And now for a dream

I had a dream that I was sleeping. (yep, exciting right?) And got a text. Normally, when I get a text, I'll read it, have approx 3 seconds to decide whether or not to reply. If the decision is yes, I reply quickly, and fall back asleep almost instantly. If the decision is no, or if I wait longer to reply, I fall asleep almost instantly. I've found I do the same thing when I'm dreaming of sleeping.

The text is from an ED forum friend, Tencats. (no, she does not, in RL, have my number) It read: "Do you have any spare grapes? And do you handle any puppies?"

I deemed it reply worthy. I answered, "Nope on the puppies. And no idea. why do you need grapes?" (apparently the other half of the text needed no follow up question, of course she's asking about puppy handling. And we don't live near each other, so if I did have grapes, would I have sent them via snail mail?)

I fell back asleep, and some time later, got a reply. "The people in my neighborhood trust me with their puppies. I rub peeled grapes over the bottom half of their coats. Just ran out of grapes."

So I reply, "What does rubbing on grapes do to help the puppies?"

I fall back asleep.... and am woken up by a text. A real one this time. (as in RL) At 1am. My immediate response was "Holy crap, was that a real conversation?!" (despite knowing she doesn't have my number) And checked the message, expecting an answer to my last question.

It was my brother. Asking to borrow my SD card for my camera. Damn it. Now I'll never know why the heck Kelly rubs peeled grapes on puppies. I'm going back to sleep.

Titles are nice. Helpful even.

Okay so! Last catch up post. Woot woot. The icon's Abby from NCIS. I love Abby. I think that's why my current dream ED is a green eyed lovely with black hair and fringe.



Okay, so, I got confirmation that my Maureen Johnson ornament arrived at its destination.
Can you see it? It's right up front. Hehe haha. This pic was tweeted by Maureen. Hoorayness.
I just posted this pic to my dA:




Yesterday, instead of working on ANYTHING ELSE I HAVE IN MY HEAD, I decided to draw a picture. This... may sound simple, but I do not believe I draw proficiently, and in actuality it takes hours and hours. Almost twelve hours to be exact. Non-stop. I was afraid if I stopped, I would never finish it. Tada:

I think if you click it, it will be bigger. The picture is based on a song by Hank Green called "Baby I Sold Your Dog on Ebay".

The lyrics specified in this picture are the following:
♪"One day I came home
and that dog had escaped
he forsook his bone
and instead he ate
everything I own
from the couch to the drapes
I called you on the phone

And said "I'm selling him on EBay
We both know that we've got bills to pay
He peed on season 2 of Deep Space 9
That's crossing the line
I'm listing the auction today"

I put him in a box with some styrofoam peanuts
a bag of kibble and a couple of milk bones
the guy online paid for overnight shipping
so the very next day he was in buffalo

Please don't cry...
...

He's an ugly dog
like a ball of walking fuzz
and he poops constantly
more than any other dog does
but we won't have to worry
about it anymore because
please listen tome"♪


You may recognize the art on the walls from my past works. The guitar is Hank's. The book on the table is John Green's Paper Towns, the CD is Hank's So Jokes. The broken bobble head is a BobbleJohn. It was fun to draw, but it took forever. I drew it for a contest. The Nerdfighter group on dA is have a contest, and I wanted to enter. But I had already made art based on my favorite quotes - some of mine are actually listed as examples. So, instead of a specific quote, I instead chose basically the entire song. Meh. What evs. I might be entering another picture... maybe. If I can think of a quote to draw. One preferably less complicated.




So, when I got my camera... two years ago? I also got a tripod. I deemed it basically useless. Why? Because it was so short!

So I uh... misplaced it. For a year. And a half. I did wonder vaguely where I could have put it, but I never went actively looking. A couple months ago, I found it again, and realized the moron moment I had.


IT. IS. NOT. SHORT. I try and tell myself that I knew all along it could get this tall, only to have the back of my mind remind me of the precarious way I had last used it - teetering on an unstable pile of books and board games atop a broken chair. I am.... not the brightest crayon in the box. Nope.

But there was a reason for finding the tripod. A while ago, I mentioned the possibility of me joining a Youtube collab channel. I cannot find where I said this, but eh. I'll just repeat it. A collab channel is two or more people - most commonly five - who each make videos on one channel. Simple enough. Some examples:
Vlogbrothers - A group of two, John and Hank Green. Been around since January of 2007.
FiveAwesomeGirls - A collab inspired to start by the vlogbrothers. This channel has itself inspired many other collabs in to existence. The words "five awesome" are often used for collabs mainly because of this channel.
FollowTheMusicians - a group of... well, originally it was five guys, now it's four and two girls sharing a day - young musicians who cover a song on their given day.


So three online friends were talking of starting a channel. They wanted our link to be the fact that we were all part of a John Green book signing. That's how we all met. They held auditions for the two remaining spots, as they wanted to be called "five awesome" something. Didn't even have a name. I suggested their name, (five awesome benpals) which they accepted, before I decided to audition. And I'd been on the fence about auditioning up until the day I filmed it, and beyond. But I did audition. They required all audtioners to answer some questions in a vid. They also requested said vid to be unlisted, as they did not want to draw attention to the channel before it became. The auditions were held at the beginning of September, and the channel didn't start until November.

I was accepted in to the group. I am now Thursdays. I drew our picture for our channel, as well as our little title screen dealy. FiveAwesomeBenpals. Yep.

Behold, I shall now share with you some videos. Basically I'm going to share all the videos I have done so far for the channel, in order.

First up, the unlisted Audition video. Only myself and three other people have ever seen this video.



I was sooooo nervous making that video. Seriously. I think I recorded forty five minutes of me going "uh..... um... damn it!" But there's a bit in there about how the group of us met, so that's informative.



Enter nearly two months later. Our teaser video, made by Monday, Brenna.




Before every vlog, (the audition doesn't count, though I wish it did, I look a mess) I take a picture of me standing in the spot I'll be vlogging at, to make sure I'm at an okay distance and look... well, less a mess. lol. (you might notice some of the pictures of me in the last post feature me in the same outfits in the following videos) This was the pic I took before the introduction vlog


And the vlog itself (introductions):


Again, I was nervous during the video. Not to mention I hate introductions. I always feel weird doing them.


Next video: Harry Potter Theme


Here you can see my Luna earrings again. Ha. I felt more comfortable with this video. I'm also noticing, going back, that the quality (look) of this video is better than the others... I'm wondering if I can somehow get that again. The way I'd converted wasn't working anymore though, and I used two different converting methods before falling on this one... so yeah, not sure if I'll be able to get that quality using the method I do now. Meh.



The next week was favorite Youtubers. This I did with ease. I have a lot of favorite youtubers.


It was by far the hardest video to make. Having to convert every video I used in the montages ALONG with my own video, then splicing them all up... it took ages. What's normally about a three hour process, (30 minutes filming, 60 minutes converting, 90 minutes editing) took three times as long. But it's my favorite of the videos I made... maybe because it shows a bunch of my favorite bits of my favorite youtubers. lol.


The next week was Thanksgiving, and since Thanksgiving falls on a Thursday... well. Yeah. The theme was things we are thankful for. I should mention that we've decided on "punishments" when we go over our own five minute rule. Since I went over it with my Youtuber video, I did a punishment in this video.



The punishment was fun, and confused people in the house when I informed them there were burritos to eat. The Monday before Thanksgiving. I did not fry all the burritos I made. Just the one. As for the rest of the video... you know what I should have mentioned? What I was thankful for? I was thankful for having that two minute punishment preceded by the thirty second intro in the 3 and a half minute video. If I had not put the punishment in, my video would have been a minute long.



The next week was twenty questions. Before I was an official part of the channel, I wrote up 70 questions that we could use as possible future themes or questions. We each chose twenty questions at random.



I had fun with that video as well. I spent a day drawing pictures to most of my answers. Just because I felt like making it more interesting. They're crappy pictures, not the "I just spent half a day on ONE drawing" type, rather the "I just spent an entire day drawing 40+ pics". (Some of the answers required multiple pictures)



And we have now come to this week's. A video I put up only hours ago. The theme was Favorite Christmas Songs.


I liked making this video. It was fun to film in the closet. rofl. And it was equally entertaining to try and sing the songs from memory.



And... there we have it. Okay... so this post was a bit longer than I expected. My bad yo. But, now I'm all caught up! I'm having fun with FABP, and now I shall wander off to sleep. Someday I'll work on my ornaments some more. Hmm...

More catching up and Cell Phone Photos

A lot of people like Twilight, a lot of people hate it. I like it. Watched Vampires Suck the other day... meh. It could have been a LOT funnier. Twilight and the haters out there have resulted in soooo much potential for fodder, and the movie just didn't choose its jokes well enough for me. Speaking of Twilight fodder... a while ago I was reading a Twilight parody at Walmart while waiting for fried chicken, (I get sent on errands a lot. Mainly because I don't normally mind. Give me the money and tell me what to get and whatevs.) and I only got ten pages or so in to it, but I really wanted to finish it. And it saddens me because I don't remember the name of the parody, and it's not there anymore. I shall now have to wander over to the parody section of some bookstore and see if I can find it there. Do you know how many parodies there are of Twilight??? Bah humbug.

Okay, so catching up some more. I think this will actually be a pretty looong post. If it isn't, I'll go back and delete the previous sentence. Ha.


First things first, I hated my monitor. You could see my old pretty black monitor in a picture from this blog post, and I grabbed a picture from that post to put here so you could see the current monitor.
See it? Of course you see it. It's HUGEMONGOUS. Takes up the entire flippin' desk. But honestly, that's not the reason I hated it. I hated it because it's ugly. The color. The keyboard too. UGLY. My old monitor was black, as was my old keyboard. MUCH preferred. So at the beginning of last month, I had an epiphany. Why not paint them? I guarantee I will be the last person to use this monitor. NO ONE wants this honkin' huge piece of uglyness in their room. So I did. Rather than paint it a nice green color to match my nightstands, I went for gold. A... er... steampunkish theme.

Along the top of the monitor, I had covered the "Trini" in "Trinitron" with a pink peep, and called the monitor Peeptron. Behold, Peeptron 2010:




DFTBA=Don't Forget to be Awesome. I made the gears, wings, key, and golden peep out of clay. Woot. And the keyboard:





Very happy with them. Took me FOREVER to paint the letters, numbers, and symbols back on to the black keys, but meh. Some of my more used keys are chipping on the edges even though I did put a sealant on, but I don't care, a little gray showing through looks a lot nicer than the entirely gray keyboard.

(You may or may not notice some of these pictures have timestamps. They were taken on my dad's camera, which I borrowed for a day in November, and a day in October.)


So on November 10th, I wandered in to Chicago. One of the people I watch on Youtube, Dan Brown, went on tour and was going to be in Chicago that day, so away I went.


I like being early when I go to things, and this time was no different. Except, this time I was going via train. I wanted to be an hour early. And the train schedule that day only allowed me to either be just on time, or TWO hours early. So I did the latter. I ended up having to park in a metered parking lot because the train station lot was entirely full. I paid for an entire 10 hours, even though I expected I'd be back in 7.
That's Chicago.

It only took me half an hour to walk to Millennium Park, and even though he didn't specify WHERE he was going to be yet, I guessed it would be the Bean.

To the left there you can see some dude's painting. It was pretty neat.


Luckily I brought a book. Goblet of Fire ftw.

The seat I was in was NOT comfortable.


I liked this pigeon, because he was a different color than his black and gray brothers and sisters.



He actually got there almost an hour late.




But he ended up staying over an hour later anyhow, so it was awesome:

Pretty Bean at night is pretty


He allowed me and another to go with him and his gf when he left, because they were headed towards the Sears Tower, and the other person and I were going to the train station, which is along the same route. The most interesting bit during that short walk was some dude commenting to Dan that he heard there were a lot of mountains in Montana (Dan was wearing a Montana hat) to which Dan replied: "Yeah! I think Montana means Mountains in Portugal." It was a short walk because a couple of blocks in, Dan and his gf Danielle decided they were stopping for drinks, so we departed. Luckily I had the other person to walk with still, otherwise I might have just taken a cab back to the station.



I made it back to my meter with TWO MINUTES to spare. WIN.



He of course made a youtube vid about his trip, it can be seen here. Approximately 7 minutes in to the film is when he talks about Chicago. Can you see me in the video? Haha. Consequentially, I made a boring vlog about it as well. It can be seen here. I made the rubik's cube shirt to get it signed by Dan, because I have a vlogbrothers shirt signed by one of the vlogbrothers, so it seemed fitting. One of Dan's earlier videos, and probably the one that got him the most attention back then, was "How to solve a rubik's cube" (17 MILLION views. jeebus).


Next, we'll spend a moment talking about my hair. In case you haven't already noticed, (via youtube, twitter, or ED Forum picture) I decided to dye my hair pink. It all started on Halloween. When I wore that pink wig. I thought hmm.... why not?! So two weeks later, I did it.

This pic was taken moments before I did the Dan Brown vlog, just an hour or so before I started the dyeing process.


I immediately decided that I hate hair bleach. It's hot and itchy and smells and you're supposed to cover it and then it acts like its own little steam room and the steam collects in the cap which then drips on you.... bleh


The first bleaching. I read in most places that if you want to PROPERLY bleach your hair, it would take three weeks. I, being an impatient person, refused to consider such a thing. I'm dyeing my hair PINK for Pete's sake.


However, I did miss some spots, so I went back and re bleached a few bits


And then, after


I looooved the pink dye. It smelled nice and didn't burn or itch. Lovely


Me right before Harry Potter, you can see the earrings I made.





My hair shows its roots now, and the pinkness might be fading a smidgen, but meh. I'm still happy with it. And... yep. Okay, moving on.

My friend Sara got a new puppy


For a week or so, he was nameless.



He has a name now though, it's Scotty. Hee.


So I follow author Maureen Johnson on twitter. She spoke of getting two christmas trees this year, her normal one, and a twitter christmas tree - which would feature ornaments sent from twitter folks. So I made her an ornament.


Linny's holding it for me

And there's a quarter to help with scale

It's a Fail Whale.



Check out my mayple buttons:



Okay, so I hate taking pictures with my cell phone. It sucks. The quality sucks. But, occasionally, I do take pictures. I just deleted some of them, but first I emailed them to myself, so now I'll share them . Hoorah



Here's Percy, you can see his eyes are a bit orange, it's cuz I lit a candle in him. Of course, it's day time so yeah, you can't tell very well. I forgot to take a picture of him at night. Drat.






And there's me in my Halloween outfit. I was texting the pic to a friend, since I was staying home and passing out candy.














Here is where you see the radish I used as a reference when I was making my earrings.













And there's a pic of me in full gryffindor gear. The earrings are supposed to be "drigible plums" - or Luna earrings











This is JUST before I started bleaching my hair. Brave face on. I believe hair is hair and it will grow back, but you know, it's still a big step.










Me texting a pic of my new orange hair to a friend.














Again, me texting the newly pink hair to a friend.















I dropped a 12 pack of soda down the stairs. A week later I dropped me down the stairs. Looking back, I was more scared of the soda breaking than me breaking...










I found this guy just laying there in JC Penney. I felt bad, so I went to find a better place for him to live.








I found a place on a christmas tree. Hee.















And the last picture, from earlier today, is my milkshake. I felt like having one, despite my lactose intolerance. I was dreading having to go out in to the freezing cold for a milkshake though. So before I went, I checked to see if we had any strawberry ice cream and milk. We did.


Topped with whipped cream. 'twas lovely. Yep.



Okay, so one more day will do it for me. Tomorrow or whenever will NOT be image heavy, nor will it be long. I have just noticed that I am using 43% of my space in my picasa account. Hmm... over a year later and my album isn't even halfway full. Guess I'll worry about that once I reach 90%. lol.