Promo pictures of the new TARDIS team come out on Tuesday. The show starts filming next week.

( Companion nationality, name, and rumored description of what her dynamic with 11 will be like. )

My boss took us all to see the new Harry Potter movie today, which was pretty awesome of him. I liked the film, and I'm glad the producers are keeping the same director for the remainder of the series. Although the movies are flawed, they still capture the books pretty well.

Half-Blood Prince is my least favorite book in the HP series. It reads like fanfiction to me, and I had to force my way through most of it. The movie takes what didn't work about HPB and fixes it. Hermione doesn't act like she's PMSing her way through the entire movie, the teenage love stuff is cut down (although that's more due to time constraints), the endless flashbacks are cut WAY down, and the movie is pretty good overall. However, I think they might have been a bit too stringent with their editing toward the end.

( SPOILERS. )

My 31st birthday party was awesome. I was so happy to say goodbye to 30. Worst year ever. If you could push a number out of a 20-story window, I would do it. Good riddance.

Most of my birthday was like a regular day. I went to morning and evening services, hung out with my friend Scott at Winter Park Village, flipped through books at Barnes and Noble, and retrieved some items from a friend's house. A nice, low-key day. The actual party was held at Stardust Video and Coffee. About 16 of us hung out, talked, drank coffee, and played Apples to Apples. It turned out that the barista was also celebrating her birthday. The poor girl had to work until close. But I gave her a piece of cake, and her friends showed up around closing time. They had hung a creepy clown piñata across the room, and the group took turns whacking it with a stick. It took a while. It was a tough piñata.

Half of our group had to leave before close. The rest of us wound up at Steak and Shake, since at least half of us had basically eaten cake for dinner. aceshigh75, cronomst, LJ-less James, and I loitered outside the restaurant after dinner, talking. I don't really remember what the conversation revolved around, as I was only operating on four hours of sleep at the time. But I enjoyed the conversation. All in all, it was a great birthday. Thank you to everyone who attended or even just sent me birthday wishes.

So, the cake. Let me preface this by saying that I came up with the idea, but I didn't do most of the actual decoration. More on that later. Second, this is one of the best birthday cakes I've ever had. I love it in all its Cake Wreck-y glory. It makes me happy on so many levels.

( I stomped Tokyo and all I got was a face full of cake. )

Happy Birthday to mice, nancyblue, and me!

My birthday cake this year is amazing. It's a Cake Wreck on an epic scale that rivals last year's ReTARDIS. We saw the fail begin to occur, and we ran with it. See it (and me) at tonight's get-together.

Off to have lunch!

Also, I'm curious as to why Forever XXI's clothes don't actually fit me anymore. Size small used to fit me fine, but now it's like a tent, particularly in the shoulders and arms. Either I'm shrinking or they've changed their sizing. Come to think of it, I had the same issue at Old Navy. And a few months ago at The Limited. What gives?

This keeps up, I'll be buying my clothes at Gap Kids before long.

My unwavering hatred for "Come On Eileen" has been documented here before. I think it's one of the most annoying songs I've ever heard in my life. Whenever I hear it at I-Bar, I have to fight the urge to march upstairs to the DJ booth, whisk the record off the turntables in one smooth motion, and fling it like a Frisbee into the rafters.

I was at the mall tonight, unsuccessfully looking for something on which to use the last dregs of a Forever XXI gift card, when "Come On Eileen" came over the store speakers. In a teenybopper mall shop, of all places! I hurried out of there. The walk took maybe 30 seconds, but it was one of the longest walks of my life. The intolerable yowling of the lead singer followed me as I wove past the clothing racks and escaped into the mall's main concourse.

Less than half an hour later, I was in the dressing room at Old Navy. What came on the speakers? STUPID "COME ON EILEEN." And I was stuck! Because I was trying on clothes! I changed back into my street clothes as quickly as possible and hightailed it out of there. I think the song got halfway through by the time I pushed through the doors and into the fresh, "Come On Eileen"-free air.

It's going to take hours of Morrissey to recover from this.

A holiday classic:

Watching the last few minutes of the NBA finals on a big bank of TVs on the dance floor at Independent Bar, with a Siouxsie and the Banshees video simultaneously playing over the loudspeakers and on all but two of the TVs, a small group of college-kid types (some of whom were wearing Orlando Magic T-shirts) standing around on the dance floor and cheering occasionally, while some Goths linger on the periphery and alternately chat with their friends/stare up at the game.

Weird juxtaposition.

I FINALLY just got around to watching the season finale of Heroes. Yes, a month later. I've become thoroughly demotivated to watch this show, and the season finale certainly didn't help.

( SPOILERS for season finales of Heroes, Lost, and Doctor Who. )

I'm not a Killers fan, but I go through these phases where I listen to this song ad nauseum, like 20 times in a row. It reminds me of the Doctor, for obvious reasons. I've come across at least three DW fanvids using it. This fanvid is my favorite of the three, set to a bunch of clips using each Doctor. The end result is pretty neat, in my opinion.

I need to see more Five and Seven episodes. I think I would like Ace very much.

Here you go.

(Thanks to yendi.)

( Thoughts back here, in case you REALLY don't want to be spoiled on their looks/nationality/whatever. )

Happy 50th Birthday, Morrissey! :hands you vegan birthday cake and some gladiolas to stick in your back pocket: Thank you for gifting the world with half a century of awesomeness.

To celebrate, here's my favorite Morrissey song.



If you're in Orlando, don't forget to come out and celebrate tonight.

Sorry this is so late; I didn't get to watch the episode until now. It's been a long two days. :sigh:

Anyway, in short: not as good as last season's, but it still blew my mind.

( SPOILERS )

My friend James and I went to Cranes Roost Park in Altamonte Springs tonight. We were walking down the wooden bridge when I noticed that every time I touched the metal railing, I got shocked. After a while, I noticed that when I held my arm a few inches away from the railing, the hairs stood straight up.

By the time we got to the end of the bridge, that distance had increased to about a foot. It produced an unpleasant prickling sensation. Hairs on my head were standing up, and the skin on my arms felt tight and irritated, like a mild sunburn. James swiped his hand in between my arm and the railing, and he felt the charge, too. He touched my arm a few times as a test, and I shocked the both of us. Jerk. :P I shoved him.

James wasn't as affected by the electric field as I was. We went back over the bridge a few minutes later, and it wasn't as strong this time, but it was still enough to make the hairs on my head stand up. I'm guessing a change in atmospheric conditions reduced the charge? We thought the charge might be from the electricity powering the lights, but the electric field didn't seem to be much stronger around the lights. We also noticed that it was just the top railing. When we touched the railings beneath it and got closer to the ground, the charge disappeared.

We can't figure it out. Why the top railing? And most importantly, why was I so strongly affected by the electric field?

This week's Lost got me thinking about time travel and the concept of visiting your past self. My friend John once showed me this website where you can send an e-mail to your future self. I guess the e-mail provider holds on to your message until the time you specify. I didn't do it because at first I was afraid that I might receive an e-mail back from my future self, and that would just blow my mind. And then I was afraid that I WOULDN'T receive an e-mail from my future self, and that would make me sad.

That brings me to the idea of Future!Me visiting Present!Me. If time travel were invented, this is exactly the sort of thing I would do. Not to warn myself of anything, or try to change the past, because everyone knows you can't do that.

I would do it to freak myself out.

Most likely, I would not have suffered any accident requiring me to wear an eyepatch. It's the future. If we have time travel, I'm sure we have some pretty advanced eye surgery. But I would wear the eyepatch anyway, just to mess with myself. I wouldn't reveal the joke until the end, either. I'd just mutter something about how things "haven't been the same since the incident." Then I'd gesture to the eyepatch and look bitter.

I wouldn't say anything about the impressively big gun, though. I think it's best for Present!Me to keep believing.

Of course, now that I've typed this all out, I run the risk of Present!Me not believing the eyepatch and the gun. Consider this a warning to Future!Me to be more creative. Eyepatches are so common, Future!Me. Everybody does eyepatches.

Every day that goes by without a visit from my future self means that time travel does not exist in the future, or it does and I'm not a part of it. Still, some part of me holds out hope. I'm sure that says something embarrassing about me, that I would wield the awesome power of time travel for cheap tricks. Ah, well. I'll keep an eye out for myself.

Sorry I'm late with this one; I've been busy and I finally got to watch the episode just now. I'm a bit disappointed because doubtofbuddha told me it was going to be Richard-centric and it wasn't. I wanted flashbacks, man.

Nevertheless, it was a good episode.

( SPOILERS )

CURSE YOU TELEVISION. WHY MUST YOU KEEP DESTROYING MY FAVORITE CHARACTERS.

I'm seriously gutted right now.

( SPOILERS )

I think it would be nerdy-awesome if someone named their kids after Elvis Costello songs. Oliver, Alison, and Veronica.

I was on my way to an interview for a temp job when I found out that they were letting my dad out of the hospital today. My uncle Pat and aunt Dot drove their big old SUV over from St. Augustine, where they were vacationing, to help us get him home. Dad has an oxygen tank, and he's going to be on a 16-pill cocktail for the forseeable future (including a blood thinner, cholesterol drug, and a bunch of vitamins). A home nurse is going to come and help him out twice a week. Dad has to use a walker to get around, and he has to use a combination portable toilet/shower seat. It's scary, seeing my dad with all this stuff. But you know, once they got him into his clothes, he looked like my dad again. He looked younger. I get my baby face from him. Rehabilitation is going to take a long time, but I'm just happy that he's okay.

They moved Dad out of the ICU yesterday. He's in a normal room now, and he has a swank flatscreen TV with Internet access. His voice sounds normal again, not all hoarse like it did before, and he's looking better. Yay!

This whole situation with Dad has made me rethink my life a bit. I always thought I was "getting out" a lot in Orlando. Always hanging out with friends, going downtown, going on vacations when I could. But I've realized that the human body is fragile, and I'm not getting any younger. There are so many things I want to do. It's better to do them sooner rather than later. I feel a bit like running outside and not stopping.

I made one of those "life lists" a couple of years ago. You know, stuff to do before you bite it. It's been extraordinarily slow going fulfilling all the items. I've at least managed to cross "living in a big city for a year" off the list, although I didn't live in New York for a year. Eight months was good enough for me, though. I feel like I got a pretty good feel for the city, and I feel accomplished about that. But you know, my time in New York doesn't even feel real now. It feels like a dream. I feel like I've emerged blinking into the Florida sunlight with little idea of what I've actually done for the past eight months.

Anyway. The list. I wrote it in a notebook, but that notebook is either gone or in storage at the moment. So I need to start over. Whatever pops in my head is going here. When I think of new stuff, I will add it. I encourage you to make your own list. It helps you get things in perspective, figure out what your priorities are.

Apparently, my priorities involve travel and putting myself in harm's way. Sometimes both simultaneously.

( My Epic To-Do List. )