By now, two facts should be firmly established to anyone perusing the three-hundred-and-some posts made through the years on this here piece of the Interwebbing: for starters -- judging from the fact that there are over three hundred posts here -- it should be evident that I spend far too much time on the Internet; couple that with the now completely obvious fact that I am a massive fangirl (and to think I actually tried to keep that from you; no wonder my early posts were boring), and you have the basis for most of the stories of my life. So, if I start out this story by saying that I spent my Sunday night like I spend every night, Pinky -- yes, on the Internet -- looking at fangirly stuff, you wouldn't be surprised, right? Surely you can give me some kind of reaction. Thank you.
There I was, minding my own business, when I came across four little words, typed all in capitals: IMAGINE A BAND OLYMPICS. I briefly considered the fact, and left it at that. It was only in the shroud of darkness, in the early hours of the morning, that I allowed myself to fully explore the concept. While I was trying in vein to sleep last night, I came up with a full itinerary. Would you like to see a template for the London 2012 Band Olympics? Reginald Kitty is not amused.
Rather than a traditional torch carrying ceremony, the Band Olympics would have a torch lighting ceremony dedicated to the fallen gods of Rock 'N' Roll, during which, Don McLean would perform "American Pie".
After which, the Official Opening Ceremony would commence. They could use a hologram of Freddie Mercury for the obligatory "We Will Rock You" performance to fire up the crowd before the games began...
Taking cues from the actual 2012 Olympics, there are a few sporting events that could take place in the Band Olympics that will be featured in London next month.
Archery (2:06 to 2:28 time stamps)...
Athletics...
Boxing...
Gymnastics (fun hint: try muting the music video, and playing this while watching the video. Perhaps it was the sleep deprivation, but I thought it was hilarious at four o'clock this morning)...
And shooting...
Of course, since it's the Band Olympics, perhaps a special "Rock Band" event could be arranged...
To close the ceremonies, Ray Davies would perform the title song from "Village Green Preservation Society" to add to the British vibe (see what I did there)...
And, for the big finale, Pete Townshend would tear the place apart piece by piece...
Naturally, there would have to be a decent amount of planning and safety concerns if there was to be a Winter Band Olympics...
Although, after considering the dangers involved for these highly important people, it's probably best that there is no such thing as a Band Olympics after all. They need to keep doing what they do best... Mr. Higgenson, you naughty boy.
Last Friday was such a lovely day, mirroring the week that was ending: the sun hid itself behind some beautiful rain clouds; I had the house all to myself for a while, with The Maine on my Bose, my dog in my lap, and a fresh cup of hot tea. The "smashing" end to the afternoon, though, was the awesome bump on my head from where I ran into a door. That was fun. It was like this, but with less face. I hit my face later, in a totally unrelated incident.
Last week was full of false alarms, though, let me tell you. On Monday, I woke up and thought it was Bachelorette Monday.
On Tuesday and Wednesday, I took my finals for the semester, one with the biggest implications since The Algebra Incident (because I know you care).
On Thursday, we got the news that Community was cancelled. There isn't anyone I would rather have heard that from. Which, I guess, is a good thing, since that's how I found out.
And, Friday, my grandfather flat out told me he thought I was going to be a spinster. Also, I am, apparently, in love with Paul McCartney.
Now that we are almost a week off from these little heart-attack-inducing moments, I can look at them a little more clearly: *I was only a week off; the Bachelorette started on Monday, people! It looks like it'll be a fun season, too. After all, we wait all year for the Bachelorette! We've been excited about this for over a month. I made butter spritz cookies for the premier. Unfortunately, due to an accident involving my cookie press, we were deprived of the awesometastic shapes; the satisfaction of saving a disastrous situation came in the form of waxed paper, a rolling pin, and the little screw cap to my now broken press. Also, I think I need a new cookie press; maybe one with a trigger? Oooooo, pretty.
*I passed each of my finals with flying colors, thereby maintaining my cumulative 4.0 average.
*Community wasn't cancelled! The next season was shortened to thirteen episodes, and moved from Thursday to Friday (still undecided if that's a death move or not), but it certainly wasn't cancelled; at least it has a chance to have more episodes commissioned, and that's of great importance. Personally, I'd like to see them make it to the hundredth episode mark before they officially got the axe, even though, in an ideal world, the show would live out its lifespan (but that might not happen). Of course, every other American show I've liked in the last ten years was cancelled. And by American shows, I mean Pushing Daisies. I still mourn the loss of my Tuesday date with the inhabitants of Coeur d'Coeurs. "What Did I Do With My Life Before I Blogged?" fun fact: I visited the actual Pie Hole set while the show was on hiatus. It was awesome.
If Community can't make it on NBC, then maybe a cable station can pick it up (if that's the case, I need to buy one of these before the are unavailable). We can hope so; otherwise, how will I get my Abed fix?
A guy that actually likes to sit in his pajamas, watch British TV, and eat buttered noodles? Where can I download an Abed? This is a serious inquiry.
*And, as far as my grandfather is concerned, I'll just chock it up to his unnecessary need to constantly speak, and age-related senility. I may die alone, but at least I'll have the mono Ram to keep me company on those lonely nights.
Who else took advantage of the lithograph and t-shirt combo? LOVING IT. What, RAM is one of my "Top Five Personal Favorite Albums in the History of Ever"; I'm entitled to get the deluxe fangirl package if I want it.
That, and my kick-ass personal audio settings (so what if I screencapped my personal audio settings; it's my blog, and I can!)... My computer's speakers are professional grade, but my favorite part about them is that these settings also apply to any headphones/speakers plugged into my machine (read, BOSE). If you could hear music like I do after I made this freaking amazing discovery, you would run out to the nearest Best Buy and get a laptop like mine.
...and, of course, all of you who chose to spend time here. And even those who just type in random awesome things that make me laugh... I love that someone found my blog by searching for this; I simply had to screencap it.
As for the "essence of Stevie Wonder", I can't really say much; my mother just said it to me. And I'm not sure how I feel about that.
Is it just me, or does it feel like we've been waiting forever since The Bachelor ended, so that The Bachelorette can begin? 'Cause it seems like ages. Just sayin'. We finally have some information about the twenty-five schmucks we will be watching this season; and, let me tell you, they aren't a bed of roses. (See what I did there? Hilarity ensues.) See, here at Fusspot Farm, we have a tradition: we go through the twenty-five, and give our opinions on who will make it far enough into the game to be able to narrow it down to the longshot-of-winning-the-whole-ruddy-thing stage. Out of the whole set, we have narrowed it down to seven we think will "go far". At this point, we're really just having a chuckle; not only at the way we zero in on certain "players" like betting on race horses, but at some of the, um, folks that made the final twenty-five. See, we also amuse ourselves by making fun of these people. We have to get our kicks somewhere, I suppose. Right, Ma? With that said, let's look at what we're working with, here.
Alejandro Occupation: Mushroom Farmer I can't wait to hear how this is explained in his fifteen second video introduction. That's all I'm going to say at this time.
Alessandro This caused a few laughs: Do you like to go dancing? If yes what is your preferred type of dancing? Yes. Anything, electronic the most.
The two of us couldn't figure out what electronic dancing was. It was a rude awakening, indeed.
After the 1:32 time stamp, we couldn't handle any more. Hell, I dared someone to do The Freddie once, for the love of all that's good and cheesy. I think we all know what kind of dancing I know.
Dave Davies, with bonus one-of-the-best-movies-ever-made montages. Who could refuse that?
David Occupation: Singer/Songwriter Lord, just read his biography, the whole thing is a laugh riot. We get it, you're a musician. You made one whole album, and have the website to prove it (remember, kids, it's called "supersleuthing", not "stalking"). Congratu-well-done, sir. Are we sure about who has the "serious issues *upstairs*"? You just keep on diluting yourself; you never know, you may end up with a number one song in Chihuahua, Mexico.
Kalon Again, just click the link. I wasn't actually going to include this one, but that was before I read his profile.
Oh, and, just in case you couldn't figure it out, none of these are in our Top Seven. You know, in case you were wondering.
Speaking of Bachelor news, now that Chris Harrison and his wife have split up, can he be the new Bachelor? Please? Can we get some kind of petition going or something, 'cause I think this could really draw in some viewers. That, and my inner eight year old fangirl has been having a mini-heart attack since I first thought about this. If Ed refuses to do it, Chris Harrison will just have to take his place. It must be done.
On a similar note (I don't remember ever saying that in my life, but let's keep going like this interruption was never here), everyone has heard about the latest travesty in reality dating, right? Just watch the video.
When I found out about this, I experienced a range of emotions.
Eventually sticking with this one...
I'm actually on the fence about whether I'll watch it or not. There. I said it. If something good happens, I can watch the clips on YouTube. And by good, I mean Tom Higgenson shows up. Did I say that? Also -- fangirly side note -- I think his little introductory segment would have had more impact if "Sunlight" had been discussed, rather than "Rhythm Of Love". But, you know, they have reasons for these things, I guess. So what if "Sunlight" didn't go platinum, was on the worst reviewed album in their band's history, and wasn't sung by the guy that's actually on the show? Whatever.
You know, it's at moments like this that I realize I spend far too much time on the Internet. Yet, as I sit here in the wee hours of the morning, I cannot find any trace of regret.
If you had told me a week ago just how insane the last seven days have been, I'd have crawled under the covers, and waited for it all to blow over. As it is, I'm alive at the other end of it; battered, bruised, and beaten, but alive. Would you like to hear about my week? Oh, come on now. It's going to be full of videos! Reginald Kitty is not amused.
It all started out innocently enough. We were going to see Dr. Robert Ballard give a lecture (read the link for a very small list of the things he has found in the ocean, if you like). I went to hear what he had to say about the Titanic, and didn't expect to enjoy the rest of the lecture as much as I did. The only thing that disappointed me was that I didn't hear a single one of these...
We were two of the last four people allowed in, at standing room only. Personally, I'm glad we got in, even if some bald guy's face was at eye level with my arse. Sounds fun, and it was. So, where's the battle-hardened soldier thing come in? We aren't there yet.
The next night, we went to hear a lecture from Bill Clinton. Yes, Sarah-PAC-donating, Reagan-fangirling, George-Bush-autograph-owning me went to listen to Bill Clinton. "What did I do with my life before I blogged?" fun fact: when she was running for president back in '08, I went to see Hillary campaign. It's a history thing for me.
That was also a fun night. Even if we did stand in line for ninety minutes behind a couple of Jeff Wingers...
They compared sushi restaurants for twenty minutes. I wish that was an exaggeration, but it isn't.
And then, Thursday night hit. Even though I knew it was coming, and had ten days to prepare for it, it still hit me like a ton of bricks. We had all agreed to drive down to Dallas to help my dad's mother finish up a house she's been flipping. Three days with her. Now, maybe that doesn't seem like such a bad thing; and, I suppose, it isn't. The thing is, I still have wretched memories from the last time we went out of town together. Ten years ago, she thought it would be a fun idea to go to Disney World as a "family". At the time, I told myself that it would all be OK, and I just had to survive that fortnight as best I could. Some of those trip highlights included:
*Not getting to ride any rides with my sidekick-since-ever, my mother.
*Breaking my knee, and walking the Disney complex for the four days immediately following.
*His mother getting completely drunk, and forgetting where she said she would meet us when it was time for her to pick us up from the park one night. We had to break into Disney World to use their telephone (before cell phones, children!) at two o'clock in the morning. We waited about three hours before we were "rescued".
*Some guy I didn't know died. Somebody's cousin's uncle's brother, or some such affair. Either way my dad's mother got wrapped up in the ensuing drama, thereby making us take part (to a much smaller extent) by proxy.
*And, in general, not being allowed to have fun, which completely defeated the purpose of going to frickin' Disney World in the first ruddy place.
Every time I hear Sloop John B, I am reminded of that trip; I kept humming it under my breath, knowing that she was too square to understand that reference.
Fun fact: I really have always been this way.
Except this weekend was a whole 'nuther notch on the Sliding Scale of Suck, because my dad's brother would also be going. And that is a bad thing. In anybody's book. Really. Some of this weekend's highlights included:
*His brother blatantly going out of his way to be the biggest dick in the history of ever. (This encompasses the majority of the weekend in one blanket statement.)
*All I kept thinking this weekend was that this happened the last time we were in Dallas... ...and this happened that time before that... ...and just how low I have sunk in such a short amount of time. Oh, woe is me.
*Having to ride in the passenger's seat with his mother at the wheel. It was scary, and I thought I was going to die.
*His brother telling me he remembered watching The Beatles perform "Yellow Submarine" on The Ed Sullivan Show.
*When his brother started making obscene jokes regarding gay men to a waiter at a restaurant, my dad said -- in a joking manner -- that the waiter was allowed to hit his brother. I begged the waiter to do it, and he could tell that I wasn't joking; I think that's why my dinner was served before the other four people I was with even got their orders. Also, he reminded me of Brendon Urie, so I was grateful to have something else to think about besides the fact that I was purposefully separated from my sidekick (it was like Florida all over again).
If you fast forward to the 46 second time stamp, you'll get a pretty clear picture of the waiter I'm talking about.
*After we broke free from the shackles of hell, we went to see RAIN. Yes, the very same tribute band I unabashedly trashed on this very blog two years ago. All I can say is that we must have gotten the D, E, or F string touring band. This was the A string, fresh from their stint on Broadway, and they were pretty damn good. You know, except for fake George (I explain my fake George complex in the link). Fake John has spent quite a bit of time trying to sound like John; so much, in fact, he has his speech patterns down. The only trouble is, he sounds a bit more like Sean Lennon than John Lennon.
Still, he was very good. The highlight of the show, though, was fake Paul. He didn't look or act anything like Paul, but he could hit that Paul sound very, very well. It was the first time I ever felt safe going into "Hey Jude" with a fake Paul (which caused me to make some rather lurid and uncalled for comments; my personality had been bottled up for three days, so I needed to let my inner fangirl out. I could see that episode of The Golden Girls where Dorothy dates the Beatles impersonator flashing in my head). That, and his version of "Rocky Raccoon" was impeccable. I loved it.
And, here we are; out of the tunnel, into the light, covered in mud, and a little worse for wear. So, what have we learned?
*Not everybody thinks of purposefully butchering "My Heart Will Go On" when they hear the word 'Titanic'.
*I can be open-minded about any politician if he isn't in any form of office.
*Some people really are that stupid.
*I have the patience of a saint.
*I also have some unresolvable Paul McCartney issues.
If I'm ever in a vegetative state or something, play this clip. I'll come around.
*A good variation on the French comb forward will distract me so well, I won't even notice if you've gone from England to France; this is also in reference to the unresolved Paul issues, I'm sure.
*And, in general, we're all glad that this month is over.
Something we don't often discuss on the blog is just how ruddy much fun blogging is. I always just kind of figured that fact was obvious, considering I update rather more frequently than once a month. We've all been to those blogs that only post every third blue moon, and we all know how sucky that is (except Hyperbole and a Half, 'cause that is one helluva hilarious blog). One of those rarely updated blogs belongs to Mr. Graham Linehan; the way I see it, though, if the man that helped give us Father Ted, Black Books, and The IT Crowd does not want to update his page for a while, he is more than free to do that. Imagine my surprise, then, when I check his blog this evening and find this image staring back at me from my plasma screen... Now, I'm not claiming victory or anything, but I SEE WHAT YOU DID, GRAHAM.
Look familiar? Reginald Kitty is not amused.
After looking over the statistics, I have discovered that Reginald Kitty has made 116 appearances on the blog since his first appearance on January 26, 2010. Not to mention that he's been in the header since April 8, 2010. Like I said, though, I'm not saying Mr. Linehan stole my idea to have an irate sphynx cat on his blog. That's a totally normal blog staple. Totally. Normal.
Still on the normal scale...
So normal, the Cleavers do it...
Nothing abnormal here, folks!
In other blogging news, I also love to track how folks come across my blog. It's a thing for me, I can't help it. You would be surprised at some of the bollocks people search for. I'm still confused which I find more disturbing: that people actually search for some of this stuff, or that my blog comes up in these weird searches. I have a list of my favorites. Do you wanna see 'em? Oh, come on, I've linked to the places I think these poor folks were directed to! Reginald Kitty is not amused.
*People Google really, really, really weird stuff. Fun fact: I have never Googled myself. I don't really need to, I know all about me. Now, some people, though... um, lets just allow that thought to fizzle.
*Music videos have never made sense. They never will, either.
*And -- most importantly -- NO ONE can replace our Reginald Kitty.
I have been missing in action for the better part of two weeks, both from my virtual life, and my real one. That whole catching-strep-from-my-lovely-little-neice schtick, coupled with real life stuff, made me miss a few of my dreaded classes (which I was semi-OK with) while I tried to dig my brain out of the living dead fog that had enshrouded it. Imagine my surprise, then, after missing one single four hour class, that someone had forgotten to let me know that the entire schedule was completely thrown out the window last week. Instead of a quiz, and simple vocabulary study -- an ordinary Tuesday -- it had been replaced with a relay, and something called the Flyswatter Game. Really? I mean. Really? If you haven't figured it out by reading over three hundred blog posts here, I'm an extreme introvert. I mean, my sister thinks I have a gray sheen, and zero life whatsoever (come on, sis, I know you do, since you let me know it every time I talk to you in depth); this is a major part of my personality. (Side note: If you have never read the "Caring For Your Introvert" article, you really, really need to. Go. Do it now. This can wait. I won't go anywhere, I promise. Wasn't it a good article? What, you didn't read it yet? GO!) Four hours of fake laughter, and my impenetrable signature "People Facade" later -- on top of the fact that I am still sick as a dog -- I thought I was going to die. I now have a reputation with these people. By the time Thursday came around, people wanted to know about me. I doubt most of them had even heard me speak before Tuesday. I'm that weird girl that sits by herself, reading the coursework; people only speak to me if they need something pertaining to the class itself. BUT WAIT. Now they want to know my age? If I have siblings? If I'm close to those siblings? Where I live?
Part of being an introvert -- at least, in my personal experience -- is having no idea how the extrovert world works. For example, during the human interaction portion of the evening, (mainly fake hugs and half-hearted high fives from my fellow "team mates") someone decided to call us the "Spankees"; perhaps it was the guy that called his team the "Spankers". 'Cause that isn't at all weird. Maybe it's because I was too busy having an internal meltdown, but I don't understand how in hell those names are acceptable. It sounds slightly perverted to me. In my world, the only people that are perverted are band members, or people that need to be put in prison; he was neither, so I'm clueless. You see, Introvert World and Extrovert World don't mesh; we're too awkward for it to be anything but strange. For example, people don't know why you're grinning widely when you tell them "good game", because they don't know that your brain is thinking of this...
They just look at you like you've got lobsters coming out of your ears, and reciprocate the salutation with an uncertain display of teeth and overly vigorous head nod. Another example is in how we might go about projects. Tuesday night, we were told to bring information to Thursday's class about a sports team we like. I like rugby, but have no idea how to read the statistics fixture thingies. So there my mother and I sat, trying to figure out our arses from our elbows, when the idea came to us: make it up. My fake favorite baseball team needed several players.
On first base...
Second base...
Star pitcher...
Short stop...
Left and right fielders...
Catcher...
And players that needed something called an ERA, whatever that is.
Just in case any of you were wondering, it took me about seven hours to pick out the pictures you just whizzed by. Back up and appreciate what a pretty fictional team I came up with! (I think I had a dream a lot like this once, except it was rugby, and Jimmy Fallon returned as my fairy godmother.)
And you know what? No one was any the wiser. So, what's the major point that draws all of this drivel together? This is not Fresh Meat, or Community; everybody bugger off, and let me fangirl in peace. Except you, dear reader.
Of course, the message on the card would also say "Hope this lavish gift and fancy card make up for the fact that I'm not showing up".
