A couple of days ago, my roommate was washing the dishes, and she came over to me to tell me that she accidentally broke one of my bowls.  It turned out to be my FAVORITE BOWL!!!    It was the Pikachu ramen bowl that Jason and I had gotten at a Pokemon store in Yokohama in November of 2007.

She was really sorry, and kept offering to buy me another one, but I told her she can’t, since I had gotten it in Japan.

Still, I didn’t want to throw it away…  I wanted to see if I could glue it back together and keep it, even if I couldn’t use it anymore.

But alas, not even that is an option anymore, because my roommate ended up throwing it away when I wasn’t at home…  (-_-);;

Check out Nintendo’s latest email blast!  Stunt Cars is at the TOP!!!!  \(^_^)/

I still need to buy it and play it…  (-_-i)  We bought a WiiShop Points card, but when I went to scratch off the silver part to reveal the code underneath, it wouldn’t come off, so I scratched a little harder.  The silver part came off, but then so did part of the card underneath (why in the heck would you use cardstock for a scratcher??), obscuring half of the code and rendering the card completely useless.  *so angry!*

I called Nintendo, and they gave me an address to send the card to.  The guy on the phone said to include a letter explaining what happened and the serial number of the Wii, and they would credit the point straight to the system.

I’m glad that it’s remedy-able, but poop!  I wanna play Stunt Cars, now!!!  (>.<)

A friend of mine recently got engaged -YAY!- and I’m super happy for her!!  Of course I called her right up to congratulate her and get all the details.  =P

It was a cute story of how he proposed to her!  (^_^)  I asked her if it was a surprise at all, like if they had talked about getting married, or if it was completely out of the blue, and she said that they had talked about spending the rest of their lives together before, so it wasn’t too much of a surprise–just the actual proposal.  But not only had they talked previously about it, they had even gone RING SHOPPING together!!!

“So, you picked out the ring that he proposed to you with?” I asked.

“Yeah,” she answered.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!  That’s not a surprise!  \(>.<)/

If it were me, I’d want it to be a complete surprise–COMPLETELY out of the blue.  I’d want it to come so far out of left field that not even Santa Claus saw it coming (oh please… I see you when you’re “sleeping”).  I’d want it to be a big planned out, super secret, super thoughtful and involved spectacle that’d both embarrass and amaze me.  I’d want it to be the most incredible act of love and romance I could possibly have.

Yes, I know that most everyone pits me as a person who hates romance and the like, but that’s not true.  I love shojo dramas and mangas after all.  I just find most of the mushy-gushy stuff to be silly, and stupidly cliched, that’s all.

So anyway, I thought about the surprise vs. non-surprise proposal some more…

If I didn’t know about it, and we didn’t talk about it, and we didn’t go ring shopping, I could chance being presented with a ring that I don’t like.  Big minus…

But hey, it’s just an engagement ring, right?  You can still pick out your wedding bands together, right?  And hopefully if I ever get married, the person I marry will know enough about me to know that what I like and don’t like.  =P

I accidentally dropped my iPhone into a bowl of water in the sink this morning…  *unleashes heaping helping of my unbridled rage*

Luckily for me, everything seems to work except for the earpiece on the phone–which means I can’t really use it as a phone.  I can use speakerphone to talk to people, but anyone who has an iPhone knows that option is pretty much moot.  (-_-i)

I’ve turned off my phone and stuck it into my rice bin, hoping that the rice will absorb whatever water is left in there out of it, but I’m not hopeful that it will remedy the earpiece problem–I think that damage is pretty much irreparable, but who knows.  I’ll also test later to see if it still works with a headset.  After three days of leaving it submerged in rice, I’ll turn it back on and really assess the damage, to see if it’s okay to keep, or if I need to just give up on it.

Right now I’m using an old phone and am already missing the fact that I can’t check my email at any given moment.  How am I going to get through these next three days, let alone the next year if I deem my phone not worth using?

There ain’t no rest for the wicked, and there certainly hasn’t been any rest for me lately… (>.<i)

Since Wednesday, I haven’t had a day off at all–I worked Wednesday night, Thursday night, Friday double shift (both lunch and dinner), Saturday night, Sunday night, and my manager just asked me last night if I could work tonight as well. I was asked to pick up Tuesday also, which, since I already work wednesday and thursday nights, would give me no day off until I leave for norcal on Xmas morning, but she ended up not needing me. Thank goodness!! I need to go Xmas shopping…!

On top of all that, I got new tires for my car and took my kitty to the vet. My much needed new tires make SUCH a difference, and it turns out that my kitty kat has a slight bladder infection…

marmie's bladder infection medicince

a disgruntled marmie, post medicine

Yesterday I went up to Olympia, Washington to teach for the day. I got up at 3:30am, got on a 6:20am flight to Seattle, drove for an hour and a half to Olympia, taught some baton lessons, and then flew back home with a connection in Portland.

Getting up at 3:30am wasn’t so bad. The weather in Washington wasn’t so bad. The stop over in Portland wasn’t so bad. But the day turned when I boarded the full flight from Portland back to LA.

As I walked to the back of my plane, I saw, sitting in the seat next to mine, an excessively portly man. He clearly thought he had the whole row to himself, as he sat comfortably in the middle of our two seat row, with the middle arm rest up. I realized shortly after I approached the row close enough to understand that he wasn’t sitting in the middle of the row, he just was so huge that he overflowed into my seat. F my life.

As I slid into my window seat and Jabba the Hut squeezed into his, it became clear to me that my typically seat-of-choice has now become an accomplice in making this trip as miserable as it possibly could be. The already tiny window, which usually helps in assuaging my claustrophobia, was unhelpfully placed too far forward so that it was blocked by the seatback of the person in front of me. I was trapped without respite between an off-white wall curving into me on my left and The Blob melting into me on my right.

To make matters worse, he was a reader. He had his light on the entire flight so that he could read, and halfway through the flight he moved MY light so that he had more light to read. I could not even sleep through the flight to pretend that I wasn’t miserable. (>.<);;

As much as I wanted to switch to another seat, a) I felt like it would be rude; and b) it was supposed to be a full flight (which it wasn’t, but we weren’t allowed to move). But I’d like to ask both the man and the airline: suppose I, a small and skinny little girl, wasn’t the one who had the seat next to him. What if another large, fat man had my seat? What would they have done? The truth of the matter is that it’s not fair that I had to have my comfort compromised because of another person’s size, but airlines cannot force a person to buy two seats or a first class seat because they don’t fit in a coach seat.

*sigh*… Sometimes our PC world makes it very hard for the world to work in practical ways.

I haven’t been very good at updating this, I know… and it’s not for lack of updates!  I just haven’t had too much time lately to sit in any one place for very long to write anything substantial…  I have started a couple posts, and will hopefully get to finishing them soon…

As of late, I finished the term for my two Performing Arts Workshop classes.  Their showcases went well, for the most part, barring the fact that I had to feed almost ALL of my kids almost ALL of their lines–but hey! I did a good job speech-ing and presenting!  =D

The most titillating news at my restaurant was during my training week, Adam Sandler came in and I turned him away.  He came in and said he needed a table for two.  Like I had been trained to do, I told him the wait time, which was 15 minutes.  He said, “oh no, I can’t do that.  I gotta split,” and left.  My manager came up to the stand and asked, “did we just turn away Adam Sandler?”  I objected, “I didn’t turn him away!  I just told him the wait time…”  To which she replied, “we would never make him wait, of course we would give him a table!”  She wasn’t mad though, I was just doing what I was told to do…  (>.<);;  I kind of wanted to go up to him and ask “hey, do you remember that baton twirling script you got a couple of years ago?”  =P

Last week, I got the very bumming news that it looks like the webseries that I shot in March, THE CONSERVATORY, isn’t going to go anywhere.  It started out as a Myspace/Fox Interactive webseries, but as Myspace got rid of their original content division, the producers took the project to other networks (TV mainly, as a TV show was always their desired end result), including Freemantle (American Idol), MTV, Logo, ABC Family, and The N (the teen version of Nickelodeon).  Despite having many very good meetings and everyone loving it, because of lay offs, already having a show they felt was too similar, feeling like the show skewed too young for their demographic, and having had a show in the performing arts already that didn’t do well and not wanting to swim in those waters again, they all passed.  I’m majorly bummed about it–not just because the project won’t come to fruition, but also because I wanted to know what happens!!  It’s a good show, with a good cast and crew, and I wish SOMEONE would have picked it up…  but *sigh* what can you do?

On the flip side, TWIRL will be shown at it’s second film festival this weekend!  Unfortunately, it’s in Houston, so I can’t go, but here’s hoping to a good showing, and hope everyone likes it!  (^_^)  Surprisingly, and quite casually, I found out that TWIRL is on imdb!

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1555863/

Which consequently means that I’M also on imdb.  =)

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3718005/

Oh, and I guess Jason is, too.  =P

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3444127/ (Except that I don’t think that second credit is his…?)

I found out only because Mike Le (one of TWIRL’s producers) writes a webcomic (Don’t Forget To Validate Your Parking), which I play webmaster for, and he linked TWIRL’s imdb page in his recent post.  So to all you people who would accuse me of google-ing myself–NO, I DID NOT.

But anyway, like the title of this post infers, I’m cold with a cold in L.A..  Seriously, it’s freezing, and I’ve been battling this bug for a week now.  Bleh.  I hate being sick, and the weather certainly isn’t helping at all…  It’s supposed to get to freezing cold temperatures tonight…!  Ugh… not looking forward to going to practice tonight…  (>.<);;

Just got back from England on Monday.  Lots to update, but lots other things I have to do before I can get to it…  Still need to finish uploading all my England pics to bacefook…  but just wanted to post this little tidbit of EXCITING NEWS!!!  (^_^)

The game that I did voice over for a couple of months ago is going to be coming out soon on the iPhone, PSP, and the Wii!

Check out one of the game play videos!  It only features three of my lines, but it’s still cool!  =)

Forgive the lack of updates…  It’s not for lack of happenings, I assure you.

In short, I’ve been teaching musical theater classes for the Performing Arts enrichment workshops for the past several weeks–which has been going well.  I think I’ve been doing a really good job and been a really good teacher, so props to me!  =)

I’ve also gone in for three interviews for a hostess position at a restaurant in Century City.  I really hope I get it…  It pays well, it’s a good place, and it’s flex.

It’s my birthday on Sunday!  So, as usual, I’m hosting my traditionally low-key get together at my apartment on Sunday night, post long twirling weekend with my brother and coach.  I usually make a ton of food for the shindig, but I don’t know how much I’ll be able to make this time around…  My goal is to at least make the cake… =) and then we’ll see how much else I can manage…

And hey!  I leave for England next week Thursday!!  I’ll be there until November 2nd, which means I won’t be in town for Halloween…  but hey!  I’m gonna be in London for Halloween!!!  \(^_^)/  SCORE!!!

And I guess, in other news… I’ve been doing… well… other things…  =P

On Friday, I went to the SoCal Film Festival in Huntington Beach, because TWIRL, the film Jason and I was in, was being screened–its first Independent film festival!

It was SO much FUN!! (^_^) Not just to see TWIRL on the big screen, but also to see it with a group of people who aren’t familiar with twirling and have no idea what to expect.

I was so happy to see that everyone got the story and got twirling–at least that’s what it seemed like to me. Right from the opening scene, they got it, and they reacted exactly the way they should.

Then, when Jason busts out with his “real” twirling, everyone in the audience realized that he was not fooling around. It was amazing to see everyone responding so candidly and appropriately.

TWIRL was the last film in it’s segment, and it got the biggest response and applause (and I’m not just being biased)! There were a lot of really good other shorts–and I was thoroughly entertained the entire time, don’t get me wrong–but TWIRL had the best story, and definitely had the most complete package.

There was an audience vote at the end of the night and we all voted, before meeting up at a German pub for an after party. I hope TWIRL wins!! (^_^)

(a conversation Ajay overheard in the men’s bathroom afterward):

“I liked the Training Your Man one and the juggling one best”
“You mean the twirling one?”
“Yeah, that one.”

It was fun getting recognized afterward, too.

me on the red carpet (^_^)

me and nick in front of the press backdrop

TWIRL family portrait =)

all of us at the cool German pub =)