…mudkipz.

Yesterday, I tried one of the recipes from my new cookbooks, the corn fritters and salsa, and went over to Katrina’s to consume them with her Finn hot milk cake (with fruit…mmm). She and I then watched the Mudkip movie; rather, three mudkip episodes on one disc. It was a hoot and a half, let me tell you. Lunch was also very delicious, despite the fact I had way undersalted the fritters. On our way to the Alt 101 meeting on campus, we got caught in a downpour, and my freshly-styled hair got annihilated…boo. Oh well.

Later, I went to the Rog to return a movie, and I then rented out the entire second season of Sex and the City to numb the brain; I was so tired that I couldn’t focus on anything with substantial plot or intrigue. I watched 7 of the episodes, 4 with my mom, and fully intend on continuing the marathon today.

I weighed in at 175 lbs this morning! I also made a second round of (properly salted) fritters for my family today; I hope they enjoy them…I’m off to meet up with Jenn at 1 to wreak havoc downtown, as is our general modus operandi. I may actually end up going to see The Dark Knight on IMAX tonight, though…so stoooooked! =D

…a quickie post.

1. I’ve been closing a lot at work, but it’s been fun (minus the exhaustion factor).

2. I weigh 177 lbs now, and am eating much better and exercising more; like today, when I took advantage of Sunday Bike Days and went on a nice 1 hour bike around the canal.

3. The new Story of the Year album, The Black Swan, is my new love; it’s even better than I had expected, based on the live performance. A review will follow in the coming days.

4. I’ve been watching a stupid amount of movies, thanks to the free rentals I get. The movies that will be reviewed in the coming days are: Becoming Jane, Penelope and Never Back Down (worst movie ever), plus whatever movie we decide to see on Tuesday.

5. I found an absolutely divine little cafe (XPRESSO, it is called) that I may just move into very soon; the atmosphere is great, the seating is cushy and roomy, the staff is friendly (it’s table service!), and most importantly, the espresso is very good, and served with biscotti! I am beyond ecstatic. A little corner of Europe downtown, and it’s also all organic and fair trade coffee. Not like this is the only thing I’m concerned about, but it’s nice. Luckily, the prices aren’t sky-high; they’re very resonable.

6. I bought four cookbooks (for $30) and have been itching to try them out; I can’t wait for our dinner parties this year! We still need to make a schedule for that, the ladies and I…

7. MONDAY IS HAIRCUT DAY! Yussssss…time to get this mane under control, yo.

…that’s everything of significance right now, I will be back with heavily review-and-detail-padded posts in the next week or so.

…would you look at that?

Last night, I went shopping with my mom, and I ended up getting some (sweet) new clothes; however, this is not the really key point to the story. What I was really shocked by was the clothes I was trying on, and what I ended up buying. I’m slowly making the transition from jean-and-tee to put-together, classy casual. This is probably tying in with a sudden urge to stop hanging around downtown and irritation with childish behaviour (not in children, though). Maybe it’s about time; my dad was all gushy and “aw, my little girl’s all grown up now” when he saw me in my new ensemble (for the record, I was wearing olive skinny jeans, a burnt orange button-down with half-sleeves, and a thin, black, boat-necked sweater). Hell no, I’m not ditching my band merch entirely, but it’s time to just take everything up a notch. This includes some of my less attractive habits. Read: the excessive swearing and occasional obnoxiousness. Ah, baby steps.

Why am I not scared of this?

Hm.

So long, childhood, you were fun. I’m going to play with the big kids now…

Sidenote: THE DARK KNIGHT WAS SO AWESOME. SO. AWESOME. SO. SO. SO. AWESOME.

…THE BEST DAY OF MY LIFE.

WARPED.

SO.

GOOD.

Right, I have to speak English now. The trip there was fairly uneventful, but when we got out of the bus, the ladies and I ran into Jonzo, Mart and Alex. We joined them in line, and waited among the scenest bunch o’ chillun I have seen in a long time. So much awesome happened, but I will just summarize the sets of the bands I saw and other things worth mentioning.

3OH!3

Two white boys rapping and doing choreographed dance moves. Do I need to say any more? Well, I will. Basically, it was hilarious dancing and everyone I know that hadn’t heard them before was completely amazed with how rondo they were. Good times.

Every Avenue

Fun, generic, powerpop that was great to dance to; this is the set during which the frontman pointed at me and said ‘look at that one go!’ I laughed…and kept dancing around.

Cobra Starship

DANCE FUCKING PARTY! HOT MEN STARING AT ME! AWESOMENESS AND A VERY CRACKED OUT GABE SAPORTA. Also, Ryland has a lovely voice. That’s basically how it went down.

…here was a little gap in which we went to the hill to just hang around because no bands we wanted to hear were playing. Across from there is where the most AWESOME band ever played:

FAMILY FORCE 5!!!

A powerhouse of a 5 foot tall scene dude with silver hulk gloves and pants, a batshit crazy, dancing drummer/backup vocalist, two mostly-sane other members and a dude with curly metal hair playing the tambourine…but here’s the greatest part – their music is screamo-infused hip-rock. Yes. Yes. I enjoyed this set SO MUCH. For serious. I downloaded a bunch of their stuff right now, and am most definitely going to pick up the CD asap. Holy crap, I was so confused for the entirety of their performance; it was wtf-awesome-wtf-awesome-wtf-awesome in my mind for the full 30 minutes.

Anberlin

Stephen Christian has never failed to make me smile with how much he enjoys performing. The rest of the band is into it, for sure, but he has the biggest grin on his face whenever he looks out over the crowd, and that just makes me so happy to see. They opened with Godspeed, then played The Feel Good Drag, Adelaide, Hello Alone, Dismantle. Repair, and A Day Late (not necessarily in that order) It was a fabulous performance and I was absolutely beside myself with joy and thrashing about. Huzzah!

Every Time I Die

I wasn’t really in the mood for ETID at this point in the day, but I was hanging out with Alex, Mart and Jonzo at this point, so I hung around. They put on a pretty solid performance.

The Johnstones

They showed up onstage in diapers. Yes. Yes. Yes. I stayed for a few songs, but then left with Mart to go watch Story of the Year.

Story of the Year

YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAHHHHHMOTHAFUCKAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! OH MAN. Damn, things go batshit when these guys hit the stage. So much energy, and they played a lot of stuff off of Page Avenue, like In The Shadows, UNTIL THE DAY I DIE (!!!), Falling Down, The Hero Will Drown, and two songs off of The Black Swan, which I still need to get. I screamed along until I lost use of the upper register of my voice, and then I screamed some more. Their frontman is big on crowd participation, so he gets everyone to scream along to the chorus, pump their fists in the air and jump as high as they fucking can. They put on one of the BEST live performances ever, and to top it off, exactly like it happened the last time I saw them live, it started to rain in the middle of the set. AHHHH, SOOOO GOOOOD. The amount of caps and unnecessary punctuation in this paragraph is indicative of how much I enjoyed myself.

From First To Last

I only heard them play 3 songs, but they played two old ones and Deliverance (which I danced to, I’m not going to lie) They sound so much better performed by Matt Good than Sonny Moore. Man, that kid had a tragic voice.

Just Surrender

These guys were lively, and very inappropriate. All the ingredients necessary for a good set. Awwwyeah. I also bought their EP, cos they’re great.

We The Kings

These dudes closed up a beautiful day with Check Yes, Juliet, Skyway Drive, All Again For You, Secret Valentine, Whoa and Stay Young. Much dancing and singing happened, as did major Travis-lusting on my part. Damn, that boy is fine. They’re all so gloriously inappropriate as well, so the onstage banter was amusing and they’re so much fun onstage. Oh, WAK, how I love thee. Also, the merch dude hit on me while Eleni was trying to buy her shirt (which led to her taking about 15 minutes to get a shirt…where there was no lineup). Mind you, as per usual, I didn’t realize he was flirting until she told me, afterwards. Haaaaa, I fail.

Fuck, yesterday was so great; I had a fabulous time and picked up 4 shirts (WAK, Anberlin, Every Avenue and Warped ‘08), a bandana, an EP and some buttons and stickers for $90. I think that’s a pretty solid deal, if I say so myself. Now I’m off to listen to some SotY and be joyous.

…much excitement.

WARPED IS TOMORROW.

I have made all my sandwiches, frozen all my water, and it is all in the fridge, ready to go tomorrow.

Non-perishables are in my bag already.

I am so friggin stoked, like you wouldn’t believe.

That is all.

…it’s thursday afternoon.

Quick summary of my life, since I do very little worth mentioning:

- Saw Wanted on Tuesday, review to follow

- Friend in hospital is doing better; I am very pleased as a result

- Finished reading Chuck Palahniuk’s “Snuff”; loved it

- Watched the entire first season of The Office; found it freaking hilarious

- Worked last night; flirted shamelessly

- Down to 185 lbs from Friday’s 193 lbs; clothes fit better, yay

- Ate watermelon like there was no tomorrow; subsequently, went pee a stupid amount of times

- Called grandma, chatted about awesome things, like snooker and why she’s happy I broke up with my short boyfriend

- Planned out an outfit for Warped (THREE DAYS, MOTHERFUCKASSSSSS)

That is all. Really.

WANTED [2008]

James McAvoy, Angelina Jolie, Morgan Freeman

As far as the plot for this movie went, it was fairly average; nothing really mind-blowing or unexpected. The action, however, was SO badass. There was a lot more blood than I had anticipated, which left me feeling a little uneasy for a large part of it, but otherwise…explosions, shooting and ridiculous car chases! Come on! Whoo! My action kick is still very much active, hence why I enjoyed the supremely unnecessary effects. That, and a) James McAvoy had his shirt off for about five minutes and b) Angelina Jolie naked from the back. There’s nothing much to say about this movie; either you went for the guns and action, or you went for James and Angelina. Standard testosterone-charged fare. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go watch my brother play Star Wars: Battlefront.

…sometimes, we’re just sad.

I got home from hanging out with Maja and Jenn an hour or so ago, and that in itself should have been reason enough to be super-perky and joyous; however, as I lay here in bed, I find myself immeasurably melancholy. I don’t know why, but maybe the body gets tired of being excited for things, of finding pleasure in the simple things, and sometimes, we just have to be sad for a little bit to balance everything out. Maybe that’s it, or maybe I’m just a little off in the head, but in any case, I am going to go watch my favourite episode of Battlestar (3.17 – Maelstrom) and cry a little.

Plus, the music in it is so hauntingly beautiful; download “Deathbed and Maelstrom” when you have the chance.

And if you have the time and the interest, watch the episode in its entirety. It’s beautifully done.

…weight loss and the surreal.

My dad came to pick me up from work today, and when I got in the car, he asked me, “oh, by the way, your friend Goran, what was his last name?” It threw me off, because Goran lives in Sarajevo, and I haven’t really seen/heard from him in over a year. Why he asked was, as it turns out, aforementioned friend got stabbed in a city park by a random stranger trying to attack the girls he was with. The way my father presented it, it was as though he had died, but luckily, he survived and is now stable, lying in a hospital bed, thousands of miles away. I’m so worried, but I cannot do anything about it because I’m so far away, and I don’t have his phone number, or any contact info. I hope I can get in touch with one of our mutual friends and monitor his progress that way.

In other, less traumatic news, I went to the doctor on Thursday and found out I was overweight. Whoo! Well, I sorta knew that already, but now I know it’s a medical issue. So, on Friday, I started up a new diet! That is to say, I changed my old diet for the better. I have lost 4 lbs already, which is pretty serious biz, and I feel better! Huzzah! I am to lose about 10 lbs per month, which I think is very feasible, until I hit my goal weight by my birthday.

That is all that has been happening…I need to go sleep now.

…movies lie. dirty. dirty. liars.

I broke up with Colin today, and I can’t say that I’ve felt this badly in a long time. I think it’s the fact I willingly hurt someone I care about (regardless of the fact I wasn’t in love with him and it was a friendly caring, but still). Ughhh, I feel so wrong.

I guess that’s another sticker in my book of experience. Relationships are complicated.

…perfect days and a little less hesitation.

This morning started out with me power-getting ready, as I had slept in like a crazy goon. I met up with Clare, and the two of us got our frolic on, seeing Savannah Olympics man (we had no idea what the hell he was doing; it appeared to be animal mimicry combined with tai chi soccer) and discovering that the ground in Major’s Hill park is probably saturated with drugs. We grabbed lunch at Memories, which was always nice, especially since we ordered the same grandma thing, as per usual. Iced chai in tow, we dropped by the Rog so that I could pick up a movie. She and I went to our separate homes, and got our shower and dinner on, meeting up later to grab a pint of Magner’s (which was much sweeter than the Strongbow we originally desired, but still delicious) and a gigantor basket of sweet potato fries each. Mind you, there was garlic mayo involved, so after the brief stint in Heart & Crown, we smelled like boozy garlic fiends.

Being awesome and all, we decided to start compiling a list of good places to eat on every student budget, because, really, that would be very handy (that, and we sometimes forget things).

Today was the absolute perfect day; good company, laziness and gorgeous summer weather. I wouldn’t have had it any other way, really.

Also, on a not-so-joyous topic, I’ve decided to break up with Colin on Thursday. I think he senses something is amiss because he actually phoned me to see how my day was and what I was up to; he has only done that once before, and that was in the second week of our relationship. Oh my. This is going to end badly.