Happy Birthday to GEORGE WASHINGTON and EDWARD GOREY. I hope you all enjoyed a lovely LINCOLN IS BETTER THAN WILSON DAY yesterday!
Tori Amos’ Beekeeper came out today, but when I stopped by the bookstore to pick up a copy, I saw that they had ridiculously overpriced it, so I ordered a copy off Amazon. It should arrive in a few days. Hurrah!
In other news, Tori is coming to Philly April 11th! The Monday after Lady in the Dark finishes!
Any other Philly denizens care to join me?
Guess who’s having two of her HP fanart images published in Movie Magic Magazine? BOOYEAH. Massive huggage and infinite thanks to Heidi and Alicey for making it happen! Alicey and Moni are getting several images each, as well! My two images are Harry and the Hungarian Horntail (collab w/ Alicey) and Hermione and the Founders (collab with Mon). I’ll let Al and Moni can fill you in on the details of their images. :D
Hilarious: Bill Maher on Jeff Gannon
Rebecca — you may have noticed that I accidentally ended up with both ethernet cords. Email me with an address where I can send yours back to you.
Mozilla Firefox just may be the sexiest browser in world history. Now if only I can figure out how to get it so that it opens a duplicate window of the current page when I press Ctrl+N, rather than the home page.
Oh, and by the way, I’m home.
I left Rebecca’s cousin’s house in Long Beach at 4:25. We hit every red light on the way to the LIRR station (Rebecca’s cousin drove us, as we didn’t have time to walk), and arrived instants before the train left. Fortunately, there was another guy racing to make the train, so the conductor held it for us. Triumph! Rebecca and I hugged and said our goodbyes, and my Grand Public Transportation Adventure began!
Once I arrived at Penn Station in NYC (about 5:15), I picked up a smoothie, knowing I wouldn’t be able to eat until about 8 (lunch was at 3), then I used my awesome subway near-photographic memory to navigate the system WITHOUT AID OF A MAP. Of course, I only had to change trains once, but still. That’s kind of awesome. I rode to the East Broadway stop, the closest to the Chinatown bus stop, and walked the remaining blocks to 88 E Broadway, arriving at about 6:15, then I just chilled at the stop and waited for the 6:30 bus to arrive.
At 6:45, they were still loading passengers for nothing but DC buses. Watching frantic Chinese women gesticulating wildly at groups of people and giant vehicles, shouting “DCDCDC!” is amusing for the first two minutes, but after 30, I had a headache. The potent auto fumes and the reek of a dozen smokers in tight confines may have contributed.
At 7:15, the natives were getting restless. More and more buses kept coming for DC passengers, but we had not heard hide nor hair from any bus bound for Philadelphia. Murmurings of mutiny were heard from within the ranks, and also refunds.
At 7:40, the first Philadelphia bus came! I put my bag in the luggage compartment and threw myself into the melee, thronging to give the compact yet surprisingly muscular Chinese women their tickets. I managed to get to the front, but because there were so many people and not nearly enough bus seats, they weren’t taking money, only pre-purchased tickets. As my ticket was originally for 4PM, they wouldn’t let me on. They actually shut the door in my face. Fiends!
The next bus came at 7:50. Rumors were circulating that because it was snowing in Philadelphia, the next after this wouldn’t arrive until 9:30. One plucky traveller started a chant of “Where’s the other bus?”, which went on about a minute before we got bored. Again, I put my bag in the luggage compartment and squirmed my way towards the front of the line, but the other travellers were just too determined. Third-class passengers on the Titanic struggling to reach a free lifeboat exhibited less drive. The bus filled up quickly, and before I reached the front of the line, the doors were closed. Several obnoxious women clammored for refunds, while I exclaimed that I didn’t care about a refund, I just wanted to go home. When they denied my plea to sit on the floor, the overhead compartment, the luggage bin, or even the roof, several would-be passengers joined me for a cathartic scream of rage.
“Two buses in five minutes!” the Chinese ladies promised (as they had been saying every five minutes for the past hour), but we were getting desperate. At 8:15, I pushed and shoved with all my might, knowing that any bus we encountered might be the last until 9:30. It was like a toy store the day before Christmas, only a hundred times worse. Finally, I managed to make my way to the front of the line, thrust my money at the ticket taker, and didn’t pause to allow them to try and stop me. I struck a dramatic pose, shouted with glee, and found a nice window seat. And once again, valor and courage triumph over evil! Or maybe bloody-mindedness and a wicked right hook triumph over old ladies and small children that just don’t want it enough.
I got back to my dorm at about 10:30 and basked in the glow of central heating. Oh, did I mention that for the 2 hours I was stuck at the station, we were outside, without cover, with temperatures in the upper 20s or lower 30s? Because that was the case. Yeah, that wasn’t fun. But now it’s over, and it’s snowing, and it’s pretty, and maybe my Animation class will be cancelled so that I don’t have to worry about redoing this walk cycle? Yeah, keep dreaming, Spencer.
David Boreanaz to direct a feature film? Largely featuring Alan Cumming? I am so entertained.
Also,
Pope compares Abortion to Holocaust; Secular Liberalism to Totalitarianism
And coming Dec 31st, a cute-looking 3D animated movie called Happily N’Ever After.
Also, London Nuclear Plant Loses 30 kg Plutonium. I’m surprised they haven’t phoned Adam Young’s parents about the disappearance.
Bonus: Priscilla’s Government Coolness in the Face of Technology Award goes to Senators Cornyn and Leahy.
Excuse me whilst I weep openly. Link ganked from Will. Gah, this is painful.
Hi. I’m in New York.
I actually wanted to leave this entry at that, because I would find it tremendously funny, but some of my readers (read: my parents) might be confused and/or concerned. Therefore, I shall explain myself, even though it detracts somewhat from the sense of glee I get from being deliberately mysterious and coy. It’s Rebecca’s last weekend here before she goes back to Vermont (“The only state with secession rights! So conceivably, we could break away from the United States and form our own country, with Howard Dean as our king.” -R) and it would be difficult for us to get together, and all my homework this weekend is portable, so I decided to be adventurous and take the Chinatown bus (2 hours each way, $20 round trip!) to The Abnormally Large, Firm, Edible Fruit of a Deciduous Eurasian Tree.
Wow. Being around Rebecca has freed my inner dork. Well, freed more than usual, that is. Having Ko as a roommate keeps my inner dork fairly outer already. But when you sit in a diner drinking toasty hot chocolate and reminiscing about the dawn of fandom until they kick you out because they’re closing, it’s a whole different dynamic. The camaraderie of the early days of WOFS, the Mary Sue-induced shame… my god, she now has such dirt on my “my age was still in the single digits” fandom days; I can never insult Woodrow Wilson again.
Of course, you know I’ll be back to mocking him mercilessly tomorrow.
Anyway, I’m off to cavort merrily about with Rebecca and try to get our laptop link to work. I’ll leave you with A Parent’s Guide to 1337, ganked from Ashley, and a preview of the artwork for the upcoming Serenity comic. And Becky posted a bunch of HHGTG trailer screencaps, because she’s just that cool. Tra la!