Bit of Ivory

Snow, Snow, Snow, Snow, SNOW!! (if you’ve ever seen White Christmas, you know the tune for this).

Okay, suddenly the word “snow” looks really weird.

Anyway, last night at about 6:00, it started to snow. Well, it made a valiant effort at least. The flakes were teeny, and nothing was sticking. We Utahns scoff at such paltry attempts to keep us home. But I suppose that practice makes perfect, because I woke up this morning to find a lovely blanket of about 8″ of snow! YAY!!

This is literally the first time this winter there has been snow on the ground here in Provo. There were a couple of little storms that got a little build-up on the grass, but it never stuck to the pavement at all. I’ve been wearing my light leather jacket instead of my heavy winter coat almost every day. I rarely bothered with gloves or a hat. But today I dug them out of the bottom of my drawer with a happy heart.

It’s not often I feel this way about snow in February.

Anyway, my roommate and I decided that we could either get mad at the snow, or revel in it. We decided to revel. In fact, “revel” is the word of the day. Rather than putting up umbrellas and covering our hair, we let the snow fall on it and get it all wet. Rather than avoiding big piles of snow we tromped right through them. Tonight I want to build a gigantic snowman in the quad of our apartment building– they did this last year and we named it Gunther, so I guess I want to re-incarnate him. I plan on drinking lots of hot chocolate during Gilmore Girls and Smallville tonight (both of which, I hope, will be excellent– Christopher Reeve is going to be on Smallville, which is just so cool). We want it to start snowing again after 7:00 or so, so we’ll have about 3 feet tomorrow and won’t have to go to school. Unfortunately, they’re only predicting another 2 or 3 inches.

Doubly unfortunately, we’d need a storm like this every day for the next two months to even partially make up for the abysmal precipitation we’ve been getting lately.

But for now, I’ll take 8 inches.

Just after writing the below, I had a patron come to the desk. She was a professor, and was writing an article on. . .fan fiction.

*giggle*

Oh, just to bring this to everyone’s notice– I changed the order of the buttons on the comments window. Lou was right– it makes no sense for the “cancel” button to be first. So now, the buttons go “preview,” “post,” then “cancel.”

Hopefully that will help.

It’s so much fun to actually create something, you know? Anyway, I’ve already got one beta back on IFL 1 (thank you, Lou!). Waiting on a couple more. Although I might re-send Melanie and Teri the new version, since it is much improved. In fact, I think I will. It’ll have to wait until I get home, though, since I don’t exactly have a copy with me at the moment.

I also e-mailed Carleton97, who is my SQ beta, asking if I really did get a N.E.W.T., because I had a new story to submit. She answered me, saying “oops,” and that she’d inform Madam Pince that I needed a N.E.W.T. right away. So when I do submit it, I won’t have to wait on an SQ beta.

And I just checked– I’ve been moved to the Bookshelf! WAHOO!!!

I’ve got all sorts of great ideas for coming chapters, as well. Lots of good stuff ahead, people.

I should be doing homework, but instead I’m writing. I’m almost done with chapter one of I Found Love. Jen’s success at SQ (she’s got 8 reviews already, more than I’ve had in 5 months) has finally given me the kick in the pants I needed to actually write this plot bunny that’s been hopping around madly for the past month or so. I need to write something to get me back on the recently updated list. As soon as I finish ch. 1, I’ll send it in to SQ and post as I write. I want to get it done before OotP comes out.

Jealousy can do great things, I guess.

Jen is now Gwendolyn on SQ.

On the Professor’s Bookshelf.

I was supposedly given a N.E.W.T. as well, but here I languish in the freakin’ Library, wasting away from lack of reviews and readers.

*sigh*

Not that I’m not happy for Jen, mind. I am.

But I want to be on the Bookshelf too.

So, what do you think? I finally got sick of the old template, so I did a Google search and found the Moveable Type Stylesheet Generator. In kind of a ironic twist, it’s run by the same person who designed the Blogskin I downloaded for Virtual Parchment. Anyway, it cost $10 to access, and while I probably wouldn’t have paid it just for the generator, they also had a nice, easy way to make my layout 3-column. So it was worth it, I guess.

There’s still a few bugs to work out, like why in the heck does the left column have that ivory space at the top? But overall I’m pleased.

Please let me know any browser compatibility issues. I’ve checked it on IE6 and Mozilla 1.2.1, but not on any other browsers.

Of course, I did this instead of studying or doing any homework. Bad me.

Oh, and the routine was alright, I guess. It wasn’t as fun to watch as the Swings that were performed right before and right after us, but I think they liked the end.

I love it that Dave Barry has a Blogspot site.

My Social Dance class is going to perform at the Social Dance lab. We’re doing a waltz. I’d feel much better about it if we’d been able to *really* practice, but we only finished choreographing the thing this morning, and only ran through the whole thing all together twice. I suppose we’ll be all right, but– *sigh*. I hate going into things unprepared, especially anything I have to do physically. And I’m right in the front for most of the routine, too. *sigh*

But the ending is going to be hilarious– and it’s meant to be. Our teacher couldn’t figure out what he wanted to do to get us out of the darn thing– finish the routine and get us off the “stage,” although it’s really just the floor of the ballroom with all the other attendees standing around watching us. Anyway, one girl suggested that we should all scream and run off the stage. While we laughed and joked and thought it would be really hilarious, but that it didn’t match with the routine. But we modified it.

Instead of screaming and running off stage, instead we girls are going to elegantly run off, leaving our partners standing there. They’re going to look around, confused, for a couple of measures– basically saying “We’re out of choreography. Where did the girls go? Wait– it’s over!” and then run off themselves.

Well, we’ll be memorable at least.

I have so many different things to blog about that I can’t seem to think of a unifying theme. So here we go.

Preference was a blast. Josh turns every dance into a production number. It was great fun to pantomime to the lyrics of “Dancing Queen” and “I Will Survive” and such things. He taught me a lift as well, so I got to feel all cool. My arm hurts though. And I’m still exhausted. We didn’t get back to Provo until about 1:00 AM, and didn’t get to sleep until about 1:30. Then we were woken up at 7:15 by my roommate Amber, asking if one of us could take her to the hospital. Jen did. Turns out she had food poisoning, probably from a bad taco at Taco Bell. I never eat there anyway, but now I *definitely* won’t. She’s all right, luckily, but it sure cut down on the sleep.

Let’s see. Oh, yeah. That sorry excuse for The Music Man that was on TV on Sunday. It was not only awful, it was practically blasphemous. A crime against humanity. My family and I lasted until about “Goodnight My Someone” before we were forced to break out our DVD to watch the *real* thing. They took my favorite musical of all time and slaughtered it. I was turned off from the first musical number– the one on the train with the salesmen. Because the cool thing about that number is that there is no music. It’s just to the sound of the train– Just talking in rhythm to the wheels and the tracks. But in this version they added an accompaniment, which completely ruins the concept.

And it was downhill from there.

Matthew Broderick had about two facial expressions. He did his songs in a practical monotone. Now, I know the songs are supposed to be spoken above the music, but you’ve got to put some feeling into them. Robert Preston put so much charisma into those songs that I would have paid for my son to be in the band even if I didn’t have a son. Whereas with Broderick I was in no way convinced that I should pay for anything. Part of the charm of The Music Man is that you know Harold Hill is a scoundrel, but you want him to get away with it. You want him to cheat all these nice people out of their money. It’s just so fun to watch him that you want him to succeed. Broderick didn’t convince me for a single minute. He was awful. There was no charisma, nothing. Just a static, monotone voice, delivering his lines too fast. In fact, everyone delivered their lines too fast. They were all too obviously 21st century. The most obvious example of this is the anvil salesman, Charlie Cowel. His lines were so fast that the jokes were barely intelligible.

The girl who played Marion was obviously wearing a blonde wig, which is pretty ridiculous because it never says anywhere in the script that Marion has to be blonde. Maybe her hair was too short or something, but at least they could have wigged her in her real color. If she’s a blonde, I’m Hermione Granger. And there’s no possible way that the large-scaled Mrs. Paroo could ever have given birth to the incredibly petite Marion.

At least Winthrop was a real kid, not a miniature adult with a fake Broadway vibratto.

I didn’t catch “76 Trombones” or “Marion the Librarian,” but we went up to my grandparents for dessert and I did catch the “Shipoopi,” and if that’s any indication, I’m glad I didn’t have to watch them ruin those numbers either. They re-orchestrated the whole show, taking out all the wonderful character that was in the orchestration and making it flat and hollow. What was the matter with the music Meredith Willson wrote, I ask? The “Shipoopi” is a great dance number, and instead of doing it justice, they cut it short and subsituted “Three Blind Mice” for the great melody that was there before. If I had been at my own house instead of my grandmothers, I would have thrown things at the TV. As it was, I had to get up and pace out my frustration.

Because for a lot of people, that’s the only version of The Music Man they’ll ever see. A lot of kids especially would never dream of watching a movie that was made before 1980, unless it’s Disney, and most certainly not a musical. It’s very sad, because the original version is a true work of art.

If you’ve never seen The Music Man, or if you watched that atrocity on Sunday, go out and rent the real one. Today. Now, if you can. You won’t regret it.

Okay, now I’ve got that out of my system. I feel better.

She’s now on SQ!

Jen submitted her story yesterday, and to our surprise, was given an instant N.E.W.T.! Even I wasn’t that lucky. Anyway, I guess I’m now her official beta reader, since she won’t be getting an SQ one. So everyone should look to see Retrospection appearing soon on Sugar Quill!