Cyndi Lauper

When I was a kid, I listened to whatever music my mom was listening to, just like I'm sure all kids do. One of my favorites, and almost the only one I still like now is Cyndi Lauper. A few years ago... about 8 or 10, I guess... I went to see her in concert. There surprising thing about her is that she is MUCH better live than on the radio. As much as I love listening to her CDs, I'd trade them all in to listen to her in person! I learned at that concert that she was going to have a blues CD coming out. The second that album hit the store I bought it. I mean, I lived in Germany by that time and I drove about an hour to get to a base where I could pick it up the first day it was available and it did not disappoint. I'll leave you with a video here and let you decide for yourself. 

Click here to see Rollin and Tumblin by Cyndi Lauper

Beetlejuice

Do you guys remember Beetlejuice? It was the greatest, wasn't it? I keep hearing rumors about a remake so I wanted to just review what I loved about the original in case the new guys are scouring obscure blogs for input. I absolutely loved the waiting room scenes, those were my favorite parts. Seeing the complex stories being told only by makeup is really, really fun for me. Always has been. 

Another thing I never really appreciated at the time, being so young when the movie came out, was that Alec Baldwin was a total Baldwin! I can really appreciate that now, although it's super weird to think that I'm probably DEFINITELY older now than he was back then. Crazy. 

The music in that movie is the best, too! Remember when they all danced around the table to Harry Belefonte? I wanted a ghost to turn me into an expert dancer too! And at the end with the football team on the stairs? I was super jealous of Winona Ryder. She got to do that, plus be all emo angsty teenager. Unfair. 

Of course I loved that Kevin McAllister's mom was the bad guy, and I totally watched the cartoon every Saturday morning, but I'm pretty sure that movie is where my life-disrupting eye phobia started. You can't win them all, Beetlejuice. But good try.

Saturday Spotlight: Jay Are Adams

Do you ever sit around thinking, "Hmm... what should I be looking up on YouTube right now?  I need something hilarious but not filthy, so what am I to DO?" Try Jay Are Adams.  His profile on there is Caliryda21 and he's really funny.  He's even funnier in person as a stand-up comedian but he does these little songs on YouTube that he probably never does in person (I'd guess) so following him on there is pretty fun.  He's also on Instagram (you'll want to follow him there... you'll see), Snapchat and Twitter @JayAreAdams and of course Jay Are Adams on Facebook.  If you just look up 'Jay Are' on Facebook, he has a Page you can 'like' as well.   

I pretty much hoard every business card I get...

This dude is military, which is pretty cool with me.  I met him while he was stationed near me for some training or something.  He was at an open mic and he completely KILLED IT.  So funny!  He's pretty funny on Twitter too, which is good because it's sometimes a couple of weeks or a month between YouTube videos but they're worth your time.  Give him a try.  I'm telling you, you'll like him. 

Hunger Games

Here's the thing about me: I don't usually watch movies until they're on Netflix or TV, so all the movies I've seen are usually a zillion years old (hence all the 80s movies on my blog).  My awesome friend Candice recently introduced me to an app called Show Box, though, and I've used it to watch ALL KINDS OF MOVIES!!! I'm super in love with it, so thanks, Candice.  I watched The Hunger Games on TV a while back, so when I saw the rest of them on Show Box I watched them all right away... except for the last one, which wasn't out until Tuesday.  I'm on vacation this week, so I waited until everyone else went to bed and watched it on my phone Tuesday night and man, was it worth it!

North American first edition cover

I don't have a lot of reading time, but I try to do what I can, like I read Mayhem, the sequel to Madness by Derek Dykes (you can read about that here) on the plane Saturday.  The best compromise I've found is audiobooks.  They're free from the library and I can listen to them while I drive.  The book versions of these are, as usual, better than the movies.  I'm only on the second one but I'm really enjoying it. Suzanne Collins is definitely a new favorite of mine and I hope to read a lot more from her.   She also has a five-part series called The Underland Chronicles so I'm trying those at some point, for sure.

So the movies are great, as I probably don't need to tell you.  I'm surely the last one to see them.  I really just love Jennifer Lawrence and Josh Hutcherson in those movies, and Julianne Moore's hair was wonderful!  It was nice to see Phillip Seymour Hoffman again and he was brilliant as ever.  What a great actor he was.  I'm obviously in love with Lenny Kravitz just like everyone else, and I'd have loved to see more of him.  His character is actually way more important in the books, so if you haven't read them and you liked Cinna you'll like the books too.  Anyway, I just really always suggest reading.  Reading is FUNdamental, ya know!  Get to it.

Growing Pains

One of the shows I couldn't live without in the 80s was Growing Pains.  I was absolutely in love with Cool Guy Kirk Cameron and I had a pretty good little crush going on Leonardo DiCaprio (who just won an Oscar) too.  I really like Carol Seaver even though she kind of always got dumped on.  I remember when she was trying to get on the school paper or something and the teacher said her article stunk because she used too many big words.  When she said she didn't understand he told her it was "repleat with stinkiocity".  My favorite line of television dialogue ever. 

Kirk Cameron excused himself from Hollywood after that show for religious reasons.  He's back to making movies and videos and things but now he's all about religious projects, like Left Behind and the website Way of the Master.  Candace Cameron, his sister, is openly Christian too.  Sort of rare in Hollywood but she takes all sorts of roles and also co-hosts The View.  I follow Alan Thicke on Twitter and he posts about hockey sometimes.  Check him out.  You might like him too.  He also wrote the theme song to The Facts of Life.  So yeah.  Pretty awesome. 

Saturday Spotlight: Star Trek: Timelines

Remember a while back when I said I wanted to learn some stuff about RPGs?  And then remember when I didn't?  So my friend Autumn suggested that I find some online but I messed up somehow.  I did find an app called Star Trek: Timelines which I guess I mistook for that but when I figured out what it was it still looked fun, so I got it.  It's free to download and free to play but I guess it's way less frustrating if you buy Dilithuim.  That stuff apparently makes it way better, but since I'm really inexperienced I just don't know how much fun I COULD be having, so it's fine free for me.  I spend kind of a lot of time playing it and my kids actually love it too.  They used to become heartbroken when I'd try to sneak off and play without them.  They each have an old iPhone that doesn't have any service, so when I got tired of hearing them over my shoulder yelling, "play Picard, Mama!" for every mission, I put it on The Villain's phone so they could play it on there.  The Bookworm's phone was too old, so if you have a really old iPhone look out for that.  Mine's an Android so no problems there.

The Villain playing Staw Fwack on his own stinkin' phone!

The thing that's fun about it is that it mixes the timelines all up together and you could have a crew including Kirk, Picard and Sisko together.  Of course, that wouldn't be the most effective combination of skills for most missions but you could totally do it.  The frustrating part is that I'm completely new to the whole gaming universe so I don't know what anything means or how to figure out the things that I need to know to advance and all of the advice and tips online are super general about how to get started and what all the different features of the game ARE and not how to use them in the most effective ways.  Like, you'll find articles and videos that tell you how to earn and use training for your guys, but not why the yellow number won't just DISAPPEAR ALREADY! when you're done training or why you can't train anymore after a certain point.  That kind of thing.  I eventually figure things out but if I could just ask someone it would be more fun for me.  There is a message board but it's too quick for me and mostly social.  I don't dig it.  Gone and got too old, I guess. 

Oh, well.  It's still really super fun.  I love it and I recommend you try it, too.  I heard that company, Disruptor Beam, actually started with a similar game for Game of Thrones and I'm really excited to try that one.  Wish me luck!  And follow Star Trek: Timelines on Twitter for more news and stuff.  And OH MY GOSH, HOW COULD I FORGET?!?! It's voiced by John deLancie, who played Q on TNG!!!

Property Brothers

Yeah, dudes.  I do watch stuff other than sci-fi.  I watch the mess out of some HGTV!  My favorite show on the channel is Property Brothers with twins Drew and Jonathan Scott. (Actually, now that I go to type this, I realize my favorite show is Love It or List It.  Why didn't I write about that one?  Oh, well.)  The Property Brothers are both real estate agents, and Jonathan is also a contractor.  He's the rugged one.  Drew is the smart one who keeps his suit clean.  The thing about that show is, everyone who's ever been on it has clearly never seen it.  I mean, it's completely bizarre!  The first thing they always do is show the couple their dream house, and if you know anything about the planet Earth, you know that nobody can afford their dream house.  If you have more money, you just want more house.  It's a pretty easy concept.  But when they show these people the first house and tell them they can't afford it... the couple always feels shocked, hurt, offended and betrayed. 

Every time. 

Every single time. 

It's seriously baffling, I mean it's a hugely popular show.  Never since Jerry Spinger have so many people gone on a TV show without ever watching it first.  So anyway, Drew shows them some houses and Jonathan shows how they could be fixed up.  Then they buy a dump, renovate it and an hour later, voila! They have their dream house.  Well, usually a much smaller version of it, but the plumbing and wiring are safe and all the finishes are high-end. It's pretty fun to watch, and if you're anything like me you'll spend the entirety of each episode trying to decide if there's actually a hotter twin.  

You're not eligible; you know about the first house thing.

Don't ask me.  Jury's still out.  

The Chronicles of Amber

A few years ago I noticed that being nerdy was beginning to gain popularity.  I'm sure you've noticed it too; and I'm equally sure that we can thank blond, beautiful Penny for befriending the astrophysicists next door.  I've known I had nerd potential since high school.  When I was around 15 or so, I read The Chronicles of Amber by Roger Zelazny...

Next on the list

Actually, I read the first four books.  About a year ago I discovered that there were SIX MORE BOOKS in the series.  If you've ever been a stay-at-home-mom of two preschoolers, you'll understand why I had ten-volume collection checked out from the library for nearly that entire year.  But I digress.

When it hit me that those stories were sci-fi/fantasy and I actually loved them, I had a kind of shift in my reality.  I had seen the Star Wars movies and I hadn't liked them (don't take away my nerd card, though) so I assumed that the reputation was correct: that sci-fi nerds were people you wouldn't want to have to talk to, ever. Now, the guy I was seeing at the time was one of those guys, but I just kind of overlooked it.  After a while I kind of found it adorable.  He was even the one who loaned me the Amber books in the first place, so there's that. 

When I read those books I realized that anyone could like them.  Anyone could get into the idea of alternate universes and a supernatural royal family.  Murderous, scheming shape-shifters, a magical untouchable unicorn... written well, these are the things that turn over and over in your head and follow you to sleep.  It's not all cheesy, clumsily animated Muppets that sing songs with David Bowie, you know.

Since the rise in popularity of both The Big Bang Theory and Netflix, I've gained access to all sorts of things I was missing: Cybermen, The Borg, Reavers, Adamantium, Sam and Dean, Sam and Al; The Smoking Man and the man whose silhouette probably started it all: Alfred Hitchcock.  From The Chronicles of Amber to The Martian Chronicles, I've seen a lot and read a lot.  I can't decide if I hope the nerd trend continues so I can have such ready access to all these things awhile longer or if I hope it dies down soon so prices will drop, but one thing is for sure: It's fun seeing all of these new things and meeting new introverts I can momentarily connect with.  It's great to have you along for the ride with me. 

CoastCon '16

Last weekend I went to CoastCon, just like I said I would.  I had a blast and I intended to learn a few things about gaming but it didn't really work out for me.  The first two days I was by myself and I didn't see ANYONE there that I knew, much less anyone who could show me anything about gaming.  On Sunday I planned on going to a panel called How To Learn RPGs When You're Alone With Nobody to Show You (pretty sure that's it...) but it happened to be right at noon and that was the day I brought The Bookworm with me and he needed some $4 million lunch to pick at and ultimately throw away.  My kids are rarely allowed soda, so he was definitely too preoccupied to eat.

This is my only clear picture from Sunday for some reason

I brought The Bookworm on Sunday to meet Steve Blum and Mary Elizabeth McGlynn because he's obsessed with Digimon and they do voices for the cartoon and the video game. To help him understand what that even means, I made him watch I Know That Voice, which is a documentary about voice actors that I'd seen a few months ago on Netflix.  He wasn't pleased to have to sit still watching some people do voices, or to have the magic kind of explained away, but it helped in the long run because when we got there and he saw the pictures of Guilmon and I told him the Guilmon guy was THERE... he knew enough to be excited.  

When we walked up to the table, Steve Blum could obviously guess which show this little kid was a fan of.  I say which show because he's a busy, busy guy. He's got 612 credits on IMDB for shows like Star Wars: Rebels, Cowboy Bebop, Regular Show and a zillion incarnations of Batman and X-Men.  PLUS he is in the Guiness Book of World Records for doing more video game voices than anyone else.  He's done God of War, World of Warcraft, Diablo, Call of Duty... know what? Just look it up.  Here's the link.

Anyway, we walk up to the guy and he instantly goes into the voice and my kid grins like a maniac and does that insanely cute little-kid giggle.  It was the greatest!  He signed our video game (my kids and my husband play video games most of the time, so I feel like I can probably hear this dude's voice in my house at any given moment) and he was so charmed by The Bookworm that he very generously signed a couple of extra things for us.

See? Blurry.

In the course of our conversation, my little guy casually dropped the name of another Digimon he likes and the lady sitting next to Steve Blum perked up and cried, "Hey! That's me!" It was Mary Elizabeth McGlynn and she did the voice for him with a big smile.  "Whatever-mon digivolve to... Something-Woman!" Clearly, I have a mind like steel trap. 

So, she does the voice, right?  And my kid FREAKS THE FRICK OUT!!! It was like all those people in the black & white footage fainting when Paul McCartney tipped his hat to them or whatever.  I couldn't even deal.  Best day ever.  Just reliving it makes me exhausted, so I'll end here and leave you with some photos I took from the rest of the Con.  Enjoy, and leave your own stories in the comments section about the time you met your favorite celebrity.

 

Game of Thrones

Okay, complaint:  I don't like to watch TV shows until they're completed.  Like, when I'm a few weeks out from the final finale I'm okay to watch the pilot.  So I've been waiting patiently for Game of Thrones, right?  Because it's not done yet.  I'm not too bothered by spoilers but I can't stand the wait between episodes, or worse, between seasons.  Because...

I did my waiting! Seven years of it! In Azkaban!!!

Actually, I did do six years of waiting for one of the Dark Tower books by Stephen King.  And then six more years for the next one.  I've used up my allotment of patience. 

But then my husband decided he couldn't wait any longer and he had to watch it whether I was joining him or not!  Can you even?! So about halfway through last season we caught up with real life.  To be honest, it was a jolt.  Waiting a week to see how my Westeros crush, Tyrion Lannister was faring was horrible, but now... I swear, I've been waiting MY ENTIRE LIFE for next season to start! This is no way to live, guys.  It's barbaric. 

So while I wait, I'll leave you with a question: Do you think Jon Snow is really dead?

And with this amazing picture that my friend Carrie-Ann Pierson (who's on Facebook and takes commissions) drew for our public library's "hero" day.

 

Fight Club

A while back, I listed my favorite movies and one of them was Fight Club.  Now, often when I enjoy a movie, I have a specific story explaining why I came to love it, or how it's affected me.  Fight Club... not so much.  It's just two incredibly attractive men being manly.  That's it.  If you read the other post, though, you'll remember that my friends and I tried to fit the snack into the theme of the movie the night we watched it.  Wanna know what I put together for this one?  It was tapioca pudding with pink food coloring served in Ziploc baggies.  We had to bite off a corner and slurp it out without spoons.  I think they all thought I was crazy until the part with the bags of cellulite outside of the liposuction clinic.  When we got to that part, everyone put their pudding down.  I was pretty stoked.

It was good times.

I mean...

Saturday Spotlight: Derek E Dykes

This post may be short since I'm writing it on my cell phone. Yikes. I'm a pro at putting things off, and this is where it's gotten me. So, first of all, I'll have to start out with a little background info on myself. When I read a book, even if the story is amazing, I can't enjoy it unless the author's voice is one I can relate to. Because of that, I hate... I mean DESPISE... buying books directly from the author. At cons, you often meet authors, they're often nice people, and they're usually selling their books (you know, doing their job). When I pick a book in a bookstore, I read passages at random to determine how I think I'd like the book. I'm terribly picky and I most often put the book back. Since I can't even IMAGINE doing that with the person who wrote the book staring me down, I tend to pick one book for con weekends almost at random and just hope for the best. 

Last year I hit the jackpot! An author in a panel for writers mentioned a plot detail and I decided to buy that book. It's called Madness and it's by Derek E Dykes.  Set in the future, it involves mental illness, murder, future tech and pure evil. In the beginning of the book the main character, who's an FBI agent, happens upon a decades-old crime scene.  The victim's DNA shows that she's a positive match for our heroine's maternal grandmother, who died not decades ago but only a year ago.  I don't want to give too much away, but it's really intense and at one point I literally had to put the book down to hyperventilate. 

I actually ran into him at the con today and he very graciously posed for a picture with me.  I was a little disappointed that he didn't have any books with him but not to worry.  He'll have some tomorrow, and you can bet your bottom dollar I'll be there to get the next book; I'll get as many books as there are in this series.  (Two.  There are two more books in this series.  I was being dramatic.  But I am buying both of the other two.) 

I think he actually did the cover art as well

Nice work Derek Dykes, you beautiful twisted freak.

The Oscars

The Oscars were on a few days ago and as everyone knows by now, Leonardo DiCaprio finally won that Oscar that he's deserved for so long!  I was nothing but excited for him and it reminded me of my time in boot camp.  I'd really never even watched the Oscars before or even cared who won but that year Hilary Swank was up for Best Actress for Boys Don't Cry.  I actually really wanted to know who won and there I was in boot camp where I could never possibly find out... except someone's mom or friend or something sent the next day's newspaper pages in the mail! So just a week or two late we all got to find out who had won all the Oscars.  It was such a fun and exciting moment that it made me love the Oscars and now I never miss it.  Plus I love to see the dresses and the hair.  That's really my favorite part, and I watch the E! red carpet coverage all day long.  Ross and Giuliana are the best! If anyone reading this knows Ross Matthews personally, tell him to get ahold of me.  We'll be great friends.  Thanks.

My favorite ever Oscar gown

I swiped the pic from here

But the fact that it sells anything is just a coincidence.