I have tickets for tomorrow's midnight showing. Actually, it's for the 12:20 showing, but you get the point. It looks awesome. Counting down...

If you're jonesing for the best summer guilty pleasure, which is, in case you don't already know, summer blockbusters, you can skip Transformers. The dialogue is hokey, the action is not nearly as good as the first movie, and the robots just aren't as cool as they could be. Bummer, right? If, however, you'd prefer and decent laugh, check out Year One. It's basically what you'd expect, though, so if you don't like that sort of thing, ignore the fact that your sense of humor is lacking and skip it. It's good for a laugh. Huge cast, including the guy who played Igor in Ghostbusters. (I'm terrible with actors' names.)

As for the second part of the title, I'm totally stoked to find out that I will meet Joey McIntyre at the next NKOTB concert I go to (in July). He is running a book drive, and he asked for volunteers for each venue. I was one of the people chosen for the Concord show. Woo Hoo! Not only will I be able to do a good thing (I can never say that without thinking about Martha Stewart) by collecting books for kids who might otherwise not receive any new books, but I also get to meet one of the five guys who graced every inch of my bedroom wall as a teenager. It won't be for long, but we will meet him, get our photo taken with him, and he will e-mail the photo to us. Happyhappyjoyjoy

And for a somber ending to this post, a goodbye to Michael Jackson. He may have been a freak in his latter years, but I proudly donned a silver-gloved shirt in the third and fourth grades.

I got back from Kentucky on Friday. It was a good trip, if you exclude the hours upon hours of reading really bad high school AP English exams. Okay, there were a few good ones, but they didn't quite make up for the rest of the utter pap.

For fun, I went to the usual pub and brewery. I also went to a Louisville Bats game. Fun stuff. I practiced with the Derby City Roller Girls a couple of times; they were awesome. They are collectively much faster than my league, but other than that, it's fairly comparable.

I also had to take the annual photo with the colonel:

When does it ever rain when there is only a 30% chance of rain? Well, it did today. And today was the first roller derby home bout. We got rained out. It was one of those days that when it rains, it pours, and in oh so many ways. I won't go into it here.

But I had some friends who were going to watch the bout who hung around and we went out for dinner instead. It was nice seeing them. Silver lining or something.

Ack! How could I not have realized that Sugar Ray is releasing a new CD in two short months??? And why oh why do I need to be out of town when they will be performing in Reno??? And why is Vegas a seven hour drive and they will be playing there in just two days??? Does anyone want to drive down that morning and then drive back that night??? No, me neither. Sigh...

I went to a music festival in Japan to see them play back in 2004, I think it was. They were awesome. I used to have the biggest crush on Mark McGrath back then. (Yes, I know, it's totally stereotypical, but I've always crushed on guys in bands.) Then he had to host ET. Ick.

If you're interested in hearing a new summer song, head over to their website, and the song (Boardwalk?) will be playing.

I have a friend here in town who is nearly impossible to plan things with. She never answers her phone and rarely checks her messages. We've been planning to go rafting everyday since Monday, and today it finally happened.

It has been a gorgeous day. The weather couldn't be more perfect for spending the day on the river. We parked at Idlewild Park and then floated on down through the downtown area. It was fun. She didn't want to go on the main section downtown, so we detoured through the kiddie area. :) It was much more fun than tubing down the river, because each time I've done that, I left the river thinking I nearly escaped death. We started early enough so that I could make it to practice today at six, but I think I might skip it anyway. The sun always wears me out.


The Truckee River

The May Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Linda of make life sweeter! and Courtney of Coco Cooks. They chose Apple Strudel from the recipe book Kaffeehaus: Exquisite Desserts from the Classic Cafés of Vienna, Budapest and Prague by Rick Rodgers.

I'd never made apple strudel before. It was definitely time-consuming, but it did not require a lot of my attention. Most of the time was spent waiting for the dough to sit for a while, getting nice and comfy for my rolling pin. Here's a photo of the dough just chillaxin' and waiting to be rolled into thinness:



Once it was done basking in laziness, I slapped it onto my floured workspace and was ready to roll.



And so I did some rollin', rollin', rollin'...



Good old dough, though, wanted more than my rolling pin, so I decided to pick it up, pretend to swing it around a bit, but in all actuality, I was actually carefully letting gravity do what it does best and pull the dough downwards, thereby stretching it far better than the poor rolling pin ever could.



After the dough was so thin that, as one Daring Baker put it, you could read a love letter through it (aww...), I sprinkled it with breadcrumbs, and then topped the center part with the apple mixture (apples, sugar (not much!; apples are sweet enough as the are), cinnamon, and raisins soaked in rum).



And then I rolled it up, baked it, and took it to a very odd graduation party. (How odd was it, you ask? It was so odd... that of the three men there, only one had his front teeth. I might delete this soon out of guilt that my friend whose party if was may see this, but really, c'mon!) I hate to admit this, but I failed to get a photo of the finished product. I know, I suck. And the photos that I do have were taken with my camera (hooray!) because I figured out that I can still take pictures by looking out of the viewfinder thingy. However, because the display does not display anything, I cannot change anything on the menu, including the photo settings, so I'm stuck in whatever mode it happens to be in, which is a bit annoying but better than nothing.

So this weekend was filled with a bunch of misses. I was supposed to go out dancing with my friend Ruin, but she had a migraine in the morning and canceled, but then felt better and e-mailed me in the early evening. I didn't check my e-mail until I was already settled for the night, so I had to miss that. Then yesterday I was supposed to go rafting with my friend Milhouse, but I wasn't sure about the time, so I went to the gym and then when I got home, I didn't check my phone for messages until about an hour later. Turns out I'd missed the call right about the time I left for the gym and missed the raft right about the time I was getting dressed. Ah, well. It was an uneventful weekend for the start of my summer vacation, but I'm sure there will be fun-filled times soon.

Next weekend is Battle Born Derby Demons' first home bout. I will be skating in it. Ack! I was nervous for the first bout, but I'm ten times as nervous for this one, because it's at home and people that I know might possibly be there. How terribly, terribly embarrassing. I really stink. I should be much, much better. That said, I'm still excited to be skating. It's an accomplishment in itself to make the bouting team. There are a few girls on the league who are boiling mad about not making it. I get two free tickets to each home bout. I have offered them to two friends who have said they are interested in going, but if they can't make it, I might have one or two up for grabs. Also, KRZQ is giving away tickets this week. You just have to be the third caller or something along those lines.



Finally, I thought I'd share photos of things I've been eating over the past few weeks. The photos are not very good or very clear, since they were taken with my webcam (thanks, V, for reminding me that I can do this!).

If you remember, I gave up my lifelong hatred of red meat a few weeks ago when I had meatballs for the first time, possibly in years, or possibly ever, since I decided at a very young age that I hated red meat (excluding, oddly enough, processed red meat that really can't be worse for you, such as pepperoni, bologna, bacon, etc.). I decided that I needed to try making some of my own. I made them with ground veal, beef, and pork, and added pecorino cheese to them. Om nom nom... so delicious!

Meatballs


The Daring Bakers have added a Daring Cook challenge every month. Although I missed making this in the allotted time, I finally got around to it last week or so. It was a very basic lasagna. I've made better, but even so, here's the pic:

Lasagna

Have I said how I adore the Food Network?

So today Coach Kraven told me that he hadn't known that Saturday's bout was my first. He said that when he found that out, he was pretty impressed. For my first time, he said I did really well and that although I'm not there yet, I'm going to be a good jammer. He said that I have the speed, but I just need some of the other skills now. I disagreed and said I don't think I'm fast enough at all, but he insisted. He no way implied that I was actually good on Saturday, but he made me feel really good in that for my first time, I should have been much worse. Hooray for small accomplishments. :)

In other news, I saw Angels and Demons after practice today. My friend Curvy wanted to see it. It was a fun movie. Not anything serious or deep by any means, but it was a fun summer watch. I didn't like the book, so I definitely thought the movie was better. Since I hadn't read the book for about five years, I'd forgotten how it ended, so the suspense in the movie actually worked for me.

I was in my first bout this past Saturday. It was in Stockton, CA, against the Port City Roller Girls. I sucked, but my cherry was popped and I am no longer a bouting virgin. Hooray for that.

I'd never been to Stockton, and if fate smiles down upon me, I will never have to go to Stockton ever again. Is there anything good about that city? If so, I didn't see it.

As for the bout, well, it was a joke. When we arrived at the venue, the girls from PCRG were really nice. They directed us to our tent, and when we got there, we saw that they'd placed welcome favors for us. We each had shot glasses with mini apple vodka and some PCRG swag, pins and stickers. Nice, right? I ran into one of their girls in the restroom, and she was equally as nice. We chatted, smiled, all that good stuff. All of this, mind you, was before the bout. Once the bout started, it was a totally different story.

Now, there is a back story with these girls. The last time our team played them (last season, before I'd joined), Port City lost and they were apparently upset about it and griped and yelled and then skipped out on the after party. Whatever, let bygones be bygones and give them another chance.

So the bout started, and it was obvious from the beginning that their refs were not going to be impartial, as they should be. During one jam, their jammer was in the penalty box, and even though she was lead jammer, she could not call of the bout because of being the in the box. Our jammer was scoring points, but as soon as their refs saw that, they blew the whistle and called off the jam. They said it was, oops, a mistake. Whatever. Then they did something similar a couple of jams later when our jammer, again, was scoring too much to their liking. They called our girls out on everything, even saying our girls had done things that they obviously hadn't, but didn't call their girls on anything, even though their girls were blatantly grabbing our shirts, throwing elbows, the works. It was disgusting.

The final jam, our coach (Coach Kraven, he's awesome, hasn't been with us for very long, but he's kicking our butts in major shape) said since there are only two minutes left on the clock, he was putting our fiercest girls out there to just hurt people. He said do nothing but hit (not illegally, mind you) and hit hard. So it started, and shortly afterward, one of their blockers illegally knocked our jammer, Short Fuse, and Fuse said something along the lines of 'Fucking whore' to which that blocker turned around and tried to hit Fuse. She jumped on top of Fust, but Fuse somehow got on top of her (Fuse is the tiniest girl ever, but she's tough) and hit the girl in the face a couple of times. Their team saw that, and even though their girl had deserved what she got being that she had thrown herself on top of Fuse, they all skated over, including those on the bench, and tried to jump on to of Fuse. Our girls ran over and started pulling people off, and yes, a couple of our girls threw punches, but for the most part, we were just trying to make sure Fuse was okay. Their head ref finally did something smart; he scooped over Fuse, folded her in half, and blocked her from their girls with his entire body. Her boyfriend ran up, the ref handed her over to him, and she got out of there, and we all left, not bothering to stay for the end of bout announcements or anything.

We won't be playing them again. Ever.

We skipped their after party, but our hotel opened the pool for us even though it was late and we had fun hanging by the pool.

Oh, I got a couple of good blocks while playing, but I suck, suck, suck as a jammer. Our next bout is the 30th here in Reno, but I most likely won't be playing since I've skipped the last few weeks of practice due to school stuff. Ah, well.

aka, Angels, Whores, and the Men They Create: Patriarchal Structures in Restoration Adaptations of Shakespeare’s Plays

80% finished!!!!!

happy dance**happy dance**happy dance**happy dance**happy dance**happy dance**happy dance**happy dance**happy dance**happy dance**happy dance**happy dance**happy dance**happy dance**happy dance**happy dance**happy dance**happy dance**happy dance**happy dance**happy dance**happy dance**happy dance**happy dance**happy dance**happy dance**happy dance**
(I should be done by now, not just 80%, but...)
happy dance**happy dance**happy dance**happy dance**happy dance**happy dance**happy dance**happy dance**happy dance**happy dance**happy dance**

Whee!

I'm in the middle of writing my final paper of the semester. I am 15 pages into a 25-minimum paper. Sounds bad until you put the numbers together. 60% finished does not sound that bad! Hurrah, ho ho, hee hee.

I literally have not left my apartment today. I have sat in front of my computer for the past, oh, twelve hours or so. Why is academia something I wanted to be a part of again???

Anyway, this Friday is graduation, and I have a few friends graduating, so I'll be going to that. Only one I know for sure is walking. Maybe she'll be as easy to spot as the last person whose graduation I went to. She was the only English grad student out there. :)

Saturday is our bout in Stockton. I will supposedly be playing. We shall see.

Sunday is a birthday party for a two-year old, the ever-so-cute son of a friend of mine. Since we're staying the night at Stockton, and I'm basically at the mercy of the driver (which might actually be me, perhaps, perhaps, perhaps -- which reminds me, if you have not seen the British TV show Coupling,, DO -- but it remains to be determined) of the car I'm in, and getting a group of girls up and outta the hotel by 8 AM is chou unlikely, so I might either miss the party or be glaringly late for it. :(

a peek at Coupling

"You look just like the back of your head." Ha! (or should I say, Hurrah, ho ho, hee hee?)

I'm free as a bird all next week until Saturday. Buckbean, one of our (our, meaning Battle Born Derby Demons') sponsors is having some sort of promotion at Costco and asked if any of us girls could volunteer our time to hand out fliers and vouchers for a free pint at the Brewery. Good news is that I get a few vouchers for helping them out. Hurrah, ho ho, hee hee.

Okay, back to my paper...

(P.S. Lollygag is a funny word.)

My friend Jon decided that I needed even more distractions and sent me a link to the following website: http://www.textsfromlastnight.com/

I have been fairly disciplined this week, primarily because of the paper that was due today. I have, however, been peeking at that site. It's hilarious. People send in texts that they either send or receive from (mostly) drunken nights out. Debauchery is fun, right?

Anyway, reading the texts will either make you hang your head in shame for memories and/or recognition of past (or maybe present) behavior, or it will make you feel like there's a halo hanging above your head. I'd be curious to know how it makes my friends feel... It just makes me laugh. (Can't you see the lopsided halo above my head? Yeah, I didn't think so.)

And as proof that I'm nothing but an angel when I go out:

(Don't I look sweet and innocent?)

I turned in my history paper today. I finished it at 4, and it had to be turn in by 5. I didn't bother showering or anything. I just jumped into my car and ran up to the history department to turn it in. It is complete and utter crap, but I finished it, it's turned in, done.

Now, onto my Shakespeare paper, which has to be better than my history paper for a couple of reasons. First, because really, nothing could be worse than what I just turned in. And second, I have to see my Shakespeare prof again; the history professor -- well, after Monday's meeting next week, I might never see him again. No need to guiltily glance away each time I see him out of shame for my utter crapness. The Shakespeare prof is a totally different story. I see him all the time. Could you imagine the shame of seeing someone this often who you just know scoffs at you for the crap that you turned in? So, nope, my next paper has to be better. Much, much better.

Bummer that my camera fritzed out a week ago, because these cheesecake cups that I made this past weekend looked fantastic. Anyway, as required, the following couple of sentences:

The April 2009 challenge is hosted by Jenny from Jenny Bakes. She has chosen Abbey's Infamous Cheesecake as the challenge.

The host can be found at the following link: http://jennybakes.blogspot.com/ (Sorry, but I'm too lazy to embed it at the moment.)

I decided to make my cheesecake with lavender-infused cream, but unfortunately, I was much too impatient, and my infusion didn't really have time to take before I added it to the rest of the ingredients. Never mind that, though, because they still ended up delicious as ever. I made a graham cracker crust and after lining a cupcake tin with cups, I pressed the crust into the bottom and then poured the batter, making a dozen (after cutting the recipe into thirds, there were exactly a dozen cheesecake cups).

After they were fully baked, I allowed them to cool and then topped them with a bit of boysenberry syrup and then oh-so-yummy blueberries. They were quite pretty, but alas, my fun at the last New Kids concert crushed my camera.

Free Cone Day at Ben & Jerry's is upon us yet again. It is tomorrow (April 21st) at participating Ben & Jerry's, from noon to 8 P.M. They're unveiling three new flavors. See ya there.

I made turkey florentine and bacon-wrapped asparagus for dinner tonight. The turkey was done before the asparagus, but I waited before starting to eat because I wanted to take a photo to post here. Then I remembered that my camera no longer works. It got squished in my pocket at the New Kids concert while I was reaching out to touch them. Ah, well, the camera was on its way out anyway.

I drove down to Coarsegold, CA, on Thursday. I hadn't seen my best friend from high school since she was pregnant with her first baby, who is no longer a baby but is nine years old. We'd kept in touch for a short while after her baby was born, but we lost touch because I tended to move fairly often back then.

She now has four kids (two boys/two girls), and she lives, as I said, in California. She lives in a house that's connected to her in-laws. I was nervous about seeing her, because people change a lot in a decade. I was really excited to see her again, but at the same time, I worried that we might not get along like we used to. I'm giddily happy to say that that was not the case.

It was as though we have been talking all along. She still reminds me a bit of Alicia Silverstone. She still makes me laugh. We still get each others' jokes and subtleties. It was a great trip.

Her kids were great, too. By the next day, the younger two were making running jumps onto my lap. I slept on the oldest's bed, and the next morning when I went into her room to get my bag, I saw that she had put a note on one of her stuffed animals, "For You". :)

Anyway, she and I went to the NKOTB concert Thursday night. It was an awesome show. It was different from the other two that I went to in the fall. They started off with a lot of their old stuff. One of the highlights for me was when they were returning to the stage after performing at a piano at the opposite side of the venue. We knew they would be walking by the bleachers, so we ran down. I pushed my way to the front of the bleachers and managed to touch three of the guys. Sigh... Another one of my teenage fantasies fulfilled. :)

On Friday, we watched the kids play in the creek by their backyard. We caught tadpoles and got lots of sun. We went into town to develop a couple of the photos from the concert, and when we went back, we made chocolate chip cookies and watched movies.

Her husband is a really nice guy. I remember being a bit wary of him when they first started dating, but there was not need for that. He seems to truly make her happy, and it's obvious that they still totally love each other. He's great with the kids, too.

All in all, I'm so glad I drove down. It was totally worth the ten-hour round trip drive. I feel like I have my friend back, and that makes me happy.

Tonight was the Roger Clyne and the Peacemakers concert. Is there another word for awesome? I don't think so.

So I asked my friend Curvy to go with me to the show. She said yes, and I was excited, because I've seen them in Arizona a few times and their shows rock. They're an Arizona band; my ex-boyfriend's all-time favorite band, actually. (Oh, we went directly after practice, so we looked and smelled really bad, but when we saw the audience, we realized it was really okay. Um, a cowboy hat and Adidas? Really?)

So the show was fun. Like the groupie I am of any band, I squeezed myself up to the front row and shook Roger's hand after Mekong, the final song before their encore. Then, as they were leaving, I shook hands with the guitarist, Jim (as I later learned), and thanked him for an awesome show. Then Roger walked by, and I shook his hand and thanked him for bringing a bit of Arizona to Reno. He asked me my name (shriek! I know, I really need to get over the whole musician thing, but frankly, I think it's too late for that; men in music are a lifetime object of lust for me.), and then thanked me for going to the show.

Curvy wanted to have one more drink, so I sat with her at the bar. The place was emptying out. The band had supposedly left, but after awhile, I saw the guitarist at the bar. He waved at me. There were girls surrounding him, all trying to show him what's what by eye-fucking him the entire time. Really, girls, that's not the way to do it.

So I edged over to him (he was only a seat away from me) and struck up a conversation. The other girls begrudgingly walked away as he and I chatted away. He gave me one of the band's picks. (sigh...and, yes, I know -- I'm pathetic...*grin*) When they were leaving the bar, he asked me if I'd like to hang out on their tour bus with them. I was slightly weary, but he was nice, hadn't tried anything, so I said sure and climbed on board.

The guys were just hanging out, chatting with two other girls who they'd brought on board. We had some drinks, took some pictures, chewed the fat. They were nice. Jim said he'd e-mail me the photos he took. We'll see. Anyway, when the bus driver had had enough water and food, he said it was time to head to Salt Lake City. It was time for us three girls to go. I gave the guys and hug and drove home with a smile on my face. I love boys in bands...sigh!



Note: Not the same band members, but Roger is the same and still as hot as in this video.