Category: Uncategorized

Dear LORD that was fun! We had a refresher runthrough for “Lady in the Dark” tonight, but rather than slog through another serious rehearsal, we pulled out all the stops and sang the show at warp speed with crazy, histrionic, and often sultry choreography. At one point, Michael (Kendall, Liza’s scorned love interest) came onstage wrapped in toilet paper, walking like a zombie. We ended up forgoing the ending completely when Michael reentered and bodily tackled Perry (Randy, Liza’s other love interest) to the ground when he proposed marriage in their final scene. All was madness! And with my sore throat, it was seriously painful to laugh.

I like to think I contributed to the initial downslide into wackiness, as I wasn’t able to sing tonight due to my throat (and generally tried to talk as little as possible), so instead I performed my solos through exaggerated mime. During one of the fashion office scenes, Steve (the Stage Manager) donned a red velvet dress we kept backstage as a prop and vamped with our mannequin. I bustled onstage and pretended to fuss over him. It’s a testament to the concentration of our actors that only Perry and Serena, our accompanist, even noticed our charade, out of 5 or 6 people onstage. Then in the Wedding Dream, for the song “The Princess of Pure Delight”, Steve joined Jenny (our Liza) and played the part of the Dean of Sorcerors. I left my post to play the princess, and Alex stepped up to be the minstrel (who wins the princess’ hand in marriage). Note that Alex is a head shorter than me, and female. At the line “happily ever after”, I dipped Alex, put my hand over her mouth, and “kissed” her. Hilarity. During “Tchaikowsky,” we formed a conga line. SO MUCH CRAZY FUN.

Afterwards, we discussed our cast Sondheim Cafe, to be held the last week of school, where we shall each present a song from Sondheim’s oeuvre, and perhaps stage some group numbers as well. We’re thinking of opening with the Forbidden Broadway parody “Into the Words” (that trip your lip and fry your brain and sprain your tongue…), then having the girls do “Everybody Ought to Have A Maid” from A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum and the boys do “I Feel Pretty” from West Side Story. I’m toying with the idea of doing “Lovely” or “That’ll Show Him” from Forum or something from West Side Story, but I’m very much open to suggestions. I know surprisingly little Sondheim, though that’s about to change, as Jill burned me practically his entire body of work last week. I’m just missing Frogs and Saturday Night, but if anyone has suggestions from one of those shows, I’m sure someone else in the cast could provide me with an mp3.

Now trying to download tonight’s Lost. It’s being quite stubborn and slow, so I probably won’t be able to watch until tomorrow morning. If only I HADN’T BEEN SPOILED BY SOME IDIOT THAT DOESN’T KNOW HOW TO USE A FRICKIN’ LJ-CUT!!! Not that I’m in the slightest bit bitter. Oh well, I just know ONE huge, honkin’ spoiler and none of the context, so please, no one post anything spoilery in the comments until tomorrow.

There are four new clips of tonight’s episode of Lost up on Yahoo. I’m choosing not to see them for fear of spoilers (and I’ll be able to see everything after rehearsal), but if you find yourself channeling pre-“Moth” Charlie and craving the Smackfarthing, be my guest!

And I should probably clarify re: the fandom post “Hall of Shame.” For a lot of those listed, ie Animaniacs, The Phantom Tollbooth, Pinky and the Brain, Earthworm Jim, etc, the shows/books themselves aren’t shameful, but my fannish devotion certainly was. Past Me makes Present Me recoil in unholy terror. I was obsessed. Think of the extent of my fannishness now. Compared to me at age 9, I’m downright mellow.

Oh, and one fandom I’ve noticed that I left out of the Hall of Shame was “Little Shop of Horrors.” I dressed up as Audrey II for Halloween in second grade. Don’t ask how that works.

Working on the environment for my old ladies. Meant to make flourescent lights. Turned up the “glow” too high on first guess. Made a lightsaber¹.

I *so* need to make “outtake” images of my grannies in a Duel of the Fates. And then I’ll put one of them in my Imperial walker from last semester.

I really need to get out more.

¹Ignore that the models are unposed and that I’m still in the preliminary stages of modeling and texturing and lighting the environment. And that the models are still in basic T-pose. Cookies: Hattie and Edna.

Ganked from Moni: Fandom Meme!

a. Post a list of 15 fandoms.
b. Have your friends guess your favourite character from each one.
c. When guessed, bold the line, include the character name, and write a sentence about why you like that character.

I have nothing even approaching 15 actual fandoms right now, but I certainly have had 15 fandoms over the course of my lifetime! Starting now and moving in more-or-less reverse-chronological order. I’m sure there’s more than one major fandom I’m completely failing to remember.

1. Lost
2. Buffy and Angel
3. Firefly
4. X-Men movieverse
5. Lord of the Rings
6. Sandman
7. Good Omens
8. Discworld
9. RENT
10. Harry Potter
11. Star Wars Extended Universe
12. The X-Files
13. The Hitchhiker’s Guide
14. Animorphs
15. Star Wars

My Top 10 Early Fandoms aka the Hall of Shame (in no particular order)

1. Gilligan’s Island
2. Sonic the Hedgehog
3. The Phantom Tollbooth
4. Archie comics
5. Animaniacs
6. Pinky and the Brain
7. Earthworm Jim
8. Real Monsters
9. Back to the Future
10. The Simpsons (not shameful per se, but my fannishness certainly was)

When commenting with your answers, use regular numerals for the late-to-current fandoms and s1, s2, etc for the Fandoms of Shame.

Oh no! Whedonesque reports that David Fury has left Lost. His four episodes are among my favourites: Walkabout (Locke), Solitary (Sayid), Special (Michael), and Numbers (Hurley). Major sadness. On a happier note, Lost has been renewed for a second season, as if there were ever any doubt.

Tangentially related: Haha, I knew the name of the actor who plays Ethan sounded familiar! He’s Tom Cruise’s cousin. *snorks* Mapother.

Teh wha? Peter David, writer for the upcoming Spike graphic novel, posted the artwork for the first few pages. (Note: It’s quite graphic–avoid the last two pages if you’d rather not see a bunch of Victorians bleeding from the eyes) On one hand, I’m quite pleased, as Fernando Goni’s illustrations show an unusually good resemblance for comic book adaptations, but what we can glean from the storyline has me (and a fair chunk of the fandom by now) seriously confused.

(The following contains spoilers for the last three seasons of Buffy and season 5 of Angel. Blogger has no equivalent of the LJ-cut. Fair warning.)

Okay, so we knew that Cecily and Halfrek were one and the same from the brief moment of recognition in “Older and Far Away,” and we knew Cecily was a Vengance Demon in 1880 when she pulled the diss and dismiss on William, as she and Anya recall wacky vengance hijinks during the Crimean War (1854-1856) in “Lessons”, so that much is okay. But if Hallie kills off all the people that make fun of William at the party, then who exactly does William earn his nickname with, torturing them with railroad spikes? I always assumed he started with guy at the party that inadvertently gave him the idea.

We know from “Fool for Love” that the whole “spike” thing happened while he was still in London, though his dynamic with Angelus later in the episode indicates that at least a few weeks have passed. It can’t have been too long; we know it’s still 1880 from the tagline. Hmm, cross-referenced with “Destiny”… the events surrounding Dru’s infidelity have to take place in between the two 1880 “Fool for Love” scenes, because it’s in “Destiny” that Angelus tells him to find a new name. Also, the events most likely occur after the events of “Lies My Parents Told Me”, as Dru still calls him William, and Will appears not to know about Darla and Angelus yet (or at least has no reasons to not want to travel with them) and remains naively confident of Dru’s fidelity.

I had always imagined the chronology went: Cecily and the other aristocrats shame William at the party, Dru turns William, a few days pass (Anne: “I’ve been beside myself for days!), William returns home and turns his mother, William stakes his mother’s demon, William is thoroughly traumatized and does not attempt to reconnect with anyone he knew as a human, Dru brings William back to meet Angelus and Darla, William and Angelus engage in zany hijinks, Angelus and Dru do the wild monkey dance, (William’s hatred of Angelus begins! Angelus encourages “Willy” to find a better name, one less likely to encourage penis jokes), in his rage, William hunts down all those that mocked him and proves his machoness torturing them with rainroad spikes (Ooh! Dru’s infidelities with Angel provoke William to try to prove he can be like Angelus, so he goes out and slaughters all the bullies in a delightfully ironic way, like a good little Emo boy that has acquired superpowers and a handgun), the four are chased out of London by an angry mob, William adopts the moniker “Spike” (and Angelus facepalms).

Issues with this series of events: William has already dropped his upper class accent by the time he returns for his mother, but if he hasn’t met Angelus by that point, Angelus wouldn’t know his old accent, and wouldn’t question him about it in the Yorkshire scene (the second 1880 scene) in “Fool for Love.” Though if I recall correctly, William is already most of the way to the typical Spike accent when he meets Angelus in “Destiny,” so there’s really no hedging that. Though Petrie’s “Fool for Love” commentary makes it clear that Angelus is remarking about William’s new accent when he remarks “And when did you start talking like that?”, perhaps in retrospect, we could twist canon and assert that Angelus is talking about William’s sudden burst of confidence. For the first time, William holds his ground and stands up to Angelus. The line “when did you start talking like that?” makes sense both ways. Bwaha, my retrospective logic is awesome! I should work for the Bush administration.

And I realize I’ve gone off on a tangent for the overwhelming majority of this post and haven’t even confronted the plot hole discontinuity these few pages of the comic present. If Hallie kills all of William’s detractors, who does William have left to torture? Random strangers? In order to follow Angelus’ style, they should be people William has a connection with.

Joss has been Jossed.

Hopefully, we’ll get a clearer idea of where Peter David is going with this newer, more sympathetic Cecily when the actual comic comes out. I couldn’t find a release date, and it’s not among the comics listed in the “Coming Soon” section of the IDW website through June, but the Angel comic is slated for June and it’s not listed there either. *shrug*

*reads back over post*

Wow, I am a deeply pathetic person. This wasn’t supposed to be a quarter of the length it turned out to be. But my new observation that William was SO COMPLETELY EMO is worth it. The geeky glasses, the crying in public, the obsession with the Popular Girl who most likely barely knows he exists, the poetry with the word “effulgent” in it, the vows of eternal love with the loopy goth girl that finds him in tears in the alley… and to be left-handed in the Victorian era! Oh, the angst! Thank god I don’t write fanfic, because this is just begging to be mocked shamelessly.

I’ll be getting back to my schoolwork now.

Oh, and I also took a long, leisurely shower. Mmm.

In other news: FFF.n has more on the Serenity comic.

I feel fantastic.

Oh, Ben, you may have been a moron for coming up with the notion of Daylight Savings Time, but that whole thing about “early to bed, early to rise” was right on the money.

I finished my homework for today quickly, so last night I went to sleep at 10:30. I woke up this morning just after 6, feeling refreshed and fabulous. And now, for all the things I’ve accomplished this morning, I feel like it might as well be mid-afternoon, when it’s not even 11 yet. I got a real breakfast at Izzy and Zoe’s, the Jewish deli right across the street, replenished my wallet, got change to do laundry (at Harnwell, as my building’s change machine is out), went grocery shopping for real food (not just Ramen!), and now my clothes are in the dryer.

Also, the weather is GORGEOUS. Dazzling sunlight and a temperature flirting with 60.

Yeah, today is a good day to be me.

Young James Bond: ORL33T!

Excuse me as I spend the next decade of my life laughing uncontrollably, bursting several internal organs in the process. Tanja is going to love this.

I may be responsible for doubling our time allotted to work on Project 3 for my Virtual World Design class. It was going to be due the last Monday of class (April 18th), and today Norm (the professor) proposed moving the date to the Wednesday after (April 20th). I asked why we didn’t just have our final critique in our designated exam slot (May 6th), like Fine Arts courses do. Apparently, this had not occurred to him. Now, if the whole class agrees to it, the new deadline will be moved to May 5th. I AM SO GOOD! And now I don’t have to worry about my animated opening sequence infringing on time I could be spending on my 3D animation final project!