atwob: ah! the wonder of boredom.

technically, this is an atwos: ah! the wonder of… something. because, i’m not bored. i’m busy. but i am working to an amazing soundtrack and it prompted me to document it, bloggy-style. (bloggy-style? i hate myself sometimes.) also, since being self-employed, my days run into each other. it’s totally valid for me to note a favorite of the week on a monday. or wednesday. (i just had to look at a calendar.)

favorite movie of the week: again, no strong favorites. but i have watched quite a few: burn after reading, the golden compass, the first two movies in the pirates of the caribbean series and the beginning of ratatouille (which i didn’t finish, but hope to). burn after reading had a great cast. i love frances mcdormand. brad pitt – not so much, but he certainly did not disappoint.

favorite song to work to: 15 step by radiohead, off their album in rainbows. why have i not loved radiohead my entire life? it’s funny how you can hear a band when you’re 16 and chalk them up to being too chaotic and noisy. then you hear them again seven years later and it’s like love at first sight. (…or sound as the case may be.) this has happened to me not only with radiohead, but also jeff buckley. some music is just ahead of its time.

favorite color combination: i’ve been working on a few different websites lately, which is rare since most of my work these days lies in the print arena. i didn’t end up using this color palette, but i still love it.

favorite website: skreened.com: i’m going to be designing all my clothes from now on.

atwob.

when i was in high school, i created an underground movement called ATWOB. okay, so it wasn’t really an underground movement, but rather a weekly email i began circulating that gained a lot of popularity by my senior year. ATWOB, appropriately abbreviated for “ah! the wonder of boredom” listed favorites of the week and funny things happening around school. meh, perhaps you had to be there.

but!

i’m bringing it back. (mostly for my own documentation of websites and other links worth noting.)

welcome to a slightly more mature, but always pointless atwob.

favorite movie of the week: watched the invasion, hairspray, and once this week. and my favorite is certainly not once. i tried, really. after hearing rave reviews from friends. i just couldn’t get into it and frankly, i fell asleep. the only thing worth mentioning is the song played inside the music store. i am in love with the harmonies on the chorus. for that reason alone, i may buy the song on itunes. maybe, the album. but i doubt it.

i still have yet to watch stranger than fiction which is sitting on top of my dvd player as we speak, but i think i can already safely say out of the four, the invasion is probably my favorite of these. but even that one wasn’t spectacular.

EDIT: stranger than fiction was actually a lot better than i thought it’d be. a light comedy with a cute story, very suitable to watch while preparing dinner.

favorite song to work to: rats by pearl jam. the opening sound is reminiscent of dave matthews, but then the familiar eddie vedder rock kicks in. the resulted groove is totally motivating and should be added to playlists around the world!

favorite color combination: so-bright stephy by pixeljedi via colourlovers.com.

favorite website: moo.com: i’m obsessed with these mini-business cards. i received a check from third coast clay the other day from selling one of my paintings in their store and they included one of their personalized cards in the envelope. too cute!

breaking free by facing yourself.

i called my favorite ex-roommate the other day to make sure her house wasn’t under water. she moved to houston after college and when i caught up to her she was in transit, seeking shelter in ft. worth for a few days. “did i tell you i’m a booking agent now?” i asked. she laughed then said “of course you are.” anyone who knows me can attest that i always have a hundred different irons in a hundred different fires; always bouncing around, never settling on one thing.

i don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. i’ve always been on a journey to find ways to meld my loves and passions. being an artist/designer/booking agent these days is one way of doing that… and i’m finally putting my music business degree to good use, so i know my parents are pleased.

my favorite part of being an agent is getting to know my clients and hearing their story and why they do what they do.

today, i met christopher coleman. when he was born in 1973, he was pronounced dead. seven minutes later, his twin sister was born and when she came out crying, chris started crying. because there had been no oxygen to his brain for so long, the doctors said he wouldn’t be able to walk, talk or think. he would basically be a vegetable in a wheelchair for his whole life.

as he grew up, he wasn’t talking but he was actively thinking. at night, he would take his sister’s textbooks in the bathroom while everyone was asleep. he’d heard people talk in class and on tv and based on the pictures in the books, he taught himself to read. one day, after surprising his mom by something he read on television she decided to have his IQ tested. chris was reading on a 9th grade level. by the age of 20, chris graduated 5th in his class out of 300+ seniors. later on, he moved from louisiana to georgia on his own and pursued a college degree in communications. graduating made him the only one in his family to have a college diploma.

now, chris travels around speaking in both church and corporate settings and i was sitting at a table in a borders cafe on west end taking all this in.

today now 34, chris smiles. he jokes, he laughs, and his heart is bursting with love for people. christopher is bound to a wheelchair, defying odds and living! …what’s stopping us from having this quality of life?

cattales.

in my condo, there is a sliding glass door that leads to the backyard. often times, there will be small bugs that collect by the window. maybe to seek some shade from this awful heat… who knows why, really?

today, i noticed what appeared to be a small earthworm by the back door rug. as i got closer, i realized it was a lizard tail. still moving. and my cat, yoshimi – always closeby – was low to the ground in hunting mode, his tail wildly swinging about. i scooped up my pet, opened the back door and a large blue lizard (minus one tail) went scurrying on his way.

predator yoshimi strikes again!

surprise! i’m incarcerated.

i’ll be honest. i probably should watch the news more often than i actually do. the only time i really sit down and catch up on local and national current events is merely when i’m flipping through and i happen to catch a story of interest. when i was a child, i remember every evening at 6pm, sitting down to dinner with my parents and watching the news. and every evening i would pitch a fit because it bored me and i’d rather be watching something of worth like dawson’s creek or something… ha! (i really hate dawson’s creek, for the record. but it’s all the same, in the end.) i always assumed watching the news is a grown-up thing and wondered when i’d start to prefer channel 5 over mtv.

bah. tangents. i did happen to catch the news the other night before popping in the black dahlia (it was “okay.” the professional was much better). what i saw jarred me. a friend’s face. sad. unfamiliar. and a story in the background of a three year sentence for some really bad judgment.

scary. it just goes to show how one poor decision can alter your life forever…

alien gnome bandits.

one of the perks of having a friend who works with mailings and packages is… entertainment. he has access to any kind of unwanted junk mail and yesterday, handed me a magazine because he thought of me when he saw this gem. (please note the caption: “two open-jawed aliens are tromping off with your helpless, hapless garden gnome.”)

yes. my birthday is in november and i’ll take 10 of these, please.