Denied!!!

Last night I went to the Mix 99.9 "Scary Carrie Hallowe'en Party" at the CN Tower. I won four tickets, but due to the fact that everyone I know was either in Arizona or at a wedding, I went with just my sibling. It was still fun though, aside from the costume competition. My thumb still aches from the number of times I jabbed it with the needle putting the finishing touches on my costume, but the girl who won wrapped herself up in toilet paper, poured blood on herself, and pinned a sign to her chest that said "Carrie's Revenge". I didn't win the trip to New Orleans either, because it was a draw and they'd neglected to point us over to the ballot box, which led to Simon's theory that the costume judges were the people running the draw. Not that I'm bitter or anything. Ah well.

There was one up side -- we were set free to run loose in the set design exhibit, and you could touch things and take pictures. One of the sets was from my character's movie (and for those of you who don't know what I was, I'm keeping it a surprise till I get the pictures back -- though I still can't access my webspace, is anyone willing to host for me?), so at least I should get some great pictures out of the night. And running around on the glass floor of the CN Tower was fun, until the glass made a cracking noise (I wasn't hallucinating, the people around us heard it too). Then I started sticking to the metal cross beams. I know I wasn't about to fall through the floor, but DUDE! Cracking noise! Very unnerving when you're looking down several thousand feet.

I was, in all, quite pleased with this year's costume (though it can be incredibly hot -- I need to look at making seasonal modifications), and I think this one may replace the gypsy costume as my what-will-I-wear? mainstay. Then I can justify buying the expensive things to replace my crappy-ass hot glued accessories. Whee!
posted by Sarah E. at 1:46 PM

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Snicker

This game of The Sims is a little sick, a lot twisted, and incredibly funny. Thanks, Thomas.
posted by Sarah E. at 8:10 PM

Something to Talk About

Part of the reason the blogging has fallen off is, I think, related to the whole not writing thing -- aside from the whole getting-home-at-10-p.m. thing, I can't think of much to talk about. I really don't want this blog to degenerate into "this is what I did today", especially since most of those would be "I had breakfast, went to work, did after-work-thing-of-the-day, got home, and went to bed" -- I think the best blogs are a combination of the blogger's life and random musings on things. The trouble is, I'm doing so much these days that my brain's not doing much random musing. Or writing. Which really has to change.

There is one neat addition to my life to report, though. Geoff, the TCS conductor, send the choir's recording of Carmina Burana to someone who I believe is the Russian Minister of Culture, or something along those lines. He liked what he heard, and long story short, in May 2006 we're going to tour Russia. How cool is that? So I'm starting to save up now. It's going to run us close to $3000 each, but how can I not go?

posted by Sarah E. at 7:03 PM

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Unmitigated Glee Augmented

So today at work was pretty good. On my way to work I stopped by the bookstore and got Michelle's ARC of the third Rachel Caine book (and I have to pause here for a SQUEEEEE!). So my reading material for the weekend is taken care of.

I got to work and discovered in my file the following:

1. An origami box containing mini KitKats from the Origami society, in thanks for the birthday weekend stuff last week.
   
2. A message from HR telling me I just got a $0.50 raise.

Then, while trying to figure out what the heck the horns in the back cupboard are from, Tazeen told me I have groupies.

And I got a drawing of me from a little girl named Norah. It's just a bunch of squiggles, but she was really, really cute.

All in all, a pretty good day.
posted by Sarah E. at 1:05 AM

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Unmitigted Glee Addendum

Further glee:

Karina responds, and I now know how I'll be spending my Christmas money.
posted by Sarah E. at 5:54 PM

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Unmitigated Glee

Today has been a day for glee. We got SUMMONED TO DESTINY in at Bakka, and I saw the preliminary cover art for another book about which I am very excited. So Karina and I decided to celebrate. With Knight Rider.

Our love for this show goes way back. At this point, over half our lives. I was four when the show first aired, but fell in love in grade 7-8 when it reran on the New VR. I won't detail the complete depths of my geekery, but it went pretty deep (I was writing Knight Rider fanfiction before I knew what fanfiction was). I'd have to sneak my episode-watching in, too, or risk merciless teasing from my father. So I'd hide in the living room and quickly change the channel if anyone arrived home early.

We watched the godawful movie, Knight Rider 2000, last night. Which really needs to be buried forever, not included as a bonus on the DVDs. The depths of it's badness cannot be truly explored without risking madness, but it is exactly like watching really bad fanfiction. There the same characters, but none of the character voices were anywhere close to accurate, they act completely out of character, and the writers utterly disregard the whole point of the show. And how the frell can you have a Knight Rider movie without one single turbo boost, anyway? We don't care that the car's a boat now, just make it jump over something, dammit!

Which is why we had to cleanse ourselves with a classic season one episode afterward. And another one today.

Yes, the show is incredibly dated (ohhh, the sunglasses...), and remains incredibly cheesy (hmmm, what has Bonnie installed today? I wonder if that oxygen vent will come in handy in the near future...), but dammit, it's fun. It's hard to put into words the unmitigated glee Karina and I felt during today's episode ("Inside Out", for the curious) when KITT leaped the police roadblock. But here's an idea. It necessitated the rewatching of that 30 seconds at least nine times.

Maybe you have to have been indoctrinated as a pre-teen to truly experience the joy that is this show. Or maybe Karina and I just established our SF geekhood very, very early. Because it was never Michael that we wanted for our very own.

It was KITT.
posted by Sarah E. at 9:54 PM

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Of Party Mice and Paper Cranes

Okay, it's been a while since I've blogged. I have no good excuse, really, but that between one thing and another, I get home these days between 9 and 10 p.m. It doesn't leave a lot of time for extras.

Today is the 5th Birthday weekend of the Biodiversity Gallery, and to celebrate, we're having a scavenger hunt (very hastily thrown together during the week by me and a couple of supervisors). To help out, Amanda has brought in her mouse puppet, Gretchen, who is currenly wearing a party hat, because it's the gallery's birthday. Also in to help out are the Origami Society of Toronto, which seems to be going over fairly well, and it's nice to have something to do while half the museum is closed for renovations.

Other than that, life continues to careen madly in a holding pattern. I really have no fingernails left because an editor told me my manuscript had been misfiled and that he'd have an answer to me within 48 hours (later amended to "the next issue is first priority but I'll get to the submissions as soon as possible"), which has not been great for my nerves. And Karina and I have rediscovered the Grade 8 joy that was Knight Rider (the Amazon review is quite correct -- "the cheesiest show in existence unless you first watched it at an impressionable age").

I have a few rants and things, but those will have to wait for another day.

Oh, and I have not forgotten about my author site. It's just that, ever since Rogers merged with Yahoo, I've been locked out of my web account and nobody can seem to figure out how to get me access again. I'll be switching to sff.net shortly, but until then, it looks like my website is frozen in time. Grrr.
posted by Sarah E. at 1:45 PM

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