater, but they do some good productions), where they did The Taming of the Shrew! I had read the play the previous week to prepare, so I was up-to-snuff with my Shakespeare. I didn't realize it was such an anti-feminist play before I got into it. But I guess you have to consider the time it was written and all that. And it also depends how sardonically you play it on stage... it could be funnier and less serious than it may sound on paper. The production was decent, except for Lucentio, who kept shouting rather than saying his lines. Drunk Hortensio was my favorite in the second half, he made it all worth it. :-P And getting to go out for a night at the theater for free Shakespeare is always great, too! So that was my fantastic week last week. And that was coming off of a trip to McGrath from the previous weekend, which was spectacular as usual. I love camping there for our once-a-year trip, and getting to hang out with DFC peoples again. This time all the Flannery kids except Kendall were there even, so that was really good to get to spend some time with all them again, too. I love playing in the sand dunes and watching the waves roll in, etc. The hwy was DRY this year, and for the first time in like 10 years we were able to actually go IN the swamp and run around and play Gilligan's Island in the sand, rather than just standing at the side and watching the rushing river go by. It was the farthest we've ever gone out there, and it was fantastic. Monkey did sink into some black mud like halfway up to his calf -- that was entertaining for the rest of us, but probably less fun for him. :-P At least he didn't lose his shoe in the sticky mud when he pulled his leg out! But what good is going to the swamp if we don't come back with stories to tell? There was some really cool graffiti on the walls of the hwy this year, too. And besides exploring, we did our usual of playing lots of games (Pit was great this year), relaxing in hammocks, sitting around the campfire, and roasting hot dogs and marshmallows over the fire as well. Gotta love McGrath. :) And surely more has happened since then, but that's as far back as I'm going to think about for now. The end of summer is looming, and I'm trying to enjoy somewhat warmer weather while I can, because I know it's going to turn soon. It's already cold enough riding my bike to work in the mornings! But I am looking forward to fall as well. Just gotta eke out the last of summer fun while I can. The Dodgers are in first place by 4 1/2 games with 13 left to play. I think they can hold onto the division this year!!! Postseason, here we come. :) :) :) (Comment on this)
Monday, August 18th, 2008
2:24 pm	Recent amusing and exciting things 1) "You can't sell horse tranquilizers to a midget!" -the best line from In Bruges, said by Colin Farrell. The rest of the movie was meh, but the midget stuff was great. :-P 2) The ice cream truck came to work today! It stopped in the parking lot and we all got to go out and pick an ice cream for an afternoon treat. Our property managers that we rent the building from were being nice to us today. I got myself a chipwich for old times' sake (how can you pass up a chipwich?!) -- and I've been thinking about dodging flying ice cream at Friday night dinners for four years in a row. If Kevin Wang was a waiter on Friday night, you definitely had to watch out not to get killed by a chipwich to the head. Nate Senchy was also particularly aggressive with the flying ice cream. Ahhh, how I miss college dorm life. :-P 3) Yesterday was Caltech/JPL Dodger day -- my family and Daniel's family went to sit in the all-you-can-eat pavilion and cheer on Manny and the boys in blue. They didn't disappoint, for sure, giving us a very exciting game! We saw Manny Ramirez hit a home run (on the first pitch that he saw), Matt Kemp hit a home run, and Andre Ethier hit TWO home runs, including the walk-off homer in the bottom of the 9th! Granted, they shouldn't have had to play the bottom of the 9th at all, but they gave up 4 unearned runs in the top of the 9th to tie the score. Well, I guess that made Ethier's two-run shot even more dramatic, so we got to see jumping up and down and a huge huddle at home plate when Ethier got there, but it was a little scary there in the 9th before that. Nevertheless, the Dodgers prevailed to remain tied for 1st in the NL West! I'm convinced that they can win the division and go all the way -- they've got the winning fever now and won't let up! :) Oh, and I also got to meet Eric Karros before the game! And Jim Gott. It was pretty awesome. I almost missed them because the line was so long right before the game started, but I made it. Woo hoo for getting to meet some of your childhood heroes! :) (Comment on this)
Monday, July 28th, 2008
9:05 am	Comic Con wrap-up Holy mackarel, Comic Con was amazingly fun this past weekend. Also a lot of standing in line and sitting around waiting for things to start, but we got to see all kinds of cool people and clips and things. And I think I've walked enough to last me the next 2 weeks of exercise, easily. Let's see, let's start with a review of all the panels I went to: -Watchmen. We got in line at 7:45am for this noon panel, as we wanted to be sure to get in. We got to see an extended trailer that makes it look even more awesome. Zack Snyder was there to reassure everyone that it's as close to the graphic novel story as possible, etc. The cast was also there, and it sounds like they really got into their roles. Zack Snyder talks a little slow for me, though, so the panel itself wasn't that great. But seeing the extended trailer and getting a free Watchmen tee-shirt (albeit an XL) for being there was pretty cool. -Dr. Horrible. We just got lucky to get into this one at all right after Watchmen -- there was a HUGE line for it and we 'accidentally' wandered in and managed to get a re-entry pass as if we were just going to the bathroom when they made us exit. Whatever, we got in and it was awesome. I think this was my favorite panel of the whole weekend. Joss Whedon and his two brothers who wrote it with him (and one of their wives) were there, and then of course the cast. Nathan Fillion, Neil Patrick Harris, and Felicia Day are all hilarious. Especially Nathan Fillion. And he says yes, it is shaped like a hammer. :-P He was still pretty much in Captain Hammer character the whole time, so it was pretty hilarious. And Felicia Day got made fun of for twittering under the table during the panel, etc. And NPH refused to answer to the name "Doogie" when someone called him that. Nathan Fillion was pretty much just making jokes about anything and everything the whole time, it was fantastic. Apparently he's like Joss's favorite person or something. It was so cool to see all of them there together! Joss also talked about Buffy season 8 and the Fray a bit, too. :) -Kevin Smith Makes a Porno. The evening entertainment was Kevin Smith and the cast of his new movie (including Seth Rogen and Justin Long) talking about the movie and what it was like to make, how they're trying to get an R rating for it instead of the NC-17 one it has now, etc. It looks pretty entertaining. We saw a clip from that one, too. Justin Long as a gay man, huh. And Seth Rogen has a really dorky laugh in person... a very abrupt chuckle or something. If you just met him on the street and he laughed, you'd think he was a dorky Techer or something. :-P -Heroes. Daniel and I got into the line that was literally close to a mile long to get into this panel -- we were practically in Seaport Village, wrapped around all the way behind the convention center. Fortunately we got in, but we missed out on the free comic books they were giving away (but I got one later, it's okay). The panel was sadly super LAME -- the cast was about 20 minutes late getting there (they only have an hour time slot), so we sat around at the beginning with Jeph Loeb trying to lead crowd chants and cheers, and it was the lamest thing I've ever seen. Then the whole cast showed up and came out on stage and we cheered... and then Tim Kring came up with a metal briefcase handcuffed to his wrist and opened it... and brought out the first episode of season 3 on a DVD disc! And then, yes, we spent the next 45 minutes WATCHING THE FIRST EPISODE OF SEASON 3! So we've seen the whole season premiere already! Not just a teaser or a trailer or a clip, but the episode in its entirety. And as much as I complained about season 2 coming off as wishy washy, I must say that season 3 is set up to be *really* interesting. I won't spoil it (email me if you want me to ;) ), but let's just say there are several "wait, what?!" and "whoaaaaa" moments. And that's just one episode! They have a billion different storylines of possibility to go down, so it will be an interesting season, to be sure. The cast came back and answered questions for about 5 minutes at the end before they had to shoo them off stage, but it was in general pretty lame. At least they were all there, I guess. Milo is hot. :) -Dollhouse. Back to see Joss Whedon again, as well as Eliza Dushku and that one guy from Battlestar Galactica who is also starring in Dollhouse. It was pretty cool to see a little trailer for the show and to hear them talk about it. I must say, Eliza Dushku herself pretty much IS the character Faith -- she talks just like her and pretty much leads a lifestyle like her (minus the killing part), so I guess it was a pretty easy role for her to play. Her character on Dollhouse, Echo, sounds somewhat similar. I guess they have 13 episodes to come out this first season, and hopefully it will take off from there! -Ray Bradbury. I had to go see one of my favorite authors talk for a bit -- he's looking pretty old these days (in a wheelchair and talking like an old man), but he's still writing every day and doing what he loves. One of his short stories is being turned into a feature-length film this year, so we got to see a clip from that, too. Pretty cool. His takeaway message was do what you love no matter what (i.e. writing for him), and let the library educate you rather than school or college. If you can't afford college, you can surely afford the library, and you can probably learn more that way, too. -Grant Morrison and Deepak Chopra. This was a panel about philosophy and superheroes, which was interesting but a bit dense for the end of the long weekend. It was interesting to hear them compare Jesus, Buddha, Batman, and Superman and their theories about life and the universe and everything being one, etc. And I could listen to Grant Morrison's Scottish accent all day long, so that was fine, too. :) -Buffy sing-along. What a way to close down the Con! This was the first public screening of the sing-along episode of Buffy since 2007, when they closed them all down. It was awesome to be in a room with 2000 people and get to sing along with the entire episode. Once More With Feeling is possibly my favorite Buffy episode, or at least it's very high up there. They passed out parking tickets from the city of Sunnydale and little grrr-argh monsters to wear on your finger, so that was pretty cool, too. Spike definitely got the most cheers every time he sang. Gotta love James Marsters, for sure. So much fun! :) And that was only the panels. There was the whole exhibition hall to walk around and see other cool displays and get autographs from people, etc. I got to meet Todd Klein (the letterer for Sandman and many other things), whose posters decorate my living room. I also happened upon ROBERT PICARDO, who signed a picture of himself for me (for quite a price), chatted a bit, and even kissed me on the cheek. ;) He was by far the best Voyager character, and I think only pulls up a close second to Data as the best Star Trek character ever. Jonathan Frakes/Riker was there, too, and he's looking pretty old these days. We also got to meet Felicia Day and the cast of The Guild, so that was nifty. And I got Ben Templesmith to sign a comic book for me. I think that's it for famous people that I actually got to meet. And then there was my brother, who was walking down the street at 2:30am one night after the bars closed, and who should he run into but NATHAN FILLION also walking down the street. He got a picture with him and they chatted for a bit, and I am *so* jealous! Next year I'm going to prowl the streets late at night after the bars close, too. Dang! We also got a lot of free stuff from various places -- posters, comic books, pins, cards, a poster tube, etc. Oh, and I donated blood one day and got a whole bunch of cool stuff for doing that, including a Spike action figure(blood sucking/vampires, get it?), a tee-shirt, the City of Villains game (not gonna play it, but kinda cool as a giveaway), and of course free cookies and snacks. And it was fun just to walk around and see people dressed up as various things and talking geekery, etc. I already bought my 4-day pass for next year, so I guess I'm sucked in now! Heehee, okay, gonna stop gushing now. It was quite the fun experience this weekend! :) (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, July 24th, 2008
10:50 am	Turning 26 and other things of late Wow, I need a long update for the month of July. So much has been happening, but I have so little time to write it all down! Hence, this is the short version (and only one you'll get). 1) I have consistently been biking to work about once a week since ~November last year. Go me. :) I should do it more like 2-3 times per week, especially when it's warm out, but I don't usually have that much time. 2) I turned 26 on July 15 -- I'm getting too old too quickly! I know there are so many people out there who would love to be 26 again, so I'm trying to enjoy youth for what it's worth, but what happened to me at 16? That was TEN YEARS ago! A decade! I've had my driver's license for 10 years?! Eeeek. I'm not too sure about this whole "late 20's" thing, but at least I'm not 30 yet. :-P 3) On the Friday before my birthday, Daniel took me to Pantages to see Wicked again, since I've been going on and on about how I want to see it again for months now. And he had never seen it, so it was a double bonus. :) It was a great show, as expected, and I think it was even better the second time because now I know all the words to the songs and stuff. It's my favorite musical, or at least up there with Joseph. 4) To celebrate my birthday, I got the family and friends together the Sunday before my birthday, and we went to the afternoon Dodger game and sat in the all-you-can-eat section. Oh man, so good. All the Dodger dogs, nachos, popcorn, peanuts, soda, and water you can handle. It was a very pleasant game that wasn't too crowded (so we got to sit in the shade), we were within heckling range of Andruw Jones, we got a free travel mug as a giveaway, and the Dodgers actually won! AND, best of all, my mom got my name put up on the message board so the whole stadium saw the message "IT'S MEGAN KENNEDY'S BIRTHDAY! BOOYAH!" None of this sappy "Happy 15th Birthday, Johnny" crap. It's all about the booyah. ;) That will be so much more hilarious if you watch Arrested Development. ANYways, I was quite amused. :) After the game we went back to the house and had chocolate fountain and lots of yummy things to dip in it. It was quite the day for eating. 5) My birthday itself was on a Tuesday this year, and it also happened to be the day of the MLB All-Star game. I got a few friends together and had a BBQ/All-Star game-watching party at my place that evening. It was nice to use my big patio and grill to entertain some people for once. I should do more of this summer BBQ thing, hmmmm.... The game itself was kind of a bust, as the NL couldn't come through YET AGAIN, but at least it was an exciting game I guess, and Russell Martin really proved himself behind the plate. Ah well. Perhaps next year? Maybe it won't be 5 hours long next year at least.... 6) Natalie and Akemi came down to visit on the train last weekend, and we had a lovely time lounging around and eating ice cream cake, and actually going to the beach for the afternoon. That's the first time I've actually *been* to the beach in San Diego since living here! It was actually a somewhat cloudy day, but we got hot enough hitting the volleyball around a bit to go in the water for awhile, too. Yay for beach! 7) Daniel and I hiked Cowles Mountain last weekend, too -- the highest point in the San Diego area (at just under 2000 feet, haha). It was a rather populated trail that was only like 3 miles roundtrip, but it was good to get out and actually do some hiking again. 8) We saw the midnight show of Batman when it first came out last week, and it is an AWESOME movie. I even liked it better than the last Batman movie. I like how it's dark and kind of scary, and yet Batman still kicks ass. And Heath Ledger plays a fantastic Joker -- he totally set the tone for the role with his disappearing pencil trick at the very beginning. eeeeek! 9) Tuesday night was Chad's birthday, so we went out for some steak dinner at Outback, followed by some rounds in the batting cages and some mini-golfing nearby. Of course we also got frozen yogurt at the end because we always seem to eat yogurt when we're hanging out. :-P It's a good way to end the night. 10) Oh yeah, I also went to the Hollywood Bowl like 3 times in one week at the beginning of the month to see Beatles night (for my brother's birthday), the Dodgers' 50th Anniversary celebration (not as great as it could have been, but still cool), and Bugs Bunny on Broadway (my mom and I were practically the only ones there wearing our Viking hats! Come on, people! Kill the wabbit, kill the wabbit!). So I've had my summer fill of the Bowl this year, which is always nice. It's one of my favorite summertime activities, to be sure. 11) This weekend coming up is Comic Con! I can't wait to go, although I'm a bit wary that much of our time will simply be spent waiting in line for various things. But much will be happening -- there's a Watchmen panel (yes, the trailer is AWESOME), Joss will be there discussing various projects, the entire cast of Dr. Horrible will be there, and Sunday night ends with a screening of the Buffy musical episode for a sing-along. It shall be great! No matter how excited and geeky I seem, however, my brother is hundreds of times worse, as he's been not sleeping in anticipation of this weekend for like 3 days already. He's got his whole schedule down and knows who to find where when, etc. My family and the comic crew came down yesterday afternoon to park their cars at my place and then had us drive them downtown to stay for the weekend, so they're already there and enjoying themselves with the rest of the comic book geeks out there. What fun, what fun. Oh, I also get to take care of Penny for the weekend while they're staying at the con, too. Fun for me to have a dog around again, heehee! :) And Daphne isn't afraid of her at all -- in fact, this morning she walked across Penny's back on the couch like she was just another pillow or something. Silly rat. :-P Okay, I'm done! That was supposed to be the short version, hmmmm..... Hopefully I'll post something about Comic Con next week once I'm back, but we'll see what time there is. I'm also going to Chicago for like 2 days in like two weeks! Gotta prepare for that trip, too! :) (1 Comment |Comment on this)