Category Archives: media madness

Busy

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I h ave a million things to blog…okay, a million is probably an exaggeration, but still.

I took a bunch of pictures over the weekend that I have yet to upload. Soon.

Visiting with the family was good. It was my grandpa’s birthday, and so we had a little family get-together. My aunt and cousin who live in Maryland were there, so it was great to see them.

Of course, I left some things behind…a hairbrush, and a book that I was reading. Feh.

Also slightly annoying…I had been hoping my wedding dress would arrive before the weekend so that I could go and try it on. Alas, the bridal shop called me *yesterday* to tell me that my dress had come in. (You can read about my ongoing shoe quest over at my wedding blog, should you care about that sort of thing…) Rand and I have been plugging away at the wedding details, which I will write about in more detail over there.

We stayed up to watch the Oscars Sunday night, and I wasn’t as bored as I thought I would be. I may go into more detail, but here are the highlights (as far as I’m concerned):

  • The musical numbers. Loved all of them. I haven’t seen any of the movies that had songs nominated (Enchanted, August Rush, Once), but I want to see them all!
  • Jon Stewart bringing the woman who won for Once back onstage to give her acceptance speech since she was so rudely played off. Awesome.
  • Diablo Cody! Whoo! She made me cry.
  • Jennifer Garner being the picture of grace and style. She looked so adorably excited when Diablo Cody won.
  • The cute French girl winning best actress.
  • Ratatouille winning best animated feature.

Hmm…there’s probably more, but I’ve already forgotten. Sadly, I forgot all about joining Eden’s Oscar group and making picks this year. I tried to log in and do it at 8 on Sunday, but I was denied. Denied! Ah well.

Worked yesterday, and am working today. Work is good, but I’m so tired. Want sleep.

And now, I must prepare for a room full of 6th graders. Later!

Weekend wrap-up

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Again, I neglected to post photos yesterday…but this post will have many photos to make up. 😉

We had a lovely time Friday night at Kelly’s goodbye concert. It was very, very kind of Jenn and Scott to open up their house for the party…see, originally, the concert was going to be at Madame Mocha’s, that cool little coffee shop on Lovejoy.

Unfortunately, about a week and a half before the show, Madame Mocha’s shut down. 🙁

Panic! But fortunately, it all worked out in the end.

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The guys did two sets, and let Kelly choose the second set. The second set consisted primarily of rarely (or never!) performed Ookla songs, some dating WAY back. The Lemon-Ohs song, for example. This gave Rand and Adam a chance to tell some entertaining stories and do some seriously silly stuff.

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For example, they did a super-speeded-up version of (oh no…I’ve forgotten which song it was. Rand?). The above photo is of Wolfram during that song.

Everyone seemed to have a great time. I was especially happy to see Thomas make it out, because we so seldom get to hang out!

Rand and Adam presented Kelly with a big ol’ pile of set lists and other memorabilia. Kelly collects their set lists, and she apparently said that if she ever got to 100, she was getting an Ookla tattoo. The pile of set lists included a certificate promising that the band would pay for her tattoo. 😉

Jenn also made a really cool card (with photos!) for Kelly and had everyone sign it for her.

kelly and ben

Kelly has been a great friend to the band, and I know she will be dearly missed.

And the rest of the weekend? Nothing that terribly exciting. Maybe later. 😉

Hey, it’s a photo of a person!

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I like this photo I took of Rand Friday night, but for the redeye. There are some more photos from Friday night’s house concert here.

The concert was in honor of Kelly, a good friend of the band who is moving away from Buffalo soon. Kelly wrote a very sweet post here.

Munchkin

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If you go to the Lost page at abc.com, you can have a genuine “Sawyer nickname” generated. Mine’s “munchkin.” I’m pretty sure my dad used to call me that. 😉

sawyer's nickname generator

Weekend wrap-up

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It was a pretty mellow one, so I don’t have a whole lot to report. 😉

Saturday morning, we went out for breakfast at The Original Pancake House. I knew it was going to be a good morning, because not only did we get seated instantly, we got a booth. Score.

Afterwards, we stopped in at Rite-Aid to pick up a couple of necessities, and then poked our heads in at Sarah’s Vintage and Estate Jewelry. And bought my wedding band. Ooh!

Later, we headed out for dinner and a little bit of shopping at Borders. Rand had a coupon for 40% off any DVD set, so he bought the Freaks and Geeks set. I picked up John Green’s book Looking for Alaska, which I blogged about on Saturday.

Sunday, woke up to no heat. Gah. This has been an ongoing problem. Frequently, the problem is that the pilot is out, which is an easy fix. Other times, though…well, I don’t know exactly what the problem is, but it requires a call to the landlord and someone poking around the furnace. It was fixed, though. Joy.

Over the weekend, we watched some Freaks and Geeks, finished up Season 2 of Extras, watched Lost (very happy to have Lost back. concerned about how the strike will affect the season beyond the 8 episodes that were filmed.)

I also did some…I hesitate to say “cleaning,” so I’ll call it purging. Went through old papers and piles to sort, organize, and trash. Always an exciting time.

And now it’s Monday. No early-morning phone call for me today, so I’m going to try and accomplish a bunch of things. Wish me luck!

Reading, watching, listening (Happy New Year edition!)

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Reading: This has been fairly well covered, but I did sneak in one more (short) book in the past few days–Abadazad-The Road to Inconcievable by JM DeMatteis and Mike Ploog. It’s the first in a series, and I found it very enjoyable.

Watching: It’s been a busy week!

In the theater: Juno, Charlie Wilson’s War, and Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story. Three very different movies, but I enjoyed them all.

I adored Juno. Precious? Yes, but also smart and funny and very well done. I loved the cast. I first encountered screenwriter Diablo Cody through Eden’s blog, and I was a semi-regular reader of her blog for a while.

I have three words to say about Charlie Wilson’s War–Philip. Seymour. Hoffman. He was fantastic. The story was interesting, and I was entertained by the type of dialog I’ve come to expect from Aaron Sorkin. Rand and I both noted, though, that it wasn’t particularly dramatic…the story had very little drama or tension. Tom Hanks was likable as the title character (duh), and Julia Roberts did a fine job in her role as well.

And Walk Hard was simply hilarious. The songs (many of which were written by Dan Bern) were great. In fact, we downloaded the complete soundtrack from iTunes. The cast was great, too.

What else? Slums of Beverly Hills, season 1 of Buffy (not quite finished), more season 2 of Earl, random episodes of The Office, Styx: Caught in the Act (HEE! awesome.), random bits of various New Year’s Eve countdowns. Probably some other stuff that I’ve forgotten…

Listening: Walk Hard, the soundtrack. Styx (discovering some songs that I didn’t previously know…). Looking forward to listening to some of the CDs that I got for Christmas, including Veronica Mars (whee! thanks, Stephanie!!) and the mix I got from Samantha.

Happy 2008, everyone!

Friday photos (soon)

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I do have photos to post, but some of them are still on my camera. Here are a couple of videos I took last weekend at Madame Mocha’s.

Go to Bed:

Hockey Monkey:

(Hockey Monkey does not start at the beginning of the song. Sorry!)

Reading, watching, listening (Christmas eve edition)

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It’s been a very busy few days, and will continue to be busy. I expect posting will be sparse this week. In the meantime, here’s the reading, watching, listening post I actually started on Friday.

Reading: Starman (ongoing). Just Listen, by Sara Dessen. I love, love, loved this book. I may write an extended review for my book blog, where I have not posted in months.

Watching: How the Grinch Stole Christmas (original TV special, NOT the movie), Elf (with my kids at school, so I essentially watched it four times. I had never seen it before. Really, really funny…), more Season 5 Simpsons, Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Rand and I have begun watching the DVDs. I’ve seen most of them. He has not…), Mystery Men.

Listening: Greg Klyma and Ookla the Mok (the show at Madame Mocha’s was tons of fun, really.); Christmas music; Hawksley Workman; Larry Miller: Spoiled Rotten America.

And that’s all I have time for right now…enjoy your day!

Friday photo

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keith knight calendar

For the past couple of years, Rand has been buying this calendar from Keith Knight’s website. Keith Knight is an awesome cartoonist–he does two weekly strips, The K Chronicles and (Th)ink. We got to meet Keith in Cleveland a couple of years ago, and he’s incredibly cool. Anyway, this year, when Rand ordered the calendar, he wrote to Keith and asked him to include a couple of special surprises for me:

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How cool is that? Yeah, I’m a pretty lucky girl. 😉

Thanks Rand, and thanks Keith!

Reading, watching, listening

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We now interrupt the relentless snow for a report of what Erin’s been up to:

Reading: Essays, journals, portfolios. A little bit of Starman by James Robinson, art by Tony Harris. More essays. 8th grade research paper outlines. It’ll break soon…

Watching: Bits of season 5 of The Simpsons. It’s funny…I’ll often grumble about watching The Simpsons (again), but I always laugh. I especially love watching the physical Homer stuff. For whatever reason, Homer getting injured is funny.

We also watched the last new episode of 30 Rock. Rand and I are both busy grading right now, so we’ll just take short breaks to watch something funny, then go back to it.

We have a mile-long list of movies we want to watch once we make it through the end of the semester. Here are some of them, in no particular order (some are more important to him, and others are more important to me):

Juno, The Darjeeling Limited, Sweeney Todd, The Mist, Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, Enchanted, Charlie Wilson’s War, Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead, No Country for Old Men, Into the Wild.
Also, some things I want to see on DVD: Once, Waitress, Hairspray…uh, I’m sure there’s more, but I can’t remember right now.

And one more–I am excited beyond words for the film version of Mamma Mia! It doesn’t open until next July, but I just watched the trailer and nearly wept with joy. (I saw the stage version–twice!)

Listening: Almost a Full Moon, Hawksley Workman. Currently hearing in the background: Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young.