In case Steven doesn't know your email address (and that's practically everybody)

It's time for our housewarming party! This Saturday, 7pm. Feel free to bring your own special guests. Email me for more details.

I know. I'm a bum, and this is not the way to invite people to parties, but I don't want to accidentally forget anyone.

Everything good is obviously attracted to Australia

Luckily I managed to see one movie at the film festival despite my crazy schedule. But it was so awesome! It was too funny. I mean, severed body parts, the village people and a no mans land town make for a great movie. So I've come to the conclusion that everything good must come from Australia. I mean think about it, my first Australian movie and I couldn't stop laughing. Ben Folds couldn't handle the force that was pulling him towards Australia. The Olympic committee couldn't deny their love of the Aussies. Powderfinger, born and raised in Australia had to be good obviously. All of the good hot chocolate is hiding in Australia. The coolest of the coolest animals all reside in Australia. Let's not forget it's the land of all of the yummiest fruit.

No wonder I liked it so much...

Move over, S.E. Hinton

Flavia's calling you out, warthog. I bet her parents let her get a puppy after she signed her publishing contract.

The future, today: driving the Toyota Prius

Monday, I took my first drive in a new Toyota Prius. Critical point in that sentence: NEW. The old Toyota Prius was based on the critically lauded Toyota Echo, and it showed. It was a crappy little car, where I felt like I was bumping the dashboard even at full seat extension.

The new Prius, on the other hand, seems like it just stepped out the concept car garage for a little spin. The start button! The crazy no-button dash! On Saturday, while futzing with the glove compartment in the Pig, I commented that they should really be making glove boxes bigger by now. My comment echoed backwards through time, such that when I got into the Prius on Monday, there were TWO spacious glove compartments facing the passenger seat.

Also, I know tons of cars have controls conveniently located on the steering wheel, but I don't drive those cars, ok? And as soon as I noticed those controls, the car came together for me. The zen driving experience had begun.

Yes, that's because I nearly freaked out when I started it. I was rushing a bit, because I didn't know when Kitten's train was, and I didn't want her to miss it because i was lollygagging around the parking lot, so I was quite keen to be off. Except whoever drove the car before me had the air conditioner on so high, my eyeballs were drying out. I'm trying to figure out how to turn it down, and I'm pawing at the dash, hoping some secret panel of controls is going to pop into view, but when the dash popped, the only thing revealed was a spot for your cell phone.

It's all controlled on the screen, people. That screen isn't just there to entertain you with statistics of how much energy you're using, and how much you've regained. (Hint: slamming on the brakes = high score in the battery recharging game!) Yes, push another button, and a display so big your blind Aunt Bessie could read it from the back seat shows you all the radio stations you've preset, along with their names. Another push and a rather dauntingly button-rich panel pops up to control the "climate". A little of the ol' red=hot, blue=cold would have definitely helped make that screen look less like a sea of boxes. As such, I am now sending my request for more use of colors backwards through time to the Prius designers, and expect to see improvements by the next time I rent one.

Fest Fatigue

Every year, the film festival gets started with such high hopes. Every year, there are disappointments. Usually, those disappointments are movies that suck. This year, it was the schedule.

First, I am too busy. I don't know why I even bought that 10 pass of tickets. I didn't see any movies for the entire first week, and I still wouldn't actually have finished the pack if not for the assistance of Meng and Steven. Jane, I feel your pain.

Second, an offshoot of the first, the movies I want to see keep selling out! The Corporation? It's a 2 and a half hour documentary, folks! Don't you have some french horror movie to see instead? Otaku Unite? There were so many good movies on Saturday! Why did you all have to see the one I wanted to see?

But, I did get to see 3 movies so far, with Singles tonight and You Can't Stop the Murders on Wednesday. Maybe I will even get away to see Please Teach Me English tomorrow, if everything else goes smoothly. Making it to campus at 5pm. Yes, that will be a breeze.

Speaking of campus, when did smocking become an acceptable dress option for anyone over the age of 6? I definitely saw a girl at Penn this weekend wearing a floral print dress with a 6 inch band of smocking across the top.

Prom, crew and birthdays

This has been possibly the busiest weekend ever. Except I didn't get much accomplished.

Friday night was prom. I found a date the week before, a dress the day before, and a ride the day of. Besides that, prom was rockin'. Oh and the tons and tons of pictures we took. That was not so cool. We were in this huge, and when I say huge I mean gianormous, limo. It fit 20 people, so it was like the size of a school bus. It was quite a skeptical, two of the neighbors came to check out the scene. It had TVs, coolers, a stereo system, changing lights...It was big pimpin' (but that phrase didn't just come out of my mouth so keep it on the dl) Prom was at the Crystal Tea room, which was pretty swank. The food was kind of gross, but my date seemed to like the meatloaf, I mean steak. Dessert was non-existent, except for the little plate of stuff they brought for the table. I ate this big cream puff in one bite...reigning champ! They played too much rap, but it was still a lot of fun.

Saturday I woke up bright and early to make it to 8:30 practice. Then I went out for pizza with my friends. Then the units and I jetted off to Sara's race, which she dominated in. Then I came home, sat around for awhile until everyone showed up. We went out for Indian food, which isn't comparable to Vinnie T's but whatever floats people's boats. Sara saved my birthday by making me a cake and buying me presents, all of which were very nice/ tasty. I was tired so I went to bed.

Today, I got to sleep which was a good deal. I went to Sara's race, and then to mine. I dfled (dead fing last for non-rowers), and Sara came in third. So now my weekend doesn't seem so busy, but it felt like it was.

Film Fest... it's time.

My picks. Mail me if you want to go see 'em.

Azumi
Bright Young Things
Buddy
The Classic
The Control Room
Double Agent
The Five Obstructions
Free Radicals
Hair High
A Holy Experiment
I'm Not Scared
Imelda
Miffo
Orwell Rolls in his Grave
Otaku Unite!
Please Teach Me English
A Problem With Fear
Singles
A Slipping Down Life
A Talking Picture
Traveling Light
Valentin
Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself

This list compiled from memory. Some omissions may have been made. If there's something you want to see that fits my selection criteria, let me know.

Love me before I cry!

Being 15 is tough; being 14 is tougher...if that's a word. All I want to do is get a summer job. Is that so hard? Impossible! So my summer dream job is currently working at a CD store. Not borders or something like that but instead something with a lot of cds, like endless amounts. If they sold records even better, but my current options are the farmer's market, ubead2, and color me mine. All of which are sounding a lot like, oh I don't know crap.

So my original plan was to work at plastic fantastic. It has a good selection and location. It was original until they went out of business. Then I was think I could work at repo records, which is close but shady and scares me. I was ready to just live in my closet this summer until yesterday I was given hope. I went to a cd store in search of some velvet underground and ben kweller. It was just like Plastic fantastic, only a little smaller. I didn't think of the job option until after I left the store. So with my new Ben Kweller cd in tow I decided to go back and ask about summer jobs. Soaring highs, Crushing lows. The summer is "their slow season," but they would be more than happy to hire me this fall. Well that doesn't help me Shady dog man. So now that I can't work at Shady Dog either, I'm left hopeless yet again.

Think of how awesome it would be to work at a CD store. You don't have to deal with that many people, because not that many people have such fine taste to go into CD exchange stores. It's totally bragable and a good fun fact. "I'm Jane, I work at a cd store." In one sentence you can prove to people that you know music AND that you totally rock. Plus all you do is listen to music all day and get cheap or maybe even free CDs. Obviously the epitome of cool is working at a CD store. And what am I left with? Three, boring, loser jobs and the facial expressions of the people working there when they find out I'm 14, but I'm going to be 15 soon.

Taking over the world

We're pinky and the brain. Guess who's who.

Kansas City International - America's Safest Airport!

Courtesy of TSA, I have truly learned what "by the book" means. The Kansas City airport has no bathrooms inside the security checkpoint. That's right, folks, if you need to pee, you'd best be doing it before you go to the gate area, lest you find yourself in my position.

Thankfully, because I had already been through the security checkpoint, my coat and bag were not with me, and I just had my purse. Unburdened as I was, I offered to help the family in front of me. They were traveling with 2 children small enough to both be in strollers, so I offered to fold up one of the strollers while Mom packed all the assorted bags onto the belt, took off her shoes, etc. (Zoe, who looked like she was about 18 months, helpfully removed her own shoes. And socks.) We load all their stuff up on the belt, and it's all good, right? Wrong. First, Dad sets off the metal detector. And, he's holding the baby. So, both he and the baby go off to get wanded.

Then, Mom and Zoe go through the detector. But now Mom is the only one there to take things off the belt, so she puts Zoe down. Grabbing her chance at freedom, she runs back through the metal detector. So, Mom puts everything down to go grab her. "I'm sorry, ma'am, you have to stay on this side." So, she's calling to Zoe, trying to convince her to come back, and as you would expect, Zoe's ignoring her, so I pick Zoe up, and walk through.

BEEP! Oops. In all the excitement, I forgot to take off my belt. So, I move to step back, remove my belt, then walk through again. "I'm sorry, ma'am, you'll have to go over there to get scanned." Or I could just take off my belt..... No, no, that can't happen. So, fine. I try to hand off Zoe to Mom. Nope, no can do, this insidious baby terrorism has got to be stopped, and Zoe must be scanned, too. (Luckily for us all, Zoe has reacted fairly well to finding herself in a strange woman's arms, unable to go to Mom.)

But this was no simple wanding, identifying my belt as the problem, then sending me on my way. No, it was necessary for me to sit down, so they could check the bottoms of my feet. I had to unbuckle my belt, then pull it away from my clothing. Since I was wearing jeans, I had to turn down the waistband to my jeans, to confirm that, yes, the metal setting off the wand was my jeans button, and not the bullet I had hidden behind it. Then, lets rescan my arms, in case I had cleverly transfered something from my belt to my hands when I had undone it. A full two minutes later, Zoe and I were confirmed clean, and allowed to get on our way.

The worst part of it all? Zoe's family was making 2 connections before they reached their destination.

I've got the moving blues

Many readers have asked me, is the blog dead? No, dear readers, it is not, but I am. For the past two weeks, I have done nothing but pack, tape, paint, and haul. I am currently living amongst dozens of opened boxes, which have all been dug through, in hopes of finding the sweaters that we used to pad all the electronic equipment. I now understand why people take a week off to move.

Honestly, though, I don't think that route would have worked for me. If I had any more time, I just would have procrastinated more. Or so I am telling myself, so I don't sit down on one of those boxes (and fall in, because I forgot it was opened) and start crying.

P.S. The girl at Lowe's was right. Confidence is not everything when it comes to directions.