THAT was painful! ...but I got our trip video uploaded! Now you can join Justin and me as we journey through London, Rome, and Venice! It's really not the most exciting video. I love editing... but I am a terrible camera person. Be prepared to look through the eyes of a hyper-active, easily distracted, slightly uncoordinated crazy face.
All right-y then, let's see if I can post the 5 part series in this here blog:
RATS! Only Part 1 would upload... and it looks like the quality is worse... Way to fail, Blogger. Well, here are the YouTube links:
There is a patron at the library-- an older man with a bit of a scowl and a natural inclination to randomly use offensive language and racial slurs-- who LOVES to talk to the librarians. If we weren't careful, he would tell us war stories all day. However, up until today, he had never warmed up to me. I guess he thinks I am too young and blond to know anything about the Korean War and other military/political stuff... he is right.
The past 2 weeks, I've been the only librarian he recognizes at the front desk when he comes in.. we've been having a lot of subs.... I guess today he finally got desperate enough to tell me a story:
"Did you know that W.E.B. Griffin is a pseudonym for William Edmund Butterworth? I just realized that. Do you know why I like his books so much?"
"Why is that?" Oh man, oh man! I'm about to hear my first McCann story!
"He is very thorough, and he writes about experiences that I am familiar with because I was there. One of his characters is General MacArthur. Do you recognize that name?"
"No, sir."
"Well, you are probably too young. I knew him. I wasn't close friends with him or anything, he was a rising star and I was a meager Second Lieutenant, but I knew him. Emperor Douglas we would call him. Did you know that when he and Truman flew into Japan to meet each other, General MacArthur did not get off his plane to go see Truman... he waited for Truman to get off his plane first. Smart man."
His stories are very interesting! I am not big on US history (at all), but it is still fun to hear about his experiences... I just get nervous when he starts in on the racial slurs.... :-/
Also, that picture of Douglas MacArthur looks like Bruce Willis to me.
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Tranquility. I dunno. That's just what Patrick and I are listening to on channel 884 of DIRECTV right now. Patrick says if I blog about it then you will all fall asleep. Brayden is trying to dance to it. It's not really good dance music.
NOT SO SERIOUS CONFESSIONS:
I sent a text message while I was at work this morning. GASP! That is totally frowned upon... making me a rebellious dare-devil... who needed to apologize for something reeeeally bad.
Kristin Chenoweth is a very unique actress. When I saw Wicked for the first time-- waaay back in high school with maw pal, Shantia Bowers-- I bought the soundtrack and she has been singing to me as the voice of Glinda ever since. We obviously didn't see the original cast with Kristin Chenoweth and Idina Menzel...
THAT WOULD HAVE BEEN AMAZING!
...but I did get autographs from Victoria Matlock and Christina DeCicco after the show!!
Christina DeCicco wasn't actually blond! I was very surprised!
In London, I think Justin and I saw Rachel Tucker and Louise Dearman, but I'm not exactly sure. If so, I thought Rachel was pretty darn good, and Louise made me laugh histarically. (I mouthed the words to the songs the whole time... yeah, don't bring me to a musical I know if that annoys you).
Anyway, I recognized Chenoweth's voice when I saw her in Bewitched (the movie starring Nicole Kidman based on my absolute favorite childhood TV show). That's when I first made the connection.. voice to actress.
She has a very memorable, bubbly voice.
Then she made a few appearances on Glee and I excitedly told JJ.. THAT'S GLINDA! THAT'S GLINDA!!
Of course, I meant GA-linda... with a GUH!
DANG.. that link stopped working I think. You'll have to settle for no video. I wish you coulse see how powerful she looks when she sings this!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKL3p8UtSD8 Stick that in your pipe and smoke it.
A few days ago, I checked out her album Let Yourself Go from the library. So far, track 2 is my fav- If You Hadn't But You Didfrom the musical Two On the Aisle:
Kristin Chenoweth is sooo incredibly talented, as a singer and an actress. She is hilarious.
And if you haven't seen Wicked, I DEFINITELY recommend it!! Here is one of the scenes that cracks me up the most, in which Galinda decides to "make Elephaba her new project," http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNIwSYp4N-Y&feature=related.
My favorite song is For Good!
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My dad and JJ were watching Star Trek: Undiscovered County earlier today. I happened to look up as the crew was sitting around a table enjoying Romulan Ale:
Spock, will you PLEASE stop crunching your ice?
...which looks a lot like the Pi-tini recipe Jay gave me once. I looked closely in Spock's glass for Pi-shaped ice, but I think it already melted... or maybe he crunched it.
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Welllll, I've been waiting to post this until AFTER I upload our trip video, that way I could share it... but I had to split the video up into 5 parts and now uploading each one is gonna take a while... SO I will make a separate blog for that darn video when it is up!
Our music video parody of Rebecca Black's abomination to music lovers everywhere is COMPLETE :D
It took two partial days (that my mom teased, "Could've have been used to find a job... or weed my garden..."), a late night, and a lot of stylish, 'tangled' hair :D
Partial Day 1 was used to record the song... because yes, I AM lip-syncing in the video. Shocking!
I used an iPhone app called "I Am T-Pain" to get that nice auto-tuned sound :0)
I heard about the app while watching episode after episode of Auto-Tune the News... and it's the baddest flippen free auto-tune app I've eva seen. Although, I haven't done an extensive search for such a thing.
Some features that I find helpful/entertaining: the mic records up to 5 minutes (which is more than most free services allow... and is at least enough time to get a normal length song recorded), changing the key to match the song you are singing is extremely simple, you can turn off the auto-tune capability if you'd rather record your voice straight up, you can share your songs quickly with friends, and you can listen to songs streaming live from around the world... like the one I am listening to now called Test Run Part 1(oh this should be good):
*piano trumpet synth beat... killer drums*
You know what it is
Homie, yeah
I'm on dis side you on dat side
something that I wasn't a fast enough type to share
????????
I am not gangsta
I don't try to be
My skin color don't define my songs and trick
And I will always trust 100 dollar bills
I'ma end this
But this is not the end
We see
Who be laughin'
In the f****** end.
Okay... so, maybe the live streaming is not the best quality music (right up there with Friday!), but you can see how it could be entertaining. And the app does tend to bring out the unnecessary cuss words in people. ;)
The annoying thing about this app: besides the unfortunate, aspiring rap stars and their clamorous manner of singing... is that, although you can share your creations immediately, you cannot easily download your music to edit and/or use inside a bigger project. In order to download the clip you have to have QuickTime 7 Pro. WAH WAAAH.
So how did I get my auto-tuned self into audacity (free audio editor & recorder)? Cleverness. ...and another app that I absolutely LOVE called RecordStudio.
I eventually purchased the PRO version.. but there is a free trial out der too. This app is seriously amazing, and a must have if you've got ideas for songs but no money for recording equipment!! The quality of the recording you get is unbelievably clean.
GET THIS... I played my auto-tuned sound clip (only playable online) through the speakers on my laptop and recorded it with RecordStudio. It amazes me every time how clear the tracks turn out. There is essentially NO sound pollution!
And unlike theT-Pain in the butt app... you can download 4 tracks at a time AND retrieve them completely by typing a given web address into your browser and clicking on the tracks you would like to download.
Anyway, so that's a bit of the recording process for ya, and then...
Partial Day 2 was dedicated to filming. We didn't start until around 5pm--because the Flynn's, Chelsey, Justin, and I spent the day break-dancing, finding matching Easter dresses (just Chelsey and me... Justin and Riley couldn't agree on a dress they both liked), and posing as mannequins in the mall-- so we were losing daylight fast.
We started with the trip to McDonald's. We made things a bit awkward at McD's when we asked the lady taking our order if she would say "It's going to be a 3 minute wait on those nuggets?" after we finished ordering (FRESH NUGGETS, FRESH NUGGETS.. YEAH!). We thought she was gonna be cool about it as we pulled around to pay and she laughed, "Do I even wanna know?"
We all giggled too and I replied, "Well we are making a spoof of a song called Friday.. have you heard of it?"
And then she closed the window in our face and avoided any further eye contact.
Maybe Rebecca Black is her sister?
Then we filmed the bus stop scene. It was windy. And trying to play the song (for timing) on one phone while pretending to be called on another by a third phone while remembering to move my lips was hard to coordinate... but we got it in a few takes. I started hiding the 'music phone' in a handy little pouch formed by my boobs and the upper region of my dress. LOVIN' OUR EASTER DRESSES!
Also challenging: trying to take your hair down and wave it around while riding a scooter, filming in the same room as a sleeping baby, getting curlers to stay in your hair when you are in a hurry, moving rapidly in small spaces without injuring yourself, and reading Green Eggs and Ham.
And let me just mention that Riley was our amazing cameraman through the entire video!! Nice work, Riles!
That brings us to the final step... AND MY FAVORITE STEP OF ALL:
(LATE NIGHT) EDITING. I love putting all the pieces back together and lining things up! Of course, once I start editing... there is usually no stopping me until it is done. I'd say it was 4am before I went to bed. hehe
The end.
As for today... here are the highlights (because JJ is waiting on me to watch Gladiator):
A gasoline smell from the ladies room that filled the library during the morning hours.
Cigarette fumes from the little boys' room that filled the library during the afternoon hours.
Soup Lunch with JJ!
I made one of our grumpiest patrons smile... and then his grumpy wife accused me of "Making him all happy and smiley... he's never that way with me." Ummm... AWKWARD.
My dad got a PA system(for his company)!! Ciara and I tested it out :D
And finally... odd, border-line creepy, flirtatious WwF opponents that I DON'T KNOW.
"No, sir."
