SNOW

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Graduation!

The Commencement ceremony was Saturday afternoon. Before we could get to the Frank Erwin Center, however, there were the obligatory family photos:


Grandma, Mom, and me. I'm wearing grandma's pearls, and mom's in my red top. We're awesome like that.


Dad and me. Surely, I thought, the purple top will make him easy to find in the audience as I cross the stage. Come to find out, there were roughly 25 guys in the audience who chose purple that day.

Mom and Dad. They sure turned out smart kids :-D

This is the last photo you will see where everyone is looking in the same direction. I hope you enjoyed it!
Alek cleans up surprisingly well for a teenager. Very dapper :-)

Grandpa and Grandma. Awwwww.

Milk

Just got back from the free screening of Milk. Unfortunately, I skipped out on a couple of papers to go see it, so I don't have the time for a long review at the moment.

Let me just say that Milk was an incredible movie. It had the audience laughing, and sighing, and crying, and there was a huge round of applause over the closing credits.

Personally, it made me want to go outside and just hug everyone.

Decorating

Christmas decorations are up! They're a bit sparse by necessity (cats, for one, lack of space, for another), but here you go:



There's also a wreath, but it's cold outside. You can have pictures when the sun is up.

Holy Gosh

Well, imagine that. We finally have a president who's not an old, white, male. Oh, and the Democrats are sweeping nearly everything. And the main headline on fox news right now reads "President Obama."

To quote metafilter,

Bloggy Giveaways: CLOSED

THIS CONTEST IS NOW CLOSED. CHECK MY MAIN PAGE FOR WINNER

Welcome, you Bloggy Giveaways people, you! I hope you enjoy my giveaway :-D

The Prize:
- a random grab-bag of six large paper bows, as seen on my etsy page here

OR

- a random assortment of ten gift tags, as seen on my etsy page here


The Rules:
Do any of the following, and leave me a comment telling me you did it and which prize you would like. For #1 and #2, please include a link I can follow. Each thing is worth one entry, so feel free to do them all!

1) Have a blog? Blog about my etsy shop or this giveaway! Any length or style you please, as long as there's a link to either some page of my shop or this blog entry.

2) Use Twitter? Make a tweet with a link to this giveaway, or a link to the main page of my shop, or your favorite item that I sell; the choice is yours!

3) No blog or twitter page? Just want a second or third entry? Leave me a comment here with your favorite item from my etsy shop!

Open only to the U.S. and Canada, sorry international bloggers!


**Contest closes Friday at midnight; winner will be chosen Saturday morning. And who knows, if I get some really great entries I may decide to choose a second winner.**

I Got Distracted

So, the internet. It is full of things.

Thanks to the PotterSues (you don't need to know) community on Livejournal, I have gotten totally distracted from that sleeping thing that I do. Sometimes.

Kawaii Not is made of funny. This strip ftw.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban in 15 minutes is made of freakin' hilarious. It helps if you've actually seen the movie, but some of the quotes are hilarious all by themselves:

SNAPE: EVERYONE SIT DOWN AND SHUT THE GODDAMN HELL UP.

SNAPE: I want two rolls of parchment on WEREWOLVES by tomorrow, including what WEREWOLVES look like, how to detect WEREWOLVES in the faculty of a British boarding school for wizards, and the definition of the Latin word “lupus.” CLASS DISMISSED! [if you're unaware -- the professor's name is Remus Lupin. Oh, and he's teh werewolfzors]

HARRY: Well… I have this memory… actually it wasn’t a very happy memory, and really it wasn’t even a memory, it was just something I saw in a magic mirror, but…
LUPIN: Go!
HARRY: *produces a giant shield of light*
LUPIN: Wow! You held off a fake Dementor with a fake memory! Let's just assume that'll work with a real one!

HARRY [with Hermione’s wand]: EXPELLIARMUS!
EXPELLIARMUS: *for some reason does not just disarm Snape but throws him through the wall of the Shack*

Harry zooms off on his new broom with the movie ending on a close-up of his artfully blurred face, perhaps to suggest in the language of cinematic metaphor that this time he is rendered blurry with happiness.
Or that the camera guy can't hold the lens still. Something.
FIN.

Maker Faire 2008

I went back for the last day of Maker Faire 2008 -- I'm just now getting around to blogging about it, but this was the 19th.

It was at the Expo Center, which meant that we drove through miles of parking before we even got to the main entrance. From outside, we could hear some of the most interesting sounds . . . and we walked in to see the coolest musical instrument I have ever seen. Watch this video, but pretend that they're set up on the floor of a darkened arena, and you're up in the stands. Also, there's an electric guitar suspended between the columns, and the drum set has LED lights that turn on as the drums are hit:


OH HI THAT IS ELECTRICITY!

I caught the name of the group eventually: it was Arc Attack, from (of course) here in Austin. I was entranced, but my guest had had his fill after four songs, so we made a beeline for the exit onto the main fairgrounds. As we were headed out, the emcee said, "and now here's something you'll ALL recognize," and they launched into the Buffy theme song. Sweetness. You can also hear/see more Arc Attack songs here.

I didn't have my camera on me, which was just as well because I got very distracted. There were, at a conservative estimate, roughly a bazillion booths and events to look at. For example, the silver armadillo car that shot fire from its nostrils. This is completely unfounded gossip, but I suspect that it may have had something to do with the screaming alarms we heard later in the afternoon.

We were also lucky enough to see the life-sized (game of) mousetrap in action. Here, I stole one of their pictures for you:

And they smooshed a lizard-boy at the end and everything. It was fantastic.

We ended our trip by browsing the "for sale"-type tables. Notably (i.e. I found their business cards in my purse later):

• Space Squid, "Austin's only hybrid sci-fi and humor 'zine." They were also handing out freshly-stapled copies of their 'zine, so props for that. I grabbed an issue of submissions by fairgoers from the previous day. I especially enjoy the short story that begins, "It wasn't the first time that my mother ate my leg."
• The Purple Fig Cleaning Co. The women in the booth -- I believe it was the founder and a friend of hers -- were quite nice. Purple Fig is a cleaning company, and at the Faire they were selling natural cleaning products that smelled like delicious tasty things.
• The Weekend Store. Selling beautiful jewelry that I can't actually justify buying for myself. People with disposable income, I direct you to their steampunk section. (Oh, and mom you were asking me for a definition of steampunk? There you go. Also, here is some random/awesome steampunk Star Wars art. The steampunk Death Star is my new desktop pattern).

Finally, there were also Roomba robots (with eePCs strapped to their heads) performing bits of a communist-era German expressionist play. As I'm not even sure where to begin doing a Google search for that, you'll just have to use your imaginations.

New Etsy Listing - Initial Pendants!

I broke open my bag o' keys from the Goodwill Computer Museum booth this evening.

A pair of pliers, a couple crimp beads, some wax cording, and globs of industrial-strength adhesive later, I had some pendants! (as you can tell by the initials, the test run was a gift for mom. oops, spoiled that surprise)

Listings are up in my Green Yak etsy shop: at the moment, choices include the single initial necklace or the double initial necklace.

Maker Faire

listening: Make Me, Heart


Mom and I signed up to help (wo)man the Goodwill booth at the Maker Faire this morning. The Computer Museum had set up a neat display with several attractions:


1) Several old computers (of course!). The gigantic blue one was actually in use at an Austin business until about 1990. I think they finally decided it was time to upgrade at that point. It is in working condition, although it would have been impossible to keep cool at the Faire.


2) Massive keyboard word search! The booth leader (pictured below) glued together hundreds of keys from defunct keyboards. A lot of people came by to try their luck, and as of 2pm there were still a lot of words left to be found. I was impressed by the number of young kids who kept coming up and finding technology words I didn't even know.



3) Atari games! There were two Atari Flashbacks for playing, and several more for sale. So, Atari games? Actually really hard. I figured out space invaders and breakout, but something called haunted house just killed my brain. And don't get me started on this other game that involved a castle and some ducks and arrows? Oh man I don't even know.


4) Fun computer-parts shopping! There were circuit boards ($1 for small, $2 for medium, $4 for large) which got snapped up by the crafty people and a group of three boys who thought they were just really cool. There were also bags of computer keys for $1 (one bag was grabbed by a guy from instructables.com!), adorable circuit board earrings, and Goodwill t-shirts.



Oh, and there was this guy. I went "K-9!" and the other volunteer looked at me like I was so lame. Ah well, not everyone watches Doctor Who.

I Should Be Selling Locks of My Hair

I am apparently made of lucky this week. Everyone feel free to give me cash in exchange for my nail clippings and locks of hair: You Too Can Have My Luck!

First, I won the notecards and pendant that I mentioned several posts ago. Yesterday, I got a pair of really nice earrings for my mom's Christmas gift from Sandra Eileen Jewelry with a gift certificate I won: the earrings were $9 with priority shipping.

Today, I won this "Love and Gratitude" t-shirt from Chickatees!

I will assume I have hit the celestial jackpot if all of my transcripts reach UT by Monday morning (the deadline to apply for graduation). I called this morning and they still hadn't gotten the one from ACC, or my registration for the University Extension course I need.

We Interrupt This Blog

currently listening: My Eyes, from the Doctor Horrible soundtrack

Speaking of things involving Sherlock Holmes that give me mixed feelings, we have the new Sherlock Holmes movie.

I mean really, the phrase "new big budget action movie" just doesn't belong next to "faithful to Arthur Conan Doyle's original stories." Call me an old-fashioned girl, but I enjoy (and own) many of the black and white Basil Rathbone movies. Sarah, for her part, did not appreciate my making her sit through Dressed to Kill, but that's a she problem, not a me problem.

In any case, the recently-revived RUSS-L mailing list sent me a link to some photos from the Robert Downey, Jr. movie -- hot Holmes photos here.

Yep, looks as though this article was right on:

Downey Jnr said his received pronunciation was just fine and that he would be drawing on his experiences filming Chaplin, for which he was nominated for an Oscar, to create a believably British character. His Holmes, he said, would focus less on the repressed English side of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's character, and more on his status as "a bohemian" and "a patriot".

So, my thoughts? In order of appearance:
1) Mr. Downey is incredibly easy on the eyes, as usual.
2) I will assume "Holmes" is in disguise there, because WHAT IS HE WEARING.
3) Sherlock Holmes should not look that good. Honestly, now. I grew up reading the books with the Sidney Paget illustrations, and his is not an attractive Holmes.
4) I can't wait for this movie to come out so I have an excuse to be a complete geek and pull out all my Holmes sources. Also, I hope it will be fun to watch.

It came!

The giveaway prize I won fom Ellen Morrow's etsy shop! There's a set of lovely notecards and a matching necklace :-D

My only regret is that I can't wear this necklace and the pendant that my mom bought me yesterday at the same time. Well, I could, but it would look silly.

Cards!

Mom took me on a Michael's shopping spree today, where I may have gone a little overboard on the ribbon and stickers (but they were on sale! for a dollar!).

So far, there are 5 additions to the new section in my etsy shop, appropriately titled Cards and Paper Goods.

More tomorrow, when I've finished working, reading Girl With a Pearl Earring, and starting my two papers which are due Monday.

From the Set

Here are some of the pictures from the Code Enforcer shoot. Alek and I were there from 10pm until 7:30 the next morning, since the nighttime Halloween Gala had to be shot (gasp!) at night.

Let's all ignore the fact that I had class the next afternoon, blurgh.

There aren't any pictures of me, because these are all from my camera. At some point mom's supposed to be sending me the photos she took, but until then here you go:
Before filming started -- Code Enforcer actors and extras milling about.


Aleks came as The Dude. Heaven help me, I still haven't seen whatever movie he's from (and the costume just doesn't make me want to).


The extras worked for free, of course, but my mom found some places around Austin to sponsor little free gifts. Here we have "The Governor of Texas" drawing names out of a hat. Al and I didn't win anything, but I already own an ipod ANYWAY SO THERE.


The "governor", whose real name is apparently Glynn Praesel, was awesome for the entire evening. Even at 4am he was making jokes and showing off magic tricks. Just a great guy.


Ah yes, Dad (excuse me, Greg Dorchak as Vern Speiner) being a great big ham. Look for his costume change later.


Lunch break! I think this was around 2am? Anyway, someone made the mistake of falling asleep. An innocent game of "let's balance sugar packets on his head. . . "


. . . turned into "how much stuff can we pile on this defenseless man?" Eventually, everyone sang Happy Birthday until he woke up. All of this makes perfect sense, I am told, if you're a movie person. (as a former band geek, I always learned that You Should Never Be The First One To Fall Asleep. a good life lesson here, kids)

Also at lunch, Al stole my hat and decided to be one of the musicians from Guitar Hero III.


Guess who!



Eddie Mekka as Sonny Goblotto. Another hilarious person, even if he did almost mow down a mob of extras with a golf cart (if you want an explanation of that, you'll have to see the movie).


Greg Dorchak as Vern Speiner again. I believe a mob of suburbanites tried to lynch him? Which explains the garden hose noose but not the Shriners hat.


The best part of the scene they're setting up for here was the repeated takes: Dad had to scream "NEIN!" and throw himself in front of the governor. The first time, the mattress for the stunt hadn't been set up. Ehehehe.