Obey Zolac!

Good gods but I love air travel. Give me some wings and a clear day over crumpled topography and I am happy as a clam.

By all rights I should be unconscious... I had a night of four hours of sleep followed by a night of no sleep and an eternity of hauling heavy boxes down flights of stairs. When I got to the airport for my flight to Los Angeles I was more living dead than lively. But it seems a fifteen minute nap at the gate–serenaded by Pachelbel's Canon in D picked out on a red Gibson, accompanied by a chorus of ululating adolescent murmurings in Thai and dreams of an American Disneyland vacation–was enough to revive me, at least for a few hours.

I got a left window seat, which was brilliant; my favorite Oregon places were laid out like a map before my eyes. As the plane climbed the air layers I was given a sweeping view of the entirety of Portland in all its cheerful glory, towers and bridges and hills, forested parks and two great rivers. I caught the very edge of Sauvie Island as the airplane completed its spiral and swept southwards.

( Cut for excessive use of purple prose. )

The flight to Honolulu was uneventful. I slept through all of it. And Uncle Gary picked me up and I hung out with him and Auntie Susan and Cousin Darian, and we played old rock songs with an electric guitar and ‘ukuleles, and then, because my timing is BEAUTIFUL and I've arrived in Hawaii in the middle of the Merrie Monarch Festival, we sat and watched the Merrie Monarch hula competition on the television LIKE I HAVEN'T DONE IN YEARS, and I ate fried noodles and ohmigaaaaawd. T_T And then my friend Adam came to pick me up.

GUYS. GUYS. YOU WILL NOT BELIEVE THE STORY HE TOLD ME. He works for this audio-visual company that operates out of a local hotel, and a couple of Hawaii Five-0 episodes have been filmed there. And so, after the P. Diddy episode, the cast were hanging out in the hotel club getting trashed, and Adam was up in the booth doing sound, and P. Diddy came up into the booth and started DJing, and then P. DIDDY AND GRACE PARK STARTED MAKING OUT, LIKE, PRACTICALLY ON TOP OF MY FRIEND, like seriously, he had to try to edge away, it was really awkward.

...XDDDDDDDDDDDD BEST TRUE STORY YOU'VE EVER HEARD, RIGHT?!

And now I've seen my Doctor Who, so I can FINALLY GO TO SLEEP, OH MY GOD.

Well, the Claims assignment fell through. Or got "delayed" or whatever. Not terribly surprised. So I won't be going back to work on Friday... maybe next week? Maybe in the weeks following? ...It's getting to be that awkward time period when it's not really worth it to look for jobs, seeing as I'm going to be leaving Portland at the end of April. (I actually went and made my flights, finally.)

I sent Ivan an email and told him to pass the word on to the others. ...I have to say, it was totally gratifying how upset all my coworkers were when I got laid off. Outraged, even.

...Dar and I are going to go get Voodoo Donuts and watch some Jurassic Park: The Lost World. I'm thinking we should also drink some Irish Stout. Happy St. Patrick's Day, guys.

This morning while sprinting through the icy blackness to the Transit Center I saw THE COOLEST METEOR OMG. It fell slow toward the south, leaving a long trail behind it. It was green. It looked like an alien spaceship. Or maybe an alien missile on course to destroy Salem. No big loss oh snap I went there. My precise reaction was this: "Whoooaaaahh, Jesus Christ!! 8O"

...It was pretty.

In other news, I have become mildly addicted, entirely against my will, to the Hawaii Five-0 remake. FML. I BLAME YOU, sirona_gs!! And a few other people on my Flist. BUT MOSTLY YOU.

It's such crap, it really is guys, but it's so god-damned entertaining. It's like, 50% facepalm, 50% gleefully hysterical giggling. I think probably the majority of my enjoyment stems from a Pavlovian response to the theme music; viewing of the show inevitably results in my playing the music on endless repeat while boogieing around my kitchen/desk/mother's carport. Regardless, I like watching it, and I kind of hate myself.

Lauren came over today and we had our Cooking Awesome Food and Listening to Awesome Music party. We enjoyed the musical talent of such artists as Arcade Fire, Dr. Dog, Girl Talk, The New Pornographers, Sea of Bees, Mersault, Menomena, Mumford and Sons, The Decemberists, Patrick Stump, Kristeen Young, and Trampled By Turtles. We also enjoyed listening the sweet sweet voice of Stephen Fry, watching The Big Fat Quiz of the Year, and playing biology-themed Bananagrams ('dissection' for the motherfucking win!).

Foodwise, we made Pumpkin Halwa: kabocha, almonds, cashews, craisins, saffron, condensed milk, etc, rolled into little gooey balls of tasty. We also made– and omg_alchemist veterans will appreciate this– orange zest brownies. Or, Three-Orange Super-Special Brownies, using orange zest, orange essence, and some chocolate-dipped candied orange peel we just happened to have lying around. They are just as amazingly delicious as Clara and I always thought they would be. T_T We also tossed together a pretty amazing soup at the last minute when we realized halwa and brownies did not a dinner make, comprising a whole pile of random things in the kitchen, including turkey broth, chicken, kabocha, two kinds of potatoes, a turnip, a leek, mushrooms, celery, parsley, garlic, ginger, shoyu, oyster sauce, sesame oil, and hot peppers. It was meant to be stew, but I'm not complaining.

Basically, for a rainy January Saturday... pretty freaking perfect.

So this morning on the bus I became so enthralled reading a gyzym Inception fic that I completely missed my stop, like, by A LOT, and ended up being half an hour late for work. Fml.

...Good fic, though.

Also, I would like to take this moment to do you all a favor and give you some helpful advice. I was going to save this for a general meme/spazzflail/spam post, but seeing as I haven't had time to do a proper O HAI THIS IS WHAT I'VE BEEN UP TO THESE LAST WEEKS post, I think it might be a while. And I really just can't help myself.

My helpful, friendly advice is this: watch Luther.

This BBC mini-series is, imo, the best-written show to come out in 2010. And I'm inncluding Sherlock in my estimation, here. Somehow, though, Luther has managed to fly completely under the radar. Which is a TRAGEDY.

So here's the haps. It's a cop show that sort of defies the cop show formula, in a way that is hard to describe without giving you spoilers that you really don't want. But I think that, aside from the sheer sparkling quality of the writing, the show benefits from being a mini-series in the traditional style of the BBC: full hour length episodes, and only six of them. This allows the show to go from awesome to CRAZY ohmigod idek SHIT GOT REAL in only five episodes.

But don't take my word for it. platoapproved, deathscytheheck,
regonym, and my friend Chris love it, too. Basically, everyone I know who's
seen it fell madly and instantly in love with it... except for shichahn. I'm not judging you bb, but to be perfectly honest I'm baffled. The only thing I can think of
is it's not science-fiction, and it doesn't have David Tennant in it. Both of which are valid reasons.

It's true Luther contains no science-fiction whatsoever, but it does use black holes and dark matter as metaphors for psychosis. And it may not have David Tennant, but it does have Paul McGann for your Doctory pleasure. And John Luther is kinda like Batman if he was a cop, and also a tall black man with a South London accent (actual Britons on my Flist, correct me if I'm wrong here) who is less successful in controlling his anger issues. And Alice Morgan is SO FREAKING AWESOME she is awesome enough to be my only female LJ icon (unless you count the TARDIS). And really all the characters are brilliant, and the acting is brilliant, and the soundtrack is brilliant, and the writing is so brilliant I could really just sit around and watch the characters talk to each other all day and nevermind the plot, but the plot happens and it's like HOLY SHIT AHHHHHHHHHHH and basically it's just all-around amazing. So watch Luther.

You're welcome.

I am making this post from my new Droid phone!! :D It's very exciting~! Now I just have to figure out how to use it. And which Cylon to name it after.

EDIT: Her name is Boomer. <3

Just read Superman-Batman 77 and I am FILLED WITH GLEE. I truly cannot express the depths of my love for one Damian Wayne. The story was meh, but who cares? This comic is all about the banter.

Tomorrow I'm going to go see MAH LAUREN, YAAAAY!! There will be video marathons and a sleepover, and maybe we will catch her a birdie, and maybe we will go to a haunted house? WHO KNOWS? IT'S EXCITING.

Ohmigod so. Ludo concert. FANTASTIC.

( Baby, I thought I'd come along for the ride. (Concert under the cut.) )

So, yeah, the show was awesome, and the small crowd made it a very friendly, intimate affair. I bought myself a Ludo t-shirt:
I immediately bought their oldest and newest albums when I got home, to complete my collection. My life is now complete.

Ludo, in 75 words or less: Music-wise and stage show-wise, Ludo is kinda like OK Go's slightly rough-around-the-edges, weird younger brother who ran away from home and picked up lyrical habits from The Decemberists, Weezer, and Jonathan Coulton. They like to sing about zombies and pirates and dinosaurs and time travel and cyborgs and robots and spaceships and lakes in Louisiana that want to eat you. If that sounds like something you'd be into, check them out.

Here, have the video for "Whipped Cream". It's hilarious.

...So I got about 3 1/2 hours of sleep last night. I had put together the perfect schedule to let me sleep as long as possible and still catch the bus. It would've worked, too, if my computer battery hadn't chosen this morning to reveal that it was failing to charge– AGAIN. I had to shut down my computer and wrap up the cord and shove it all in a bag and haul it with me– AGAIN. I missed the 64 by seconds. Caught the 12 a few minutes later to try and catch the 56 earlier in its route... missed it by seconds also. Was late to work, but sitting at the bus stop on Barbur was okay. Absolutely stunning view of the faintest sliver of moon rising rusty over Mt. Hood's silhouetted shoulder.

Caught a ride with Nicole to the Beaverton Transit Center after work to try to shave some time off of my TriMet travels. She swore she could get me there by 3:30 to catch the 76. She failed. So I waited for the WES and watched a great blue heron preen itself on the roof of a commercial building.

I had to buy a new charger. It was EXPENSIVE.

And now I am exhausted. Brb, passing the hell out now.

zolac_no_miko: That Bug's a weird color. ...Glow-in-the-Dark Sticker...? *unsure*
deathscytheheck: Yeah.
zolac_no_miko: ...It's like... halfway between Glow-in-the-Dark Sticker and Lemon Meringue....
deathscytheheck: It's too pale for Lemon Meringue.
zolac_no_miko: Yeah, I know. It's too pale for Lemon Meringue, but it's too yellow for Glow-in-the-Dark Sticker....
deathscytheheck: ...Lemon Airhead.
zolac_no_miko: *excited* ...Yeeeeaaahhh...!! 8D

Also, there was this thread.

...Today was kind of amazing.

Whoo, so I really don't have time for this. I haven't even had time to look at my rp. I'm such a bad mod. ...But I feel a life update is necessary at this juncture.

Dar's dad was here twelve days, he left on Monday. He and Dar and I drove down to California last week and spent a couple of nights in a cabin on the edge of Redwood National and State Parks. We discovered that Grant's Pass is the most ridiculous town in existence. We counted six... SIX... Dutch Bros, and the hardware store has hammajang pillars and sells Lady Anti-Monkey Butt powder. We saw many wildlifes including elk, sea lions, seals, and giant trees, and stayed up late reading ghost stories. In the town of Orick Dar and I ventured into the epitome of all biker bars to try some elk chili. We ended up attempting to win free drinks for life by drinking a pint of Stella faster than the barkeep, and joined hundreds of others in loserdom (as evidenced by the two $1 bills stapled to his ceiling, signed by us, stating I AM A LOSER). This guy doesn't even have to swallow. He just stares at you until you're halfway down your own glass, and then he opens his mouth and the beer disappears down his throat. ...I totally out-manned Dar, both in beer-drinking and chili-eating. Ha.

The chili was delicious, btw.

As of Monday, I am hired again. Epiq, again, this time data entry, swing shift (3:30p-11:30p). I wasted no time at all in finding my fellow geeks. Geoff is into Doctor Who, the IT Crowd, Cowboy Bebop, and Fullmetal Alchemist, and I carpool with him (which is good, because at those times it would take me an hour and a half to go by bus, instead of, like, ten minutes by car). Logan is also into Doctor Who, Red vs Blue, The Mighty Boosh, and Batman (including The Animated Series and Batman Beyond), and we spend breaks and lunch geeking out at each other.

Today I went downtown and got my data back, FINALLY. He retrieved the data, but for some reason whatever it is that organizes the data and labels it was irreparably damaged, so I've got a pile of anonymous .jpg's, .avi's, .doc's, .mp3's, etc. He's given it to me on a loaner drive, and he's letting me take a good look at it before we decide how much I should pay him. It won't be any more than $150 though.

I managed to get my shift changed on Friday, so James and I are going to the Ok Go concert. HELLS TO THE MOTHERFUCKING YEAH. Finally. I've been dying to see this band live. T_T

And, finally, I made a last minute decision to go to Seattle for the Northwest Folklife Festival this weekend, and I'm dragging Will and Richard along with me. We're still working out the details... like, where we're going to sleep. -_-;; I think I have it taken care of, though... I'm like 90% sure we can crash at Isaac and Eli's place. I'm just waiting for Eli to check with his brother and call me back. ...One way or the other, though, it will be an awesome weekend. I expect to come back having worn my feet entirely off dancing. :DD

Fffff 45 minutes before I have to leave for work. I'd better grab some lunch. Stay awesome, LJ.