i made a decision!

be amazed with me. no, really, indecisive is my middle name (i wish. the real one is too horrible to ever be typed or acknowledged), so me coming to a decision is pretty momentous. well, alright, it was mostly a decision made via text message conference but it still counts. i've gotten pretty used to blogging every day, even if it usually is something inane or rambling, and i think it's a habit i want to keep up. i definitely don't have enough time to really write until after the homework/holiday/midterm storm passes, so this'll be a good way to stay in practice. i mean, now that i know i can blog for a whole month, i might as well try to keep challenging myself - maybe for december i'll try to blog something, i don't know, focused. but never fear, there will be plenty of silliness, too. like this: the daily mash. did anyone else know about this site? because i just found out about it in lit today. it's hilarious. like the onion only even more sarcastic (i blame their britishness).

listening to turn up the bright lights by better than ezra. realized a few moments ago that, despite my love of her clothes and singing along to her songs at dances, i don't actually like katy perry's music. let's all be sad now. or horrified. horrified would be especially appropriate considering things like this.

my day in pictures...

so we finished trimming the tree today. check out my favorite ornament, aka the one i always almost dropped and broke as a child (and maybe last night, too)

currently listening to frayed ends by midtown. stay tuned for another post in about a minute.

sometimes joss whedon does have all the answers

so this is it. the last day of november. the last post of nanoblogmo, soundtracked, appropriately enough, by midtown's 'resting sound'. and after 13,531 words, i've got to borrow a buffy quote and ask 'where do we go from here?'

13,531 words, 45 posts, and uncountable youtube links, flickr photos, and random, rambling thoughts later and i still don't what the point of this blog is. i sort of thought i would find it somewhere along the way this month - after all thirteen thousand words. for a girl who turned down nanowrimo this year because she thought she wouldn't have time to write, this is pretty impressive. but even after all this, i still don't have a direction in mind.

even the labels aren't much help. maybe because i tend to tag my posts things like 'apush me off a cliff' and 'cookie (is a wookie)' and 'yearbookistan' and 'days that end in y' (strangely used only once). a few patterns are clear, though. music has been used 45 times in the last two months. i like the like, cutie and the followills, cobra starship, and there's still time for a midtown reunion tour all made it in at least four times each, too. so, clearly, we know where my interests lie. the other high scorers? homework, car seats are my natural habitat, the best drink in the universe for realz, and i sold my soul to sbux. in other words, my interests, while obvious, are not exactly related. well, obviously those last two are, but i haven't seen many blogs dedicated to gabe saporta and frappuccinos or jared followill and calculus homework.

so i guess the real question is this: do we want me to continue this blog? should i try to focus it somehow, or just keep rambling? inquiring minds want to know. and i'm a libra, it's not like i can make decisions.

it's foolish to assume that i'll be coming back another day

so it's kind of fitting that this i'm reviewing this album for the last day of nanoblogmo. save the world, lose the girl is short and sweet. it was the first cd i ever bought with my own (and the seat cushion's) money. it was the first album i sang along to with my hairbrush microphone and my teddy bear backup chorus. it was also the first album i denied listening to once the britney spears/backstreet boy/nsync craze caught on at school (strangely, this was also when i got into pokemon; i still maintain jigglypuff brainwashed me, that thing was creepy). this isn't the most sophisticated album. it's not even 38 minutes long, has 11 (really, 10, since one of them is only 44 seconds long) songs. they don't sing so much as shout halfway in tune. the lyrics aren't all that great, either. the only point to that one 44 second song i mentioned is gabe saporta really wanting to know if you want another boy.

but i still love this album more than living well is the best revenge and kings of leon's only by the night and take off your pants and jacket and american idiot and even dookie (although it's close there). this isn't a purely sentimental thing, either. sure, i remember being a kid and having sleepovers and stealing people's siblings' copy of this cd and thinking we were just endlessly cool for already knowing all the words when we sang along. and yeah, i remember visiting rutgers and thinking it was even cooler that the band had formed there, and that it hadn't been that long, and...but it's not a sentimental thing. or, at least, it's not a sentimental thing reserved for me alone. there are some bands and songs and cds that can remind you, even when school kind of sucks (and, wow, does it ever - see the next post for that) and you still haven't found time to look over your college applications before sending them in and there are approximately nine thousand things on your to-do list that have to be started right now...we're young. we're young and have time to sit around and listen to music and sing along and write crappy, self-indulgent, rambling blogs or just...be. maybe 'no place feels like home' (favorite song on the album? just maybe) and maybe, now that you remember how young you are and how young the band was when they recorded this album, you don't really believe they'd experienced enough to hate anyone like they do in 'such a person'. maybe you agree with them when they say 'to trust is to depend', but you don't care, and, no, you're not going to stop breathing for them.

or maybe you'll listen and have fun and blast them on your radio. maybe after this you'll play forget what you know and dookie and pinkerton and enema of the state and take off your pants and jacket and americana and smash. and after that 'come on' will come on shuffle. and you'll start singing along. you know you will, because i've spent a good four days convincing you to. and after all that you'll turn shuffle off and crank up the speakers and play 'just rock and roll' until your ears bleed.

so that was it for the midtown review extravaganza. i'd post a list of favorites off of this album, but, honestly, it's not the same if you don't listen to it all. and, before you start whining, it's short. you can do it.

and now for the important things...

and we all know what important things i'm referring to, right? right. because we all know that i would only ever use my precious subject line to refer to midtown, their songs, my ongoing devotion to them, and/or current project to keep reviewing their albums in order to get you to like them.

today we're covering album two, aka 'living well is the best revenge'. it's kind of ironic that i'd be covering my least favorite of their albums on my least favorite day this month, but...oh well. although you should understand that my least favorite midtown album is approximately equivalent in terms of musical love/squee factor with my second favorite kings of leon album (only by the night, in case you were wondering), just to keep things in perspective. i just thought i should share that since i realized today that since most of you have met me in the midst of one of my overexcited, new-band-discovery periods (and it doesn't really matter if that band was cutie and co., panic!, cobra starship, or better than ezra because that initial period of excitement is pretty much the same no matter what), you probably haven't really been exposed to my love of all things midtown yet. mostly because that was always in the back of my head, just below the beatles and just above britney spears, but never really something i felt the need to fangirl over (well, until now, obviously). and now that we have some context for this, onto the review.

well, okay, it's not much of a review because i'm not much of a reviewer. my main problem with this album is how overproduced it sounds. also, gabe's vocals on a lot of these songs seem different to the other albums (or even his pre-vocal cyst stuff with cobra). his voice isn't necessarily bad, not at all. more like generic. he sounds like every other singer in a pop-punk band (besides tom, who will never be equalled). like i said, overproduced. the good? just about everything else.

favorite song: like a movie. the lyrics in this are great and it's such a great car song. in case you couldn't tell, that's pretty high praise from me (especially since there are days when it feels like i was born with a car seat welded to my butt).

other highlights:

1. get it together, for the intro, mostly, but also because after dances i like to put this song on while i'm in the bathroom and listen to gabe saporta tell me to 'take off your makeup, honey' while i'm...taking my makeup off. i don't know, i'm easily amused, okay?
2. you should know. this is definitely a lyrics song to me. i don't know enough about music to comment on the arrangements on this song beyond saying that it sounds like a simplified and slowed down version of blink, but the lyrics and gabe's voice on this (which is less polished than on the rest of the songs) filled all of my 'reasons i like midtown' ticky boxes. besides, what's not to love in a song that's telling us that 'it's safe to fall if you just trust the ground you stand on'?
3. become what you hate/in the songs. okay, so these are two songs, but i like them both for the same reason, which is that they're all about midtown's record label (which they left after this album). it's fun for context/being spitefully happy that they ditched drive thru records in time to make 'forget what you know' independently (and awesomely, without any of the crazy 'sound like bands X, Y, & Z' directives that had to be responsible for this album).

so that was 'living well is the best revenge'. stay tuned for 'save the girl, lose the world'.

try to forget about living the good life

so today was just all-around awful. lulu (satan in pekingese form) chewed up my copy of the loved one, the book we're reading in lit, and since i'm going to need it tomorrow (it even says so on my teacher's website, all ominous and official warning-like), we went out to borders in sterling to get another copy. only it was sold out when we got there. and according to the salesgirl, it was also sold out at tyson's, alexandria, georgetown, manassas, winchester, and every other borders on earth. so then we went back to the car, called barnes and noble, and found out that we'd have to drive all the way to manassas to buy their last copy - which, thankfully, they put on hold (under the name lulu satandog, but, hey, people should know better than let me have the phone unsupervised). so, you know, i got to suffer through a lovely drive to manassas circa rush hour - although it was nice and eight o'clockish when we headed home, so that wasn't so bad. the manassas barnes and noble was good for one other thing, too. see that thing on the right? happily entitled 'nightlight'? yeah, that's the official printed parody of twilight. i started reading it in the store and it was pretty funny - i didn't buy it, though, i saved my/mi madre's book money for j. d. salinger's zooey and franny, which i started and which is wonderful. mostly i'm amused by the fact that there is an actual market for twilight parodies - if there even are official harry potter parodies they aren't on an actual display (like 'nightlight') and definitely didn't come out so early. think about it: harry and co. have been around for over a decade and twilight came out in what, 2006? and it's already spawning parodies. i feel like this is the beginning of the universe righting itself.

other things which i found today include:

...well, i'm not actually sure what these are supposed to be. they were just part of the random silly things i bought at target today. while there, i also bought these:

'these' being, respectively, another one of my favorite drinks of all time and my new favorite throw/blankie (since i've finally gotten around to replacing the one i left at meggo's freshman year and never brought home again...speaking of, i think blankie and breadroll deserve their own blog post, m). i just love target. you never know what you'll find there.

and since this post is getting kind of long, i'm moving the midtown review to its own post. read/comment on this for the next ten minutes or so. and maybe listen to breaking by the all american rejects while you type like i am.

phone troubles

sorry kids, no midtown post today. i accidentally reset my phone's settings on itunes (that'll teach me to pay attention to what i'm clicking on) and now it's resyncing all of my contacts, texts, and music from the backup file (or itunes, but that's just the music) and it's taking forever. you might think that's an exaggeration, but it's not. i've just been sitting around watching maid in manhattan and sipping on my favorite drink in the world (pictures pending...they're stuck on the phone still) watching itunes tell me it's only halfway through syncing my music. if only the momster would let me leave the house without my phone. she won't even let me walk to cheeseball without my phone, let alone drive. what's going to happen in the whole ten minutes it takes to walk up the street and hang a left? nothing, that's what. i mean, i live in lansdowne, land of nothing ever happening. clearly i would be fine. silly parental paranoia.

after my phone finishes syncing we're going to pick up our christmas tree! i can't wait. it's also time to pull my little purple plastic tree out of the closet and set it up in my room again. oh christmas, i've missed you. also, i got my first anonymous commenter yesterday! let's all be excited.

i'm listening to i hate christmas parties by relient k. i've been going through their holiday albums today. you shouldn't though - it's midtown for you or our friendship is over. no, really.

this just made my day. just thought i'd share:

does truth lie in the sincerity of another sullen song?

so i'm thinking blogging about my favorite drink discovery was a bad idea. mostly because whenever i have one now i keep wanting to blog. so, here, have a picture of my latest favorite drink in the universe (it's quite photogenic) and my favorite cheeseball too (isn't he cute?). also, in case you couldn't tell, i'm rereading the potters in time to watch the newest one on dvd. is it lame that i'm excited about that? i don't think so. but, eh, it's me - i spent half an hour in the car looking up youtube interviews with the cast about the deathly hallows movie. (according to daniel radcliffe they're hitting the "home stretch" of filming after christmas. which means new movie soon!) besides, it's not like my fixation with british children's fantasy literature in general is news to anyone. it's not even my fault, either. if they would just write silly fantasy

like twilight i wouldn't be so addicted, but, nope, those silly brits had to go and invent narnia and hogwarts and - and - roald dahl. how could any kid have been expected to step away from the bookcase after reading the witches? it's just not possible. and speaking of old roald, we went to see the fantastic mr. fox and it was pretty funny (if a little disconcerting to hear clooney in theaters so soon after goats). i still prefer the book, though. oh, and remember my last post? (you should, it was from, like, two hours ago) well, i'm serious about midtown, okay? they were my cutie and the followills before i knew who cutie and the followills were. you will like them. like, it's not even up for discussion. and to help you out with that, i'm going to feature an album review/primer every day for the next...three days. maybe longer, since they had a few EPs that weren't officially released.

let's start with my favorite: forget what you know. it was their last album. and their best (according to me and gabe saporta; clearly this is a consensus you should trust, okay?). here's the ap.net review, which is a lot more detailed and coherent than i could ever hope to be since my default state when listening to music i like tends to be roughly equivalent to a gibbering baboon. i'm just saying. also, here's gabe from cobra starship talking about midtown. let's all take a moment to soak in the hopes of a reunion tour (well, if blink-182 could do it, why can't they?). excited now? good. now when you listen to the album (and you're going to listen to the album or we're not friends anymore), here's the songs you should pay special attention to, aka rachel's list of favorites:

1. to our savior - no, s-la, they aren't taking the lord's name in vain and i will never forgive you for making that your only comment on brand new/jesus christ.
2. waiting for the news - the intro. also, for any cobra fans, gabe's voice on this kind of reminds me of his voice on the scene is dead; long live the scene.
3. god is dead - no, seriously, steffi, i know what you're thinking and you should stop it right now. it's a nice interlude, okay, and there's a reason it's been on my sleep sleep playlist since eighth grade.
4. help me sleep - doesn't actually help me sleep, but it's fun to sing along to in the car. the only way the momster got me to drive on the way back from gettysburg this summer was by letting me play this song on loop for half an hour (although was she really expecting me to drive to the accompaniment of the beegees? she should've known better)
5. whole new world - i don't why, but in my mind this is automatically filed under 'soundtrack'. even if it never made it to tv (that wikipedia knows of), it's still awesome. besides, everyone knows the only things being played on tv shows nowadays is lady gaga and the disney kids. (although that bonus jonas kid's blog is the most amazing thing i've ever read, even if i don't know if it's real or not. either way, go look at it)

forget what you know

so you might've noticed that the playlist changed again. and it might seem a little different than my former blogging music of choice. i mean, it's no secret that i love my wee little indie darlings. but now that cobra starship has finally made it big i feel like the time is right to try to force one of my greatest musical loves down your collective throats.

this is midtown. you might recognize that dorky one in the middle (you know, the one pulling the...actually, i'm not sure you could call that a face). he's gabe saporta, currently of cobra starship. but before he started singing about making them good girls go bad he was in this little band that started in rutgers, just a few minutes away from where i lived as a tiny tot just starting kindergarten. basically, they were what the 'cool kids' - and in a tiny private school where all the grades were houses in the same not-so-tiny building, the 'cool kids' were anyone above sixth grade. no, really - listened to, and, as a result, what us younger kids copied. except in copying the older kids by listening to them i actually started to like them. i'm guessing it's a little bit like s-la liking blink as a wee little 2nd grader. looking back on it now i can realize that i didn't understand any of what they were singing about, but i could sing along anyway. mostly, they were my introduction into music that wasn't britney spears and the backstreet boys or owned by my parents (because no childhood is complete without the beatles). without this band i never would've started listening to blink or the pixies or taking back sunday and saves the day or anything besides aaron carter and justin timberlake (my poor, poor misguided third and fourth grade classmates). who knows, without their music to counteract the bubblegum pop of my formative years i might not even have the wee little indie darlings on my itunes. so do yourself a favor and start listening to some midtown. and here's a heads-up: if you say you don't like them, i'll say i'm not judging you. (but i am, i so totally am).

blogging from my phone is fun

it gives me an excuse to just post all the silly things i find/have forwarded to me on the internet.

this is my current favorite. i'm listening to empire state of mind by jay-z (feat. alicia keys) right now.

also, look at cookie post-thankgiving bathtime. he's all fluffy and yummy-smelling. (like that's gonna last, he's already running around the backyard, silly puppy)

blogging via iphone, so don't expect much...

this is epic. and not at all too early because we're officially entering post-turkey hours, aka beginning of ye olde christmas countdown. if you want it, leave a comment or send a text.

also, tennessee thomas/the like are awesome? want proof (besides the fact that they post free songs on their myspace and hang out with ryan ross)? here it is. she has cute clothes. and forever 21 loves her (and we all love forever 21, right?)

so i hear today's a holiday of some sort

i just got back from walking cheeseball. (who is moving! why?) our doggie-walk soundtrack of the day was the titans spirit score from remember the titans. seriously, nothing's better for an early morning walk/run. it's all inspirational and sappy. and i just really love that movie.

it's thanksgiving! i'm actually not doing any work today (and trying to avoid the computer) so have fun (and get off the interwebs, kids, it's a holiday...unless you're canadian, in which case, get off the computer anyway, you're supposed to be in school) and have a happy turkey day.

life is beautiful. yippee, thanksgiving!

so i went shoe shopping today. here are the results (look at that purple lining! it was the deciding factor):

and see the best drink in the whole world there? yeah, i think it's just going to get its own tag now. oh, and i'm listening to you're gonna go far kid by the offspring. that's all. stay classy kids.

cheeseball!

so i'm cheeseballing this week and part of next, which is great because cheeseball is awesome. but his (possible spy/mobster) owners are moving in january! all we have left is december! i'm so sad! and unable to stop using exclamation points to show my deep inner pain!

...on the plus side, apparently the people moving in like to vacation a lot and have two little shih tzus.

but CHEEESEBALL!

get tied up in your day (let go and walk away)

so today was a busy day. been checking all of my college application essays and starting the tech application (due january 15! you go VT coco), did some of my homework, discovered my favorite lunch in the whole world (cherry tomatoes, asiago cheese, extra virgin olive oil, salt, pepper, and toasted wheat bread), and wore my new ankle boots to starbucks to pick up my favorite drink in the whole world (see below). here, have a picture of my new boots. they're purple and fantastically comfortable. and pretty. did i mention how pretty they are?

oh, and in my brief fit of productivity today i managed to start writing the short story that's been floating around my head for a while. i probably should have held off on that until i have the time to finish it/outline/develop theme and motivations and other Important Literary Things that will prevent me from becoming SMeyer, but i just couldn't resist. hopefully by the time i get back to it the intro will still look okay. otherwise i guess it'll be rewrite time.

what am i listening to right now? the saints are coming - u2 feat. green day. just finished listening to thou shalt always kill (dan le sac vs. scroobius pip). it was my homework song of the day. for future reference, never listen to that song while trying to work. catchy beats and the most argumentative lyrics (no, seriously. i get that it's supposed to be all hipster ironic or whatever but "the beatles? just a band. the clash? just a band." are not lyrics to derive equations to) made concentration impossible. hence my current musical/blogging wind-down.

wordle!

so gina's wordle post inspired me. i decided to copy and paste the entire contents of this blog into wordle and see what words i use the most (oh, and i've blogged over 12,000 words this month! that's pretty exciting. it looks like nanoblogmo hasn't been a complete waste). what do you think?

i'm listening to kings & queens by 30 seconds to mars right now. the music video to this is so silly but i still like the song. i just got home from shoe shopping! it was pretty exciting, i now have purple boots.

oh, and who else is amused by the fact that my two most used words are 'like' and 'just'? i'm sensing the beginnings of a verbal and/or written tic here. i wonder if i should try to break this habit or just roll with it.

adventures

so today i discovered the wonder that is this:

in case you didn't know, this is the peppermint mocha frappuccino, aka the combination of my two most-ordered drinks at starbucks (java chip frapps or a peppermint mocha with an extra espresso shot because the original has no caffeine at all). it's my favorite drink of all time. just so you know. and since starbucks is open on thanksgiving (and this year we don't have to visit the indian half of the family in long island because i have cheeseball/project/college application duties) i'm going to beg for an early morning pick-me-up on thursday.

i'm listening to never knew by the rocket summer. it's awesome.

surprisingly, discovering a new drink wasn't the most exciting thing to happen during early release. neither was taking pictures of the cafeteria and watching gina complete her awesome infographic for yearbook. nope, the most memorable event of all came in between those two. specifically, while on the way to starbucks.

let's preface this by explaining that my mom answers her phone and texts while driving. a lot. and she usually reads them out loud to me because she's afraid she'll get distracted and misunderstand something and reply wrong to a client.

so, while on belmont ridge road my mom starts reading me a text. stops. stares at her phone (while on the twistiest, turniest, most median-lacking road in the county...i thought i was going to die). and then starts flipping out...literally. she was flapping her hands everywhere and babbling in indian. it was highly entertaining. and while flapping/driving she dropped her phone between her seat and the gear shift so i fished it out and read the last text.

which, you know, was seriously dirty in an 'i'm going to quote low-quality porn at you' sort of way and from a number not in her contacts or immediately recognizable to either of us. so once she calmed down she took the phone away and replied back with a poorly-spelled variant of "who are you? where did you get this number?" and then we were at starbucks and she got out to go get us coffee.

she left her phone in the car, though, and a few minutes later it started ringing. and since i'm always supposed to answer her phone in case it's a client having another OMG moment, i

picked it up. and it was Dirty Text Guy. here's a rough transcript of our conversation:

Dirty Text Guy (DTG): Hello? Is this Barbara? I just texted you, I'm so sorry if this isn't the wrong number, do you know Barbara?

[DTG speaks really fast. he sounded pretty nervous, too]

me: ...This is Rachel. I got your text. You know I'm 17, right? So you might want to quit quoting porn at me because that's just really creepy.

[and, okay, i know the text wasn't to me, but i just couldn't resist. messing with people is so much fun. besides, it's really better that he got me on the phone and not the madre, because during the flap-her-hands-and-ask-Jesus-why-these-things-happened-to-her routine she was totally squawking about calling the police and tracking down the 'indecent person']

DTG: ...17. I'M SO SORRY PLEASE DON'T CALL THE COPS ON ME I DIDN'T KNOW.

me: ...okay. You might want to go get Barbara's real number now. Is the Barbara you know Barbara [insert-last-name-here], because that's my neighbor and she's married and that's just really creepy.

DTG: ...OH MY GOD.

End Call.

and in honor of my little misadventure in messing with inappropriate texters, have say anything's hilarious new song. the title kind of speaks for itself.

dear world...

today my butt nearly fell off. no, really. we drove for, like, three hours (well, okay, there were tiny, tiny breaks for things like doctor's appointments and grocery shopping and shoes) and my butt has been left behind in fairfax county. i miss it very much.

in case you couldn't tell, i'm feeling silly today. i'm taking a break from studying for an econ quiz i'm making up tomorrow. oh, blogger, how easily you distract me. well, actually, the neverending car ride was good for homework purposes. i finished my re-read of the loved one for lit (time to do those questions over break) and all my other homework, and now all i've got left is econ and calc extra credit.

paper bag records is celebrating its seventh anniversary with a free covers compilation to download! it's pretty rad. my favorite song off of it is actually playing on my (7065 songs!) itunes right now. it's josh reichmann's cover of bat for lashes' daniel. bat for lashes, in case you couldn't tell, is actually natasha khan (i'm kind of loving all these one person 'bands' that are springing up) and she wrote the original song about the karate kid. since you'll get the cover for free anyway i'm just going to post the original video (which i think is pretty cool - spot all the karate kid references!)

so in today's news, there was a fire drill today. only it wasn't a drill. i'm kind of fuzzy on the details, mostly because it was raining and i was cold and trying to sneak out of the parking lot, and therefore not paying attention. the main point is that we got let out of school to wallow in our own freezing misery during eighth block aka early release time. i'm still bitter about this. not only did i not miss any classes (like, say, the calc quiz i took earlier), but i had to stay and be "accounted for" when i wasn't even technically in school to begin with. lesson? never stay at school longer than you have to, even if you're doing it for homework-related purposes.

itunes update

so i've been trying for the longest time to get to 7000 songs. and by 'trying' i don't mean that i was too lazy to buy or download music, it's just that i couldn't find enough music that i actually liked (my itunes library is selective, okay, it's only got the stuff i actually like).

and then i discovered phantom planet.

now, you might be wondering why i say 'discovered' when do the panic's been on the playlist for this blog for the last two weeks and everyone and their grandmother knows the theme song they did for the o.c.

but by discovered i mean i actually listened through most of their albums on youtube and liked it. a lot. i would get into them after they already broke up. at least i have all their albums/covers/acoustics/b-sides to keep me company. oh, and in i-tracked-down-this-unreleased-song-ask-me-how news, kings of leon has a b-side called woo hoo. it's great.

oh, and i'm done with my gothic novel introduction! it is silly and THISCLOSE to being a parody.

what am i listening to right now? raise the dead - phanplan

stephanie and silliness

so, before we get to the awesomeness that is STEPHANIE (deserving of capital letters, even), i'm just going to get all the silly blogging out of the way.

silly thing the first: this is both creepy and endlessly entertaining

silly thing the second: cheeseball...clearly not going to be the coverdog of any magazines. poor puppy's not that fond of cameras. i tried my best to get pictures anyway

also, cookie and lulu did not approve of my cheeseballing. they hung out the window looking annoyed. see?

now, onto stephanie. she's awesome. i might have mentioned this already? but it bears repeating. the only way she could increase in awesomeness is if she magically started blogging. i'm just saying. she was even featured in like one of my very first blogs! (well, her arm was)

also, she just turned sixteen (and is still in the same level of math and science as i am...darn those smart kids) and is an amazing writer (go look at her features in the school newspaper! if i can dig up a copy i'll scan one of them in so you can all marvel at her writeyness. oh, and she's insanely smart and pretty much saved my slacker-self from failing chemistry by having mini-cram sessions before every test so i wouldn't forget the formulas. and she's ridiculously, unbelievably nice. like, unicorn nice. we're talking sunshine and puppies and rainbows here.

so, here's the stephanie playlist:

Music Playlist at MixPod.com

busy day today

movies with the other half of the group today (oh scheduling conflicts...). then stephanie's birthday party! which will be awesome because she is awesome. i know, i know, you're all astounded by my eloquence.

going to hit the shower now. will write a stephanie bday post when i'm out. also, i'm cheesesballing today!

until then, here, have something that made me laugh.

you're chagrinning my dazzle, yo.

"you stayed out till 10:30 to see that croissant movie? i thought you were doing drugs or something."

the madre, circa ten minutes ago

tonight i went to see the croissant movie (idk, it's my mother, okay, she has strange names for things).

the good:

1. taycob is still pretty. and muscley.
2. the ab pack (see above, re: pretty and muscley)
3. the soundtrack
4. bella's "i'm in labor. no, really" screaming fits. you can just tell kstew is practicing for breaking dawn.
5. new director doesn't believe in blue filters. you go, new director coco.
6. alice.
7. alice's wardrobe.
8. jasper. his funny faces and accent would be so great given screen time.
9. basically every non-bella-shaped human. seriously, for all that they're given, like, a cumulative three and a half minutes of screen time, they all come across as totally awesome. i think tyra would approve. it's probably because they "smile with their eyes"
10. speaking of humans, the ones in the audience weren't so bad. there was one annoying girl with her phone out, but steffi got her with a mini-reese's wrapper, so that was okay. and we had a little boy yelling out things like "oh my god, it's just a movie!" and "kiss already!" (for the jacob and bella scenes) in our row. he was adorable. and also provided me with entertainment of the "s-la is a pedo" variety when she yelled back "i love you, little boy!" (after the first statement).

the bad:

1. rpattz. his makeup is awful, and they only bothered to cgi his abs on for the one scene. during the rest of his shirtless stint in the movie it was all scraggly chest hairs and flab and paleness, oh my!
2. bella. normally she would've topped this list, but in her scenes with jacob she managed to enunciate, finish sentences, show flickers of personality, and finally stop blinking so much. also, the screaming really was endlessly entertaining.
3. edward and bella. their scenes together were not only painfully awkward but aesthetically disappointing after nearly an hour of the ab pack. also, in edward's presence, kstew turns on her incessant blinking switch again.
4. jasper has two lines. two! travesty much?

all in all, not as bad as i was expecting. it definitely didn't produce the hilarity twilight did. and it gave us the ab pack, so i'm pretty happy.

also, it gave me an excuse for a g.n.o. there were five of us at first, then i convinced jeni to crash. mostly it was an excuse to binge. we worked our way through almost two bags of mini-reeses, dinner at california tortilla, and dessert at johnny rockets. i'm thinking that makes this night a win.

and in honor of the movie (and because i'm too tired to actually have music on...i think i'm going to sleep soon, actually. yeah, i know, i'm a rebel), here's the song of the day:

this is our decision to live fast and die young.

i got home today and my mother plopped this on the table. think someone's trying to fatten me up? i agree.

on itunes right now: a scale, a mirror, and these indifferent clocks by bright eyes

so today i had physics. normal. the teacher taped us for his mystical teacher certification powwow. semi-normal. this lead to our class having d lunch. not normal at all. i got home so early. it was ah-mazing! who knew d lunch was so awesome? i don't know how i'm going to sit through tomorrow.

also, my english teacher thinks i'm quiet, introspective, and not likely to blurt out random things without thinking. i'll...let her sit with that assumption. it's so much nicer than the truth.

it's rainy and cold right now. i can't stand being home in the rain unless i'm nice and cozy. so i'm wearing my pajamas, a hello kitty robe, slipper socks, and a blankie. at 3 in the afternoon. don't judge me.

"our bones are hardwired and we go dancing on the lake. and sleds will carry us tonight. and snowflakes will blow us on our way."

-- ANIMAL COLLECTIVE (is > you)

buzzer club!

academic bowl, fondly known as buzzer club, had its first competition today. and we won! which was exciting, mostly because we beat park view (which, seriously, is just full of the most annoying kids ever...they wore ties.) and also because i got to visit with meggo, who's plays buzzer for freedom. which was exciting, especially because seeing her spiffy jacket reminded me that i need to go shopping this weekend. oh, and in my competition to woo s-la to buzzerdom, i would just like to point out that sarah and i are campaigning for the club to dress as ninjas for the next meet or districts. because, really, what better way to buzz than while dressed as a ninja?

speaking of things happening this weekend - because, in my world, friday is so the weekend - new moon is coming up. i can't wait. i hope we have people who dressed up in our theater. and maybe someone like that crazy twilight fan on youtube who started hyperventilating and crying when she first saw the new moon preview. that'd be amusing.

what am i listening to right now? half of my heart feat. taylor swift by john mayer. it's happy.

and all mellow. good music to blog to.

i stopped by starbucks after school today. here, have a flickr picture which shows my order (well, okay, this is much prettier looking than my order...and also, my drink doesn't splash like this. whatever.)

sick III (it's like the new saw)

jay-z had the death of auto-tune. pete wentz and mark hoppus had the death of the emo swoosh. and i? i have the death of my immune system.

it's been a long, complicated process which involves five one (1) missed week of school, three hundred thousand seventy-two (300,072) makeup homework assignments, and two (2) used boxes of tissues. combine in a blender and hit puree. should result in grumpy and/or sick rachel for at least seventy-two hours.

...or three weeks. because i'd thought i'd been getting better, but then came the sneak-attack of (highly awkward) coughing in the library.

in other words, my immune system is conspiring to turn me into a little old lady who whines about her health and has long, poorly-timed coughing fits in public places. what joy.

here's my flikr photo of the day. this time i'm including a (rough) description of my thought process as i found it. it went a little something like this: isn 't it pretty? and purple? it makes me wish i could play guitar just so i could have a neon purple one. and, okay, so maybe guitars like that don't, you know, exist. but i would find a way. it could be like spiderman, where the guitar gets bit by a radioactive spiders...if a guitar could be infected. so maybe it'd be like batman, instead, where the guitar works on developing near-superguitarish abilities to avenge the death of its...nonexistent guitar parents. hmm, maybe it's just a lost mutant guitar trying to get back to the xavier institute of other neon glowy guitars (and butterfly worshippers). and, yes, i do recast inanimate objects as comic book superheroes. doesn't everyone?

oh, so you remember that essay i was working all yesterday on? it turns out it wasn't due until 9 p.m. today. as in, i turned it in (via turnitin.com, land of self-explanatory web addresses) a full 24 hours (and change) early. oh, self, when will you learn to quit resisting procrastination? it always helps in the long run.

the new my chemical romance cd is going to have a song called black dragon fighting society...how did it take me so long to start liking this band?

what am i listening to now? er, actually? ke$ha. i found her old eps on the interwebs. they're fun. and i think, $ and all, i like her after all. dang it.

new layout! (the sequel)

so gina's pretty, pretty layout inspired me to get moving on making my own little bit of the blogosphere a little prettier. hence the new layout. (and the music, because, really, by now we all know that i can't work without a soundtrack). i'm thinking i'll change the playlist up every week or two. or maybe i should just leave it? i don't know, i'm a libra - being indecisive is part of my astrological makeup.

and just to get all the music-related news out of the way, here are the highlights of my day in musical form:

ke$ha - tik tok : on the treadmill, the beat is amazing. i refuse to like her on principle, though. any one who spells their name with a dollar sign is just asking for mockery, even if her producer does get snaps for catchy beats.

a blue christmas - a fine frenzy : okay, so this is kind of cheating since it's an album instead of a song. but it's a holiday album by a fine frenzy, who i adore, and it was good company during the wilds of detention. nothing cheers you up like holiday songs. (speaking of, am i the only person who's been blindsided by thanksgiving being so soon? i feel like halloween was just yesterday. clearly my age is catching up to me)

veronica sawyer smokes - afi : in the car, on the way to starbucks. i don't know why, but this is turning into one of those songs that makes me feel like car rides. it's kind of strange because the lyrics are completely unrelated to car rides or driving or anything but the kind of emo-pop that afi seems to have turned into.

you're a god - vertical horizon: my ipod was on shuffle while i wrote my essay for lit. it begins with i've gotta be honest/i think you know/you're covered in lies and that's okay. in other words, my essay was doomed from the start. i'd just like to thank subconscious lyrical influences and not my own lack of ability as a writer.

fellowship of the nerd - fall out boy : for while i was changing the layout. i'm just ridiculously proud of having tracked down this song.

and right now? the leaks of lady gaga's fame monster. go ahead, judge me. i don't mind. it's catchy. and i have this theory that listening to pop/dance/club remixes makes me type faster just to try and keep up with the beat. if only i'd had that theory back in the good old days of honors biology science fair projects. it would've been a lot more fun than sponges.

that's all for now. gina's posted a pretty nifty poem, though, go check it out. it gets bonus points for being based on walt whitman. who = love. just so you know. (even if he was a little overly fond of male anatomy in some parts of song of myself. we can forgive him, right? yeah, i thought so).

also, i read over some of my posts today and i realized that i'm totally and completely boring. mostly life right now is school/homework/college applications/cheeseball/music. hopefully by the time thanksgiving rolls around i'll finally be free of some of that. and if that doesn't happen, you'll at least have twilight movie-going shenanigans to entertain you.

until then: here are the things that distracted me from homework today.

oh, and be warned:

Facebook, Twitter Revolutionizing How Parents Stalk Their College-Aged Kids

detention?

detention. as in, i had my first one today for the oh-so-badass crime of accumulating three tardies in a semester.

yeah, i know. i'm such a rebel.

so my first experience in detention. it was interesting. and by interesting i mean it was mindnumbingly boring. because, really, all you do is sit in the main office and read for forty-five minutes. man, i can just feel the guilt and remorse, like, soaking into my soul.

except my soul feels a lot like my stomach, and guilt feels a lot like hunger.


i have an english essay to finish. i'm halfway through right now. i've just got my paragraph on point-of-view and the conclusion to do. it's pretty sad, but it took me at least forty-five minutes to start the essay, just because it's been so long since i've written anything that wasn't a short story or college essay or blog post. in other words, i no longer know how to write.

...way to fail, self.

i'm listening to living in the sky with diamonds by cobra starship. it's fun. i'd post a youtube link, but you can just help yourselves since i'm at school right now.

by the way, this is gina. she's interesting, go follow her.

poetry post

...well, in mini!form. here's two poems that have been stuck in my head lately.

1. The Gates of Damascus by James Elroy Flecker

Favorite line: And God shall make thy soul a Glass where ten thousand aeons pass/And thou shalt see the gleaming Worlds as men see dew upon the grass.

2. Lady Lazarus by Sylvia Plath

Favorite line: Herr God, Herr Lucifer/Beware/Beware

Out of the ash/I rise with my red hair/And I eat men like air

i'm listening to ray lamontagne right now. his voice is so interesting. i kind of wish he'd tour with brendon urie from panic! at the disco so they could form, like, a cracktastical supergroup. i don't know who the other members would be, though. suggestions?

am watching charlie and the chocolate factory now. this new version is so much darker and creepier (clone!oompa loompas!) than the willy wonka version. damn you tim burton for ruining my childhood dreams of living in the chocolate factory. (but yay for producing alice!)

new moon comes out this week. i am simultaneously amused

...are they neon butterfly worshippers?

if i could write like robert penn warren i would quit school and move to a garret in paris and do nothing but scrawl stories on scraps of paper. screw this calculus stuff. in other words, i am reading all the kings men and am completely in awe of his prose. a+ narrative voice (take note stephenie meyer, this is how first person is supposed to be done).

sometimes i feel like i've wasted my life reading books that are just literary drivel in the grand scheme of things. what if i've ruined my brain? what if i've spoiled myself with silly things like gossip girl and twilight and whatever other filler novel i used to read in the car, and now i'll never be able to write anything worthwhile?

look at the world's best writers, best novels. they are all so different in style and tone and content. i don't necessarily long to write just like warren or austen or eliot or even j. k. rowling. i just want what they have, that wonderful, intangible ability to shape a story, line, turn of phrase that makes you think "wow, that was beautiful", even when it's the kind of beauty that hurts or is cold and cruel and makes you feel like the world is a more dangerous place than you, personally, have ever had reason to believe (lessons from 10th grade english: we are all savages underneath), because at least you do feel. someone, some writer, can make you feel with just a few well-chosen words and an idea. wouldn't it be a wonderful thing, to be able to do that, too?

in news unrelated to my love of all things printed or typed, my dog tried to eat Notey today. it was a harrowing event, let me just tell you. and i've totally seen her eyeing middlemarch. isn't she supposed to eat things made out of food?

can you figure out why i really didn't want to like this song at first?

and here, i'll share this just because i found it surprisingly helpful (and funny)

blah.

doing homework. whoever invented calculus should go die. actually, they're probably already dead, so yay, but i still have homework, so boo.

speaking of things that = boo, this is my last day cheeseballing this week. was up at five to walk him and finish homework. oh well, at least that means more time to run in the morning.

i'm reading middlemarch right now. it's amazing. the characters are all so lively, and i just love celia. dorothea is more than a little annoying so far, but even she has her endearing moments. it's so strange to think that it was a serial story first - why don't newspapers print stories like this instead of yet another round of "miley-paris-angelina wore-this/sang-that/dated-so-and-so".

here's my song of the moment. i've been playing it non-stop all week. and yes, it's a cover, but not one you're likely to recognize (your parents might - mine did, but then, my stepdad was a big kate bush fan back in the day)

happy veterans day!

so it's 11/11 (make a wish at 11:11 kids!), aka veterans/remembrance day. having obviously never served in the army, i'm going to leave all the serious reflections on this to older, more experienced, or just generally more eloquent people than myself.

that said, being a huge fan of both l. m. montgomery (oh, anne, how i miss you) and ernest hemingway (is his great-granddaughter really an abercrombie model? because that's just weird), i've got to say that this holiday always makes me feel like curling up with a nice stack of books and just reading for hours. (in case you didn't know, this is because veteran's day was originally called armistice day and was created to celebrate signing the armistice that ended world war 1, something that both l.m.m. and old ernie focus pretty heavily on). it's a sad sign that reading (for pleasure and not school) has now become a completely self-indulgent activity. oh well, one day i'll be done with homework and college applications and the like, right?

i've been pretty artist-centric this week in terms of music. been listening to a lot of the smiths and brand new (because they are both awesome). i've played the new onerepublic album through a few times and i'm at least in like with every track, and completely head-over-heels for over half. cheryl cole's new album (or, well, new to me because i'd never known anything about her besides how huge she was in the u.k.) 3 words is lots of fun, too. the new lady gaga single is fun, too, but a little more lyrically different compared to her other stuff. it sounds that way to me, at least. it almost reminds me of that song by rob thomas and santana (smooth), where he keeps listing the girls' names. here, have the new lady gaga song:

and since that probably seems as annoyingly catchy to you as all of her songs seem to me, have something a little more normal (and lyrically wonderful):

oh, fine, i'll blog something real

mostly because i'm so annoyed with this site for existing. annoyed enough that i'm going to get up on my soapbox and rant because the fact that even the name of the website is perpetuating this awful thin ideal makes me so angry i don't even know what to do besides go off in my own quiet corner of the internet. because, honestly, the fact that "curvy" is portrayed so negatively (to say nothing of how repugnant the site's concept is to begin with - judging famous women based solely on their weight without caring about why they're famous - like, say, having actual talent and not just the lowest number on the scale) is offensive to me. and yeah, i know - "free speech means everyone can do/say/post whatever they want". which, obviously, i'm all for that (geez, can you imagine if censoring was real, all 1984-you-can't-have-a-diary? my poorly capitalized blogging days would be o-v-e-r), but how do you justify creating or maintaining that website? what possible purpose or satisfaction can you get from spending your time judging other people?

well, okay, i just spent an entire paragraph judging other people, but at least there was a purpose to it, mainly that i think they are doing something wrong and would like to do something to call attention to it just to ease my own conscience.

okay, you can all stop doing the duck-and-cover now. i'm done ranting. here, have one of my favorite songs to make up for it:

today i...

was boring. went to school. stayed during early release to help multicultural club set up for mix it up day. went to buzzer club. went to cheeseball. went home. basically, the highlight of my day was helping cheeseball's neighbors spray paint a water gun black so it'd look like one of the plasma blasters from halo. and starbucks. starbucks is always a highlight.

here, have some cheeseball:

my playlist today:

harbor and cannonball (damien rice cover) by vienna teng

battle studies (the album, i've listened to it once through, i think i'll give it a few more loops before i offer any judgement on it) by john mayer

that joke isn't funny anymore - the smiths

and this makes me ridiculously happy. mostly because when i opened up youtube to find a link to the video i was originally going to post (helena by my chemical romance) i found myself face-to-screen with a whole featured section on cutie followill and co. so here, have a kings of leon cover (since i know you'll have followed that link and watched every video they have).

use somebody (with bonus paramore):

adventures in cheeseballing

i finished my related rates project! a full week early, which means i get five (badly needed) extra credit points.

oh, and i'm dogwalking again this week. yet another crazy schedule. so i headed over today after yearbook (i stayed after school for that today. there's so much to do! i just wish i could have stayed longer) and ended up locked out. of every door. like, the key literally wouldn't turn in the lock (and it was the right key, too, i triple-checked). and it's happened before, but in the past i could always just go through the back door.

the thing is, to get through the back door, you have to go through the gate that lets you in the backyard. the gate which had rusted shut. luckily, cheeseball's owner's neighbors are very nice (and had things to drop off and pick up from their garage) and brought a ladder so we could climb over the fence into the backyard and use the back door.

which makes this house number two that i've broken into since halloween.

don't worry, i remembered to pry open the backyard gate so i can get in again. maybe tomorrow morning i'll take a picture? i'm just glad i didn't have to cheeseball this morning, since i was already at school at 7:30 to check my calculus project (which is done! early!) with my partner. 7:30 in the morning. i know, i'm shocked too.

oh, and tomorrow is buzzer club (otherwise known as academic bowl). i think certain people named s-la should come along.

here's a soundtrack to my day today (now with commentary):

round here - counting crows (it played during my attempts to break into casa de cheeseball, mostly because i forgot to take out my earbuds) i'd post the music video but universal's full of nazis that disabled embedding on their youtube account.

white horse (taylor swift cover) - jordan mccoy (her voice is interesting. i wish she'd done the full cover)

over my head (cable car) - a day to remember (this is another cover, this time of the fray. but we already know i love covers. thank god for punk goes pop, right?)

the ballad of serenity - sonny rhodes (i was feeling some joss whedon nostalgia. when i have the time, i will finally watch dollhouse.)

school - supertramp (do i have to explain why i was listening to this?)

anthems for a seventeen-year-old girl - broken social scene (ditto.)

battle of who could care less - ben folds five (no, really, i should have to explain this least of all)

seventeen - kings of leon (it's kings of leon.)

still have homework to do. and the daily show/colbert report hour of happiness to listen to while i do said homework. i feel like having them on in the background subliminally influences me to be more snarky when i'm doing homework, and if there's anything those sadists masquerading as my teachers deserve, it's snark.

i will die of homework

babysat today for the worst family ever. seriously, the worst. the nine-year-old was miley cyrus obsessed. and a brat. so, as punishment for her brattiness, her parents took away her ipod (which, hello, why do nine-year-olds get ipods? i had to wait til eighth grade!). however, she has all of the stupid hannah montana/miley cyrus cds, which she played all day long on her cd player (in summary: her parents have the worst punishments ever, why bother taking the ipod and leaving the cd player). and when i made her turn it off so the four- and six-year-olds could nap, she threw a fit. -.- and the two little ones burst into tears in the middle of whatever stupid disney dance movie was playing on abc family (it had like demi lovato or selena gomez or whoever the not-miley one is) because they played that sarah mclachlan commercial with the dying puppies. (and wow, was that a fail on abc family's part, because why would you play a commercial guaranteed to make kids cry during a kid movie?)

been doing homework for the last forever. still in the process. my soundtrack today has mostly been the live in phoenix cd from fall out boy (i don't know why, but i love live recordings by musicians so much more than the studio versions), comfortably numb by dar feat. ani difranco and eva cassidy's cover of fields of gold:

yeah, the depression factor of that song? it's totally reflected in my mood today. nothing crushes the soul like calculus/lit/physics. man, i can't wait until college. that said, i really love this cover because her voice is so pretty and i have trouble taking most of sting/the police's songs seriously because the synth is so distracting.

take your time (coming home)

title shamelessly stolen from the song by fun., who also supplied my 6000th (!) song. the song in question was all the pretty girls off their album aim and ignite, which is pretty appropriate considering it is a saturday night and...you have to actually hear the lyrics before you get the reference, so...here, have a listen, i'm pretty in love with it.

see, wasn't that (ahem) fun? oh, i am a jedi of punning, i know.

and speaking of jedis (look at that segue!), i saw men who stare at goats tonight with s-la and leanne. it was ridiculous and amusing and ewan mcgregor still has his moulin rouge pretty, which is always comforting. except, that movie kind of ruined him for me, because even while i was snickering along to goats (as our movie tickets called it...just 'goats', i'm guessing that the men who stared at them were still tripping on acid) i kept expecting him to burst into song and have nicole kidman start looking consumptive and tragic in the middle of the scene. it was highly distracting. also, george clooney looks like a child molester with a mustache. even with all that, i'm glad i saw it (even though it did mean that we missed seeing a christmas carol in 3D), and i'm highly annoyed with cnn.com for posting a review of it that called it 'baaaaad' and having that review be like the number one search result on google for the movie. it nearly made us decide against seeing it, and wouldn't that have been sad?

also, i can't get over the irony of having obi-wan kenobi cast as someone trying to learn to be a jedi (who stares at goats). it really made the movie.

and on the way home we had an adventure with the police, but i'll let s-la fill you in on that.

coyote ugly is playing now. man, this brings back memories of being a kid and not understanding half of this movie and wishing for musical talent so i could dance on top of bars in new york too. i had such high dreams and aspirations as a child. my other goal was to become hermione granger. i'm still working on that one.

sat today

it was boring and long like standardized tests always are. working on homework now. maybe a movie tonight? i'm not sure which one, though.

here, to make up for cheating you all out of the ahmazing mashups last night (it was late! i was lazy! and had to study!), here's a cause des garcons:

and here's the chinese dynasty song, which got me through both the world history ap exam and sat subject test:

hmm, so i'm going to go finish my related rates project now.