Tuesday, June 26, 2007

Two Weeks Later

Well, here we are, just two weeks later, and here I am posting again! Go figure. And not a whole lot has happened in that time, so you might actually get a marginally short post this time!! I guess we’ll just have to see.

First order of business, I’m gonna pull an AJ here and talk about the changes I’ve made to the Death Star. If you’ll direct your attention to the far right side of the screen, you may notice that it looks a lot more organized now, and there’s a few more links. I added categories for organization purposes, so that it would look nicer than everything being thrown randomly together. Under the Blog section, I added Mike’s (AJ’s roommate) and the Team America site. I also added Mere Orthodoxy, which is the TA tutor blog. I haven’t been reading it on a regular basis for very long, but most of the posts are fairly interesting. I’d encourage you to check it out sometime. I also added David’s xanga and a number of entertaining sites. Legendary Frog is flash videos, mostly parodies, and Giant in the Playground and Real Life are two webcomic sites that I recommend.

Speaking of Real Life, I was pretty bored towards the end of the week before last and that weekend, and so since Stephen suggested that I check it out, I decided I’d see what it was all about. I got sucked in rapidly, and unfortunately had nothing to do all weekend, and so I wasted the entire weekend catching up. I ended up reading about seven and a half year’s worth of comics in four or five days. Obviously, I greatly enjoyed it, so my thanks to Stephen for introducing me to it, and my recommendation to everyone else if you get really bored.

Anyway, let’s get going with actual events. First off, not this last Thursday but the Thursday before I auditioned for Noah and the Ark at Lifehouse (which, incidentally, I am told is actually spelled “LifeHouse,” but I really don’t care). In addition to the usual song, we also had to give a minute-long comedic monologue. After hours of agonizing and unfruitful web searches, Mom suggested that I simply write my own, which I did. It got rave reviews from my family, so I figured I’d give it. The audition itself went pretty well . . . I was really nervous, so my voice was shaking on the song, which typically doesn’t sound very good. The monologue went very well, though, I thought.

The results were supposed to be posted online on Friday. Two days before this, however, I got a phone call from Wayne himself, telling me that I didn’t get in. He apologized profusely and told me how great I was, and then hung up. I was rather impressed that he’d actually called me personally. But since the results are STILL not posted, I’m thinking that perhaps he called everyone, and that it wasn’t really anything worth being impressed over. But either way, I didn’t get into Noah. Alas. But I didn’t really expect to, ‘cause it’s only eight people . . .

So that’s the deal with Noah: there IS no deal with Noah.

In other news, I’ve recently been job searching. I’ve realized that I 1) have no income and 2) have nothing to do this summer (especially without Noah), and there’s an easy way to fix both of those problems in one fell swoop. So far I’ve put in applications at Target, Barnes and Noble, and Gamestop. Tomorrow I’m going to see if I can get an application at The Frugal Frigate, which is a local children’s bookstore. Last Thursday, I had an interview at Target, and as a result, I’ve pretty much given up hope of getting a job there. I thought most of the questions were stupid (and Taylor and my mother both agreed with me), especially for someone like me who has never had a job, but I had difficulty answering them. Funny how when you actually NEED to remember something, your mind goes completely blank . . . but anyway, yeah. That interview didn’t go so well. But I’m supposed to find out in two weeks if they want to interview me again (which would be a sign that I’m fairly close to getting a job) or if they’re not interested.

And the vast majority of the time I spent at the interview was sitting and waiting for them to call my name. There were a LOT of other people getting interviewed, and not too many people interviewing, so it was going fairly slowly. But the guy sitting next to me (whose name was Anthony) was very friendly, so we were talking most of the time, so it wasn’t excessively boring or anything. The girl sitting across from us was friendly, too, so she joined in occasionally.

But yeah, that’s the epic story of my job search thus far. Neither of the other places have contacted me yet. So we’ll just have to wait and see . . .

This weekend was a pretty exciting one. On Friday, I finally went to see Pirates 3. I don’t know how many of you, if any of you, have seen it, so I won’t give anything away. But I really enjoyed it. It was a lot better than I expected, and definitely better than Dead Man’s Chest. And I really really liked the ending, which I really really didn’t expect to. As always, I was extremely impressed by Johnny Depp’s acting, and everyone else (other than Keira Knightly and Orlando Bloom, of course) was good, too. Keira Knightly was slightly better than the other two movies, I thought, but she was still not very good.

The plot was slightly hard to follow, I must admit . . . because you have pretty much every character in the movie making deals with everyone else in the movie, and then betraying them at the last minute. But if you are willing to actually pay attention to what’s going on, I’d highly recommend it. It was a lot of fun.

It also improved on the second movie in that it didn’t suffer from what I (with help from The Ninja) have named “Gore Verbinski Syndrome.” In his review of Dead Man’s Chest, The Ninja said that the movie could’ve used “a lot more gore, and a lot less verbinski, which I think is Russian for ‘bad dialogue.’” Spiderman 3 suffered from this, because it was an action movie that had about ten minutes of action in two hours. But Pirates 3 clipped along nicely, with action at every turn, which is nice for an action movie.

So, in short, while it wasn’t a GREAT movie, it was a lot of fun and I’d highly recommend it.

On Saturday night, I went to opening night of The Hunchback of Notre Dame at Lifehouse. Now, when I saw this show before, I really didn’t like it that much, because I was young enough to not really care about important and depressing stuff, and just wanted something funny. But watching it again, I must say that it has to be right up there with Esther and Pilgrim’s Progress as the best in the Lifehouse library. The script is awesome.

This particular run of the show was fantastic in its own right, as well. I liked the hunchback and Captain Pheobus better last time (if it means anything to anyone, the hunchback last time was Jason Livesay, and Pheobus was my step-cousin Tim), but other than that, everything was fabulous. The choreography was good enough that I actually noticed it was good, and all the mains were really good. Even the two that I liked better last time were still good. I actually thought that the hunchback himself was the worst of the leads, but it’s actually the smallest part of the leads, so it worked out nicely.

After the show, the Pocahontas cast hosted a dessert for the Hunchback cast, which I attended since I was part of the Pocahontas cast. It was fun, ‘cause it was kind of a reunion with most of the cast . . . We really didn’t mingle with the Hunchback cast much, we just hung around with each other. And . . . I don’t know if this will be as funny reading it as it was hearing it, but I’ll say it anyway. I have to post this quote SOMEWHERE, and this just seems like the best place:

“‘Jason’ and ‘rules’ just don’t go in the same sentence. Wait . . . I just put them in the same sentence!! Oh CRAP!!!!!”

So I dunno. But I thought it was really funny.

On Sunday, I spent most of the day at Seth’s, where WE spent most of the day playing one of the most fun video games I’ve ever played. I doubt any of you (except maybe Stephen) will have heard of it, but it was called Alien Homonid. Nintendo Power rated it one of the most difficult Gamecube games ever made, and I’m inclined to agree . . . but the miraculous thing about it is that it’s incredibly fun, but not at all frustrating. I suppose perhaps it might’ve been if I’d been playing it by myself, but we didn’t get frustrated at all. We spent most of the time playing co-op mode, too, so it was probably considerably easier than it would’ve been with just one person (as evidenced by the fact that on Sunday, we got about two-thirds through the game, and Seth hasn’t advanced at all in the two days since).

The only other event of significance at this point is that yesterday I finally got my hands on The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, and have been playing it constantly since (although obviously I took a break to write this . . . aren’t I committed?).

So . . . that’s pretty much it for this time! Enjoy your lives!!

Comments:
AJ: Yes, well, my GE is going to be replaced by Torrey, which I’m sure will be a highlight of my college career. I WOULD like to know how you notated playing inside the piano. “Awakening” is a Switchfoot song from Oh! Gravity., my favorite on the album. Well, take the script of Sincerely Yours up with Didi, not me. A “scrivener,” if I recall correctly, is a law copyist.

Stephen: You and Rachel broke it off?? Why? What happened?? Well, yes, Bartleby was good for “what the crap” discussions, but I just . . . I just thought it was boring. You know, with you, people don’t even have to ask what your SAT score was to know that it was awesome (although, incidentally, what was it?). Alol at your lessons from Poe. Do you know any pants samurais? Good job equaling AJ.

Victoria: You read my blog!! Yay!! (For anyone who didn’t figure it out, she was one of my classmates.) I hope you continue to do so! And hey, how could I NOT be a Sith Lord, considering how heartless I was towards everyone? :-P Thank you!

Amy Grace: Thank you! And while it’s true that only 14 people auditioned, I think they were looking for VERY specific people . . .

“Jamie Ford:” Um . . . do I know you? I don’t recognize the name . . .

5 Comments:

Blogger Idhrendur said...

1. I'm glad you've enjoyed (read: become addicted to) real life. It's pretty much awesome. If you have more free time, I also highly recommend 9thelsewhere.com and countyoursheep.com

2. I got a 1450 on the SAT. 780 math, 670 verbal. My verbal was dragged down by the fact that I though I was done with one section when had only completed 1/3...and was too honest to go and finish it later.

3. I had forgotten about the pants samurai! I'm not quite sure how to tie those properly...I'll leave it up to you (as a theatre person) to figure it out.

4. I found that quote funny.

5. We broke it off because it got boring (as in, people stopped giving us shocked reactions). Besides, my (slow, poorly done) pursuit of that cute girl at church would have put a damper on things too.

6. Applying for jobs sucks. Your best strategy is to apply pretty much everywhere in town. You'll end up with something you dislike, but if you don't apply everywhere, you'll probably get nothing. At least, that's my experience.

7. First comment!

9:35 PM  
Blogger Raelynn Ann said...

Contrary to Stephen's comment, I don't suggest applying to Target, because, if you get it you will have an incredibly boring job and getting paid hardly anything. I do however HIGHLY suggest a temp agency. (Not to be confused with part time) They set you up with temporary full time jobs doing secretarial work. If you're as organizational as your brother then you wont have any problems getting a job regardless of the fact that you have no experience (technically I had NO experience, but I took their little tests and scored high 90's when the company average was mid 70's. You could probably even work that around home schooling since you don't technically have to be in school from 8-3. Did I mention they pay $10-$13 and hour whereas Target pays $7.50?

Have you tried city hall? Community services and youth programs usually are in need of responsible upstanding citizens to work for them. My first job was with the City of Irvine and it gave me innumerable experiences that have helped me with many interviews. Ex. Team work, City work, Clerical work, Youth involvement, Government involvement, Free Pizza, HR work and PR work. Those are all things that everyone looks for... except perhaps the pizza...

Good luck, Job serching sucks!

P.S. This is my second time entering... it didn't take the first time for some reason.

10:01 AM  
Blogger Amy Grace said...

Yeah you are right... I guess Dustin called some of his friends to be in it cos he wanted really specific people... which actually turned out to include my childhood role model, Erin Mahoney! So I am happy about that one.
So.. I am thinking of auditioning for a Lifehouse show... oh my...

11:17 PM  
Blogger AJ Harbison said...

1. I'm really excited that I've started this tradition of numbering points in the comments. I'll claim all the credit for that one.

2. I'm excited (though less so) that you "pull[ed] an AJ."

3. Props for adding links to M-bito's and Team America's blogs.

4. I'm sorry about Noah. I'd vote for you if I was casting it.

5. Could you post your monologue? I'd love to read it.

6. Good luck with your job search. Any results yet?

7. Eleanor and I are going to go make it to see Pirates 3 eventually.... It's just so long that it's hard to find the time.

8. Curses! Hunchback already? When does it end? I need to see it!

9. I liked the quote too. I laughed. Out loud, even.

10. Your method of responding to comments is horribly confusing.

11. I'll post my method of notating stuff next time. I've spent way too long catching up on blog reading tonight to do it now.

12. Stephen is the only person I've ever encountered who got a higher SAT score than me. But only by 10 points!

13. I'm excited that my cousin-in-law (step-cousin? this is too confusing) was Amy Grace's childhood role model.

14. I think 14 is my all-time high number of points!

12:44 AM  
Blogger Raelynn Ann said...

Just to fit in, I will re-do my comment.

1. Contrary to Stephen's comment, I don't suggest applying to Target, because, if you get it you will have an incredibly boring job and getting paid hardly anything.

2. I do however HIGHLY suggest a temp agency. (Not to be confused with part time)

3. They set you up with temporary full time jobs doing secretarial work. If you're as organizational as your brother then you wont have any problems getting a job regardless of the fact that you have no experience.

4. Technically I had NO experience, but I took their little tests and scored high 90's when the company average was mid 70's.

5. You could probably even work that around home schooling since you don't technically have to be in school from 8-3.

6. Did I mention they pay $10-$13 and hour whereas Target pays $7.50?

7. Have you tried city hall? Community services and youth programs usually are in need of responsible upstanding citizens to work for them.

8. My first job was with the City of Irvine and it gave me innumerable experiences that have helped me with many interviews. Ex. Team work, City work, Clerical work, Youth involvement, Government involvement, Free Pizza, HR work and PR work. Those are all things that everyone looks for... except perhaps the pizza...

9. Good luck, Job serching sucks!

10. P.S. This is my second time entering... it didn't take the first time for some reason.

11. That was dumb... nevermind.

10:08 PM  

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