music therapy

Because I seem to be having a low day today, (feeling fat, old, stuck, melancholy, ancient, achy, unaccomplished, uninteresting, lethargic, and did I mention old?), I decided to try to enlighten and enrich my day with this Massive Attack song.  I'm not sure that it worked, but it still has a good message so I thought I'd share it with you.

retrograde this!

I've only recently become aware of the hell that is Mercury in Retrograde.  I'm sure you've heard of it before, but if you're anything like me, you have no idea what the heck people are talking about.  Apparently it's when everything goes awry - communication, electronics, life in general.  It's a whole pile o' crapola in the span of 3 weeks or so.  Okay, okay, that doesn't explain anything, does it?.  Let's consult About.com, shall we?

"This happens three to four times per year, when the planet Mercury slows down, and appears to stop (station) and move backward (retrograde). It's an optical illusion, since there is forward movement, like speeding by a slow-moving train -- as it recedes, it appears to go backward."

Optical illusion...right.
This makes my head hurt.
http://www.universetoday.com/22135/mercury-retrograde/

Okay, but what does that have to do with everything going on the fritz?  Well Mercury is apparently the god/planet of communications and travel, so if that stalls out or goes backwards, then it toys with our lives as we know it. 

Bastard!

What can we expect from the backward motion of a dinky hot planet named after a guy with tiny wings on his feet?  (I know, it's not the size that matters, right, Twinkle-toes?) 

From Gala Darling:

It’s like everyone you know has suddenly gone mad! You might find yourself getting into bizarre arguments about nothing at all, being unable to finish sentences or barely even able to form a coherent thought. Your computer & other electronic equipment is more likely to go on the fritz. You could experience travel delays, too. Double-check your flights &take a book with you to keep you occupied while you wait for the train! We don’t tend to get all the information we need at this time, so it can be hard to make big decisions & it’s not always the best time to sign a contract, either.

Bizarre arguments about nothing at all? Check!  Unable to form a coherent thought?  Check!  Oh, I hate it, I hate it, I hate it! 

I think from now on, I'm going to mark my calendar to warn me about this horrid time of the year.  Or, better yet, I'm bookmarking this site to give me an instant answer.  For now, I'm going to huddle up in a corner, keep to myself, and try not to talk to anyone until it's over.  Then I can go back to thinking of Mercury as a manlier god.

Brendan Fraser - the nakey god

Well, I'll try to anyway.  I just can't get over those little wings...

a laugh to end a horrible day

Today was bad...really, really bad.  I'll get into it a little later, but I just found this video about my favorite animal, the fruit bat, and I'm finally laughing.  I just have to share it.

another reason i don't want to live on this planet any more

As I was perusing my ever-informative Facebook feed this evening, I saw that one of my favorite pages, I F*cking Love Science posted this picture of a new representation of an extinct shark-like animal.

From I F*cking Love Science

I remembered seeing a representation of something similar when I was at the Field Museum in Chicago a few years ago and it was so odd, it stuck with me.

Forgive the blurry pic, it was behind glass.

So, I clicked on the picture to get a better look and find the links to the info, but I had to pause when I read some of the comments people had left.

I call BS - that has to be photoshopped.
No way, that can't be a real pic
Is this photo-shopped? Ewwwww
Or my favorite..."its a shame weve come to an age that even real things get blamed on fotoshop cant people accept the fact evolution has its bizzare moments u never know one could be lurking at the depths of the oceon"

Can you hear me facepalm from there?

Apparently they didn't notice in the big white letters scrawled across the blue background that this "shark" lived 270 MILLION years ago.  That's right - it was way back before digital cameras and Adobe programs.  I know, it's hard to believe that time ever existed, but it's true.

I fear for the human race sometimes.

If you want to read more about the Helicoprion, this article has some great information.  It wasn't actually a shark and they're still guessing how it really looked, but they're certainly getting closer.  Freaky-cool stuff!

the day i had the right stuff

You might remember me giving a few random facts about myself in this post, and it was requested that I expand on the subject.  Well, it was just announced that these people are going to be performing less than an hour away from me in July and it's brought up the conversation again, so I guess it's time to talk about it. 

The day was January 10, 1990.  It was the day that I met two of the New Kids on the Block.

I was a freshman in high school.  I was chubby, had a huge mound of bangs on the front of my head, wore vests over t-shirts and rolled up my ripped jeans in a tight roll.  A total goddess among women.  I was constantly listening to them, watching them, my room was truly wallpapered with posters of them.  I was a tad obsessed. 

My whole room looked like this. 
It helped to cover up the blue flowery walls.

The New Kids on the Block were going to be performing in Milwaukee that night and my friends and I had tickets to go see them.  (Throughout my obsession, I saw them 6 times in concert.)  After months and months of reading about them in informative magazines like Bop! and Teen Beat, we had a feeling they'd be hitting the mall near the concert venue during that day, so we begged and pleaded with politely asked our parents if we could take the day off from school and go into the city...to the mall...on the off chance that we'd run into them. (Of course we never told our parents the reason we wanted to run into them was so they'd fall madly in love with us and whisk us away to a life of love and fortune...or maybe even just take our virginity on the tour bus.  This would surely happen given the description I just mustered in the previous paragraph.)  Because we were such good, responsible girls, they agreed and we were on our way.

One of our moms was kind enough to drive us there and tag along.  (I have to pause here and give props to all of our parents for enduring us through this phase.  They had to put up with screaming girls screaming - not only their own girls, but also the thousands of other girls at the concerts that they were forced to sit through.  Way to go moms and dads!)  Exciting things began happening right away.   As we were driving into the city, we just happened to end up right behind their tour bus.  How did we know it was their tour bus?  Because we had seen it over and over on the VHS tape that they had sold that was full of backstage antics, the "real them" and music videos - we had the whole thing memorized. 

  

And there was the bus....right in front of us.  And we were breathing in it's exhaust and squealing.  We followed the bus to the parking lot of the arena where the concert was being held and waited for them to come out.  There was already a group of other eligible pre-teen to teen girls there waiting for the same thing, chanting their names.  There was movement on the bus and then out came....their security guard.  He was on the video too, so we knew him by name - Biscuit.  We waited some more and decided they were never coming out, so we went to our main destination, the mall.

I don't remember what my friends were wearing, but I distinctly remember my ensemble for the day because I had so carefully planned it out.  Black pants, tight-rolled of course; black button-down short-sleeved shirt, most likely men's; off-white brocade vest; black patent leather (plastic) mens-style shoes; atop my head and neatly behind the mound of bangs sat a black hat much like the ones that they were known to wear.  Over the whole ensemble, because it was January and I live in Wisconsin, was a full-length down-filled acid-washed jean jacket.  Honestly, I'm not sure if that made things better or worse.

We walked around the mall for quite some time and though we would run into other fans every now and then, never saw any of the young men...until...

Walking up one hallway, we heard a girl squeal in the distance.  It was a sign.  The call of the teen girl fan.  Someone was there.  We looked at each other and raced toward the call.  All of the sudden there was a group of girls (How did so many convince their parents to let them take the day off of school?) and coming out of the store was a tall man in a black leather coat and following him was Joe McIntyre.  We stood there, mouths probably hanging open, as he walked past us, smiled when we said "Hi" and continued on, followed by the gaggle of girls.  His blue eyes were enhanced by the turquoise blue jacket and hat he wore.  I was never his biggest fan - I didn't like the cutsey ones, I liked the bad boys - but I remember how dang blue his eyes were.  We stood there for a couple of minutes and then started bouncing around. "Ohmygodohmygodohmygod!"  We were sure there had to be more than one of them there, so we continued our quest.

Another squeal, another direction change, and there was Jordan Knight coming out of another store, bodyguard in tow.  The inevitable group of girls surrounded him for a little while, but they were still kind enough to let him get on with his browsing.  Again - we just stood there in stunned silence as he walked right past us, so close that I could smell his leather jacket.  Why didn't we say anything?  I have no freaking idea.  We decided to keep walking around to see who else we could find. 

Eventually, we ended up seeing Jordan again.  He and his counterpart were headed to the end of the hall about 25 yards ahead of us and they were about to go downstairs.  We sped up.  We didn't want the opportunity to pass us by again, but nobody else was saying anything.  He was going to get away when I heard myself say, "Jordan!"  Me - the introvert - go figure.  He stopped (probably rolling his eyes), and turned around.  Oh crap, what do I do now?  I remembered that I had been carrying around a manila envelope of drawings that I had done of each of them in hopes of getting them signed.  We caught up to him and I asked him for his autograph.  His bodyguard said no, said he was in a hurry and had to go, but Jordan said, "No, it's okay."  My Knight (pun intended) in shining armor was so enamoured by my beauty that he was making time for me!   I quickly found the picture that I had sketched of him and pulled it out.  He chuckled (for good reason - seriously) and asked for my name then signed the picture (with the Sharpie I was so kind to supply) "To Becca, Love always, Jordan Knight"  Oh. my. god. LOVE ALWAYS!!  I took the marker from him, our fingers touched.  Gah! I should have hugged him, I should have said "Thanks for the best birthday gift ever," to get the obligatory Happy Birthday response from him, I should have asked to have my picture taken with him, but instead I pulled out my Instamatic camera and snapped this picture:

I thanked him and he went on his way.  Yup.  That was our amazing encounter.  What my friends were doing this whole time, I have no idea.  I think they were just standing behind me watching the whole episode unfold.  They worshipped my newly-signed sketch for a little while and we moved on again.

We were hungry, so we went up to the food court, which unlike most malls is actually located on the second and third floors.  We were milling about trying to find just the right mall food to eat (Sbarro?  Orange Julius?) when we noticed the turquoise ensemble sported by Joe.  Ack!  I wasn't ready for that.  He was eating a gyro and I didn't really want to bother him, but the chance might pass again and my friends were pushing me to go up, so I did...and I was denied.  I asked for an autograph, but his bodyguard refused and gave me some pre-printed photo of all of them with their pre-printed signatures on it.  Lame.  I said thanks anyway and asked if I could take his picture, which he agreed to (you know thinking about it, I don't think I ever heard him mutter a word), and I snapped this one:

And that was it.  We stayed a while longer, but none of the other guys showed up.  After talking to some of the mall employees, it turns out that they had been there a little earlier.  Drat!  The tour bus was a decoy!  We had heard through the grapevine that they were staying at a hotel just a couple of blocks away, so we headed there.  Sure enough, another group of girls was hanging out outside the doors.  We just walked right in and got into the elevator.  Was there security?  Did they figure we were just hotel guests?  It's a mystery to me.  Anyway, we headed up a few floors, got out of the elevator, and across the atrium and up a floor, we saw the back of Danny's head as he walked into his room.  Meh.  It was just Danny.  We decided to get out of there before we got into trouble.

Finally the time for the concert came.  We had nosebleed seats, but ended up running into some girls from our school and proceeded to tell them everything that happened.  The whole section of people, complete strangers, wanted to hear the whole story of how we met them.  The concert went on into the wee hours of the night and we went home.  Unfortunately I lost the sharpie that Jordan had used somewhere in the arena.  I was gonna frame that thing too...

I took my autographed sketch to school with me the next day.  I was tired, but I was on cloud nine.  I had no photos to show yet because they were taken on a camera with film and we didn't have instant gratification like we do now.  We were the most popular girls in that school that day.  Even the teachers were happy for us (though I'm amazed we didn't get into trouble for skipping school).  I remember one of the most popular girls in the school saying, "I don't even like New Kids, and I think that's pretty cool."  I cared about stuff like that back then - especially since I was just a freshman who got picked on quite a bit.

My mom was kind enough to take the film to be processed at a one-hour photo place about a half-hour away while I was at school so they'd be ready for me when I got home.  Photographic evidence that it actually happened!  I didn't forge any signatures, I actually saw them.  Those went to school with me the next day, were framed immediately after that, and hung on my bedroom wall right next to my signed sketch.

And there you have it - my brush with fame followed by my own 15 minutes of fame in our small town high school.  *Bows*

I don't think I'll be attending the concert this summer.  Though I think it would be fun to get together with all of my friends who were also into them back then and go to another concert...it's just not the same if we're not screaming and crying at every pelvic thrust because we're lusting over them and thinking that every song is just for us, you know?  (Especially not for the ticket prices that they'll be asking.)  Sure, I'd still probably remember all the dance moves and sing along and bounce around with all of the other thirty-somethings, but maybe I can do that at my upcoming 20-year high school reunion instead. (Gulp)

when is it swooning season again?

Not only is February cold and dark and all-over boring, but I have no men to watch! 

Football season is over, so no Clay Matthews.

We're in-between blockbuster movie seasons, so no Chris Hemsworth. (Okay, I watched the remake of Red Dawn, but that was made pre-Thor and he just wasn't the same.)

Mad Men doesn't return until April, so no Jon Hamm (unless you count award season, but I don't).

True Blood isn't back until the summer, so no Joe Manganiello.  Well, Twitter gives me odd photos every now and again, but it ain't no mostly-nude were-sex scene. 

I seem to be into the black and white thing today.  Aaaaanyhooters....

I'm dying over here! 

My dear friend just suggested that I browse Pinterest and though I've resisted for so long, I had a moment of weakness and caved and... oh my lord.  No wonder so many women are using it.  Sure, they say it's for recipes and fun crafty ideas and nifty outfits, but I bet you anything most of them are just browsing pictures of men they have crushes on.  I'm still going to resist the urge to sign up and will only use it in moments of terrible weakness which will hopefully happen only once or twice before at least one of these guys comes back with any regularity. 

I can handle it....really....I think.

...and i feel fine: part 3

Oh boy - what events have transpired in the past week.  This has got to be the end of the world now, right? The Pope resigned, lightning struck St. Peter's, a meteor exploded over Russia, an asteroid came whizzing past the planet, and some poor cruise ship passengers were stranded for a few days.  (Okay, maybe that one's not so scary if you're not on the ship.)

I didn't even know a Pope could quit.  I'm sure I'm not in the minority on that one.  I mean, think of poor Pope John Paul toward the end of his career.  You had to hold him up with a stick and he still kept going.  Benny gets a kink in his neck and he's like, "That's it, I'm outta here!"  Two things about this.  One - apparently the big dude in robes in the sky wasn't so keen on the idea because he sent out a little message:

Methinks someone is not pleased.

And two - this brings forth a new doomsday prophesy.  According to something written back in the Twelfth Century, the good ol' Last Judgement is supposed to happen during the time of the 112th Pope.  Guess what?! The next Pope is #112.  Welcome aboard!  Please, read more about it here.

So then there's this little ship that had a little fire and people aboard it got stuck with no electricity and no working plumbing and it got stinky and people weren't happy and now they're back on land and all is well.  Moving on...

Then, the event that we knew was coming - the arrival of the asteroid 2012 DA14.  A beautiful name, isn't it?    It came a mere 17.000 miles near us.  That's 5,000 miles closer than our orbiting satellites.  We saw it coming, we knew we were safe, and thought it was cool.  You could even watch it online and see it whizz by.  Bye bye DA14!  Yay, science!

But then there was the unexpected event that many of us woke up to reading about -the meteor that exploded over Russia.  For us watching it on YouTube and the news and reading stories on the internet, it's simply fascinating.  Just think about what the people who lived it were thinking.  For those who saw it, was it a meteor, some sort of missile, Superman?  But the sonic wave it caused...my lord!


Here you are, going about your daily business and this wave of sound blows out your windows and scares the living begeezus out of you.  No wonder there were over 1,000 people injured - nobody saw it coming.  A bit of a wake up call to remind us that we're just one little insignificant speck in an enormous universe so vast that it makes my head hurt just trying to think about it.  Ouch.

So...is the end of the world nigh....again?  Are we all going down sooner than later?  Are we in for a disaster of Biblical proportions?  Shall we be expecting the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse for high tea?



I think I need a drink.  Anyone have four teacups I can borrow?

...and i feel fine: Part 1

...and i feel fine (addendum)

Edit:
Another theory:

via EpicLabTime

vd, anyone?

Ah, it's that day again.  Pink fluffy hearts and flowers and so much sugar being shoved down my gullet that I'm about ready to go into a diabetic coma. 

I am somewhat amused and disturbed by the number of posts on Facebook and Twitter abbreviating Valentine's Day to the much shorter (thanks to people's lazy fingers)  and utterly disturbing "VD".  I'm not sure that people even know what VD stands for.  We've been living in the world of STD's for so long that they probably don't know that before people found it acceptable to use any variation of the word "Sex" they referenced Venus, hence Venereal Diseases.

In honor of this odd posting trend, I've decided to dedicate this post to some of the great VD Awareness posters of old.  Man, apparently we women were evil back then.  What am  saying - we still are...

Watch out for those loose women, boys!  If you want it clean, you'd better have to work for it.

Dang, I thought I was a "Good Time" Girl.  I guess my understanding of the term isn't what it used to be.  Stay clean so you can kick some Axis ass, boys!

I guess it's about as effective as jumping up and down after sex to prevent pregnancy, huh?

This one's from after World War I.  I think keeping America clean shifted from VD to trash somewhere along the line...

Um...wow.

 

Ooh....that's a racy one for back then!

I think this one has to be my favorite though...

98% of all Procurable Women???  What classifies women as "procurable" and how did the human race ever survive if so many women were doling out so many terrible STD's I mean VD's?  It's a miracle!

So there you have it.  My tribute.  May you make it through VD without contracting a VD. 

i'm versatile!

Dear, sweet Sabrina over at Pouffia (who claims to have the attention span of a hyperactive toddler)has bestowed another honor upon me.  Behold, the Versatile Blogger Award!

 

I suppose the fact that I bounce from movies to hot men to life situations to dreams to feeling fat and back to hot men again makes my blog pretty robust in its subject matter.  I guess I am kinda versatile!  Muy thanks, Sabrina!

 

Again, with awards come rules.  (I wonder if Oscar winners have rules like these...)  The rules for this one are as follows:

Rules:
1. Thank the blogger who nominated you and include a link to their site
2. Add the Versatile Blogger Award picture to your blog post
3. Nominate 7 fellow bloggers that you follow and link to their sites
4. Let them know you've nominated them
5. Share 7 random facts about you

Check #1 and #2 off of the list. 

See, here's where I have problems again...nominating fellow bloggers.  I read so very few and most of the few I read are specific to one topic (or have become that way), or have just kind of fizzled out,  or way too large and run by big corporations that don't take awards like this.  I think I need to expand my horizons a bit.  Okay...a lot.  Anyway, forgive me for breaking this rule.  (I'm such a rebel.)  I'd bestow it upon Sabrina if she hadn't given it to me in the first place.

Well, that nixes rule #4

On to #5...random facts!  Geez, I'm boring.  Let me see what I can come up with here:

Factoids:
1. I met two of the New Kids on the Block (Jordan & Joe) when I was a freshman in high school. I took their pictures and had Jordan autograph a picture that I had drawn of him.  My friends and I were the talk of the school the next day.  Hmmm...I think I'll have to write about that sometime.
2. I never got drunk until I was 21 (our legal drinking age).  I was a good girl!
3. I'm nowhere near a Catholic, but I love a good high mass in Latin every once in a while (thanks to EWTN).
4. I have a fear of being near ostriches.  They're too big.  They're too big to be birds, they're mean and they're strong.  Like little dinosaurs.  I don't want to be near a dinosaur, so why would I want to be near an ostrich?  Odd thing is that there's actually an ostrich farm on my way to work, so I see them every day...from a safe distance.
5. My dream job would be designing exhibits for museums.  What a way to put all of my interests together in one nice little bundle.
6. I never knew either of my grandfathers.  They both died years and years before I was born.  Actually, both of my parents' fathers died when my parents were sophomores in high school, so I was somewhat paranoid that the same thing would happen to my dad when I was a sophomore.  It didn't.
7. If I had been born a boy, my parents were going to name me Todd.  Todd?  I'm glad I was born a girl.

There you have it!  Thanks again to Sabrina for the award.  I hope I can continue to live up to it!

that's right woodchuck-chuckers, it's groundhog day!

Okay, so I missed it by a few days.  Well, I missed posting about it anyway.  My normal writing time has been taken up by work, so please don't hold it against me.

I have had a terrible case of cabin fever this winter.  We've had no money to do anything fun and it's been really freaking cold, so I've been stuck in my apartment playing cards, glancing at Facebook, feeling my butt get bigger day by day.  I finally had enough last week and was determined to do something fun over the weekend. 

Then I remembered that Saturday was Groundhog Day.  Sure, that doesn't sound like anything fun to celebrate...and normally it's not....but located only half an hour away from me is the town where most of the classic Bill Murray movie was filmed.  You know...Groundhog Day.  The town has embraced the movie with affection and has an annual festival showcasing the movie and the places where it was filmed and to top it off - most of it is completely free of charge!  I'm there!

I consulted the Almighty Interwebs, consulted their website, and found that there was going to be a guided tour of the filming locations (again..free) on Saturday afternoon.  I thought that would be just the right mix of cheese, fun, trivia and IT GOT ME OUT OF THE HOUSE!!!  Okay, sure, so the high temp for the day was only supposed to be 16 degrees with a wind chill hovering right around 0, but I'm a Wisconsin chick - I come from the Frozen Tundra (so they say) - I could handle it.

Saturday morning, I got up, exercised, showered, had my one precious cup of coffee, threw on 3 layers of clothing - of course including my Groundhog Day t-shirt:

Okay, so nobody would probably even see the shirt because it was going to be constantly covered by more layers, but I knew I was celebrating in fine style.  On went the scarf, the long winter coat, gloves and hat, and I was on my way!

Now, even though I only live 30 minutes away from this town and have been through it on my way to other places more times than I can count, I've never actually stopped there.  The downtown area is built around a town square and this is where the bulk of the movie takes place. 

 

The focal point of the Square is the Opera House.  In the movie, this served as the hotel that Andie MacDowell's character stayed at and was also where Phil jumped out of the tower and met his demise.  Well, his demise until the day started over anyway.

 

The Opera House = totally haunted

I went to the building and noticed this little sign in front of it, noting that in the movie, this was the Pennsylvanian Hotel:



And then as I looked around, I noticed that these little signs were dotting the square.  It was time to investigate and give myself a little tour.  Thanks to the signs and the handy-dandy map that I printed out which showed all of the locations that I could visit, I made my way around the square reliving scenes, and remembering classic lines thanks to the help of the other people who were visiting and reciting them to their friends.

I went to Gobbler's Knob...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And I saw the Tip Top Cafe

(which used to be an empty building and is now a taqueria)

 

 

 

 

 

 





 



And then I saw the famous corner where Phil meets Ned.  See...they even have a plaque there!

Bing!

Do you not remember what I'm talking about?  Let me refresh your memory.



So if this is the corner, then that must mean that right over here is......

That first step!  The doooooozy spot!  The Holy Land!

I hear angels.

I could have gone home right then completely satisfied, but I knew that the guided tour was coming up shortly, so I had a quick bite to eat at a nice friendly family restaurant on the square (the one place where I was able to take off my coat so that people could see my awesome shirt) and headed to the meeting spot for the tour.

And then the location manager for the movie, Bob Hudgins, showed up and we began the tour.  Well, kind of.  We stood at that spot and discussed how the movie came to be filmed there, he gave details and stories of filming and the weather and the snow...and we got colder and colder.  When you're standing in one spot in the wind, there's nothing moving to keep you warm.

We stood there for about half an hour listening to him and then after questions were taken from the tour members, we moved on to the next spot.  Another half hour passed at that spot before we moved on to the third.  By the time we were an hour and a half into the tour and only midway through the third stop of the tour of twelve stops, I could no longer feel my feet...even with my two pairs of socks on.  And that was when I decided to take my leave.  I had seen what I wanted to see.  Even though I would have loved to have heard more stories about the filming, because they were incredibly humorous and interesting, hypothermia is not worth entertainment.

Listening, learning about the puddle scene, and freeeezing.

I drive home, finally beginning to feel my toes once again around the halfway point, turned on our fireplace, bundled up under the world's most comfortable blanket, hot chocolate in hand, and switched on AMC for their Groundhog Day marathon.  As it went from scene to scene, I completely annoyed educated my husband with all of the interesting facts I learned while I was there. I have a feeling he's thankful I didn't make it all of the way through the tour.

I think I might make this an annual thing!  Well...when it's not so flipping cold.  Anyone want to join me?