All Work and All Play

Makes me a well-balanced person, I guess.  I've been doing a lot of work lately, staying extra at work and then working on my own shop stuff when I get home.  But it's fun work.  I'm making flower crowns for my shop!  So before they're crowns, they're a pretty bouquet in my room.

fake flowers in a vase that I thrifted today for $1!, plus a sneak peek of my art wall

And I got my new game the other day, so that's awesome.  (It's one of the ones that needed funding help, Pandora: Purge of Pride)  The weather was finally nice enough to go hacky sack in the park yesterday, so I did that for almost an hour.  Then I accidentally made new friends who live in my house and one of them made a big dinner for all of us, that I could actually eat :)  (Let's call him The Chef)  It was really tasty.  There was chicken, broccoli with cheese sauce, and potatoes.  And The Chef also commisioned a necklace from me, which is super cool.  Then I hacky sacked with the other friend, who did alright despite not hacky sacking since 8th grade.  (We'll call him The Rollerblader, because he roller blades.)  And then I went to bed, because that was a whole lot of human interaction and it made me sleepy.

And in other notable events, I discovered the wonder that is Desura, and specifically Desura's free games, and downloaded a bunch of them.  So far I have only played (and completed) The Kite.   That game will make you feel feelings.  It is intense.  Seriously.

And I've also discovered that I don't hate documentaries; I just hate boring documentaries.  Now I am that person who says, "Oh, I actually just watched a really interesting documentary about that" during conversations.  Here are some documentaries that I have watched and enjoyed on Netflix recently (with handy dandy links and my ratings, out of 5 stars):

• Happy 3 stars
• Nerdcore Rising (I'm actually watching it right now, so no rating yet, but I love it so far)
• Indie Game: The Movie 5 stars
• Afterlife 4 stars
• The Human Experience 5 stars
• Bomb It 5 stars
• Dive! 4 stars
• Buskers 3 stars
• The Antics Roadshow 3 stars

I also watched two documentaries that are no longer on Netflix, but I still highly recommend them: What the #$*! Do We Know!? and What are Dreams?: Nova.  I give them both 5 stars.

Jobs I Wish I Could Have

In the midst of applying for a ton of different jobs, some of which are kind of awesome (I seriously want to work at Marshall's!) and some that are not so great (7-11 cashier), I have found myself wishing for other jobs entirely.  Some of these jobs might not even exist, but I still want them anyway. So behold, a list of things that I wish someone would pay me to do!

1. Be a hacky sack extra: If you pay attention when watching any movie (or tv show) ever that has involved a college or high school, you will notice they all have one thing in common.  There will be people hacky sacking at some point in the movie (or tv show).  They are usually kind of terrible at it too.  I could be that hacky sack extra! And I'm also pretty good at keeping it up for a while. (Get your mind out of the gutter.)  Sure people might be a little distracted from the actual plot development when they notice that there's a female who's pretty awesome at hacky sacking (a very male dominated activity), in the background.  But I could mess up on purpose a few times so I'm not so distracting.  Fun fact: I was president of the hacky sack club at my university during my sophomore year.

You probably think this wasn't me becuase of the pink shoes. Well my art professor decided the shot needed more contrast,
so I borrowed my roommate's pink shoes.  Also skinny jeans are way better for hacky sacking than flared legs.

2. Read books and watch movies: This is something I do all the time anyway, so I wish that someone would pay me for it.  I would review them and everything, which I already do with lots of movies.

3. Give my opinion on every single thing ever: Give me a topic and I'll tell you what I think about it.  If I don't know what the topic actually is, I'll just make something up.  Why won't anyone pay me to do this?  I love talking about my opinion all day long: I love this show, this hot chocolate is awesome, oh no I think I have food poisoning, ginger ale is awesome.  It's a gift, really.

4. Eat ice cream: I am so serious right now. How do I get a job as a new ice cream flavor sampler, because sign me up right now!  I don't think it's any secret that I love my ice cream.  It's also a good source of calcium when I don't drink milk regularly, except on my Lucky Charms.  Just call me a health superhero.

5. Write the sayings on the insides of Sobe caps: This is clearly a job that someone does, and I have a feeling that the person who does this job does not speak English fluently.  I can generate random phrases with the best of them.  (Sidenote: I've had multiple Sobe caps that said "Get Out of There" on them; I don't like it when my beverage tries to frighten me)  So, Sobe cap saying generator person, I take your "fist pump" and raise you a "party rock"  Your move buddy.  Here's one more to think about "YOLO".  (Obviously I wouldn't use YOLO or party rock.  Those are merely sarcastic examples.)

Oh no, it seems that I have written another list with a normal number of items on it. Oh well, I'm going back to bed now.  Who has two thumbs and couldn't fall asleep until 5 in the morning? This girl.

Throw Up Your Rocksmith

...If you're feeling it when I drop this.



I couldn't resist the pun and I like the song, plus I hadn't embedded a video on here in a while, so there you go.

I started learning to play guitar what seems like a lifetime ago, and I would still classify myself as a beginner.  It was actually more like 5 or 6 years ago.  My brother taught himself how to play and he caught onto it really quickly.  Then he tried to teach me how to play.  I learned a few chords and how to read guitar tabs, but that was about it.  His teaching style doesn't really work out for me, and he would get frustrated when I didn't catch onto something right away that was really basic for him.  But I kept trying.  I got my first guitar on my 16th birthday, an acoustic-electric Esteban guitar that my ordered off TV.  But I loved it and played it acoustically more often than plugging it into the amp, because my mom didn't like the noise when it was plugged in.  This was an added challenge because the songs I was learning to play from my brother were meant to be played electrically, since they were hard rock and metal songs.  I learned to play some Metallica but I was too invested in school to ever devote enough time to practicing.  Fast forward to before I leave for freshman year of college.  I went to a yard sale that summer and that's when I found my electric.  Despite the spot where the paint is chipping, it was beautiful.  It had pearl insets on the fretboard and I knew right then that I had to have it.  The guy who was having the yard sale was so nice.  He had about 6 guitars and he was downsizing.  He sold me the guitar and threw in a free stand, amp, and gig bag all for just $125.  I was more determined than ever to learn how to play well.  And I did practice for a while.  But then I met people who hacky sacked after the first month, and we formed a club.  And I was way more devoted to hacky sacking than I was to guitar playing.  I would hacky sack with the club for an hour or two three times a week when we met up, and then I would practice hacky sacking by myself to make a total of about 4 hours every single day.  And it worked.  I got way better at hacky sacking.  And the added benefit was that all the exercise made my asthma problems practically non-existent from getting used to a lot of exercise.  And then I stopped being able to walk.  And I couldn't hack sack then or even go to class for a while.  I really wanted to play my guitar during that time, but it was all I could do to get into my high bed, let alone carry anything up there.  Because I lived in a dorm room, and that was the only place to practice, on my bed.  These were the smallest dorm rooms you can imagine.  And after that, I never really got back into guitar playing, but I did get back into hacky sacking just as soon as my legs started working again.  Fast forward to now, well two or three months ago, when I first heard of Rocksmith, a game like Guitar Hero but where you plug in your actual guitar and learn to play it.  I wanted that game from the minute I heard of it.  And guess what? G got me that game for Christmas and I am slowly becoming a rockstar, very slowly, because after not playing for almost a year, it's pretty much like starting all over again.  Unlike my flute, which I can pick up after not playing it for a long time and after about 5 minutes, I'm back playing all my favorite songs, like Legend of Zelda music and classic rock.  If you didn't know, I also play keyboard (like piano) but I'm even more of a beginner at that than at guitar.  And my instruments all have names, except for my first guitar.  My flute is named Annabelle, after a song my roommate freshman year played beautifully, and my keyboard and electric guitar are named Sally and Jack, respectively, after Jack Skellington and Sally from Nightmare Before Christmas, because that movie is awesome.  So I said all that to say that I really love the Rocksmith game and before you know it, I should be pretty good at guitar.

Jack and my amp, in my old room at my parent's house