My boyfriend, the cyberman

Luke's been gone on vacation for the last 10 days or so. I've been up to no good. No bad either, but really no good.

In the last 10 days I've downloaded about 12 Doctor Who audiobooks (really it's the old audio stagings with a narrator). They've all been episodes that have been lost. I've focused on the Cybermen episodes because, well, they're the best villains ever. The dalek episodes too because, they're not that bad, villain-wise.

Did I mention that Luke was visiting his home planet of Mondas?
Actually, hearing that I had downloaded all of these old timey cyberman episodes, he used the power or MS Paint to transform himself. Isn't that sweet?

new stuffs

So after two years of dealing with cooling plates, a hard drive gummed up with virus' and extremely outdated software I broke down and got a new computer. A beautiful one. A much better one. A MacBook Pro. My boyfriend is ecstatic. Not that his computer is old and messed up. Mine is just much much better than his. Because his is a Dell or something.

My MacBook has a webcam. I've never had a webcam before. This is exciting to me since I have taken up the ukulele and am kind of a ham.

Last night, however, I tried recording myself playing a song. I recorded it a couple times just so I could have some options. When I finally quit I sat back and listened to my not-quite-so-skilled ukulele playing and realized that, though I loooooove to sing, I hate the sound of my voice on a recording. I hope that's not the way it sounds in real life. Stupid mid-west nasally accent.

Another new toy I'm getting...a Bean Sprout. A green one.

songs I would have sung at my mom's funeral

So my mom passed away last week. This past weekend, family gathered to share memories and spend time together thinking happy thoughts. It wasn't a funeral, per se. There was no priest. There were no flowers. But apparently there was loooooots of talking. There was a video presentation too. And tons of tears. I guess one of my cousins sang a song as well.

I didn't attend this shindig. I was 4,000 miles away in Alaska.

Had I attended I would have been complete rubbish--no use to anyone at all. I would have liked to strum a song on my uke. And that song? The One Rose (That's Left in My Heart). I would've cried the whole damn time, though. No one would have even recognized the song.

Here's my beautiful mom:

songs I'm working on

I'm headed back to Michigan next week. I'm not taking my uke but my mom has one so I'm going to take some music and work on:

The One Rose That's Left in my Heart
The Ukulele Song
The Slurf Song

I'm only going to be gone for a week and my mind will likely be elsewhere so I'm not too ambitious. I'm also taking books.

HH Scullard's From the Gracchi to Nero and Journey to Argos which sounds like a good Doctor Who episode title.

Speaking of I'm watching The Brain of Morbius, a Tom Baker episode. Man, he was good. Not so much running as nowadays but Baker's presence is enough to make up for the lack of explosions and excitement not to mention the REALLY bad special effects.

funny fail

see more pwn and owned pictures

winter time

Nashville

So, my trip to Nashville for the YALSA Young Adult Literature symposium was a success.

But it didn't seem like it was going to go that way.

When I first arrived at the airport waiting for the shuttle to my hotel I realized that I was going to have to fake my way through endless conversations about YA lit. You see, I haven't read much YA lit that I like. I was being bombarded with questions I didn't have the answer to on the ride to my hotel and, not having slept in 36 hours, having been crammed into 3 different airplanes for the 11 of those, and the 3 hour time difference, I was not a happy camper.

Not to mention the music...oh the terrible terrible music.

The hotel lobby, the gas stations, the restaurants...everywhere I went there was horrible, pop/rock/country music just blaring. It took everything for me not to explode when I was waiting to check in to my hotel.

To cut a long story short, I grew into the YA lit thing. The country music just started to blend into my mind.

It was a good trip. I made a couple new library friends. I'm still recovering from the lack-of-sleep/time change thing but overall it was a great trip. The one thing I regret is not having even touched my uke. I was so busy and tired and just plain social (which is a HUUUUGE stretch for me) that I didn't even make it downtown.

Bummer.