So today was quite excellent.

It started bright and early at 9:10am when Anna knocked on my door and said I had 20 minutes to get ready to go tailgating. While I was ready by 9:30, we still ended up waiting on Colleen and Jessica (from next door) and didn't get out of the apartment complex until 10:15. Oh well.

Tailgating was sort of a bust. And it's really more like picnic-ing (or so I joked). While some people hung out in parking lots...they are so small and numerous that it's impossible to get a really big "tailgating party" feel. However, we have a large strip of grass we call "Memory Mall" on which hundreds of tents were set up with alcohol, grills, music, football, and other such nonsense. Nothing like ribs and burgers at 10:30am. We met up with Jessica's boyfriend, but there wasn't really anything to do and we didn't have alcohol, so we moved on and patronized the on-campus Barnes & Noble to pick up festive black and gold pom-pons, and Starbucks.

We then set out to scalp us some tickets (question: is scalping only the action of the seller, or is the buyer also scalping? In this context, we were buying), and got a super incredible deal. We bought 3 tickets valued at $40 a piece...for $25. Total. So...a $95 discount. Not shabby.

And the game rocked. It was the Conference USA championships in which we played Tulsa (which spells "a slut" backwards). It started out a pretty even match, we were neck-and-neck through the first half. The second half came around, though, and we kicked their asses 44-25. Schweet. So, we're division champions and on our way to the Liberty Bowl in Memphis, TN where we'll be playing LSU. I'm predicting a loss, but division champs is good. It's our first title ever in our first season in our own stadium. Pretty awesome. Oh, and our running back is right behind Barry Sanders for single-season rushing yards (2,448, compared to 2,628). Go Kevin Smith. Here's to getting 180+ yards in the Liberty Bowl.

After the game, we were famished and for whatever reason, Anna decided she really wanted to go to Hooters and none of us had ever been, so we got some wings and burgers and had a lovely and filling meal. We actually ended up sitting at a table next to three guys from the UCF football team. I have no idea who they were (they didn't have numbers on their backs, and a commentator running a play-by-play, as per usual), but it was cool none the less.


Since then, I've caught up on most of my backlogged TiVo (two episodes of "Project Runway" and an entire week of "Ellen"), while Anna has been passed out on my bed. She's going on 5 and a half hours, only gaining consciousness for about 3 minutes over the entire time. But she has a nasty habit of pulling all-nighters (or multiple all-nighters), so she probably needs the sleep.

Colleen thinks it's hilarious.


BTW - Anderson Cooper stated that he was obsessed with "My Super Sweet 16" and "Tiara Girls" when he was on "Ellen." There's no way he's straight. I'm surprised he didn't cite "Project Runway" as one of his favorites.

(Also, when she had Joey Fatone on, she brought out JC Chasez and had them play "The Singing Bee" against one another. It was pretty damn cute.)

Alright, I've been converted.

I love Victoria Beckham.

It's not that I hated her before, or anything, I was just sort of ambivalent.

But she was on "Ellen," and she's sweet, and gorgeous and firm and she's got a British accent. What's not to love, really?

And when she and Ellen went into the audience to give away a trip to London and tickets to the upcoming Spice Girls concert, she was chatting with the girl who won and hugged her twice and was being super nice. I feel like a lot of celebrities these days are really stand-offish, and I would have thought Posh would be the same way...but she's totally not.

Adorable.

Though I must admit, I hate her a little because she says she doesn't work out. Never goes to a gym or anything. She says she stays in shape chasing after and playing with her three boys. And that woman is ridiculously fit.

Technically, Barack Obama and I are members of the same denomination of church (United Church of Christ).

We just have so much in common. Awesome liberalisms abound!

Daniel Radcliffe was on Ellen today and he's adorable.

Oh Harry! *swoon*

And, Thursday is NPH! Sweet.


Also, I saw 3:10 to Yuma today, which was a moderately good movie, but worth it for the Christian Bale/Russell Crowe dynamic. I'm not a huge fan of either, but they are both extraordinarily amazing actors and are just magnificent to watch. My favorite scenes were by far were the ones in which those two interact...truly incredible.


And...is anyone else disappointed with the new previews for Good Luck, Chuck? It was supposed to be a movie about a guy whose ex's find their husbands after dating him. Now, it appears to be a movie about Jessica Alba being a klutz. WTF?


Finally, I'm watching an AFI thing on Bravo, and I don't think I'd ever hear Ben Kingsley speak with his native, British accent. It's weird and wonderful.

It's been a while since I've posted, and longer since I've posted about my actual life and not movies or other such nonsense. But, well...you know.

Anyway. Classes have begun, and are in full swing (third week). General Anthropology is boring as all hell, which sucks because I think I could be really interested in the course if it weren't for the professor. Concepts of Chemistry is also dull, but I realized that I remember most of what we've covered so far from high school and the professor, while weirder than any man I've ever met, is kinda cool. He has a British-ish accent and goes off on funny tangents (apparently the English don't say "bless you" when someone sneezes), uses sugar in every example he can, and designates a certain section of class that is allowed to ask questions every day ("the rest of you can just bugger"). Women in Film is by far my best class...it's interesting, we watch good movies, the assignments she gives (a 1-page paper each week, reacting to the film we watched in class) both feel worthwhile and make me think critically about the film in really good ways. Also, I sit next to a girl I had class with last semester, so it's nice to have a "friend" in there. 19th Century Art is interesting, and I always find the time to be flying by in that class (a mark that it's quality), but I have Dr. Martin for the third time, and my track record on his exams is sub-par. In the Spring, I ended up with a C in Italian Renaissance Art, despite my kick-ass perfect score on the 8-page extra credit paper. It didn't help at all. I can't take another C...I'll feel like an absolute failure. As it is, I've considered re-taking Italian Renaissance Art for grade forgiveness, except that I don't think I can do any better the second time around.

So that's the school side of life. The work hasn't been too pressing, yet, and I don't think it will get terrible. I'm very nervous about 19th Century Art, and it sucks that I only have my favorite class once a week, but I think this semester will end up being okay.

As far at the apartment is concerned, things are still going well. It's certainly not all wine and roses, as I am drastically different from my roommates in personality and interests. Their idea of a perfect night is getting all dressed up to go out to a club and dance. Mine is sitting around in comfy clothes (preferably with good friends and maybe some junk food), watching a movie. They (especially Anna) try hard to get me to come out with them, but I'm just not comfortable, nor overly interested, in doing that. I still foresee issues with groceries/food and making dinners, but the worse that happens is that we become very individualistic about out meals. They also tend to have people over a lot...which is fine with me. I like meeting new people, and the guys from next door are pretty cool and kinda chill, so I'm definitely down with that. I like them immensely, and much better than the guys from upstairs, who never really rubbed me the right way.


But today was pretty good. I had trouble sleeping last night, so it was hard to wake up and sit through Anthropology and Chemistry this morning, but coming home for lunch put me in a much better mood. I had a PB&J and a Diet Coke, watched a couple episodes of "The Nanny" that I had TiVo'ed and then went to Women in Film, which was quite splendid indeed! After, I came home to an empty apartment, watched "The Ellen Degeneres Show," which had it's season 5 premier today and I forgot how much I missed having a little Ellen in my life every day. Her show is awesome, she's hilarious, and today she had Sen. Hillary Clinton on, which was really cool. I'm hoping she gets Barack on the show sometime. I love him.

After Ellen, I went grocery shopping, and got some foods and things I was personally running low on, as well as some stuff for the apartment. For dinner, I made tacos and mexican rice (a meal I stole from my sister), and it was good, but the greasy foods don't go over really well with Anna and Jane (hence the "well need to rethink our dinner arrangements" comment). Afterward, Anna wanted to go on a walk, and despite it being 9pm and not living in a super safe part of Orlando (it's not ghetto or sketchy, but it is a little dangerous), I decided to go with her. We walked up to campus (which took about 30 minutes on foot), then around and through a part of campus I'd never been, before we got back on track and walked the half-hour back. In all, it was about a 2 hour walk (not fast-paced, but certainly not slow), which allowed for a bit of good chatting, with the possibility for more later. The walk felt really good, and while I know my legs and back will be sore tomorrow, I feel fine now. And it's possible Anna will be worse off (which is silly, because she's thin and in really good shape), but she was feel sore walking back up the steps to the apartment.

Eh, nature works in mysterious ways.


So yes. Classes are okay, apartment is a little better than okay, today specifically was pretty damn good.

And now, it's bedtime.

NPH is on Ellen!


*love*


I might put in the season one "How I Met Your Mother" DVD tonight while I do some work.

So y'all probably hate when I start talking about Ellen, because if I talk about something that rocked, you missed it already. However, you could catch the reruns on Oxygen....


Anyway, the point is I've watched the past four episodes and the highlights so far have been:
- Leah Remini, who is lovely and hilarious and called Ellen both an "ass" and a "bitch" (all in good jest, of course). Supposedly she had a mouth like a trucker, so I think she and I would get along well ;-)
- Gina Glocksen, my girl from Idol who was kicked off last week. She rocks and I totally just downloaded her 4 songs on americanidol.com at $0.99 a piece
- Kurt Russell...I forgot how funny and wonderful he is! And I still won't see Grindhouse, but I will look him up on Netflix and add some of his
- Pink, whose "I'm Not Dead" CD is currently on repeat in my car. I listen to it constantly, along with The Fray, and KT Tunstall
- Hilary Duff, who didn't have a great interview, but I adore her anyway. I might need to buy her CD (seriously, stop laughing!)

I've been meaning to do this for a while, but I figured that today would be the perfect time...to debut my Mark Wahlberg icon!

First, I went to see Shooter. It's pretty good, and he's hot. Rowr! (Better than some recent conspiracy-type action films...like Firewall and The Sentinel, both of which sucked. Though for my money, I'd take '70s, football playing Mark from Invincible...less blood, but still ripped.)

Second, he's on Ellen today. And he's fabulous. Such a good guy, and a really serious actor and I totally respect him (you know...more than just coveting his hot, hot body).

[Rainn Wilson is also on and I adore him. "The Office" is wonderful and he's such a funny guy. The Last Mimzy hasn't been received very well, but I still kinda want to see it.]

Third, I'm going to (finally) watch A Perfect Storm, which I've had from Netflix for over a week.


It's like totally a Marky Mark day!


It's crazy....I've been so busy recently, that I forgot what it is to just hang out and have nothing to do.

Like, I got out of the movie and was thinking "Oh, that was over two hours, what should I have been doing? Am I going to have to work harder to make up for time lost?"

And then I realized that my next major project is a 5-6 page paper on 20th century political art on April 10th. Dude...I have three weeks! (Except for the Florida Film Festival, which might just eat my soul for the next week.)

I can totally chill out, and work on making my script for my writing class not suck.

Eddie Izzard on Ellen! (Back on Tuesday...not today. Oxygen replays them one week later at like...2am, if you want to see it.)

Yay!

Seriously, I wish it were just him and Ellen the whole show. 7 minutes isn't enough.


I'm also seriously excited he's reprising his role at Nagel in Ocean's 13. I'm sure he'll be in it for like...2 minutes (as he was in Ocean's 12), but it still rocks. I watched Mystery Men again recently (which is about as good as Starship Troopers), and though it sucked, it was Eddie Izzard so it was fabulous.


Mmm...covered in bees.


----

And Jeff Goldblum yesterday was fabulous. Seriously...next Wednesday/Thursday at 2am on Oxygen...it would be totally worth it. Crazy.

!!!!!!!


On last Friday's Ellen, she got to feed a baby tiger! Oh! They are so cute and pretty and I love kitties. Especially the really big ones.

Oh! I want to feed a baby tiger!

BIG KITTIES!!!


You know...I think dogs are fine. I can get excited about them for a little while, and I like that dogs make other people happy, but I don't think I'll ever own one. If I do, at some point, get a dog, I think it will have been an impulsive thing and I doubt I'd ever love it at much as I love kitties.


OH! Now she has a cheetah!!

So pretty!!!

And it's purring!


I want a kitty. It doesn't have to be a tiger or cheetah, just a common house cat. I wish my apartment allowed pets. :-(

I spent my afternoon canvassing around Winter Park and Waterford Lakes to promote the film I'm working with for the Florida Film Festival. It kinda sucked. But I didn't have to do it alone, I went with the two guys in my group.

But bah. It wasn't that it was hard, but it was long and time consuming and TIRING.

I think I'm taking the rest of the day off to watch TV and movies (I have A Perfect Storm and Happily Ever After from Netflix).

Unfortunately, I have a semi-mega-huge-important Italian Renaissance Art exam on Friday that I should really start studying for. I'm just drained. So drained that I fucked up the grammar there and put "for" at the end of a sentence (stupid preposition), but I'm too tired to backspace and fix it.


So tomorrow I guess I'll do some major studying and freaking out and hopefully not fail my exam. Seriously....it's really important that I do exceedingly well on that exam. Ugh.


On a happier note, Sandra Bullock was cute when she was on the Daily Show recently, and she was even cuter with Julian McMahon on Ellen. It almost makes me want to see Premonition. She's funny and endearing and I love it...though I don't think the same will be conveyed in the film. Plus she's looking hot...much better than she did back in 1994 with Speed.