Twenty-eight
I am tired and feeling massively uninspired, so I figure it is time to write an entry.
I wasn't really feeling much like doing a mega-celebration for my birthday this year. Last year was my best birthday ever and I didn't really want to try to top it. Plus I've been kind of low-energy due to working so hard over the past couple of months--first the show and then serious hardcore cleaning. I thought about trying to go out for drinks on Friday night but...wasn't feeling it.
It was a nice birthday, though! Very mellow! I requested a pancake breakfast, and requested vegan pancakes for myself (buttermilk for the non-vegan family). They came from Vegan with a Vengeance and ended up very good--not as good as my mom's, but really good texture. Then we went to see The Hunger Games and then came home, presents, and then a vegan chocolate cake. Then Simpsons while reading some of my presents.
My presents were about evenly divided between geeky awesomeness and useful things. I was very pleased and amused. I have so many lovely things to look at and watch and listen to! Although every one of my presents delights me, I probably geeked out the most over my BTTF soundtrack (after having read all the way through Hark! A Vagrant). It's sooooo fancy; it's existed for two years and I had NO IDEA despite having wanted it all my life. It's probably my favorite score ever and the one I know the best. Even more awesome than its pure existence, the second disc is 37 minutes of alternate early sessions of recording.
I pored over the track listings ("Oh! The one I know as 'The Libyans' is '85 Twin Pines Mall' here!") and the liner notes. I think Elyse was trying to talk to me about something (also The Simpsons was playing), but I kept going, "Ooh! 'The Clocktower' is one ten-minute track!" or, "OH MY GOD, I DIDN'T REALIZE THAT SOUND CONNECTED ALL THE TIME TRAVELING PARTS OR PARALLEL SCENES."
...this brings the number of Back to the Future soundtracks I own up to five. Yeah. Five. The originally released Back to the Future soundtrack (with "Earth Angel" and "Johnny B. Goode" and other non-score songs), the score soundtracks for 2 and 3, and a painstakingly, illegally, downloaded copy of the DeLorean Bootleg version of the score, which is, frankly, not of the best quality, and lacks some tracks, though hits on the most iconic. The only soundtrack I don't have is the score compiliation CD; I refused to buy it on account of the reviews said it was terrible due to using a different orchestra and sounding very different. I am so excited about having this CD! There are, by my count, twelve tracks on this CD I don't have, plus all the alternate sessions! YESSSSSSS.
I found the liner notes really interesting and although "Clocktower" is/will be spectacular, I think "The Train" (in three parts on the 3 soundtrack) has edged it out as my favorite, on account of it uses almost every single theme from all three movies and does some beautiful overlapping and imitates a train sound throughout! Although "Earth Angel" will always belong to my heart, forever. (Between this and the new podcast I downloaded fifty episodes of the other day, I will have lots to listen to at work this week! HOORAY!)
(I just realized I was supposed to be talking about my birthday and instead I wrote about my new Back to the Future soundtrack for three paragraphs.)
(I am also pleased by my sister's presents, the boxed set of the Hunger Games trilogy, which I will be rereading soon, the book copy of Hark! A Vagrant, and the DVD of X-Men: First Class, which I watched again today, and which is so stupid except for the parts with Team Charles & Erik. Those parts are AMAZING and mostly outweigh the stupidness.)
Eventually, I went home, checked my bed for bedbugs (yeah), and then settled down with dinner to check my e-mail and found that the director of Jimmy Dean had forwarded some critiques of JD to all of us, and my personal reviews were great. (There were three different critiques; two mostly acknowledged that stage managing is pretty much invisible but there were no obvious mess-ups; the third said the performance was flawless and the management seemed efficient and precise. *preens*
...then I read that Glen Keane left Disney on Friday and the light implication in his resignation letter was that he loves animation and wants to explore new territory with it but feels that Disney is not the place to do that. I do not know how to feel about that, but I do know that I will continue to follow his work fervently.
Last week I was pretty good at being good but tonight's dinner didn't turn out as I'd hoped (it's okay, just not as much of it as I thought there would be, and not so filling), I looked at AEFB and felt only despair, and I feel really tired, bordering on exhausted, though I have barely done anything today. I'm thinking I might do some dishes and then just crawl into bed? I hate to cut my losses on the creative chores of the day but...ngh.
Overall: birthday was good. I got flowers from my dad in church this morning, birthday greetings from various friends, a giant cake, and some lovely new things.
I wasn't really feeling much like doing a mega-celebration for my birthday this year. Last year was my best birthday ever and I didn't really want to try to top it. Plus I've been kind of low-energy due to working so hard over the past couple of months--first the show and then serious hardcore cleaning. I thought about trying to go out for drinks on Friday night but...wasn't feeling it.
It was a nice birthday, though! Very mellow! I requested a pancake breakfast, and requested vegan pancakes for myself (buttermilk for the non-vegan family). They came from Vegan with a Vengeance and ended up very good--not as good as my mom's, but really good texture. Then we went to see The Hunger Games and then came home, presents, and then a vegan chocolate cake. Then Simpsons while reading some of my presents.
My presents were about evenly divided between geeky awesomeness and useful things. I was very pleased and amused. I have so many lovely things to look at and watch and listen to! Although every one of my presents delights me, I probably geeked out the most over my BTTF soundtrack (after having read all the way through Hark! A Vagrant). It's sooooo fancy; it's existed for two years and I had NO IDEA despite having wanted it all my life. It's probably my favorite score ever and the one I know the best. Even more awesome than its pure existence, the second disc is 37 minutes of alternate early sessions of recording.
I pored over the track listings ("Oh! The one I know as 'The Libyans' is '85 Twin Pines Mall' here!") and the liner notes. I think Elyse was trying to talk to me about something (also The Simpsons was playing), but I kept going, "Ooh! 'The Clocktower' is one ten-minute track!" or, "OH MY GOD, I DIDN'T REALIZE THAT SOUND CONNECTED ALL THE TIME TRAVELING PARTS OR PARALLEL SCENES."
...this brings the number of Back to the Future soundtracks I own up to five. Yeah. Five. The originally released Back to the Future soundtrack (with "Earth Angel" and "Johnny B. Goode" and other non-score songs), the score soundtracks for 2 and 3, and a painstakingly, illegally, downloaded copy of the DeLorean Bootleg version of the score, which is, frankly, not of the best quality, and lacks some tracks, though hits on the most iconic. The only soundtrack I don't have is the score compiliation CD; I refused to buy it on account of the reviews said it was terrible due to using a different orchestra and sounding very different. I am so excited about having this CD! There are, by my count, twelve tracks on this CD I don't have, plus all the alternate sessions! YESSSSSSS.
I found the liner notes really interesting and although "Clocktower" is/will be spectacular, I think "The Train" (in three parts on the 3 soundtrack) has edged it out as my favorite, on account of it uses almost every single theme from all three movies and does some beautiful overlapping and imitates a train sound throughout! Although "Earth Angel" will always belong to my heart, forever. (Between this and the new podcast I downloaded fifty episodes of the other day, I will have lots to listen to at work this week! HOORAY!)
(I just realized I was supposed to be talking about my birthday and instead I wrote about my new Back to the Future soundtrack for three paragraphs.)
(I am also pleased by my sister's presents, the boxed set of the Hunger Games trilogy, which I will be rereading soon, the book copy of Hark! A Vagrant, and the DVD of X-Men: First Class, which I watched again today, and which is so stupid except for the parts with Team Charles & Erik. Those parts are AMAZING and mostly outweigh the stupidness.)
Eventually, I went home, checked my bed for bedbugs (yeah), and then settled down with dinner to check my e-mail and found that the director of Jimmy Dean had forwarded some critiques of JD to all of us, and my personal reviews were great. (There were three different critiques; two mostly acknowledged that stage managing is pretty much invisible but there were no obvious mess-ups; the third said the performance was flawless and the management seemed efficient and precise. *preens*
...then I read that Glen Keane left Disney on Friday and the light implication in his resignation letter was that he loves animation and wants to explore new territory with it but feels that Disney is not the place to do that. I do not know how to feel about that, but I do know that I will continue to follow his work fervently.
Last week I was pretty good at being good but tonight's dinner didn't turn out as I'd hoped (it's okay, just not as much of it as I thought there would be, and not so filling), I looked at AEFB and felt only despair, and I feel really tired, bordering on exhausted, though I have barely done anything today. I'm thinking I might do some dishes and then just crawl into bed? I hate to cut my losses on the creative chores of the day but...ngh.
Overall: birthday was good. I got flowers from my dad in church this morning, birthday greetings from various friends, a giant cake, and some lovely new things.