Bit of Ivory

I just spent the last several hours learning how to do tweening in ImageReady to get my lovely new icon just the way I wanted it. Acutally, a lot of that time was spent trying to figure out how to make it small enough. My first attempt looks beautiful, but is about 5 times too big. I uploaded it to here, though, since I don’t have any size restrictions.

That was way too much fun. But now I need to get something done. Anything. Just so I can feel productive.

I haven’t felt much like blogging lately. Not that I don’t think about what I should write, or even plan out entries. It just that when it comes down to sitting and writing an entry, I feel decidedly ambivalent about it, and finally decide not to because it’s easier. Don’t ask me why.

I suppose it might be because I’ve been tired. Worxing and all that. I worked for another lady today, and might work for yet another coworker on Saturday.

Still no word on the regular position, though. I’ll e-mail again tomorrow.

Went to The Scarlet Pimpernel at a community theatre up in Centerville on Saturday night. It was semi-decent. Marguerite was good, probably one of the better ones I’ve seen, although the delivery on some of her lines was rushed. And she completely missed an entrance, so Percy had to stand there singing “You Are My Home” to an empty spotlight, and then act loopy in love while she was supposed to be singing. It was a pretty good adlib, and he wasn’t bad when he was playing the fop. But he wasn’t even close to being charismatic. His voice is fair, but his acting skills leave much to be desired. He looked uncomfortable in his clothes, and didn’t seem to know what the heck to do with his arms. He probably would have been fine with any other cast, but when you put him next to Craig Bowen, who played Chauvelin, he was entirely insignificant. You had a hard time believing that Percy could have fooled anyone, least of all Chauvelin, and when Bowen sang “Where’s the Girl?” you felt that Marguerite was a complete fool for sticking with that Blakeney prat. Craig Bowen is as close as we poor Utah saps will get to Terrence Mann. He’s not a bad substitute.

Having now seen Pimpernel twice on the moving theatre-in-the-round stage of Hale Centre Theatre and twice on a traditional stage, I have to say that the theatre-in-the-round is the way Pimpernel should be performed. It just adds so much to the scenery and presentation. I can’t wait till the Hale does it again in February. Especially since Craig Bowen will be Chauvelin again. I love melting during “Where’s the Girl?” in a live performance. The CD of Terrence Mann is WONDERFUL, but live is always a fun experience.

This week at Deseret Book is Booktoberfest. 20% off all books. So it’s like everyone’s an employee! Of course, we employees get 30% off.

I REALLY need to clean my room. I can hardly even walk in there. I already did a rather drastic purge while I was cleaning for the Today Show, but I think I need to do another one. My problem is that I’ve been trying to cram a whole apartment’s worth of stuff into a small room. I’d like to redecorate, so I should probably be able to see the carpet I’ll be replacing. I suppose I’ll dig in tomorrow.

I need a plot for Albus. Still waiting for that flash of inspiration. *sigh*

I worked today!

*waits for people’s jaws to go into their normal positions*

I know, sudden, eh? Here’s the story. I’ve been getting the e-mails from Deseret Book this whole time. I apparently wasn’t officially terminated. On Monday, I got an e-mail saying that one of the supervisors was quitting, and after some shifting around, a position for a Trade Lead Bookseller (in charge of non-church books, basically) was open, and to e-mail back if you’re interested.

When I was originally hired at Deseret Book, it was as the Trade Lead.

I e-mailed them, of course, and this morning I got a phone call from another one of the supervisors. Apparently the supervisor who was quitting didn’t show up for his shift today, and since I had let the managers know that I was available, they called me to come in and cover for him. I’m working tomorrow and Friday too, and I’ll hear on Friday for sure about the job. So everyone cross your fingers.

Thanks for the good vibes yesterday. I’m feeling better. Apparently you all are cold-repellers.

I think I’m getting sick again.

Why me? Why?

Also: Check out the Wahleecon LJ Community for an announcement.

Sorry I haven’t been around all weekend. I was doing Stuff. Nothing exciting, so I won’t bother writing about it. Except that I found a pair of shoes that is just *perfect* for my Penlope Clearwater costume. They were at the DI (Deseret Industries, our local thrift store) and they were $4. I don’t think they’d ever been worn. I still like the ones I bought last year (they’re more loafer-type), but these are Mary Janes and are lovely.

I also bought a Funshine Bear. That’s what I spent my last $11 on, Angua. So now I get my $10 Barnes and Noble gift certificate!

My batteries are about to run out, so I’ll say more tomorrow.

I don’t want to talk about it.

That was, without a doubt, the most pathetic excuse for a football game and a football team I have ever had the misfortune to see. A little before halftime, when we were only down 13-41, I said that my old high school team must be playing masquerading in BYU uniforms.

I was wrong. If Murray High were playing, they would have done better than the monstrosity I witnessed on the field.

It wasn’t a football game. It was a massacre. Where the victims kindly self-destructed, thus saving the aggressors from the effort.

The only player who played even remotely well was our punter, Matt Payne, who got a lot more work than I would have liked, who kicked our 2 field goals so that we lost by only 45 points instead of 51, and who made two tackles saving us from having our punts returned for touchdowns. Because, of course, our special teams couldn’t tackle worth beans.

The mediocrity was universal. Neither the players nor the coaches could do a thing. The only people affiliated with BYU that played well was the band. It was the most depressing football game I’ve ever seen, and a waste of the drive to go down there.

But I’m going to keep my icon. Because there is still hope. We have the talent. We just need to wake up and PLAY. And we really need to do it before we play Notre Dame in South Bend.

I’m going to go lick my wounds.

Trilogy Tuesday was sold out within 10 minutes of the box office opening. I doubt even all the people who camped out got tickets.

Oh, well. RotK tickets go on sale on Nov. 26. We’ll get tickets for an opening day show, and have Trilogy Tuesday at my house instead. Sound good?

Not really the kind of icon you’d expect from a girl, eh?

So I totally thought that all my LJ friends were being really quiet, but I finally figured out that I wasn’t logged in to LJ all day yesterday and totally missed all of their friends-only posts. I had to go back through 3 pages to see all the stuff I missed! Grr. But is fixed now.

In other good news, my spurt of mailing things last week is paying off. 4 of the shirts have reached their destinations, and Teri reports that she got my hot cocoa/Nutella/Robin McKinley package yesterday. Don’t know if Mellie got her pictures yet, though. I still need to do a bit of mailing– I’ve got two cans of Stephen’s Gourmet Hot Cocoa in Dark Chocolate flavor with Margot and Lou’s name on them. I just need to find a box that will fit them without being gigantic.

Anyone who saw Gilmore Girls last night will know why I really enjoyed that episode.

I did a bit of chatting with Alec Dossetor this morning about his theories on the state of the wizarding world in the 1800’s. Gave me lots of great ideas for my Dumbledore fic. Am expecting an uber-email from him soon with all his ideas. And boy, does he have A LOT of ideas!

I hate seeing the money in my bank account dwindling rather than growing. *sigh*

And yet I don’t want to go and get a job just yet. Have stuff to do. I do still have one more paycheck coming, so that will help.

And now, I’m off to be productive. Really.

*waits for giggling to stop*

So. Been a while since I’ve posted anything of substance, eh?

Yesterday I went to Provo and made the T-shirts. I drove all the way down there, fought for a parking space in visitor parking (forgot that it was Parent’s Weekend because of General Conference), walked to the Wilkinson Center, down the stairs to Cougar Creations, and reached in my purse for the disk with the T-shirt design on it. And it *wasn’t there*. I sat down and searched, and still couldn’t find it. Argh! Finally, I remembered a back pocket on my gigantic purse (I bought it in the first place because it was so big I could fit at least 3 books in it. ) and it was there. *Phew!* So I went in and told them I needed my t-shirts, and sent the files to the printer, and as the girl was gathering them up to take them back to the press machine, the guy who had made the shirts for me back in July looked at them and said “Hey– when is this conference?” He remembered. I told him that it was in July, but the shirts were such a hit that people who hadn’t even been able to make it to the convention wanted one. After they were finished I walked around the corner to the Post Office and sent them off. So they’re all on the way!

Traffic was so bad from BYU students driving up to their mission reunions in Salt Lake that I hung out at my sisters’ apartment for awhile. Laura and I ended up going to Sonic for dinner after Lisa left on her date, while my parents went out in Salt Lake. They totally pulled a Perry Mason on me. I was Paul Drake with my greasy hamburger sandwich while they went to Carver’s and had steak and potatoes au gratin. Oh, well. It was a good hamburger, at least.

Conference today was excellent. Lots of good stuff about being fully converted and keeping up our moral standards. I love Conference.

BYU is playing San Diego State right now, and we’re ahead by 5. Seems like we finally have an offense. Here’s hoping we can hold out for 5 minutes and 33 seconds. *crosses fingers*

I’ve been knitting while watching Conference. I need to learn how to pearl, and then I’m totally starting a Ravenclaw scarf. I think I’ll make this one blue and bronze rather than blue and silver, since I already have the movie version.

Our parakeet (Wedgewood) has been molting, poor thing. She doesn’t have any tail feathers anymore. She’s been feeling really crummy, but seems to have perked up today. Or maybe it’s just that Lisa and Laura are home. It must be really itchy to have feathers grow back in, ’cause she’s been preening all day.

I helped Lisa update her template on her blog today. I think it looks rather nice, if I do say so myself. The original template was in grays and reds, and the star was a .gif that was hosted on the designer’s Angelfire page. I went into WordPerfect Presentations and made a new one in the colors Lisa picked and hosted it on my website. Now I just need to redo the colors on here.

2:20 left, and we just scored a field goal. They could tie it by scoring and getting a 2-point conversion. On the other hand, they’ve tried two 2-point conversions tonight, and we stopped them both times.

Wedgewood is still preening.

Just remembered that my bed is piled high with clothes. I won’t be able to go to bed without putting them away. Or maybe I’ll just stack them on the floor and worry about them later. That’s what I usually do.

We have tickets for the Sunday Afternoon session tomorrow. Going to Conference live is always fun. After the session we’ll drive over to my grandparents’ for our usual after-Conference get-together. Surprisingly, we’ve had pretty good weather this weekend. It almost always rains on Conference weekend. Sometimes it even snows.

Ooh! They just turned it over on downs. 1:20 to go, and they don’t have any timeouts. I think we’re actually going to win! And we scored more than 10 points! Wow!

WE WON! WAAAAAAHOOOOOO!!!!!