failed-to-say.net

Well, the Black Event, also known as my birthday, has come and went. I survived. It does kind of kill me to admit that I’m now 25, but I guess that’s just part of life.

We had seven layer salad and manicotti and cake and ice-cream on Thursday night so that Allyson could come. She brought along her friend Gail and Blaine brought along Cody, but it was nice. I got $90 – $40 from my grandparents and $50 from Bart – and my mom got me some perfume and lotion from Victoria’s Secret. It’s called Pink, and it’s fruity scented. I think it smells kind of like cotton candy, which is yummy, so I love it. I kind of had a feeling that was what she was going to get me because I was with her twice and told her I liked it both times.

My grandma’s birthday is coming up next. I have no idea what to get her, and she wasn’t very forthcoming about what she wanted. My mom called and wanted to know what we should have for dinner for her, and tacos was her first suggestion. Then my mom called back later and said she was going to make potato soup instead. Just for future reference, I kind of hate potato soup. I’m considering looking up some Mexican recipes, and taking it upon myself to cook instead. I haven’t spoken to my mom about it yet, and I guess it really depends on how ambitious I feel. I’m kind of lacking in the cooking skills. I’m great with baking, but I can’t really remember the last time I cooked an actual meal that didn’t originate from a box. Pathetic.

I’m all caught up with Heroes. I’m not entirely sure how I felt about season two. I stopped watching it last year because it started out so slow, and it did pick up toward the end, but I’m not sure how I felt about the way the season ended.

I really need to go to the store and buy some blank discs. I have three flash memory sticks that I need to back up on disc before I can clear them off. I have a bunch of old stuff from school on them, and I’ll need at least three discs to back it all up. It’s amazing how that stuff adds up.

I’m hoping to get some money for my birthday. Then I can get my discs and maybe a new outfit or something. I’m not expecting much, though.

I went out for lunch with my grandparents today, and I ate too much. The portion sizes were ridiculous. I came home with a box of food – looks like I know what I’m having for dinner tonight. Right now, I’m tired and I have a headache, so I think I’m going to take a short nap before I start working on a label for work.

Whew, I’m trying to play catch up with watching Heroes. I missed out on about the last half of the second season last year because I was busy writing for NaNoWriMo. I haven’t decided if I’m going to do it again this year, but I have a feeling if I do, then I’m going to be behind on several shows pretty fast.

My mom, sister and Tori stopped by earlier. They went shopping. No surprise there. There was a show on about a couple that has sextuplets, and we were trying to fathom having that many babies all at once. It would be such a huge job. I mean, even if they had a Bob stroller with the two seats, that still wouldn’t be enough. I have seen the three seater kinds of strollers, but I think they’d still be hard to come by. I think about trying to deal with six of Tori, and there’s no way. I couldn’t deal, and she’s not even here all the time. Crazy.

Tori and I did some baking today. We made chocolate chip cookies. She absolutely loves to help. She gets to pour all of the ingredients into the mixing bowl. Then she holds on with me while we use the mixer. As much as I enjoy it, though, it’s such a long process. Not that actual cookie dough making, but putting heaping spoonfuls of dough onto the cookie sheets. It just takes a while, but I suppose it worth it in the end. Yummy chocolatey goodness.

On the other hand, I’m having a horrible acne breakout. I hate how those spring up. Last week, I was free and clear. This week not so much. It just to pop up right before I went to renew my driver’s license, which was ridiculous in it’s own right. I had to pay $19! Ugh.

Season four of Supernatural premiered last night. I loved every second of it, and I cannot wait for me. I don’t know that I can say much more than that.

Ugh. I’m having one of those days where I just feel gross. It doesn’t help that I’m tired. My sleep is all kinds of messed up. Even when I go to bed late and wake up early, I can’t seem to get myself to go to bed early the next night. I think it’s just impossible for me to go to bed early. I’m just a night person by nature, and I don’t know if it can be fixed. I’m starving right now, and I want something sweet, which is counterproductive to the fact I want to lose wait. I need to find me some energy, start exercising and find the best fat burner out there and get to work on losing weight. However, I’m always stumped at the finding energy part of the plan. Blah. It’s just been a very bland day. I’m just ready for Supernatural because I’ve been looking forward to it all week.

I haven’t been able to blog for about the last week because my Internet has been wacky most of that time. We couldn’t figure out what the problem was. At first I thought maybe it was because of the rain. Then my grandpa figured out that it must be our wireless router, so he went out and bought a new one. We also upgraded our service to the next higher speed, so things are moving twice as fast and working well. I’m completely loving it.

I finally managed to catch up on the first three seasons of Bones, and then the few episodes of season four that have aired. It could easily be my new favorite show. Then I decided to start watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer again. I think it’s mostly to fulfill my need for more David Boreanaz. I think I might even check out Angel after I finish with Buffy. I always wanted to, but I never caught the show from the beginning, so I never really fully understood things.

My grandparents seem kind of concerned about Lehman Brothers’ bankruptcy and Merrill Lynch’s sale to Bank of America. Apparently, they’ve got some money in with the Lehman Brothers’. I don’t understand how businesses like that fail, but I guess the market just isn’t doing well. But I think they also needed to look into the corporate performance management (cpm) software. It might have helped them to see how things were going. But then again what do I know about business? That’s right. Absolutely nothing.

Anyone who knows anything about me knows that since the summer of ‘97 when I was thirteen-years-old Hanson has been my favorite band. Obsessed might have once been a good word to describe my fascination with them. I feel like maybe I’ve finally grown out of that, though. The only time I listen to them is when they come up on shuffle on iTunes, and I actually only have about ten of their songs on my iPod, and considering I have about 400 Hanson songs in my iTunes library, I’d say that’s a pretty small percentage that I listen to.

I’ve noticed my own lack of enthusiasm toward the band just because I used to always check up on Hanson related news as soon as I got online. Now it’s more of an afterthought. But I think maybe my family are starting to notice my new indifference. My grandma called to tell me they were going to be on TV, and I told her I wasn’t interested. My mom cracked a joke about someone calling in to request “Mmmbop” on the radio, and I scrunched up my nose. That may not sound like a lot, but I used to watch everything they were on. I used to buy their CDs as soon as they came out. I still haven’t bought their acoustic album, and I doubt I will.

I haven’t liked any of their new stuff that I’ve heard recently. Once upon a time, I’d love anything they did just because they did it. I feel like this is a major sign of growing up for me. I look at the other fans, and, in general, I think most of them are insane, but even my opinion of Hanson themselves is lacking lately. Most every piece of news I see about them revolves around one of their wives either being pregnant or having a baby. They used to always keep stuff like that so secretive, and now it feels like that’s all I hear about. I mean, congrats to them on parenthood, but where’s the news about the music? Other than being tacked on the last paragraph of an article about how many kids them have?

The weirdest thing, though, is the Hanson Fan Bus. They decided to either rent or buy a bus for fans to follow them around on tour. The price tag on this endeavor is pretty hefty, and it baffles me that fans have that kind of money to just shell out. They’re also doing The Rock Boat, and it’s pretty expensive too, but at least there are several different bands involved with that. I think I would go for that before I’d spend a week or however long on a bus with a bunch of Hanson fans. Talk about a nightmare.

I guess I just feel baffled by it all, and mostly because once upon a time I might have been one of those fans that were crazy enough to want to go to such events. Right now I’m not even interested in seeing them in concert. I don’t really know when this huge change happened. It’s just weird. I think part of it is that a lot my friends – most specifically the friends I talk to online the most – that are Hanson fans have all been slowly departing from the fandom as well, so I didn’t notice the distance I was putting between myself and the music I used to be obsessed with. In a way, I feel like this is a good thing, though. For so long Hanson has been such a huge part of my life – probably too big a part – and now I don’t feel like my life revolves around them like it used to. It’s kind of liberating. Where I was once scared because I didn’t know how to not be a fan, I feel okay about not being as interested or into them as I used to be. I feel like it’s opened my eyes to so many other things out there that I’d been overlooking, and it’s nice to have a fresh outlook that isn’t hindered by some ridiculous loyalty to Hanson I seemed to feel bound to.

I am obsessed with the show Bones. It is just excellent. I started watching it on a recommendation of a friend, and I’m officially hooked. I’m into the early episodes of the first season right now. I’m hoping to catch up so that I can start watching season four as it airs.

I took a good look around my bedroom today, and as embarrassing as it is to admit, it’s a mess. I need to do laundry and straighten things up. But even beyond that, I need to do some dusting and such. I always hate that part because I usually end up sneezing relentlessly for days afterward.

It’s also a little smelly in here. I think it’s my shoe rack. What can I say? I get stinky feet just like everyone else. I supposed lighting some candle might help, but I don’t have too many candles, and the ones I do have need holders. I need to invest in some Votive candle holders or something, so I don’t run into this problem. Of course, being broke doesn’t bode well with investing in much of anything at the moment.

My Labor Day weekend was pretty uneventful. We just had a cookout yesterday. Pretty standard – Hamburgers, hot dogs, potato salad, baked beans, cole slaw, brownies, and a few other miscellaneous items. It was all delicious, of course. We stuffed ourselves silly. Then my mom suggested we go shopping. It is without a doubt her favorite past time. Allyson managed to find quite a few good buys. Then I got three of the $5 graphic tees from Old Navy, and two pairs of their pajama shorts, which were also $5. I wish I could have found some pants. I always have the hardest time with them.

I can’t believe it’s already September. It’s nearly time to start boxing up my summer clothes and bringing out the fall clothing. I cringe at the thought of going out into the garage and moving boxes around. It’s pretty scary in there. Every year my grandpa claims he’s waiting for that perfect day to get my brother and cousins out here to help him clean it out. If he’s waiting for the perfect day, I can pretty much guess that it’s just never going to happen.

Tori had her first day of preschool today. I can’t believe she’s old enough to go. It seems impossible that she’s already four. Time flies entirely too quickly. I have a birthday coming up this month, which I’m adamantly trying to pretend isn’t happening, and at the end of the year my brother will be fifteen. That’s just too bizarre to try to fathom. I still think of him as a little kid. Maybe because I just don’t want him to grow up. It makes me feel old, but I guess he’ll always be my baby brother regardless of how old either of us are.

Veronica Mars [Season 1] (2004)

The first season of Veronica Mars can’t be described as anything other than pure gold. My friend Mel bought me the first season of the show as a gift. She was a fan and had been telling me I needed to watch it. Apparently, she decided to give me a shove in the right direction, and I couldn’t be more grateful to her for that because I had no idea what I was missing.

At the core of the show, despite each episode being about 17-year-old junion Veronica and her former sheriff father turned private detective solving cases, the real mystery that needs to be solved is who killed Veronica’s best friend, Lilly Kane. In spite of trying to make her way through the trials of high school where she is ostrosized by her former friends and classmates, each episode reveals a new clue about what really happened to Lilly.

With so many players and so much backstory, it could have been easy to be overloaded or become confused, but each kernel of information was revealed in a clever way, from flashbacks of events to simple, yet clever dialogue. I found myself on the edge of my seat, waiting for the moment when Veronica and her dad would finally solve the mystery.

When that moment came, I couldn’t have been more satisfied. Even with a conclusion I wasn’t at all expecting, every piece of information I’d learned from previous episodes made complete sense and fit perfectly. The first season of Veronica Mars is without a doubt one of the greatest television shows I’ve watched. It had me enthralled from start to finish and left me wanting more.