Friday, July 12

 
this poor blog has been suffering so terribly. it needs attention. i'm thinking of revamping when i get back from hawaii (yes, hawaii, the tropical destination for which i depart in 11.5 hours!!!) giving this place a facelift. but for now... i had this idea that it would be neat if i could come up with eight mini-entries right now - one for every day i'm going to be gone. and then people could read them all at once and get their fill, or save one for each day that i am gone. you know, to help my fans through this dry spell. well, i'm telling you right now that i'm a goddamned failure. but i did make it through five. so just try to spread them out...

one

the warped tour was great fun yesterday. just thinking about it makes me smile. and jump around and play air guitar.

band that got me the sweatiest: something corporate. we moved around some, but not tons, so maybe that was the noon heat. or guitarist william tell in ray-bans.
song that made me go the most nuts: "understanding (in a car crash)" by thursday. i feel an obsession coming on with that band.
saddest moment: walking by the criterion stage (basically an upside-down shoebox tossed off to the side of a sidewalk) and seeing that a band was playing without a single soul stopped to listen. not a one. eveyrone just kept passing by. i wanted to give them the thumbs up sign to be encouraging, but i didn't want them to think i was mocking them. so if you were the sad fanless band and you happen to read this blog: keep up the good work, fellas.
coolest discovery of the day: in addition to bandaids and excedrin (which i needed), first aid paramedics also carry a hefty supply of tampons. in a huge zipper case the size of a turkey (not the shape, though.) also, they like to pop wheelies in wheelchairs (which they've stolen from orphans, i think.)
best new phrase: "ya bastards" when used in reference to friends or strangers. examples: "sing it, ya bastards!" or "a pint of guiness for breakfast, ya bastards!" thank you for bringing the culture to us, flogging molly.
moment i cheered the loudest: when something corporate revealed that spin magazine had named them "the biggest pussies on the warped tour" (and with good reason.) (but damned if it isn't sexy watching a young boy stomp around on his piano keys barefoot)
people who kicked my ass the hardest: the fifteen-year-old girls crowding the stage for new found glory. i got a boot to the face and my friend joe got crushed under a falling mass of teeny-boppers.
people who kicked my brother's ass the hardest: the thirteen-year-old girls crowding the stage for something corporate. he got knocked flat on his ass during their "mosh pit".

two

i thought bedazzled was going to be on hbo right now. they put up commercials for it and i got all worked up. but it's memento (though guy pierce topless = still good) (and he does NOT have a chest double, ya lyin' bastards.) sad because i just wanted some good old-fashioned oscar-worthy brendan.

(this is a week blog, i know. cut me some slack. for the love of god, i'm not some blogging machine, built to type amusing stories for your amusement. read a book or something.)

(side note: how sad would it be if your wife was raped by a drug addict while you were under the same roof, and then if you hit your head when you tried to save her and couldn't make new memories, and then spent the rest of your days trying to avenge her death, but remembering if you already had or not? pretty sad.)

three

i recently finished one of the best books i have ever read - coraline by neil gaiman. it is a splendid alice in wonderland-type tale. i recommend it to anyone who knows how to read. anyway, one of the characters in the book is a talking black cat. the other night when my friend lindy dropped me off, i whirled around to find a black cat sitting on a low brick wall by my house (exactly as the talking cat does in said book.) i had never seen the cat before, and before i could even think to stop myself, i found myself testing the cat by carefully making eye contact and uttering a loud, deliberate, "hello." in the same instant where i realized how crazy i was for sincerely expecting a response, i looked up to notice a couple sitting nearby in the dark, staring at me. their eyes clearly said, "sad that that girl is so young and yet so CRAZY." why can't i act like a normal person?

four

i never finished talking about the trip to las vegas. so, just in case anyone has been left hanging for the past month...

day three was again spent lounging by the pool. two notable events from that morning/afternoon: 1) my younger brother ordered a pina colada because he is a pansy (we take any opportunity to mock the manhood of my brothers); 2) an announcement was made over the loud speaker making the following statement:

the south pool will be closed momentarily due to sanitation issues. again, the south pool will be closed in a few minutes due to a sanitation problem.

we happened to be swimming in one of the two pools at that very moment, and there was a moment of absolute silence as everyone in the water looked anxiously at each other. we were all thinking the same thing: caddy shack. then our lifeguard leapt from his chair and shouted:

WE'RE THE NORTH POOL!!!

you've never heard such cheers erupt in a vegas swimming pool.

that night turned out to be the coolest as we headed over to the hardrock casino. i've never felt so cool in my entire life. that place is so fun and young and untacky and just cool compared to every casino on the strip. i felt straight out of ocean's eleven. i can now see why people can become addicted to gambling. at one point i found myself making $20 bets like they were nothing.

we crawled back to the aladdin at 5:30am because we ran out of money. lindy the badass drove straight home and janelle and i slept until the morning. after a bout of the strongman competition on tv we loaded up and went home. so that was the end of our adventure. and i only managed to lose my purse once all weekend. success.

five

last weekend i went to san diego to visit some friends. on the way back home, i (predictably) couldn't find the freeway onramp. as i was looking around, i sawa sign for the aquarium, and i thought to myself, i should go check out the aquarium. it was really the signs for the special seahorse exhibit that really got me going. it was kind of fun doing something like that on the spur of the moment, by myself. but of course me being alone like that for so long leads to ridiculousness.

it started when i was looking in one of the display tanks and i saw that there were tiny little babies floating around at the top. i was so excited that i automatically turned to share that exuberance with someone, but then i remembered that i was alone - very, very alone. i lingered around by the tank for a few minutes, hoping an opportunity would present itself so that i could bring it up to one of the strangers obliviously passing by, without looking like a crazy person. sadly, no such non-lunatic opportunity presented itself. so i moved on.

then disaster struck. i went on to a display presenting the methods in which the scientists must extract the babies from the tank, because seahorses are a threatened race and marine biologists must preserve their numbers at all costs. there were even a number of tanks filled soley with babies, demonstrating how scientists protect the little buggers. when i saw this i started to get really anxious. obviously the scientists hadn't noticed the new babies. those wee seahorses were obviously in grave peril, and i was the only one who could save them.

very distressed, i began a careful (read: half-ass) search for a scientist who could help me save those precious lives. on the way i noticed another tank of searhorses. and these ones are trapped inside tubes of seaweed by this point i'm near-aneurysm, worked up into an absolute panic at this point, and i all i can do is look around frantically for anyone in a lab coat, while my brain is screaming, someone help these seahorses! they're slowly dying inside the seaweed!! and somebody help those babies!!!!

in the end, i realized that they weren't trapped - that particular species has actually just developed seaweed-like appendages as a sort of camouflage. and i'm pretty sure the "babies" were actually sea monkeys (read: fish food.)

why is my life such drama?
posted by from shannon at 11:56 PM

Wednesday, July 10

 
i was very sad this morning when i saw that yet another one of my favorite things has been infected by the disease that is n'sync (the other one being chili's babyback ribs [barbeque sauce].) today i read that joey fatone will be starring as mark in the musical rent - on broadway, of all places. are there no standards anymore? can any monkey with multi-colored hair get onto the stage? i think what most upset me about the whole thing was quote from this article:

Though the move marks Fatone's first foray into theatre, acting has clearly revealed itself to be his second calling.

oh, it has? and how has it done that - through on the line? or maybe it was his breakthrough role (listed by imdb as "cook at pizzeria") in the cinematic classic longshot.

in other dismaying news, one of my two best friends is anorexic. i'll let you guess which one.
posted by from shannon at 11:34 AM