What I Have to Show For My Weekend

This is Bernard, and he is my new best friend:

Trips to Terra Toys are always a lovely way to spend an hour or so on a Sunday, but this time around I got horribly distracted by the plastic action figures. The kickass Maid Marian caught my eye, and then - the anthropomorphic pirates!

This guy was the winner, because there's nothing about him that fails to be ridiculous, amazing, or ridiculously amazing. He's a left-handed walrus, right? Who is also a pirate. Who has a peg leg and a hook hand but both tusks intact.

I also got some owl stickers at Terra Toys, because let's face it: it'd just be weird to check out with nothing but a plastic toy.

Things That Were Designed to Kill Me

#211: Chocovine

Text Message of the Month

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From: Dr. J. Watson

I am going to drink this bottle of absinthe

and then set it on fire

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Tonight's post brought to you by the letters "it's Friday" and "slumber party."

What Are You Doing Here? Shoo!

No photos tonight because I've been staring at the computer all day for work and I'm just squeaking in under the deadline as it is.

Instead, have some links of other places you should be on the internet instead right now:

Fake AP Stylebook's Twitter account - I don't even care if you use Twitter. It doesn't matter, because this is funny stuff.

The SuperFogeys - One of the few webcomics I actually follow regularly anymore. I've kindly linked you to the beginning so you can read the entire thing before moving on. I'll wait.

An interview with Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss about the new BBC show Sherlock - Posted because I enjoy seeing people excited about things I love (also because Freeman is adorable and I require Cumberbatch's coat to stalk around in). I'm starting to sulk because my DVD hasn't arrived yet and it seems like everyone else on the internet has theirs already. *curses international shipping times*

Aaand it's bedtime. 'Night!

Let the new month start!

Someone asked if I'd be participating in National Novel Writing Month this year.

And... I'm not. However, I've decided to update this blog every day this month (unless something way more exciting comes up and I've forgotten to cheat and have something set to auto-post). You lucky, lucky readers. Be sure to tune in around week 3, when I'll be completely out of ideas and probably just start linking to Sherlock Holmes fan fiction.

But at the moment, I have plenty of material. Namely, photos from the weeklong trip I took with my brother to Southern England. I've wanted to visit England - and London specifically - for a very very long time; probably since I first started reading Sherlock Holmes stories in middle school.

My face when I arrived looked something like :D and it stayed like :D for most of the week.

Photos this evening are from the first day, which was spent getting lost in London. On foot, because I had this insane fear of getting lost on the Tube and never getting to see Stonehenge. Also, Wikipedia and the third Mummy movie tell me those double-decker buses just can't be safe.

The hotel was lovely. We didn't have much of a view, but then we didn't spend much time there.

View on the way to the British Museum, where we had all sorts of fun. You could honestly spend days in there:

Alek seemed to enjoy taking photos of me in front of very large things.

And the Rosetta Stone! It's a freakin' rock star - there was a crowd around it every time we passed by.

At the touristy store across the street. He looks quite dashing, and thankfully did not decide to purchase/wear it for the entire trip.

Did I mention the London Eye was exactly a five-minute walk from the hotel? More on that later.

The first night we opted for dinner at The Prospect of Whitby, followed by a boat tour down the Thames, where I got props for knowing who Maurice Micklewhite is. Apparently he worked in a building overlooking the river before deciding to go star in a bunch of movies I love and just generally be awesome.

Filler!

Photos from my Awesome Trip of Awesome will be up soon; I hope to be finished resizing things by tomorrow.

For now, have a text messages filler:

So, I have a friend who, while very drunk one night, changed the names of all her friends in her cell phone. A mutual friend became Pikachu, for example. Drunk geeks are the best drunk friends.

Anyway, she's changed almost all the names back, but she forgot mine. So yesterday when I was sitting around with her roomate, said friend got a message from "Sherlock Holmes" (Yes, that was her idea for me. Either because I'm brilliant and - according to the BBC - dashingly handsome, or because I'm a sociopath. Take your pick) reading I'M IN YOUR HOUSE.

Upon realizing what she was seeing, I promptly made a change in my phone, leading to the following exchange:

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From: Dr. J. Watson

OMG SHERLOCK HOLMES IS IN MY HOUSE TOUCHING MY THINGS

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To: Dr. J. Watson

I'M DEDUCING THINGS ABOUT YOU. DIRTY SINFUL THINGS.

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From: Dr. J. Watson

OH GOD DON'T TELL LESTRADE

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To: Dr. J. Watson

I AM SHERLOCK BLOODY HOLMES I DON'T NEED TO TELL LESTRADE ANYTHING...EVEN IF HE IS KINDA CUTE

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To: Dr. J. Watson

ALSO I AM IN YOUR UNDERWEAR DRAWER.

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From: Dr. J. Watson

YOU RAKE.

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From: Dr. J. Watson

AND STAY AWAY FROM MY DELICATES

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And she's promised not to fix my name in her address book. Excellent.

Scarborough Faire

It's been long enough that I don't actually remember when I went to the Scarborough Renaissance Festival this year. The point is that I had a great time, and I'm already looking forward to next year. (I really need to get a costume at some point). A few photos:

It seemed like a good chance to show off my new hat:

As a complete first, I also rode an elephant! Three of us went together (with someone's poor daughter squished between us) and I think we all had a blast:


Elephants, by the way? They're pretty amazing.

Want! - Candyland Garden

(from craziestgadgets.com)

I realize that there is probably a staggering percentage of the world's population that never played Candyland. That, in fact, has never heard of Candyland.

I feel bad for them.

Candyland is one of the first games I ever remember playing. It was brightly colored, the illustrations on the board were fun, and even better the rules were simple enough that even with the five-year age difference my brother and I could play together.

So I thought it was completely cool today when I came across an article today about someone building their own Candyland-themed garden. Follow the link to great photos!

Free Cookies!

Photos and all sorts of fun things to come.

But first, cookies!

"Thank You, Mom!"

It's a bit past Mother's Day for this year - but then again, I don't think being nice to your mom should be confined to just one day a year... there's Christmas and her birthday, too...

Seriously, though, I'd like to share with everyone some information about Proctor & Gamble's new campaign, which aims to bring families together. The "Thank You Mom Reunions" contest is designed to reunite Moms and their children for special family moments -- which they might have missed otherwise.

Personally, I think my mom's shown up for every important event in my life, from soccer games and band competitions to graduations and the (rare) trip to the principal's office. Everyone isn't always so lucky, though, which makes this such a wonderful idea!

The overall goal is for these “Thank You Mom Reunions” to help 105 moms and their children, which works out to 15 families per month for 10 months. And if you're fortunate enough to be living close to your mom - like I am - you can still enter. The details are outlined on the www.thankyoumom.com website:

Tell us how much you appreciate your mom. You could win $1,000 for a special visit with her! [. . .] And if she lives nearby, that's OK, too. Tell us why she deserves a special day for just the two of you.

If you (or someone you know) has a great story to share, head on over! On the site you can enter to win one of the travel vouchers to help cover the cost of a special reunion with your mom or the maternal figure in your life.

The process is simple: you submit a 100 word description of why you’d like to be (re)united with your mom, visitors to the site vote on their favorite stories, and every month through November a new 15 winners are chosen!

If you win, you also receive a portable digital video camera, so you can record your reunion and, if you like, share the video on www.ThankYouMom.com. I'm thinking of entering for my mom, and I'm sure she will enter for her mom. Let me know if you decide to enter!



The "Thank You Mom" opportunity was kindly brought to my attention by the ladies over at the One2One Network

Green Steam Circus

Alek and I spent most of the day at the Green Steam Circus, over at The Backyard's new location.

This was the first year, and there wasn't as large a turnout as I'd expected, but I had a good time nonetheless. All in all, I feel that I definitely got my ticket price's worth of fun ($35 in advance, $40 at the gate).

There plenty of arts and crafts booths, including one run by my friends Mallory and Sadie. If you're ever in the market for steampunk hats or handmade soap with tiny Cthulhu figurines inside, they're your women.

We saw a bunch of performances, including the Minor Mishap Marching Band:


Lions:

Mr. Cirque, who put on an entertaining performance:

Schave & Reilly - Ivy states that there's no such thing as good vaudeville, but I completely disagree. This was a fun show:

and my second-favorite band of the day, White Ghost Shivers:


The best performance of the Circus was definitely Abney Park.
I don't have any good photos of them on stage, mostly because I was too busy having my socks rocked off. You should go see them if you ever get the chance.

I also got to see people from the Austin Bike Zoo for the first time today! Their website has some amazing photos - the bikes I saw today were the monarch butterfly and the praying mantis.

Changes

Difference #227 between my first year as a graduate student and my first year as an undergraduate: no one invited me to join any honors societies as an undergrad. I'm still shocked that my GPA is much better now that the work is three times as hard. KDP initiation photos:

Charmingly intellectual.


Um, whatever the opposite of "charmingly intellectual" is. This is still my favorite photo from the evening, though.



Considering my next move. World domination is Step 9 in my 10-year plan.


Oh yeah, and these two people just showed up and started talking to me. No idea who they were, but they wanted to pose for all these photos, and then take me out to dinner and drive me home. It was crazy. Here's one of them:

Anyone recognize him?

New Who - The Eleventh Hour

Some lovely person uploaded the new episode of Doctor Who to YouTube (here it is, although no guess on when the BBC will make them take it down) for those of us who don't want to wait two weeks to get it.

I always hate new Doctors at first, in part because I've yet to see a regeneration sequence that provides a good picture of what the new guy's going to be like. The other part is that, once you've become attached to seeing one actor play a character, it's difficult to switch gears and accept an interloper.

To be fair, I gave this Doctor the same amount of time to wow me that I gave every other Doctor: one episode. Peter Davidson won me over with The Caves of Androzani, Christopher Eccleston got me with Rose, and David Tennant - with the help of an errant satsuma - helped me get past the fact that he didn't look like Eccleston.

Matt Smith earned my grudging respect with "Beans are evil. Bad, bad beans" and "I'm the Doctor; I'm worse than everybody's aunt... and that's not how I'm introducing myself." Then, somewhere between fish custard and "Yes, I kept the clothes" he became the new Doctor for me.

So, great job Matt Smith - and all the actors, writers, and other people involved in The Eleventh Hour.


. . . But I'm still dressing up as the fifth Doctor for Halloween. Sorry!

Spring Break Shenanigans, Part the Last

And so we end the Photo Saga. Look for a new post... whenever I feel like it, really. That's the whole point of having a blog :-)

We took Al to see Crazy Heart his last night in town - the four of us were pretty fairly split between "loved it" and "well, that was boring." Personally, I gave it 5 stars as an interesting character study. One thing we could all agree on, though, is that the movie theatre is a fun place to be late at night:
But what has become of the Nautilus? Did it resist the pressure of the maelstrom? Does Captain Nemo still live? And does he still follow under the ocean those frightful retaliations?

I promise you... that if I wanted to kill you, I would resort to more direct means.

Why don't you quit cryin' and get me some bourbon?

Hey they forgot to wind the sundial.

Spring Break Shenanigans, Part the Third

...cont. from previous post.

That evening was a Bob Schneider concert at Threadgills.

Charlie Mars opened and, while I enjoyed his show, it just wasn't on the same level as Bob Schneider and the Texas Bluegrass Massacre.

I'll be honest: I've never really listened to Bob Schneider's music. In fact, at several points a guy walked by wearing this shirt and my only thought was, "wow, that's an awesome top."

It wasn't until Alek went up to get a photo with the "random dude" that I realized who he was.
Heh, oops.

It was an absolute blast, though - the crowd's energy was amazing, and there was some serious talent up on the stage. As an unexpected bonus, they recorded the whole performance. If you ever listen to the CDs, at the beginning of Track 10 he says something like, "extra credit to the people in the back!" Yeah, that would be those of us on the top level of the risers, by the back fence. Whoo!

We even made friends with the complete strangers in front of us, which reminds me that I owe them some video...

Exhausted, but happy.

(It also has to count as a miracle that we did not fall off the risers while dancing, especially when we competed to see who could dance while standing on the highest step.)

Tomorrow: the last Spring Break post!