LLAP

I've actually been thinking about whether or not I was going to do this and I decided that I would.

There have been a lot of celebrity deaths in the first two months of 2015.  Though I don't think there have been any more this year than in previous years.  The thing is, I'm starting to recognize more and more of the names.  They're starting to be people that I grew up watching on TV, or in movies.  People that I have admired for most of my life.  Names that make me a little sad.  The same can be said for 2014, in all honesty.  I recognized a LOT of those names as well.  I haven't really done posts for any of them because I didn't feel like I had all that much to say.  Even Harold Ramis who played one of my favorite movie characters of all time.  Egon Spengler will forever live in my heart.  But that's not why I'm posting today.

I'm posting because of Leonard Nimoy.

I grew up watching reruns of Star Trek with my family.  It was the first science fiction that I was really engrossed in.  The original Star Trek series was something that I would actually hunt for in the TV guide.  I actually sat down and created a list of the things that happened in every single episode with just a few exceptions.  There's a part of me that always connected with Spock because he didn't always get the joke.  While he managed to say "That's illogical" in some form or another in every episode, he was not illogical to me.  And the fact that McCoy kept making fun of him on a regular basis and he didn't let it bother him spoke to me.  I was reading a lot of things into the character that probably weren't even there, but that's how I interpreted it.  Spock was highly intelligent and could make a joke every now and then even if he didn't always get the funny.  The character just spoke to me.  I'll be honest that I haven't watched the show in a while and I'm probably not remembering things as clearly as I would have a few years ago, but that's what I do remember about the show and the movies.  Spock was my favorite character and I felt like I could connect to him.  Like if I could pick anyone of the cast to just hang out with, it would be him.  And that is because of the wonderful acting talents of Mr. Nimoy.  The writing only goes so far in creating a character.  They're just words on a page that could be put in front of anyone.  But the actor is who brings the character to life.  Who makes them a real person, in a way.  And Leonard Nimoy was brilliant.  

Star Trek has been a part of my life longer than even Doctor Who and definitely longer than Star Wars.  Spock has been a member of the family for all this time.  My dad watches the western channel on a regular basis and Leonard pops up there every now and then as well.  He had a pretty extensive career, though Spock was his most famous.  He was on Dragnet and Mission: Impossible both of which I watched as reruns.  And he was also the voice of King Kashekim Nedakh.  His career goes all the way back to 1951 and has been full and varied.  

There was a twitter post that said that every geek just lost their favorite grandfather and that's not wrong.  I realize that this isn't as eloquent or heart felt as some of the other posts about Mr. Nimoy, but that's just because I have a hard time putting my feelings into words when it comes to someone I actually admired and cared about.  At least as much as you can care about someone you've never actually met.  He will always be remembered as one of my favorite actors and Spock will always be one of my favorite fictional characters.  

@edwardnorton and the jar of hotness

So today's Jar of Hotness name is Edward Norton.  Not only is he a talented actor but he's also very good looking.  Though I have to admit, I prefer him in his comedic roles like the various Wes Anderson movies that he's done.  He's got an over all talent, though.

He doesn't always have such a nice body but everyone is allowed a break from the gym.  

There also aren't many men that can pull off that kind of mustache, but Edward definitely can.  

And he looks good in a "boyscout" uniform.  That's a rare quality for an adult as well.  

So you have your eye candy for today.  Mr. Edward Norton.  Enjoy.  

Grammar sucks sometimes

I have randomly been thinking about a lot of different words so I am going to make a list of sentences that help prove why English is so hard to learn, even for native speakers.



The lead actor's footsteps were like lead as I led him off the stage.

The tear in the dress made me tear up and because it was torn she teared up as well.

He was close to the clothes and asked me to close the door, then bring him the cloths.

We're wondering where you were and did you wear that dress.  

I told him to read the paper so he read it and corrected it with red pen.

The costumer was a great customer.

They're going to their house over there.

You're going to go to your room.

Those pants look loose.  Did you lose weight?

Are those two going to the store too?

Do you have an apple that we could halve for them to share?

John was too sore to get on the glider and soar.

Our plan is in an hour.

The price of that fare just doesn't seem fair to me.

The cough was tough but he got through the rough patch because his doctor was thorough.

I threw the ball through the window.

Due to the dew on the grass we can't finish our to do list.

I had to raze the old building in order to raise a new one on that plot.

The bass in the music seemed to attract a lot of bass to our fishing base.

We had to wind the ropes tighter because of the wind that was coming.

The bow on her dress made it hard for her to bow.    

John at his cereal as he read the serial in the newspaper.

She had to let her ankle heal after a broken heel caused a sprain.

The steel sculpture proved almost impossible to steal.

I find it very hard to accept anything except the truth.


That's just 25 examples.  There are so many more.

feet/feat
peek/peak
pray/prey
way/whey
or/oar
for/fore/four
lightning/lightening
way/weigh
wait/weight


The list goes on and on.  And let's not forget that some of these words are homographs and some are homophones making pretty much all of them homonyms depending on who you ask.

And let's not forget:

I before E except after C or in sounding like "A" in neighbor and weigh unless it's weird or science.  

There are rules, there are exceptions to the rules and then there are exceptions to the exceptions to the rules.  It's really no wonder it's so hard to learn.    

The Return of the Jar of Hotness

This is something that I actually started on another blog but that blog has fallen to the wayside.  I also, kind of, maybe, lost the Jar of Hotness on my desk that my daughter has deemed "The Land of No Return."   Well, she's wrong because something has been returned to me.  So here's how the Jar of Hotness works.  I have a jar that has a bunch of names of hot celebrities in it.  Whenever I feel like doing so, I will draw a name from the Jar of Hotness and then proceed to gush about said celebrity.

And today's celebrity is......  *insert drum roll here*

James McAvoy

First of all, look at those gorgeous blue eyes.  I could stare at them all day long.   

It's really hard not to just fall into those eyes.  They're gorgeous.  

And then there's his adorable smile.  He has one of the best smiles out there, really.  It's not absolutely perfect and that's one of the things I love about it.  

And added to all of that beauty is the fact that he really is a wonderful actor.  He's very talented.  Almost sickeningly so.  

But the most wonderful icing on this fantastic cake is the fact that he's Scottish.  I am a sucker for that accent.  So you have a gorgeous man who is extremely talented and throw a Scottish accent on top of it.  Ugh, it kills me, really it does.  

And that is my incoherent, fangirly babbling about James McAvoy.   

Never Judge a Movie by its Poster.

So I've been having a discussion with a friend of mine about what gets me to continue to watch or read something.  I laid it out pretty specifically.

TV:  You have 5 minutes.  Not even joking.  If you do not grab my attention in that first 5 minutes and make me want to watch more, I turn it off and move on.  That is why I don't watch BBCs Sherlock.  It's why I don't watch any of the NCISs.  It's why I don't watch a lot of shows.

If you grab me in that first five minutes I will give you three episodes to keep my attention.  That is all.  Three whole episodes.  Then I stop watching.  It's why I stopped watching How To Get Away With Murder.  It was confusing and hard to follow and I didn't like it.  So I stopped watching.


Movies:  If it's a movie in a theater that I paid $10 for a ticket I will sit through the entire movie.  I will mercilessly nitpick it in my review afterward, but I will sit through the entire movie.

If it's a movie that I rented, you have 30 minutes.  I will watch a movie for the first 30 minutes.  Now, you have to understand that when I watch movies and TV shows at home, I am almost always on my laptop chatting or doing things online.  If, in that first 30 minutes, I spend more time looking at my laptop than I do at my TV, I turn it off.  If I am drawn in and spend more time watching the movie than looking at my laptop, I go the distance.


Books:  If I pick up a book and a time comes that I have to put it down and I am perfectly okay with putting it down, I most likely will not pick it back up again.  This happened with Blood Canticle.  The book came out in 2003.  I borrowed it from the library, got about halfway through and had to take it back.  I did not renew the book.  And actually, all these 11 years later I still have never finished that book and I have no intention of doing so.

I have had times, however, when I have picked up a book and did not want to put it down again.  I have gone through entire book series in a matter of a few days.  This does, of course, depend on the availability of the books.  I went through an entire 13 book David Eddings series in roughly a month because the books drew me in that well.  And this was while holding down a full time job and taking care of a (at the time) toddler.  I didn't sleep much during that time.


Yes, I am very picky about my entertainment.  I mean, the only reason I honestly keep watching Once Upon A Time is in the hopes of seeing Sebastian Stan return at some point.  Yes, actors that I like have gotten me to watch some SERIOUSLY shitty movies.  I have watched movies for Robert Downey Jr that made Sharknado look oscarworthy.  I sat through one of the most boring movies in the history of boring movies just because Jeremy Renner was in it.  A movie that was so boring I had actually forgotten that I watched it.  I watched a movie that had literally every teen drama cliche known to man and a few I didn't realize existed all shoved into one movie just for about 5 minutes of Chris Evans.  But if an actor that I adore isn't in it, I am one of the pickiest people you will ever meet.

Halloween Memories

Every year around this time I think about the time, many years ago, when I helped raise money for the Tex-Annes (my sister's drill team) by working in a haunted house at Six Flags Fright Fest.  One time I was the nanny for Rosemary's baby.  I had to sit in a rocking chair and make it look like I was a robot and then jump out and scare people.  I was wearing this really creepy mask along with the old school dress they had me in.

One guy came through with his little girl, who was maybe six years old, and she was screaming and crying and saying "She's gonna jump out at me!" over and over again so I stayed perfectly still and did not jump out because I have been that little girl before.  I understood what she was going through and didn't want to scare her even more than she already was.  I did want to smack her dad for taking her into the haunted house in the first place, though.

  The best moment, was when this group of guys who were in their late 20s or so came into the room and started messing with me, flipping me off.  One even stuck his finger in the hole in my mask (if I had any idea how clean his finger was I would have bitten it).  They were cussing at me as well.  They started to walk away and I jumped out at them.  They all screamed like little girls and then started apologizing for the stuff they did and said.  I laughed so hard because I scared the crap out of guys who were literally twice my age at the time.

Another time I was the demon that was possessing this woman (who was a mannequin).  That mask was tighter on my face than the nanny mask so it was harder to breathe and I really hated being in there.  I had to leave after about twenty minutes.

Here's something you have to understand about that whole experience.  I hate haunted house.  I don't like being scared.  I don't understand the purpose of intentionally scaring yourself.  I have been forced into haunted house by my siblings and by a girl's club field trip and I hated every single minute of both of them.  I spent the entire way through one of them with my head ducked down and my fingers in my ears and trying to get out as quickly as possible without looking at anything.  So you can imagine that working in a haunted house was not the most fun thing in the world for me.  Especially since I had to go through the haunted house to get to my station.  But I did it because it was a way to raise money for one of my sister's various and sundry trips.  And it ended up not being the worst experience I've ever had.  It was kind of fun getting to be "behind the scenes" at Six Flags for a little while.  I got to go into the costume department and things like that.

I have a lot of other Halloween memories but that one is the one that sticks with me the most.  

The Staff of Awesomeness

That is the Staff of Awesomeness.  I'm open to suggestions for other names.  It's approximately six feet tall. (I haven't measured it since it was completed).  I made this to go with a costume that all started with two bracelets that I got on clearance.  

I started with two 3/4" dowel rods and one 1/4" dowel rod.  The two dowel rods were actually four feet each and I cut one in half. 

The next step was to paint it gold.  I used hammered gold because it has kind of an antique look that goes with the bracelets.  After the paint dried, my dad drilled holes into one end of each dowel and then I used a small piece of the 1/4" dowel as a dowel pin to support it so it would wobble less.  (Sorry no pics or video of that)

I then had some more painting to do because there were some spots I missed the first time.  

After that paint dried, I used this stuff called Fiber Fix.  It's basically the same stuff they used on my cast when I broke my hand last year.  It's easy to use and hardens quickly and it's VERY secure.  So that staff is put together and will not wobble.  I decided to leave it black to give the staff a little character, and that is a natural place for me to put my hand. 

Next I did the orb for the top.  I used a clear plastic Christmas ornament and some glass paint.  

I poured a whole hell of a lot of paint into the ball and then shook it around to get that kind of smokey look.  It actually turned out a lot better than I thought it would.  And it took forever for the paint to dry because there was so much paint. 

I'm still not completely sure that the paint was dry when I got around to attaching it to the dowels.  I had to do a little sanding but I did slide the dowel into the ornament and then taped it in place with gold duct tape. 

I then cut the 1/4" dowel into six pieces approximately 5" in length.  I put glue on one end and attached that to the ornament and then I taped the dowel in place on the staff part.  (No pics of the step by step process of that because my dad helped and he was in his underwear at the time.) 

Once the glue dried, I used some more of the gold duct tape to reinforce the dowels and hold them in place.  I then coated the duct tape in glue.  

I then wrapped the whole thing with twine to cover up the duct tape to give it a really cool look.  

Once that was done I put painters tape around the top part and painted the twine with the same hammered gold as the rest of the staff.  

This is a close up of the top of the completed staff.  It only took me a few hours total over a couple of nights.  Once I have everything done, I'll post a picture of the entire costume.  I think it will be epic.  And I did mean that, I'm totally open for suggestions of other possible names.