Actually it's two weekends' worth of update...

Last weekend I went to visit tawneykat in Charlotte, and we went to see Star Trek. She loved it too! Bonus: our tickets were only $7.00 each! We couldn't figure out why until I inspected my ticket and saw the word "senior". YEAH!

Here is a very funny interview with Chris "Kirk" Pine and Zachary "Spock" Quinto. Men are so easily distracted. *wink* After a couple of years on the mostly-male UNC basketball board, I knew exactly how this was going to go:



I also made my first trip to the brand new IKEA in Charlotte. I spent $100 on various smaller items, and I have to say that has made me happier than the other $100ses I've spent on things in the following two weeks. I love IKEA! When I lived in Munich I furnished my entire apartment from IKEA--but sold almost everything to the guy who moved in when I left.

This weekend I've spent running around shopping but again not accomplishing anything much on the home front. I did get my Weber grill back from Susan's basement where she's very kindly been storing it for me, and it's set up in the back yard. I had an excellent steak last night! I've also cleaned off the patio chairs, bought seat cushions for them and even got a bug repelling candle thingy--we'll see if it works. I got my flag pole bracket installed on the front porch and flew my flag proudly yesterday and today for Memorial Day.

Susan, Byron, and I went to see Terminator Salvation yesterday. It was much better than I expected, although I have no plans to see it again. Christian Bale/John Connor was not the most interesting character (he spent almost the whole film yelling); instead Sam Worthington as Marcus Wright was far more compelling. Made me all the more disappointed in the last 5 minutes but will say no more.

And Anton Yelchin continues to win the adorable award--or maybe that should be the 'person who looks most like Kevin Bacon in Footloose! award?:





I meant to include this sooner (thanks txvoodoo), which is from an interview with the Prez in Newsweek:

And the last movie you saw?
Now, movies I've been doing OK [with] because it turns out we got this nice theater on the ground floor of my house … So Star Trek, we saw this weekend, which I thought was good. Everybody was saying I was Spock, so I figured I should check it out and—[the president makes the Vulcan salute with his hand].

Very good.
Yes, absolutely.

Did you watch that when you were growing up?
I used to love Star Trek. You know, Star Trek was ahead of its time. There was a whole—the special effects weren't real good, but the storylines were always evocative, you know, there was a little commentary and a little pop philosophy for a 10-year-old to absorb.

A lot of U.N. stuff.
Yes, exactly, right.

*********

My lawn was mowed on Friday and it is already showing clover flowers and dandelions. I had to tell the yard man 'goodbye' and have bought my own lawn mower today at great expense (which won't arrive for another week). However, 3 months of what I was paying him will pay for the mower, which I hope I can use for another 10 years. Yes I know I'll regret it when it's 98 degrees in the morning, but there may be weeks when the grass doesn't get cut. Pay cuts at work, ya'll! At least I still have a job.

Which is good, because I'm going to buy a car. The old Frodofan is biting the dust after 16 years and about 170,000 miles (the odometer broke a couple of years ago). Here's what I'm looking at:



It's a 2009 Honda Fit Sport with manual transmission. It has great miles per gallon, safety, cargo space, and reliability. It is also smaller than Frodofan, although not smaller than my first car, an Opel Corsa in Germany.

I seriously wish I had not read that the gas tank is under the front seat, though. Still, it gets very high safety ratings from the people who test these things, so...

Now I have to figure out exactly how the logistics of the purchase work, between getting my loan at the bank, getting the Frodofan plate transferred from my old car, and donating my old car to TROSA (the good cause helping addicts which did my moving last year). I got an online trade-in value of $50 for it which is useless and I'd rather have the tax break. I've also considered retiring the Frodofan license plate so as not to pay extra each year for the vanity plate. May also downgrade my AAA membership from Plus and still looking to change my insurance company, but that will wait until I get settled with the new car payments.

Maybe I should start buying a lottery ticket every week!

I had no idea about this program, which apparently had a pilot episode last night (of course, I was watching NCIS and the Mentalist last night anyway)




I will definitely check out the first episode online.

Waaaaah...CBS is moving The Mentalist to 10pm Thursdays. Past my bedtime, dudes! Aren't you supposed to be the old people's network?

Speaking of which...bedtime now. More later. Looking forward to a great holiday weekend!!

I just went to get my hair cut.

I told my long-time stylist (10 years+) that I wanted it shorter, so that my earlobes & dangly earrings showed. He must have resented that (he's been cutting my hair the same way all this time, and I do like it. I just wanted a little change) because he went nuts and I now have a sort of ... um ... stereotypical lesbian haircut. It's not very attractive on me.

It is VERY short, except for the dangly bits on the right side that keep flopping into my eye.

Oh well! It will grow out eventually!

ETA: OK, it's kindasorta like kd's:



except of course that my ears are mostly covered up, my hair is not that thick so its much flatter and floppier, and I don't look as good as kd.

On the other hand, I saw a recent photo of her and she's looking about as chubby as I am these days, if not as gray!

I don't think my stylist REALLY meant to do this, I think he got carried away. And mostly it doesn't look good because I am fat. If I were thin it would look great!

That would be our Carolina basketball team. They got their traditional national championship visit to the White House this morning, which was all the more meaningful because Obama is a follower of the game, and he had scrimmaged with our team back when he campaigned in Chapel Hill.

Here's a link to the video.


Of course, they gave him a jersey.



Our seniors all graduated on Sunday. Congratulations to them for finishing and not jumping to the pro leagues last year (although we have 2 or 3 juniors who aren't coming back to finish college next year).
JB Tanner (the kid with the pink tie) made Phi Beta Kappa this year according to Obama(!). He may be on the third string but that is a HUGE academic honor.

And in case you were wondering just HOW fanatic we fans are about this time, here's a fan made video that pretty much expresses it all.

EPIC!



(no that forum at the end is not the one I frequent)

Tags: basketball
Current Mood: happy

That will only happen if I see Star Trek more than 6 times. (I guess I need to snag some icons for this)


Chris Pine (aka Kirk), despite being born in LA to parents who are both actors, has a BA in English from Cal, apparently spent his junior year at the University of Leeds, got admitted to LADA but decided he couldn't afford it and attended the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco.

Zachary Quinto (aka Spock) has a BFA in Drama from Carnegie Mellon.

After years of reading about celebrities who don't even have a high school diploma, color me impressed.

maritas, is CM your alma mater? is CM one of those places like Georgia Tech where everybody has to take calculus, no matter what your major? (I speak as someone who never had to take a single math course in college and never got beyond algebra II and trig)

Current Mood: impressed

and of course I couldn't resist:



It's with Maureen Dowd's op-ed about the future of newspapers, but I haven't had time to read the piece yet.

Current Mood: playful

Heh. I didn't get much done today, but I did work up a sweat! (not that difficult as it's 88 degrees, with 47% humdity)

I went out and bought some loppers and attacked two ancient bushes that were so overgrown and blocking the view of the birds from my kitchen window. Now I just need for someone to come and saw them down to ground level . . . they're actually growing out of a bunch of rocks so it would probably be very difficult to get them out by their enormous roots.

I took off every branch I could lop, and what's left is too thick in diameter for my tools to work.

Lovely view from my window now, though!

My other projects this weekend are laundry and more laundry. Also move the winter clothes into some kind of storage, and the summer things out, and actually get rid of some things I haven't worn in a while.
I have also discovered my closets are like Florida--maybe worse. I have the hanging DampRid in my closets, and the one that is supposed to last 60 days is half full after 2 weeks. Ugh. I've put another one in to 'help'.

Really looking forward to a cool shower tonight!

Star Trek!



I saw it last night with Diane and just loved it! I am no purist and also no physicist to be nitpicky about certain scenarios. Therefore I had no problems with the way they chose to reboot the franchise. I thought all the young actors were terrific, especially those playing Kirk, Spock, and McCoy (Karl Urban was a complete hoot!) I could have done without everything that happens before the titles, but it does fit into the...oh well better not say!

I know you'll ask what I thought of the music: it didn't really make much of an impression--suitably EPIC of course, but I've been spoiled by Bear McCreary for Battlestar Galactica and John Williams and given Giacchino's work for Lost, which is so perfect for that show, I guess I was expecting more. I am listening to the soundtrack right now, though, so I'm sure I'll have a better idea what he's doing with it. Wish I knew more music theory because I'd like to know what homage (apart from the closing credits), if any, he paid to the original theme.

We stayed through the credits but I managed to miss who did sound design. I know ILM did a lot of the FX and I feel sure the same team that did the Star Trek sound design also worked on The Phantom Menace, because Kirk's motorbike sounded EXACTLY like one of the podracers, as did Spock's ship later on. (Yes, I saw The Phantom Menace many times. I will be stunned if it's not the same people.

(OK, hold on, I just heard a theme that yes, does relate to the original ST theme, although I can't tell you HOW, I can just hear that it does. Bravo.)

Going again tomorrow after church! (which I'm attending twice--there was an error on the rota but I feel as though I deserve to have to go twice in one day as I completely forgot when I was on duty during a weekday mass easter week. Ugh.)

Whoa! just had a recorded phone message from my favorite TV weather station meteorologist telling me there is a severe thunderstorm warning in my area. That's a first. Guess I'd better get offline for now...

Yay! Susan and I will see Star Trek tomorrow!

ETA: thought I'd better have a picture of Spock since I said how good the actor was:

Tags: star trek, yard work
Current Mood: sweaty
Current Music: NoArtist: 02 - Nailin' The Kelvin

I am amazed by these things...I won't describe any more so you get the full effect:

This is my favorite, Supreme Evil:



I have NO IDEA how they come up with these musical combinations. I love the way the music subtly changes-yet-remains-the-same when they're put together. I'm sure there must be some music theory explanation as to how this can work, but as far as I'm concerned it might as well be magic.

Or maybe you just feed chord changes into a computer program and it spews out a list of pop songs that are all following the same changes?





Rolling Stones + Temptations:




And of course, I also love to time-travel when I watch these OLLLDD videos. I had forgotten how ridiculous Mick Jagger was even back then.

hmmm...maybe I'll go look for something by the Doors, whom I did see live at that concert at the Roundhouse with Jefferson Airplane (I didn't live there at that time, I was on vacation from study abroad in Florence).

This!

(caution--has very wide sonic range)



The Choral Society is singing the Verdi Requiem with the North Carolina Symphony and another local group, the North Carolina Master Chorale.

I'm guessing this may be our last chance to sing with the North Carolina Symphony and their adorable music director, Grant Llewellyn:



as he has now got his own smaller professional baroque chorus. I think we did a great job, though, and our own adorable conductor, Rodney, had us extremely well prepared.

One performance done tonight in Duke Chapel, another tomorrow in Raleigh at Meymandi Hall, the symphony's beautiful new home in Raleigh (I'm not participating) and the final concert on Saturday at Meymandi (that one I am singing in).

I was tempted to attend Friday's performance in Raleigh to enjoy it from the audience, but decided to forgo spending the $$$.

We had a paycut for May and June (not sure exactly how much per month it will turn out to be) and are expecting more serious pay cuts when our fiscal year begins 1 July. They are calling it a furlough and saying we will have unpaid leave each month, but unless they bar the doors, the work will still have to be done, so what it is really is a pay cut.

At least I will still have a job. What's even worse is that our health insurance is going way up too.

ARGH!

back to enjoy the thrilling music!

I couldn't resist. I'm gonna miss the big fella so much, but he will graduate in May and hopefully go on to play in the NBA. I don't think he'll ever be a smooth analyst like Eric Montross, one of my other favorite former UNC players, but Tyler Hansbrough is one of the most honored players in Tar Heel basketball history, if not the most naturally gifted guy. As a freshman, he was described as a bull in a china shop (seems like only yesterday), but through natural talent + unbelievable drive he made himself an exceptional player of the college game.

It was so much fun to watch Hansbrough after he was out of the game, because if you had only ever seen him play over four years, he is the most serious guy on earth; I don't think I have ever seen him smile as much as he did after the National Championship game.




How many more days until basketball season starts again?


I am looking forward to a blog entry from tworivers because she and Margie and Judy went to the celebrations on Franklin St. after the win on Monday!