So yeah, last night's SPN REALLY needs a rewatch before I can post about it.

I herniated a disc in my back (for the second time in 6 months - the original injury hadn't even fully healed yet) so I am on some serious medication at the moment to attempt to quell the excruciating sciatic pain that it's been causing. So I'm currently mildly stoned and very sleepy.

I wish I could say I hurt it doing something cool, but alas, the actual reason is full of lame-itude: I have a cold, I coughed too hard and the disc reherniated. Go me! Gettin' down with my spaz self!

So yeah, I've been in a state of perma-loopiness for the past few days and was dozing off (despite my best efforts to remain conscious!) while watching last night's ep :-( I did enjoy the parts I actually remember, but I'm a tad hazy on the details. LOL.

I refuse to let this get me down though! I have an uber-cracky J2 humor vid I've been half-assedly working on lately and I intend to throw my whole ass into it this weekend, pain or no pain, and get it done in time to submit it for WinCon. Here's hoping I can pull it off *crosses fingers*.

I have a plan, I have the clips, and I also have good drugs and a heating pad! I will prevail!

Besides, I figure being whacked out on pain pills can only HELP when churning out the crack, right?

So I must confess, I've only watched ep 3x04 once so far (I know!), and I haven't read a lot of fan reaction yet (as I'm like 4 days behind on my flist so I'm currently skimming through it at breakneck speed as I am determined, DETERMINED I tell you, not to get so behind on LJ that I stop checking my flist at all because it's too overwhelming), but here are ( a few quick thoughts on SPN 3x04 and a bit of non-spoilery speculation... )

In RL news, the reason why I'm behind on the flist is that I got a temp job through the placement agency I'm working with (as a receptionist/office assistant), it was only supposed to be for 2 days but they really liked me and decided to stretch it out to 5, which means: a) I'll now have enough money to pay rent! and, b) this makes me look REALLY good to the placement agency, considering this was my first assignment, so I should have a much easier time getting something more permanent in the future.

Surprisingly, I'm really enjoying working at this office and I wish I could stay there for more than 5 days. Even though most of my day consists of doing all of the filing, photocopying, letter stuffing, hole punching, and faxing that the other employees don't have the time or desire to do (along with answering the phones and greeting people who come in, but thankfully, it's not a very busy office so I'm only fielding about 3 calls an hour, and most of those just need to be transferred to someone else in the office), it's actually kinda fun. And even though I'm doing more work than I did at the call center (and a lot of jobs I've never really done before), it's so much less stressful than my old job. It's amazing how much more relaxed I am when I'm not being screamed at by idiots all day :-)

Went to see the Matt Good concert last night and it was absolutely incredible! pumpkin_dude and I got there nice and early so we managed to get great seats in the second row *happy flail*!

The awesomeness started even before Matt's set did. The opening act was a folk duo from Toronto called Dala. I hadn't heard of them before but they were freaking amazing! I was hooked about 10 seconds into the first song they played. Their voices are gorgeous and their harmonies gave me goosebumps. You guys should check them out, here's a streaming link to their first video:

"Anywhere Under the Moon" by Dala (if you guys like it and want me to upload some of their songs, let me know and I will)

They were in the lobby signing autographs during the intermission and were super-cute and sweet. They complimented me on my "Allow Me to Explain Through Interpretive Dance" T-shirt, which made me happy. So yeah, they were pretty awesome.

After intermission, it was finally time for Matt's set to start. The concert was acoustic, which was cool (despite the fact that MG's muti-layered instrumentals are one of the things I like best about his music), so we got to hear a lot of familiar songs with a different sound. He played a bunch of my favorite songs, like "Champions of Nothing", "Strange Days", "Apparitions", "Born Losers", "Avalanche", and a ton of other stuff. He played for nearly 2 hours, which rocked. And when he came out for the encore he did another 4 songs, which kicked ass.

It was such an incredible and moving experience for me. Being so close to the stage just listening to his amazing voice singing all of these songs that have meant so much to me for so long made me actually made me tear up a couple of times. *hearts Matt liek whoa*

He was super entertaining in between songs too. He's surprisingly hilarious and had the whole crowd laughing out loud. He had a cold (but still sounded great) so he decided that he needed to drink wine on stage, which was pretty funny (and led to him telling us how you can apparently open wine bottles with a scimitar -- LOL!), he kept bugging one of the roadies for loading him up on a bunch of weird homeopathic remedies and for buying him cheap wine that made his teeth hurt.

Near the end of the set, Matt brought out his camera and took a picture of the crowd, (which he does at every concert), he put it on his Flickr page today, and pumpkin_dude and I are in the photo! Check it out (we're in the second row on the far left)! LOL!

So all in all, it was a great concert. And I have to say, as much as I love and adore American TV shows and movies, sometimes it's really nice to take in a night of actual Canadian culture. *waves flag*

Round One Winners have been announced at Villainous Imagination Awards and Round Two is now open for submissions.



You guys should all go check out the winning vids, they're freaking fantastic, and made the round really tough to judge (but still TONS of fun). The awards turned out pretty good and I'm really happy with the new Matt Good themed layout (I also changed my LJ layout a few weeks ago as the old one had been up for awhile -- plus Jared = love).

- - - - - - -

I'm nominated in the Best of the Best Round at the Art of Vidding Awards, so...




...if you are so inclined ;-)

- - - - - - -

I've been frantically trying to get my Sweet Charity vid done in time, but my muse refused to co-operate until like a week ago. Luckily candygramme is very understanding and is OK with waiting a little bit longer.

Once I'm done that, I'm going to start working on a Dexter vid as I've found the PERFECT song! I'm just itching to get my hands on the DVDs so I can just get it made already!

- - - - - - -

I know I haven't been around much (again, some more), but I'm planning my return to LJ and fandom in general for mid-August, after I get back from vividcon (*flappy hands* Less than two weeks away!!!).

And now, a little poll, so I know who I can look forward to seeing in Chicago next week:

Poll #1030531
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 14

Are you going to Vividcon this year?

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I got the new Matt Good album and it is fan-freaking-tastic (I'll likely be sharing it with you guys when I get the chance to upload it)! Also, I just bought tickets to see his acoustic show in October! Eeeeeee!

- - - - - - -

I finished Book 7 of Harry Potter a few days ago (was able to read it at work because being on chats thankfully requires very little actual work) and freaking LOVED it to bits and pieces!

Also went to see Order of the Phoenix last week and really enjoyed it (though the fact that I was watching it in Imax probably helped me to ignore all of the discarded plot points), the 3-D at the end was freaking cool! I just hope they don't keep that effect in when the DVD comes out, otherwise the entire climax of the movie will be pretty much useless for vidding purposes.

- - - - - - -

I know I should probably comment on the SPN season 3 spoilers at some point, but I don't really have the energy. I'll just say thank GOD Kripke finally cleared some things up so fandom can stop imploding already.

Trust in Teh Kripke, people.

- - - - - - -

( RL has been really stupid lately... )

ARGH!!! I fucking HATE OC Transpo!!!

( Pointless ranting, feel free to skip... )


- - - - -


Speaking of homicide, OMFG why didn't any of you tell me how mind-blowingly awesome "Dexter" is?!?

I mean seriously. It's absolutely incredible!

I checked out this vid by xandra_ptv (which is GORGEOUS and amazing but if you haven't watched the show you might want to hold off on the vid until after you've watched the show, because it is pretty damned spoilery) and was so intrigued I looked for the show online and was watching the pilot within minutes.

Wow. I've never been as INSTANTLY hooked on a show before as I was with this. I watched all 12 episodes within 48 hours. SO good! Seriously, if you haven't seen it yet, check it out ASAP, you won't be disappointed (but you might want to stay away if you are bothered by the sight of blood, because it can get pretty heavy on the gore at times).

pumpkin_dude (who is feeling MUCH better today) decided to take me out to dinner tonight, because he's awesome like that.

So I just got back home to find that my Slap Bet Commissioner t-shirt has arrived!

Woohoo!

Best. T-Shirt. EVER!

I just heard five or six very loud gunshots, looked out the window to the grocery store parking lot directly across the street from my apartment to see one car peeling out and another car parked.

Within a few minutes, about ten emergency vehicles converged on the scene. They took at least one person away in an ambulance but they're still surrounding the car and it looks like they might be putting someone in a body bag.

...

I think I need to move.

I mean, this is CANADA! This sort of stuff isn't supposed to happen here! There was that HORRIBLE shooting spree in Montreal just last week and now this?

The world is going fucking crazy.

I'm in an absolutely fantabulous mood today!

*bounces excitedly*

Just finished off my six-day work week with an eleven hour shift during which, to my great surprise, I didn't have even ONE sucky customer! In fact I had a disproportionate number of really NICE customers! *boggles*

And now? FOUR DAY WEEKEND, BABY! pumpkin_dude, coincidentally, ALSO wound up with a four day weekend, so YAY!

*boogies*


Also, and this is even BETTER news, not only did I get my shiny-new-not-rejected-by-the-stupid-assed-government passport today(!!!), yesterday my mom called to tell me that my grandparents, for no particular reason other than the fact that they are completely AWESOME, decided to give me FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS to pay for my trip to winchestercon!

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Nashville, here I come!!!

I was SO stressed out about not getting my passport in time or not having enough money for the con (especially with my bank screwing me over and work short-shifting me), but now that stress is COMPLETELY lifted and the only thing I have to worry about con-wise is whether or not I'll get my vid done in time! Now I can just look forward to the roadtrip and the fangirling and the AWESOME that will be WINCON!!!


So yeah, my four day weekend will mainly be spent vidding like a mad vidding thing. So if you see me commenting or posting or anything please feel free to say "Why are you not VIDDING, woman?! Go! Vid! Now!"

Went to the passport office today to drop off my application. Thankfully they didn't find any silly nitpicky reason to reject it, and they say I should have it by September 15th (and thanks again for vouching for me, qwantz! You're a lifesaver!).


Was feeling particularly domestic today and had some overripe bananas lying around (I always end up buying too many because I forget that one can only eat so many bananas during the 1-2 day span where they're at the perfect stage of ripeness) so I made some chocolate chip banana bread...YUM!


I'm currently in the process of figuring out Sony Vegas. It's a little bit daunting, but I've been playing around with it for awhile and I *think* I have a handle on the basics (and OMG it's SO fucking COOL!).

I'm going to be working on vidlets for the next few days (or more) to try to hone my skills a bit before I start in on the vid that I hope to premiere at winchestercon (which is almost 100% planned out right now, so it'll just be a matter of getting the clips from the DVDs and actually putting them together into a vid).


Ugh. I need a new job liek whoa. Seriously, the stress is getting to me hard core. Like it's my day off today and I can't even enjoy it because I know I have to go in to work tomorrow and I won't have another day off until next Thursday.

*frets*

I can't handle this shit anymore. I'm having daily, work-related panic attacks both at work and at home. Not cool at ALL. I'm already on like three different medications for my anxiety but they just aren't helping any more. I think I might have to look into temporary stress leave or something.

Ultimately, I would rather just get a different job, but it's really hard to find one that:

a) pays at least as much as I'm making now.
b) does not require bilingualism (which about 80% of jobs in this city do).
c) involves little to no dealing with the general public (because customers SUCK SO MUCH OMG!).
d) has benefits comparable to my current job.

Yeah, this is not going to be easy.

*overdramatic sigh*


Also, OMG did you guys see the new SPN promo???

EEEEEEEEE!!!!

Today I:

did laundry

washed dishes

mopped the floor

brought a movie back to Blockbuster BEFORE incurring a late fee

bought groceries (and not only did I not spend too much money, I also managed to buy mostly healthy food...ice cream sandwiches notwithstanding...)

What do you know? Some days I AM capable of acting like an actual adult.


(Oh, and saklani2, I FINALLY mailed out the first season of Supernatural for you! I can't WAIT for you to see it! *smooches*)

AUGH!!!

I hate the government and their stupid $&#*(@& rules!

I'm applying for a passport so I don't get hassled crossing the border to go to winchestercon (I don't have a driver's liscense and I'm absolutely TERRIFIED they'll find some stupid reason to not let me cross and I'll miss all the fangirling!). I have a doctors appointment tomorrow morning for the express purpose of having my doctor sign the application for me.

So I'm filling out the application, making sure my handwriting is uber-neat and all the information is 100% correct, but then I go to sign it and I accidentally let my signature touch the little blue border around the signature box ever-so-slightly.

Of course, since it's a government form and they have nine billion USELESS rules to make everybody's life difficult, the signature touching the border even the *tiniest* bit makes the WHOLE application null and void.

*fumes*

So now I have to get up even earlier, go to the post office to pick up YET ANOTHER application, and fill it out before I get to my doctor's office (which means I'll be filling it out on the bus--and my handwriting's bad enough as it is). It's now after 4, and I have to get up at like 8 AM in order to make the appointment (then I have to go to work right afterwards until FUCKING MIDNIGHT!).

On top of that, I can't even BRING the passport application to the passport office tomorrow anyway as I don't have 2 references yet, because I'm so incredibly lame that I only know one person who can vouch for me.

Someone just fucking kill me.

I'm feeling very odd right now, all sick and panicky for no particular reason. I honestly can't tell if I'm feeling sick because I'm panicky or I'm feeling panicky because I'm sick.

*breathes*


I'm in this weird, overly emotional headspace for the past few days, I think a lot of it is because I've been spending entirely too much time by myself. I just don't deal well with being completely in my own head for extended periods of time. pumpkin_dude and I continue to be on completely opposite shifts at work, so I see him less than a half an hour every day. So yeah, that totally fucking sucks. Thankfully we have the long weekend coming up so I can finally spend some actual time with him.


I'm really sorry that I haven't been commenting on your journals in the past little while, I'm going to at least make the attempt to catch up with everything in the next couple of days. Either that or I'll just say "fuck it" and just read the past few days, considering it will take me like 12 solid hours to actually read thru everything that's been posted since last week. I know there are a bunch of comments I haven't responded to and I really need to feedback a few vids and fics. Again, I am sorry. Stupid internet-related guilt.

I annoy myself sometimes. Anytime I'm away from LJ for a few days and I know my flist is at like skip=1000 or more I tend to get intimidated and instead of trying to catch up with my flist while it's still at an even slightly manageable size, I wind up just avoiding it entirely for several more days because it's just too overwhelming. Then it like doubles in size and becomes even MORE unwieldy. Yeah, work taking away my LJ access? Ruining my life. For serious.


The main reason why I haven't been around in the past week and a half is that I suddenly had an insanely strong muse attack last weekend. I haven't had this much of a NEED to make a vid in...well, ever. I mean, it's not the most brilliant or complex vid I've ever done, and weirdly enough it's not even set to one of the six songs on my SPN vid list that I vowed to finish during the hiatus. I just found this song and my muse basically grabbed me by the throat and said "OMG! VID THIS RIGHT THE FUCK NOW!!!"

So yeah, I had hoped to finish it in just a couple of days, but sadly that hasn't been possible. I've been working on it FOREVER and I still have about 1/3rd of it left to go. I kept having timing problems as the song has an uneven beat and for awhile I couldn't quite figure out exactly where to cut and things like that. But I think I've finally got it worked out now, I just need to actually FINISH the fucker. Hopefully it turns out OK. I have this fear that it will wind up being one of those vids that only really makes sense to me. I'm not able to look at it objectively so I really won't know if it will make sense to anyone else until it's already done. I just know that I HAVE to finish it.


Blah, anyway. I'm getting moved to a new contract at work which means four whole weeks of paid training. Four weeks without having to deal with ANY asshat customers! *dances* It almost feels like a frigging vacation. It's boring as hell, but give me boring lessons over screaming fuckwads any day.


And on to some TV related things because I haven't posted about ANY shows in almost two weeks! I'm the worst fangirl ever.

( Grey's Anatomy )


( American Idol )


( Veronica Mars )


Speaking of new seasons of CW shows...waiting for the 18th to hear if SPN is renewed is giving me a fucking ulcer. Because I know I flat out will not be able to handle it if that show gets canceled. I know it's pretty much a sure thing at this point, but I just can't relax until it's officially renewed.


K, I'm going to shut up now because this is officially the longest, most disjointed post ever.

Yay! I've lost almost SIX POUNDS since I started my diet 10 days ago! *dances*


In other news, drop what you're doing and go watch wistful_fever's new Harry Potter vid. It's GORGEOUS and deep and haunting and perfect in every single way.

Hands down, the best vid I have ever seen in any fandom ever. I've watched it about 20 times since she posted it on Sunday and I get chills every single time. Really, I cannot stress enough how mind blowingly awesome this video is.

So what are you waiting for? Go watch it now!

Ow ow ow ow OW! Just threw my back out. Even more annoying is that I wasn't doing anything even remotely strenuous, it just went out. I reached into the fridge for a diet coke and suddenly my back explodes into blinding agony. Seriously, WTF?


Started on a diet today. I've grown entirely sick of being overweight, out of shape, and unhealthy, and finally decided to actually DO something about it. So I've eaten nothing but healthy food all day today, and the fridge is fully stocked with only good, non-fattening foods. I'm getting an exercise bike from my grandfather next week, which YAY! I'm so bad with exercising, mainly because I'm lazy as hell and don't want to spend time at a gym that could be spent doing things like watching TV. But this way, I can work out WHILE I watch TV! So I no longer have any excuses!

Though I should probably wait until my back stops being all hurty...


I've been experiencing a lot of internet related guilt lately. I'm RIDICULOUSLY behind on my articles for vidder_weekly (permetaform and wistful_fever, I WILL have it done by the end of the week, I promise!), I'm STILL not done my goddamned %#(*&$# SPN vid, I keep getting really behind on my flist, and I still haven't done the frigging OLP rec post I promised like 3 weeks ago!

I suck.


Also...OW!

Well, work continues to suck all the joy out of my life. They've blocked Livejournal again. Asshats. I haven't checked my flist since Monday so I'm going to spend the entire evening catching up. And I mean the ENTIRE evening. Let's see...it's 6:00 now. I'm predicting I'll be done reading my flist (filtered, with hardly any comms) in about 5 hours or so.

BTW, I'm blaming you guys for the fact that I actually LIKE a country song. That's right, I'm looking at you. I don't even remember who linked to it (because at least 6 or 7 of you uploaded it), but I downloaded "The House Rules" by Kane a couple weeks back (mostly because everyone kept saying that this song should be the unofficial SPN theme song--which, YEAH!) and I'm really liking it. A lot.

This is very weird for me, so I'm taking it as a sign of the apocalypse. I don't like country. At all. I don't have anything against it per se, it's just not my type of music. Actually, thinking back, I don't think I've heard a country song in my life that I've enjoyed, let alone one that I'd go out of my way to listen to more than once. Until now, that is. It's all due to my insane fangirling over Jared and Jensen, I swear. That would also explain why I suddenly think southern accents are incredibly sexy, when they never did much for me before ;-)

*listens to song again*

Speaking of songs, I know I totally dropped the ball on the promised OLP rec post! My FTP server wasn't working properly (probably because I didn't pay my hosting bill--which was due on the 4th or something--until yesterday...whoops). But I got it working again now, so expect the OLP goodies in the next couple of days.

Man, I just realized I haven't even commented on TV shows yet this week! I'm a bad fangirl. Speaking of which, my paid LJ account is like 2 days away from expiring! Yikes! I am not losing all my shiny new icon spaces! *pays*

On my way to the kitchen to get a Pepsi I turned to look at something and wound up walking into a wall.

Yup, that's me: Spazzy McSpazzerson.

Have been enjoying my day off so far (wall-related mishaps notwithstanding). Went for coffee this morning with my mother and we had a nice long chat about lots and lots of things, which was nice.

Ooh ooh! And I finally got an MP3 player! *flails around a bit*

I've wanted one forever, but haven't been able to afford it, so it was a nice surprise today when my mother presented me with one this morning!

It was actually my dad's, but he just bought himself a shiny new PSP, and since my CD player is on its last legs he decided to give me his old MP3 player (which is still really really nice and fairly new--it's a tiny, round, 1GB player)! I love my dad and his obsessive need to purchase new gadgets, because it means I get all of his cast-offs! That's how I got my digital camera and video camera as well :-)

I'm FINALLY somewhat caught up with my flist. I spent like EIGHT FUCKING HOURS reading LJ yesterday when I got home from work. I'm still behind on a lot of comms, but thanks to spnnewsletter (which could not have started at a better time) I'm pretty much up to speed with SPN fandom (I still have a ton of fic to read and several vids to watch, though). If anyone wants to rec any cool fics or icons or anything else of interest in SPN fandom that was posted in the past 2 weeks, that would be hella awesome. I had to skim over a ton of stuff and I don't want to miss out on anything really interesting.

Good news is, I think I MAY have figured out a way to access LJ from work. I'm going to try using a proxy server and see if that works. Cross your fingers for me, because I NEED LJ, OMG! I've been feeling so disconnected lately because I don't have my flist to read at work. I'm really really sorry I haven't been able to comment as much as I would like to. I'm going to try to keep on top of things from now on, but I feel like I've been a bad LJ friend. I just want you guys to know that I still love you all like crazy!!!

*glomps entire flist liek whoa*

Well, the day's off to a great start. My ride was supposed to pick me up at 7:30 this morning. I, unfourtunately, woke up at 7:37. Great. I managed to make it to work by 8:05, which was insanity, but still, I hate waking up and being immediately thrust into panic mode. It's just not a nice way to start the day.

Then, while I was on the bus, I thought to check my purse for the appointment card from my doctor's office. I was under the impression that I had an appointment for the 17th. Turns out it was actually for the 7th...

*facepalm*



And now for a totally random SPN poll. I know this is old news, but I saw the ep and this scene in particular referenced by several people in the past couple of days and I'm interested in hearing what everyone's opinion is on this:

Poll #673568 Dean: Dark secret or no?
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 22

Why do you think Dean's eyes were bleeding at the end of "Bloody Mary"?

I'm in the option one camp. Now that's not to say that Dean definitely DOESN'T have a deep dark secret (because I'm sure he has at least a couple), but I really don't think that was what the writers were trying to convey with that scene.

I think if the reason his eyes were bleeding was due to a secret he was keeping, they would have mentioned something about it, like have Sam question him about it or SOMETHING. Dean made such a big deal about Sam telling him his secret, I don't think Dean would have kept something big from Sam if he thought his life might be in danger because of it.

Now I definitely could be wrong, but I firmly believe that anyone in the room with Mary once she escaped her mirror was fair game to be hurt by her power, and that is the only reason Dean's eyes were bleeding.

Wound up spending the weekend off the computer for a change, *shock/horror* so I had a whole lot of flist to catch up with. I skipped around a lot so hopefully I didn't miss anything too important.

I got my hair cut yesterday. Like REALLY cut. It went from being just below my shoulders to ( really frigging short )

I like it. Sure, I did experience a moment of "OMG WTF HAVE I DONE?!", but that passed rather quickly. There's something very liberating about hacking off a huge amount of hair all at once.

In other news, I'm at work right now and earlier in the day I had the pleasure of speaking with a guy who had the sexiest voice ever. He had a very strong Scottish accent and his voice had this low and gravelly tone to it that made me think very unprofessional thoughts while I was talking to him. It was the first time ever that I've actually made an effort to KEEP a customer on the phone longer than was absolutely necesary.

*fans self*

And how is it not Tuesday already? I swear, having to wait for "Nightmare" has made this week seem about three times longer than usual. *fastforwards time* I need my brother!angst NOW, dammit!