Valentine's Day

I've been hearing a high amount of griping these past few weeks, all of it about Valentine's Day. Most of it was from dudes on radio shows who were groaning about how they had to buy their significant others a card once a year because of some "made up" holiday.

That's laughable on two counts:

1) All holidays are essentially made up. A group of people decides that a day is important for whatever reason and then observes that day yearly in some form.

2) These guys really make the effort to buy a card?

I've always loved Valentine's. Maybe it's my innate love for decorating because, if given the time, I will deck the halls with heart shaped holly...and heart covered garland...and maybe some tinsel if any of the stores have some for cheap [February's still post-Christmas, maybe they haven't packed it all away just yet].

It astounds me how there was this vast gender divide among the paired off late 20s and up crowd that was giving input for these radio shows. Almost all the men said they were sick of having to do something for their lady just because of a holiday. Almost all the women said that if their man didn't think that doing something for Valentine's Day was important -- no matter how small the deed -- then it was time to get a new man.

It had me in stitches, the complaints that is. All these dudes complaining about being "forced" to be romantic on a certain day, never mind that it would probably make their significant other happy. This holiday is just something a lot of couples in our society observe. If they didn't like that, why did they get into a relationship? Or why didn't they sort this out before now instead of begrudgingly going to the convenience store last minute for someone they supposedly care about? This is the equivalent of complaining about Christmas shopping even though you've always celebrated Christmas, except it also makes the complainer seem like a total jerk.

Maybe I'm missing something. Maybe it should be a big deal to be forced to do something small like buying flowers or a card because of social expectations. But, at the same time, even if there if I can't help but think of the many ways in which their misdirected anger could actually become productive. But I love giving Valentines. People always seem really happy to get them, so shouldn't that be enough?

At least the people with whom I come into contact aren't downers like those talk radio dudes. I spent the better part of yesterday selling Valentine's Day cards as part of this fundraiser and almost everyone who came by was delighted. The only naysayers? One guy who suggested we start a matchmaking service for those without a valentine and one young woman who generally did not like cards.

Happy Valentine's Day!

So This Is The New Year

...and I bought a new hat. It's a mustard color. And I've also many so called resolutions, which I must begin to implement tomorrow, seeing as it's the first full week of the year.

We'll see how it goes.

The One In Which The Author Gives That Obligatory "I Haven't Posted In Awhile" Apology

Except not, because I'm not especially sorry. And I've gotten a tumblr, a link to which is in the sidebar. Just a few hours ago actually. I don't think it would be fair to say that I'll post the same things on here that I will on there since even though they're both weblogging type things, tumblr is a bit more where ever whenever sort of thing to me. Blogger, however, feels like the sort or thing that I should properly post at, like having at least half thought something out before I push the "publish post" button and actually go through and edit things [at least a little bit] before I hit said button as well.

I am, however, going to be chronicling my Wall Project over there so that's always something. Long story short, I've had one wall in my room painted a bluish grey, however it turned out to be more of a greyish blue. This distresses me greatly and I'm trying to figure out what to do [besides paint again, because the smell is horrible even with low VCOs (or whatever they're called)]. Said project involves fractals.

I don't remember if I've ever mentioned on here yet about that writing project I'm working on that involves teenager musicians, but if I have then I still haven't finished it. It's kind of hell at this point--not the story, just having to work on it.

And, just so I'll have some material to post for the future, I'll be posting about my general writing process [and possibly some insight as to why this damned story is taking me so long] some time in the future. I'll most likely take a break for Christmas and what not.

One Time She Punched Me In The Face

"Don't have sex because you will get pregnant. And die."

So, it's the eve of NaNoWriMo and I'm watching Mean Girls and eating kettle corn to really get into that writing mood.

Also, I am drinking orange juice.

I've got about an hour and fifteen before I can officially start writing it because of my time zone and I've got two distinct part of my book and I've got the first chapter of the second part all mapped out. Sure, I know what's going to happen in all of it, but...

Anyway, it's almost NaNoWriMo. To anyone participating: happy writing. To everyone else: hope you had a good Halloween.

Glee, The Music

Showstoppers 3 Deluxe is a soundtrack for the show Glee and it's the one that has almost all the songs that I want. See, I'm not a complete and total fanboy of Glee. I adore the show, but I much prefer the songs of the second half of the season to the first. The songs from the first half are good, but I'm not eager to listen to them outside of the context of the show.

The only songs this CD doesn't have that I want are Bohemian Rhapsody and To Sir, With Love. Those songs, like all songs from the finale, are on a special CD all by themselves and I was not about to shell out eight bucks for five or six songs. They're good and the former is one of the best Queen covers I've heard, but I can live without having them on my mp3 player.

Back to the record. Lea Michele may be talented, but I flat out don't like her voice. However, I still like the songs she's featured on. The tracks I have on heavy rotation are Hello, A House Is Not A Home, One Less Bell To Answer/A House Is Not A Home, Home, Physical, Rose's Turn, Dream On, Safety Dance, Loser, and Bad Romance. So that's ten out of the twenty tracks.

It was incredibly worth it, because now I can listen to Chris Colfer's voice on the way to school and jam to the new version of Physical. I would love to hear a remixed version of that song that made it even more danceable.

On One Less Bell To Answer, "Since he went away" is sung more effectively than in the original. Not knocking the original, because it's good, but Kristin Chenoweth's voice is stronger but not overbearing. It also marries perfectly with Matthew Morrison's vocals. She made it her own without it having that, "I can do so much better than the original," vibe that I've gotten from some covers (non-Glee covers included).

So...yeah. I know it's kind of silly to care so much about what is not only a soundtrack, but a cover album, but this one is great. I can't wait until the second half of the season is out on DVD. September 14th seems to far away.

New Design

I finally decided to try to do something with the layout. So, instead of being all white, and instead of having a mainly black and white banner (which I did have at one point), I've got this blue background for posts, that yellow image background for the page, and that blue and yellow banner which I made myself. Not gonna lie, I'm kind of proud about it.

The thing about blogger is that the whole coding isn't what I'm used to. I used to be really proficient in HTML, particularly CSS and style sheets. I haven't really done stuff like for real since I was a freshman in high school, but I saved most of the codes. And, well, that's not exactly how blogger does things, so it's was kind of a pain figuring everything out. I know it looks kind of crummy and I could've just used a template instead of doing it myself, but whatever. PRIDE, man.

Speaking of pride, Independence Day is tomorrow and seeing as it's a federal holiday, that means I won't have class on Monday. One small victory. On the news this morning they were warning about the dangers of small fireworks. They talked about three year olds getting third degree burns from sparklers and grown men getting their eyes shot out by bottle rockets.

The news didn't say much after that, on any channels. Aside from some coverage about the oil spill, it doesn't seem like very much is going on. I kind of wish that I liked sports so I could at least watch the world cup, but I actually really hate soccer. The score is always like 2-1. And currently the news is "reporting" on viral internet videos. Wow.

I hate summer. It's too hot and nothing's on but Sister, Sister reruns on the Gospel Music Channel, which means that they block out words like butt, bra, darn, dang, heck, oh my god, and the like (but they still show on captions). This turns statements like, "Get the heck out of here," sound like, "Get the --ck out of here." And I'm pretty sure that you can figure out how my brain translates that sentence.

I know that they tout themselves as a "family channel", but if Sister, Sister is so raunchy for them that they have to have frequent blank spaces, then why even show it? I mean, I can understand the darns, dangs, and hecks--even though I think that's extreme, I can get that--but butt and bra? That just seems silly since everyone has a butt (except in extreme cases) and a good portion of the adult population wears a bra.

But still, I love this show and this is the only channel that shows it. Plus, it's summer and nothing else is on. Unless I want to listen to the anchors on the news try to figure out what fractal geometry is all about.