Prime Time of Your Life, Indeed

Daft Punk. ROCKS. Oh my god. So totally amazing. Obviously, the English language cannot do justice to the awesomeness of this show. I will explain the state I was in upon my arrival, so that you might understand the obstacles this show had to overcome to reach the pantheon of best shows ever:

1) I had slept about 12 hours total during the four days prior to the show. The weekend had been spent in delightful debauchery of the sort that usually demands you sleep the moment you return home.
2) I woke up in Pennsylvania at 5:30 a.m. EST (2:30 a.m. PST) on Sunday. I caught a flight at Newark at 9:00 a.m. Which sat on the tarmac for 90 minutes before take-off.
3) The plane landed at 12:30 p.m. PST. Taking the MAX & the bus back, I didn't arrive home until 2 p.m.
4) Departed Portland for Seattle at 3 p.m in my car. Due to traffic, did not arrive until 7:30. The show started at 8.
5) Briefly hung out. Went to show. Got back to my friends' place at 12:30 a.m. Considered going to the after-party, but nobody had the energy.

After traveling for over 15 hours, I think it safe to say that my expectations were quite high. EXPECTATIONS EXCEEDED, people.

But we missed the Rapture! Because we didn't get there until 9:45. Which was sad. But not unbearably so, as I've seen them already. Besides which, oh my word, the LIGHTS, people, the LIGHTS. It was utterly fantastic & so very beautiful. I mean, look at this:


Or this or this or this:



I really liked the way they played...they didn't just do "songs". Everything was kind of mixed up & jumbled into each other & they would do bits of songs more than once, so you would hear things like three times. I think my personal favorite was "Around the World" mashed up with "Harder Better Faster Stronger". The lights did these awesome rainbow things during that part too, which was amazing. I REALLY REALLY hope they put this tour on DVD a la Underworld's Everything Everything; it fucking RULED. I can't explain it very well but in tandem with the pics this should give a decent idea, so here goes: in the back of the stage, there was this big light screen that did dots of light. They would make words with it, or have moving little lights & stuff. Then, on either side of the stage, there were these kind of cage-like structures & they were like light rods or something & the lights would pulse or flash or move along on the lines. In the middle of the stage there was a pyramid that also flashed lights or showed images...Daft Punk stood in the middle of the pyramid in their robot suits. There was a pyramid outline behind that which also flashed & did crazy light stuff. Then there were the spotlights, of course. It was so insane that several times I just stopped dancing & stared at the lights, mesmerized.

And for the encore...oh my word, the robot suits lit up Tron-style! And they did "One More Time", well, one more time & the back screen & the pyramid did circles of orange lights. These pictures don't do it justice, but you get the idea:



It was so ridiculously incredible. I feel massively fortunate that I was able to witness this. I mean, they only did five shows in the States. I kinda understand why - it must be a massive ordeal to install all that stuff. Whoo hoo!

LOL

Hahahahahahaha. Vote for America's Most Annoying Liberal Arts College. Hampshire represent!

Full confession...I attended one, applied to another (Evergreen), visited a third (Reed) & considered applying to three others (Bennington, Eugene Lang & Oberlin). I received unsolicited literature from all those previously mentioned, plus Bard, Sarah Lawrence & Vassar, back when I was a precocious young'un with good SAT scores.

I would think that qualifies me as a candidate for America's Most Annoying Liberal Arts Student. Except, um, I was not, am not, & will probably never be rich, which seems to be a decisive factor.

Looks like Sarah Lawrence is currently in the lead with 15.5%. Although Hampshire's coming in with a not-too-shabby 7.1%.

Testing, Testing

I must admit, I'm both excited & terrified to paint my loft. It's just so damn big. And I've already concluded that a breach of the ladder code ("do not stand on the very top step") will be required to enable me to reach the upper limits of the loft, er, walls (it's got a tiny patch of ceiling).

Anyway, I'd previously bought testers of the reds I was considering using:


Obviously, it's Ralph Lauren. But this time both shades are from the Thoroughbred (hee hee!) line. On the left, Balmoral Red. On the right, Hunting Coat Red. The problem I had was, the Balmoral was too dark but the Hunting Coat was too bright. I needed something inbetween.

And here's what I came up with:


Malaya Red, again from the Thoroughbred line. Capri Pink from Vintage Masters (this will be used sparingly - it's going on the straight wall you see here, & I also think I'll paint the built-in furniture that color, & a couple other little accent-y things. Unfortunately, I've fallen madly in love with the color & am determined to use it). Golden Candlesticks from Regent Metallics for the trim. I just bought a quart of each, to make sure I liked it before committing. I rather think I do.

Boob Dress Rules!

Well, I guess I know what to wear whenever I want some attention. I left my apartment for approximately a grand total of 30 minutes yesterday to go to Zupan's, & got hit on no fewer than three times. My personal favorite was the older black gentleman who said "If I was 35 years younger..." (I love getting compliments from older black men. They're always so polite but lascivious at the same time. It's fun.) The dress is a bit too big for me, though, so I find constant vigilance is required in ensuring the bottom portion of my bra doesn't peek out. I have to say, sometimes the attention is nice. I even got followed by some guy in a truck who asked if I needed some help with my beer. I declined. He wasn't bad-looking, but the last time I let some guy in a car pick me up, he turned out to be far more relationship-inclined than I.

Whatever. I like my boobs.


Although I have to admit, this dress does make the clothing I previously thought boob-rific look, well, positively modest.

Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows

Is an immensely satisfying conclusion to the series.

I am pleased.

Not Comfortable

So cute though! But the flip-floposity factor & the heel factor do not combine to make a happy foot. It's surprisingly difficult to walk in these. I almost feel like I'm moving through water, only if I were in water they way they cut wouldn't hurt so much. Although I am beginning to suspect I have mutant feet. Having never known many women who wear heels & strappy sandals & the like on a frequent basis, I just always assumed that every woman who regularly dons cute-but-uncomfortable shoes will have small scars on certain parts their feet. But one of my friends, whom I know to wear the same type of footwear as I (no, really - when I first moved back & visited her, we realized we were wearing the exact same pair of boots), does not have the scars that I have.

The moral of the story is: flip-flop uppers with small pointy heels are adorable, particularly when they are lime green, on clearance & complementary to both your boob dress & your new nail polish(Speedy Hot Tamale, heh), but sadly they are not comfortable. However, I am sure they will look lovely amongst the other painful shoes in my new shoe cubby. (The trick, of course, is to vary your shoe choices daily so that you're always wearing a pair that hurt differently than the previous pair.)

The second moral of the story is: perhaps it is unwise to take shoe advice from someone with mutant, scarred feet.

When It Comes to Closets, There's No Such Thing as Garish

While waiting to be able to afford to tackle the loft (which looks to be a royal painting pain), I figured I'd redo the closets, one in the foyer & one in the living room. Although I once figured I'd leave them be (they're closets, for heaven's sake), all those big huge holes were really starting to get to me. And once the holes were fixed, naturally they'd need to be painted over; & I'm allergic to nearly all white paint.

I wanted bright, bright, bright for these; I'd like to think I succeeded. I'm so glad I got to use hot pink somewhere - while I don't think I could handle a whole room in this color, it's a really nice way to brighten up the insides of a dull place. Plus, oddly enough, the color actually makes the closets look bigger. I guess the color gives it more dimension? Dunno.


Ralph Lauren, of course (I'm so his bitch). Island Brights (hot pink is far too tacky for the Vintage Masters, dontcha know). Aruba Pink. Flat finish. The trim in the living room closet was so riddled with holes that I decided to spackle & paint over it, using that endless gallon of Regent Metallics in Iron Gate.

2 + 2 = 4

Have you ever spent a really, really long time trying to figure something out, but no matter what "numbers" you punched in, the results never quite added up...

And then, finally, the stars aligned & for the very first time, two plus two actually equaled four; but somehow when you got the right number, it was kind of the most horrible number you'd ever seen, definitely way worse than all those wrong-ish numbers...

But then you were surprised to find that more than anything you were just so damn happy & felt so stupid lucky to have an answer that made sense, & the fact that it was the worst answer really didn't bother you very much, certainly not as much as you would have expected...

And it didn't even truly matter if it was "the" right answer, or only one of several right answers, or maybe even only vaguely a little bit true, because the answer was like that piece in the puzzle - not the last piece, of course, but one of those tricky middle ones that you run into after you put the outer pieces together, & you're just relieved to have found a place for it to fit at all, because if nothing else it means that you can go on to the next piece...

?

Hot Damn!

It is 101 degrees here right now. No foolin'. Even though there's no humidity, that's HOT HOT HOT. 'Sokay, though. At some point today I realized my new dress is so revealing that it renders me less "Captain Cleavage" & more "King Jugs". But really, what's the fun of having big tits if one doesn't wantonly display them? Plus, they're well-ventilated to handle the heat!

(Although I recently found out I know someone who's at the "K" level of bra size, which is eight cups past me & makes me feel practically flat-chested.)

New Record Room!

I had planned to paint this room, which is sort of part of my upstairs loft but really its own little room, a sort of sky blue & then sponge clouds on the ceilings & slanty top parts of the walls, & had long ago determined that the Ralph Lauren Vintage Master color Spanish Bluebell was precisely what I wanted. And it was absolutely lovely, once I got it on the walls. But somehow...clouds just didn't seem right, what with the visible horizontal planks. Also, I had the sudden urge to use a nice brown with the blue, as brown & blue is one of my very favorite color combos. Then, like a lightning bolt, it struck me: STRIPES! And here you see the results:


It's a shame I can't photograph the room in its entirety (it's full of odd angles & such & is comprised of no fewer than eight walls), because it's simply marvelous. I haven't felt this immediately right about paint since I did my living room. So: the details - Ralph Lauren. Vintage Masters. Spanish Bluebell & Chocolate Souffle. The trim is Ralph Lauren Regent Metallics in Iron Gate. Naturally, I've still got the floor to paint. I'm planning to do it in the same brown sometime this week. Apparently they've got this thing they call "floor paint" which I'll need to use.

After that I plan to attend to the matter of getting shelving. So I can actually get my records, CDs, DVDs & books out of the boxes in which they've been living lo! these many months, & into my newly fabulous record room.