Chaucerettescs

I was going to wait to post this one, but Alan's isn't quite finished and given the topic of my previous entry, I figured a mix about a pale, manipulative bastard was appropriate. Though that Ben is only half as abusive as Edward Cullen, the supposed great romantic hero of young adult fiction, leaves me feeling extremely troubled.


Patrick Wolf, Wintersleep, Harvey Danger, Franz Ferdinand, Porcelain and the Tramps, Stabilo, Elliott Smith, Built to Spill, Kings of Conveniene, Modest Mouse, Tom McRae, The Dandy Warhols, Gary Oldman...

( All the also-rans are real nice guys, but only cream and bastards rise )

Katelyn slept over the other night and at some point the hazy, latenight conversation turned to Swacit rambling. In particular, Ben and his cronies. The best bit was about how Geoff and Ben have nothing but animosity for each other. How, unlike the others, Geoff has no real filter or guilt when it comes to hating Ben and how amusing it would be if the two of them started a prank war on each other.

Me: Geoff could start it off.... he could...um...
Katelyn: Light Ben's bed on fire.

It's probably bad how hard I laughed at that.

The rambling then turned into this whole back and forth dialogue with Geoff wanting to burn the bed and Alan trying to convince him that that was probably a bad idea and how Alan knows nothing about women's wombs and Mel banning Geoff from her house for the next few months. </geekery>

Anyway, the trip was delayed, so I'll be heading up north tomorrow morning :[

We're going up north tomorrow. Hurgh. Massive fail. I mean, it's good we can go up and get a ton of stuff for Garage Sale 2.0, but... ugh, I always forget what a pain in the ass it is going up there. I'll be making a few more entries today (I actually read Twilight in it's entirety... I'll be needing an entire entry to rant over that one...) EDIT: Twilight posthas been postponed. Nick was over tonight and I might not be home from Harbor Springs until Tuesday D:

Anyway, I have been meaning to finish/post this mix for freaking ages. Geoff & Alan lubby tiems! :3 Hey, I actually did a G/A playlist that isn't completely slashy. ... only somewhat slashy.

There's quite a bit of cover art for this one. I have so few pics for teen Alan :/

Also, a lot of these songs are from Geoff's POV because, as of now, Alan has a seperate mix and Geoff does not.


( I woke up and he was screaming... I'd left him dreaming.... I roll over and shake him tightly, and whisper 'If they want you, then they're gonna have to fight me'. )

I've decided to forgive The W.B.

The Dark Knight heals me.

You know, just when my anger at WB began to subside over pushing the HBP release date back 8 months.... they have to go and make it worse.

'Horn acknowledged that the studio would have to pacify fans in the months to come: “We would never do anything to hurt one of the movies or the series. We love our fans.”'
O rly? And how do you plan on pacifying us?

Alan Horn- “I’ve seen the movie. It is fabulous. We would have been perfectly able to have it out in November.”
Ah. Well, now. I certainly feel pacified.

Their pacification has included releasing a couple more stills from the movie... I mean, I guess they think that's pacifying (all it's really doing is rekindling everyone's disappointment and rancor). But, seriously, this pic of Narcissa Malfoy was enough to make me not care that the movie isn't coming out for another year.
Unbreakable Vow
Her hair alone is enough for me to not want to see HBP period. I must have forgotten in all this hubbub just how badly the movies often suck.

Really, the hair has healed me. I'm not angry anymore.

Oh...wait...
The anger is back.

.....................There are no words for the expression on my face right now. If the words "Oh, God damn you all" could be personified as a single facial expression.... that's the face I'm making.
Some Awesomeness Makani style

My cousin Harmony went home today. Lol, I'm so tired. I'd forgotten how exhausting running around can be we haven't done it in so long.
( Thursday & Friday )
Yesterday:
Second day of the yardsale. What's with it with people up here and yard sales? Seriously, this sale was just a pilot run since we don't have any of the good stuff from up north. We just wanted to see what people were willing to pay, etc.

Grand total profit from selling knick knacks and Beatles stuff: $666. Satan totally breaks for garage sales.

It was awesome that we made so much since Chase seriously needed some new stuff for school. We all went to the mall in Novi. I haven't gone shopping in such a long time. It was brilliant. I got a red sweater from Ruehl which I adore, a black peace t-shirt from Hot Topic, loads of new knickers and and some new pyjamas from a company called Jenni which has little bunnies for a logo (and are fucking adorable), and a new swimsuit. I swear to God, trying on swimsuits is the worst. Harmony needed one for her trip to Mexico so it took ages between the two of us. She tried on about twenty different ones and I tried on about five. Blegh. I wanted to lose ten pounds BEFORE trying on those damn things (On that front, I've had zero soda today and I'm quite cranky. Also, the stretchmarks (?) are lightening. I'm still going to the dermotologist to check them out).

Tomorrow, our new real estate agent is coming to see the house. Here's to hoping he can get the job done.

I just finished a very good book. "In the Woods" by Tana French. It's set in a tiny town in Ireland. Three children set out to spend an afternoon in the nearby woods and two of them disappear without a trace. The third child, Adam, is found clinging to a tree, completely terrorized, wearing sneakers full of blood, and unable to remember a thing. Twenty years later, Adam (who has kept his past a secret in order to live a quiet life) has become a detective and he and his partner Cassie have been given a new case: a twelve-year-old girl brutally murdered near the woods of the town where Adam grew up. It was Tana's first novel and extremely well done. Her style is fantastic... simeultaneously darkly transcendental and realistic. It was so good. I've noticed that I've become a little too good at guessing the killer early on... which is disappointing... but she did twist it around enough to make it surprising. It left me feeling revitalized and wanting to write.... but also somewhat disheartened since her style is exactly what I want for Swacit, but I don't know if I can do it as well as she did.

Whatever, now that Harm's gone, it's back to writing.

P.S. Chase makes taking pictures a serious pain in the ass, but the results are always lulzworthy:

Lol, Harmony's half-Argentinian ass makes us look even paler then usual.

You have to be motherfucking kidding me.

D:<

Seriously, are they fucking joking?

Honestly, I can't believe that pair are two of the straightest characters I have. Hee, it worries me that they have potentially the best romantic setup. They should just get married and have a big, girly reception with this:

embroidered on their napkins.

Seriously. It could happen. Er... maybe... *is working on the Geoff/Alan fanmix right now, hence the wtfuckery*

My cousin Harmony is coming tomorrow! :3 Or, rather, today since it's like 5 am. I've been sleeping all wrong lately :[

Oh, man, I think I may have found a way to start the first book. It's sort of like a prologue...only not the overly-expositional kind. Just a glimpse of the five kids on the hill in the evening, a bit of expostion, mood setting, and a reminder that one of these kids will be dead before they hit twenty (though, obviously, vague as to which one), theme stuff, blah blah blah. Hopefully, I'll be able to write it as awesomely as it is in my head (probably not x__x). The kids would be about seven and after that the next few chapters would circulate around the death of Alan's parents, etc.

Ok. I think I have a starting point.

New Fanmix time!


D.H.T., Alanis Morissette, Amy MacDonald, Clement & Murray, The Rasmus, The Presets, Lily Holbrook, Vienna Teng, Holly Brook, Poe
( Tonight the, Tonight the Hills are Watching Her as She Runs Toward the Sea... )
Aw, loss of innocence is a bummer.
Those Presets lyrics gave me goosebumps the first time I heard that song. Because I'm a dork.
Also, I've become totally obsessed with #6. Amy MacDonald is awesome.

Lol, went to the gym with Katelyn today. Had an asthma attack on the Elliptical and had to sit down. And by sit down, I mean black out for a minute on the ab curler. Lol, I fail so hard at any sort of cardio work. I am pathetically out of shape. Thank God I was sitting down so I didn't have to revisit The IHop Incident.

I like all the other machines though. My favorite is the vampire machine :3 You pretty much stand on it and bend backwards and then slowly rise back up with your arms crossed over your chest. Hee, vampire machine!

This vid has been all over Youtube.

Cutest moment: When the lion first sees them and his mouth drops open a little. Hee, omg.

I want some lion hugs.

Hee, I just got back from getting my hair cut.

Guess how much I got off? Hint: I can actually do Locks of Love this time.

Bigger hint:



EDIT: ( Chase Discovers My Computer's Camera )

Whee! The mix I should've posted ages ago, since it's sort of a crucial one, you know?


Massive Attack, Gustavo Santaolalla, Rufus Wainwright, Placebo, Iron & Wine, The Flaming Lips, Radiohead, Air, The Beatles, Sea Wolf, Snow Patrol, Elliott Smith, Jeremy Smoking Jacket, Gary Jules, Jem, Metric, Vienna Teng, David Newman, Jars of CLay, Elbow...

( In the name of, and by the power of The Holy Spirit... may we invoke your... intercession for... the children of England )

ZIP Files of part 1 (tracks 1- 13) and part 2 (tracks 14-25):
Mediafire- Part 1 Part 2

Megaupload- Part 1 Part 2

No individual song files as Box.net has gone effin insane today.

The Half Blood Trailer just went up on AOL. It came out 90 minutes earlier on MSN though (lol, pwned Aol).

MSN version

AOL version

The AOL has three different HD versions.

It's very cool, but it's really just a long teaser. Seriously, why the hell have they been taking so long with trailers for this? It's not until November, but really we should have had a proper trailer by now.

That said... Dumbledore'sscarfLOLWTF?where'shisfabplumvelvetsuit?! Also, it looks like they decided to include Fenrir Greyback, which, yay, since he's one of the only villains in the series who is seriously creepy. Lol, the other Death Eaters are good villains/sadistic, but they're also very lulzworthy (Like Bellatrix and Lucius practically getting into a slapfight in Book 7). Fenrir's just gross.

Lol, everybody in the house has skewed sleep schedules right now. Mum and Chase both took naps yesterday. Naps, I say. Probably too much excitement from our epic (read: 2 hour) trip to the zoo XD

Writing continues to be somewhat productive, to which I say huzzah. Some earlier stuff when the Swaciteers are 14-16. Which means I get to have Lena around for a little while...which is ace, because, as I've said before, I am enormously fond of her. Seriously. She told Roger to go fuck himself. I mean... that is just beautiful. I'm pretty sure that's the first fuck-word in the book and it couldn't have been used more judiciously. And she's capable of making Geoff feel embarassed. And it's nice having Mel interact with another girl for once. And writing her and Ben together fills me with amusement. Heh, a lot of amusement.

Anyway, I'm posting her mix because I haven't done one in a while and it's one of my favorite playlists. I was going to do Geoff & Alan's, but I keep changing them.


Marissa Nadler, Feist, Ane Brun, Girls Aloud, The Hush Sound, The Kills, Tegan & Sara, Cat Power, Jolie Holland, The Cardigans, Mary Elizabeth McGlynn, Trespassers William, Laura Marling...

( And when your ears and your eyes are sore... I'm gonna love you just a little bit more... )

ZIP of all 13 songs
Songs available individually at BOX.net


P.S. Katelyn, I now have tanned feet. Lol, I just thought you should know.

EDIT: I was just eating a Rice Krispies Treat and pulled out one of my fillings.

... Motherfucker.

EDIT: I'm going to the dentist now >:(

EDIT: Whoo, nitrous : ) It's sad when getting your teeth drilled is a relaxing break from thinking about life.

Lol, just got back from the zoo. I like The Detroit Zoo; their animals actually have room unlike the Palm Beach zoo which is atrociously small and should be shut down.

It was too warm even at 10 am for many of the animals to want to be anywhere but in caves/up a tree, BUT we had the best time at The Artic Circle Exhibit. I swear their seals are batshit crazy. One refused to swim anyway but upside down. Another would go to the surface, take a breath, and then drift to the bottom of the tank, blowing bubbles as he went. Then he would do it again. And again. And again.

There was a polar bear actually sitting on the little underwater tube you walk through. Just sitting and cleaning his face, proudly displaying his polar bear genitals for all the children to see.

God, but I do love scandalized soccer moms.

Hee, there were these two seals who were twirling around each other in a very intimate way so all the little children were like "Mom! They're dancing!" The boy seal then clamped on to the back of the lady seal's neck and mounted her. "Mom...... what is he doing to the other one?"

My mother, of course, can always be counted on.

Mum: *beatifically* Zey are having love.

Lol, the other parents rushed their children out of the tube pretty quickly. We gave the seals some privacy and went and watched another polar bear for a while. He actually put his paws on the glass like in those old, B.S. Seaworld commercials. He was awesome. He and one cleaning himself on the tube were on loan. Why does Minnesota get all the good bears?

When we came back, the two seals were finished and were lying at the bottom of the tank, spooning. The boy had his little flipper draped over the girl. It was rather sweet... in a... two post-coital-seals sort of way.

I think what was funniest was that one of the soccer moms didn't quite realize what was happening. She stook a few steps out of the tube, stopped, and looked back with this stunned look on her face. "Oh, my GOD."

Huzzah! I found a little notebook in one of my drawers stuffed with scenes written on scraps of notebook paper. I thought I'd lost some of this writing in my Great Mac Crash of 07. I'm still discovering what scenes did get lost and it never fails to be irritating as shit when I realize something else is missing.

In unrelated write-y writingness, I've been doing a lot of writing lately. Months of Writer's Block finally gone. What cured it was writing, out of nowhere, part of what could be a scene from the Ben/Lena standalone thingamajig. They are just so much stranger than my usual subject matter that it made everything else sort of... easier. Lol, that made sense.

Anyway, these are two long chunks from essentially the first five chapters of the second book (that is, the sequel, NOT the BenLena thingy). The first one still needs a lot of editing. Lol, it was fun to write. It's just silly and weird and I love remembering how wealthy the Fairchildren are if I can do stuff like this and Geoff always makes me smile.

( How I've Missed Writing Ben Being An Utter Twat )

Katelyn and I went to Kensington yesterday, essentially to babysit her brother and his friends, but it was pretty fun. There were waterslides and pizza, which is a marvelous combination. However, I am sunburnt to the point where I look like... I dunno, a leperous tomato. It's pretty bad. Even the tops of my feet are sunburnt. That's what you get, I guess, for being a few shades darker than clear. Katelyn got it pretty bad too. She didn't use sunscreen, but I was using a ton. For not the first time in my life, I am burnt worse in the places where the most sunscreen went. I'm beginning to think I'm allergic to oxybenzone or something.

She got to stay the night at my place (wonders!) :D and she, I, Nick and several friends caught the midnight showing of Dark Knight.

Oh. My. God.

I am so relieved that it lived up to the hype. Heath stole the whole film. Hands down. It was simultaneously fantastic and heartbreaking what a great job he did. Absolutely none of the accolades he's getting for this role are just sympathy. He was what every good villain should be-- magnetic. When he was on screen, you couldn't take your eyes off him. When he wasn't onscreen, you just couldn't wait to see him again. Lol, the whole audience erupted into clapping after his "pencil trick".

Hands down, the best villain cinema's had in a long time. And my favorite kind, too-- totally deranged, but completely charismatic. Think Hannibal Lecter or Alex DeLarge. But, unfortunately, one we'll not get to see again in this series. It's plausible to bring the character back, but no one can live up to job Heath did. It'd be better to not even try. Though I am very curious about which villains the next couple of movies will be about.

I'm definitely seeing the movie again with my brother, but for now, I have to go rub myself down with Noxema again. D:

P.S. I kept making strange connections in the scene between Heath and Maggie Gyllenhaal.
Dialogue in the film- The Joker: You are beautiful, you know.
Dialogue in my head- The Joker: You are beautiful, you know.............just like your brother.

I have mentioned, yes, how sad I am that Heath is dead? Because I really, really am.

EDIT: Bwa! I just saw it again with Chase! XD It was still packed. We went to the 9:40 PM show and had to get tickets at 8. We just made it before it sold out. Lol, Jesus.

Just got back from spending the day with Katelyn and Skyler, who I finally met. He and Katelyn are all sweet and lovey and I approve very much. Skyler is very nice and very amusing and he gave me gum, so I definitely like him.

We went to Buffalo Wild Wings, where a spooky waitress sort of hit on him ("Mmm, I like the way you say 'bone in'"). I'm sure you can tell how much merriment was had because of that.

We then went to Great Escape where I was whipped at air hockey. Lol, I don't know what the hell was wrong with my hands. They didn't seem to want to move. We also did the Go Karts. I was a lot better at them than I thought I would be. I only crashed once! Now, granted, it was into Katelyn, but still... once. You know, if they opened something like a Boomers around here, they'd make a fortune.

Then we went back to her house to play Apples to Apples (the two green card version) and then to Staples so Katelyn could print out thirty packets for her massive family reunion tomorrow.

I've been writing a lot lately, which is fab but it is screwing up my internal clock. It's not on Taipei time.... more like Honolulu time (spot the xkcd reference). I've been pretty pleased with most of what I've been writing, but I've fallen into that annoying pattern again of becoming obsessed with writing only scenes with a partiular character. This month, that character is Ben Let's just leave The Dream That Shall Not Be Mentioned out of this. I'm not sure why, but lately his voice is very easy to write. That and I enjoy writing Geoff taking the piss out of him, heh heh.

I'm very sleepy now. I think I'll have a nap.

....................... lol, "bone in, bone out".

I wrote this because of Holly's Family Crazy Meter. Several of these questions came from there.

Btw, Katelyn, if you're going to do this... let me just apologize ahead of time for all the math you'll have to do for section 1. Sorry.

Overall Family Crazy Meter
Directions: Go down the list and tally up points as they occur within your family (to the best of your knowledge). Relatives that should be included are: parents, siblings, children, YOU, aunts, uncles, first cousins, your cousins' children, nephews, nieces, and grandparents. At the end of the list, total your numbers up and see where your family falls on the score chart. If you prefer only including blood relatives (and not those by marriage), go ahead. I included them for my totals since they are family. Blood or not, their drama effects you too.

( The List of Criteria )

Scoring:

Less than 100: Familial Bliss.... er...well, relatively.
100-199: Some definite drama
200-299: ANGST
300-399: The stuff of Gothic novels and Jerry Springer episodes
400+ : Holy Shit, seriously?

Remember, your family's score doesn't necessarly mean you're crazy, just that your family has teh dramas!

My family's score was 267. The Fairchildren's is 234 (yes, I was curious, shut up. For the record, Alan's family is a 389).

Take the test. You know you want to.

*sigh* My dad... honestly. He came into my room that there's a job in St. Petersburg, Florida. Now, I've gotten used to disappointment, so I'm not going to count on this one coming through any more than I have the others.

Dad: It's near Sarasota. New College is in Sarasota.
Me: Yes.
Dad: Do you like New College?
Me: Lol, dad, I've never even been to Sarasota, how should I know? I know I like what I see on their website.
Dad: Well, make a decision. I need to call the guy in the morning.
Me:....................then call him.
Dad: What if you don't like that school?
Me: Well, I'll certainly have more options there than here.
Dad: It's your decision.
Me: Dad, please don't do that. I don't care where we move. As long as it isn't anywhere landlocked and/or in the Bible Belt, I don't care. If it has a good job and good colleges, I'm game.

What I would've liked to say was "JESUS H CHRIST MAN, WE'VE BEEN STUCK HERE FOR TWO FUCKING YEARS! DO YOU KNOW WHAT I WOULD LIKE? TO GET THE FUCK OUT OF THIS STATE! IF YOU HAVE A JOB OFFER, TAKE IT!"

I hate how he dicks around and procrastinates on this stuff. Which is exactly what he's doing, yet again. I'm glad he wants my opinions, but he's being a little passive aggressive.

I do like New College though. It's a liberal arts school (voted #1 by The Princeton Review in 2007) right on the ocean. And I do mean, right on the ocean:


First Year students are required to live on campus (usually with a roommate in the Pei building, which is sort of fug). However, the school is small enough that the roommate compatibility forms can actually be taken into account. After your freshman year you can apply to live off campus, but if I decide to stay the other dorms are pretty damn nice (single bedrooms with communal living areas and huge ass windows everywhere). And, get this, you don't receive letter grades there, but "narrative evaluations" at the end of the semester. The Fall 2009 deadline isn't until February, so If I was at Washtenaw, I could transfer there for my Sophmore year.

Majors I could take there- English; English with partial concentration in Theatre; Psychology.
I could also take political science courses along with English if I wanted to be a journalist, though I really wish they just offered communications. They also offer teacher certification to graduates if I want to do that.

I swear this college options crap has got me way too stressed out.

Me: I swear to God... if I end up having kids and have to try to freelance from home, I will be so pissed off.
My Aunt (who used to be a paralegal): Trust me... let's not even go there.