thezzyzx did the following meme and I shall follow:
Step 1: Open your MP3/media player.
Step 2: Put all of your music on random/shuffle.
Step 3: Write down the first fifteen songs it plays, no matter how embarrassing.

OK, here I go (skipping out any Big Finish chapters that happen to appear as they’re not technically music):

1. “Johanna” from Sweeney Todd
2. “Hooked on Your Love” by En Vogue
3. “Lo! How a Rose E’re Blooming” by R. Carlos Nakai & William Eaton
4. “Watermark” by Enya
5. “Bella (She’s All I Ever Had)” by Ricky Martin
6. “Thing of Beauty” by Hothouse Flowers
7. “Going Down to Liverpool” by the Bangles
8. “Ride” by Robyn Hitchcock
9. “I Am Made Of You” by Ricky Martin
10. “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear” by Johnny Cash
11. “Stolen Kiss” by Ronan Hardiman
12. “Sweet-A Little Baby” by Pete Seeger and the Kids
13. “Your Funny Uncle” by Pet Shop Boys
14. “Skating” by Vince Guaraldi
15. “Everybody’s Got Something To Hide Except Me and My Monkey” by the Beatles

Wow – how did two Ricky Martin songs get in there? I only own the one album. And I’m surprised no Chumbawamba or Monkees made it in there. Turns out in the top 15 there were 3 Big Finish chapters – the first from Jubilee, the second from Chimes of Midnight and the third from Zagreus. (Odd, none of those are McCoy stories…) It’s also interesting the number of Christmas songs that appeared. Fascinating, really… 🙂

Several weeks ago, I started my Portion Control Project and I can say that things have been going smoothly (albeit slowly, but it’s better that way, I think). Before the Gallifrey 2004 weekend, I’d lost 4lbs and I figured that during the course of the weekend, I’d gain those 4lbs back since I’d be doing no real exercise and would probably be eating a lot. But what happened instead was what I’ve decided to call the Eye Candy Diet…

The girls and I would get up in the morning and then go to Beeps or Denny’s for breakfast. I’d eat a hearty meal (provided they brought me my food, but that’s another story) and then we’d head back to the hotel to sit and watch panels or stand in line for autographs. But during the course of this panel-watching and autograph waiting, there was plenty of Eye Candy to feast upon. Not only was there Paul McGann, whom many at the con found to be very Eye Candy-ish, but I had me #1 drool-fest feller there as well, Sylvester McCoy. And hell, Janet Fielding’s still very tasty, there’s no denying that. (Check out my new icon for a lovely photo of the pair of ’em.) So I never got hungry during the day and we never went for lunch (didn’t have time either). Eventually, we’d settle down enough to get a decent Japanese meal somewhere and that would be supper.

I weighed myself this morning after being on the Eye Candy Diet and sure enough, I’d dropped another pound! Woohoo! Let’s hear it for Eye Candy!

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I’ve been trying to remember more bits from various panels which I could report on here, so here’s some that I thought of since my last post.

During the Sylv & Janet panel (while I’ve got this icon going) someone asked both who would they cast as the Doctor if they were producers for the new series. Janet balked (as she did with all “would you return to DW” style questions) and Sylv smiled widely and answered “Me!” Then he thought for a second and said “No, not me. I’d cast Janet,” he said while pointing at her, “but then she’d decline and I’d cast me.” 🙂

When Janet kept complaining about the types of questions she was being asked (well, most of them were about whether she’d do a Big Finish audio, so I don’t blame her) someone asked what sort of question would they wish the fans would ask them. “How much do you want me to make this check out to you?” was Sylv’s answer. “Would you like a million dollars?” Janet agreed.

Hopefully I’ll think of other moments later and can bore you with them as well. (I’m sure some of these things are a matter of “you should have been there!”) I’m going back to work on photos. Of Eye Candy, of course!

So said Janet Fielding to Sylvester McCoy in their joint panel today.

Geez, this is the earliest I’ve written this weekend, yet I’m at my tiredest. The lack of sleep over the weekend is finally getting to me.

Today was another wonderful day at Gallifrey One. We decided to try Denny’s today and Estelle drove us to the restaurant. Dave somebody-or-other, a nice pediatrician from Illinois, joined us for breakfast and the six of us had a nice time talking and eating. Back at the hotel, we caught the second half of the Doctor Who Collectible Roadshow and once again, Emily was wonderful and had seats already saved for us.

Paul, Susannah Harker, and a fellow from BBCi talked about the making of Shada and Paul impressed everyone with his lungs when he shouted “Fire!” in a manner like Lt. Bush. The PMEB was notorious by this time and when they first arrived and Paul saw us all sitting in the same seats as the day before, he wondered if we’d slept there last night. Susannah didn’t really talk a lot, but she seemed to enjoy just listening to the answers and looking at Paul and his Brigade.

After the panel, it was off to the autograph line to wait and wait for McGann’s autograph session. The line was even longer than the McCoy line the day before, but we all stood and chatted and had a blast while waiting. I bought a nice Willy Wonka photo of McGann (aka the 8th Doctor) for $20 and had him sign it. (And, alas, the Sylv autograph line had a new BW photo that they hadn’t had the previous day and which is *not* in my collection. Perhaps I shall see it again — I just didn’t wish to wait in another long line just to get the photo.)

As McGann was leaving to fly back to England (he has a film shoot tomorrow, lucky guy) they had him pose by the very nice Dalek that some fans had made. We got quite a few shots of the pair. Quite a cute couple. 😉 But then Paul had to leave and we all were sad to see him go. Thrilled that he’d been there, of course.

Steph (hergrace) needed to get packed in order to leave (awwww) and when she returned, we gave lots of hugs. Then Denise, judiang, and I went back to the ballroom to await the Sylv & Janet panel. There were still some second and third row seats, so we watched the panel with Paul Darrow, Yee Jee Tso, and India Fisher on voice overs. I asked about how it was to make “Fly Me to the Moon” and India admitted that it was interesting to make (they recorded it live on audio after she’d toured with it) and, despite having Sylv in the live recording making the show fresh, she still didn’t care much for the play. I think she’d gotten tired of doing it during the initial tour.

Sylv and Janet were on next and were very entertaining. Gary Russell should be proud because quite a few people asked Janet if she’d do a Big Finish audio, and the usual answer was a cold stare and once a demand for the speaker to leave NOW. 🙂 At one point during a discussion about an alleged nekrophiliac, Janet said the above quote to Sylv, so it’s my quote of the day. They played off of each other well – the dirty old man and the militant feminist… 🙂 A rather fun panel and a nice way to end the convention for us.

The rest of the afternoon and evening was spent looking for lupper and eventually supper. On the advice of the hotel, we went to the 94th Squadron for seafood, only to discover that we needed reservations to get in at a decent time *and* that the place wasn’t really a seafood restaurant. We did have drinks at the bar courtesy of Judi (thanks Judi!) and Estelle and I had virgin strawberry daiquiris, Denise had a Shirley Temple, and Judi got her usual mudslide. And then asked for sweetner to add to it… After the 20 minutes were up, we checked back with the hostess only to find out that it would be another half an hour before they could serve us. She took pity on us and tried to seat us in the bar with a rather frazzled waitress to wait on us. But after we looked at the menu and discovered that they really didn’t have a big seafood selection (and had prices that made us balk) we figured we could try something else. Estelle suggested the Cheesecake Factory and we agreed.

It took awhile to get to the joint – the something-or-other Galleria – which turned out to be an open-air mall. Rather cool. They had Fuddruckers, Tower Records, and other mall and upscale places. But Cheesecake Factory had an hour wait, and the Chinese place that we looked into, likewise. So we stopped into a fastfood Japanese joint (Hana Grill? I forget the name) for some pretty decent (and far less expensive than the “seafood” place) food. I got spicy chicken teryaki and (of course) California roll. It wasn’t too bad for “fast food.” Denise let me have one of her rice-filled bean curd thingies, which is a sweet dessert. It was good – like a donut stuffed with rice instead of donut fluff.

After supper, we headed back to the hotel and went up to Estelle’s room to gawk at all of her lovely Paul (and Sylv – yay!) photos. Great stuff. I eventually left Judi & Denise to pick out the top 10 McGann pix and Estelle and I came back here. She photographed the McGann shrine that Judi set up for Denise and we talked awhile. Then she headed back to her room (to wipe the drool off of her photos, I suspect) and I got online to type this up.

I think I’ll head for bed now, but first, a photo to whet your appetites for more to come. (Oh shush, of course it’s not a McGann picture!) Click here for the photo of Sylv.

Ah, today (which is, actually, yesterday) was a great day. We’re all back at the hotel and we’ve got versaphile visiting, too. We started with breakfast at Beeps and then we got back to the hotel for a day sitting in the main panel room. Emily from PMEB had saved seats for quite a few of the PMEBers, so we had seats in the first and second row. We watched the Big Finish panel, then Paul Darrow, then Mojo (where I left for a bit to go to the dealer’s room), and finally it was time for the McGann & Fisher panel. So lots of photos taken.

Now, most of the PMEBers then left to the McGann autograph session, but not I. No, I needed to watch the Sylvester McCoy panel. Much fun! frobisher was next to me, so I didn’t feel all alone. 😉 I got to ask the first question (helped to be in the first row) which was about how he could remember all the different voices that he does while reading children’s books. He said that he reads through the book then highlights with different colors the different characters.

One story that he told which I’d not heard before was about his Roundhouse days when he accidentally got high (thanks to a cake baked by a friend) and before he was done counting out the money for the day, he’d fallen in love with a sixpence. My favorite quote of the day.

After the session, I headed off to the autograph area to see the PMEBers and get in line for McCoy. Steph also needed to get autographs, so we got in the very long line. I got a Yee Jee Tso auto ($15 for the photo) and a Sylv auto ($20 for the photo – eek!) Then we dumped our stuff in the room, Steph changed into a lovely sari, and we returned to the ballroom for the Janet Fielding panel.

Janet’s a pistol, as Judi says. I wish I could have seen the entire panel. And I look forward to the Sylv/Janet panel tomorrow. When she finished, Judi and I headed forward to our saved seats in the second row, and then the TVM panel began.

Philip Segal, Yee Jee, Sylv, and Paul all came up for their hour and a half panel, and we were greatly entertained. Sylv declared that he’d passed off the role of the Doctor to “Jesus.” Paul said that Tom Baker needed “a check up from the neck up.” Sylv’s secret favorite TV program was Prisoner of Cell Block H while Paul prefers Johnny Bravo and The Powerpuff Girls. (He thinks he is Johnny Bravo when he looks at himself in the mirror. Was rather appropriate that he was wearing a tight black t-shirt.) Oh, and we found out the color of The Coat is GWEEN! In fact, it’s “heather green” and Sylv was certain he’d once dated her.

After the panel, as many PMEBers as we could get crowded into the cafe and Paul joined us for a half an hour and was a perfect gentlemen. He even made Kate Orman’s day by sitting beside her (and I know who sent him there – bwa ha ha!)

We headed off for supper at a Make Sushi, a damn fine sushi restaurant! I had $15 worth of sushi – ebi sushi, California roll, and lobster roll. (And even though I hadn’t eaten all day, I was filled by the sushi and had to give Judi some of my lobster roll.)

When we got back, we sat in the bar for awhile so that Denise could watch Paul and I could watch Sylv sitting at the bar. I got a strawberry daiquiri with vodka in lieu of rum, but it was very vodka-y and I didn’t like it (nor did I finish it). But I bought the round of drinks – wehey!

Then we headed back to the room and we’ve been chatting for ages. So, to repeat myself, today was a great day! 🙂

It’s nearly 1am Pacific standard, which is nearly 4am Trina Time. Bleh. But I’m here at the hotel and have been watching people sing Karaoke. I’d much rather watch it than sing it. (I’d much rather be here writing about it than watching it, actually…) But we now know that hergrace and paygem can sing!

I even caught a glipse of Sylv already (getting drunk in the bar, it looked like), so it was a good day. And what made it a TRULY good day was that I finally got Metadot Portal working – yay! This is the program that I’ll be using to run the school website. And with 15 minutes to spare at work (after months of fiddling with it) I got it to work on both the soon-to-be webserver and the laptop. Yay!

So anyhoo, I’ve had a good start to a geeky weekend. 🙂

(PS – judiang, hergrace, and Denise (and several other PMEBers) got to meet Paul McGann already – yay girls!)

(PPS – HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY!)

It’s weird, but any time I get into a different aspect of the Internet and all the glory that it has to offer, I end up having dreams relating to it. I’ve had dreams where I’m IRCing people, where I’ve been chatting in some sort of IM, and now I’ve been dreaming about some LJers.

I meant to write about this particular dream yesterday. I dreamed that a friend from Scotland, Caz, was visiting me and mom. (She’s never met my mom, actually.) Then the three of us leave beautiful Ohio and head for beautiful UK where we’re going to meet up with shebit and the_ladylark. (In real life, Caz has also not met those two, as far as I know.) So we get to their apartment complex (to which I’ve never been – if it’s even an apartment complex) and talk the lady at the front desk into letting me call up to the room. We’re buzzed up and enter into one of the more psychedelic rooms I’ve ever dreamed about. The room was decked out in black light images and was dark other than that. There were sheets everywhere on the walls giving the place a billowing look. Then shebit took us into her small bedroom and I marveled at her computer stuff. (Geeks dream about computers, see…) Then I awoke, confused as you might guess.

And last night, I had a dream involving not only an LJer, but a former student of mine. Both rolled into one, actually. jesuishadley was on Who Wants to Be A Millionaire, or something like that, and I was watching the show. Partly live and partly on TV. And I was showing her off to dad. “See, that’s Hadley – remember her?” and stuff like that. And I remember saying “Well, that explains her one of her LJ posts” which had implied something about money coming her way. So I figured she went on to winning some money in WWTBAM. Well done, Hadley! 😉

Like several of my LJ friends, I’ll be heading off to the GallifreyOne convention in Van Nuys this weekend. I’ll be rooming with judiang, hergrace, and Denise, a fellow PMEBer. I’m mostly packed (not taking a whole lot) but still need to do laundry. Leo will be babysat (er, catsat?) by the parental units. And I’ll get to try out my new camera on something *other* than Leo! (I’ve suggested that I’ll take 250 Sylv pix leaving the rest to friends and the other guests…)

Dunno whether I’ll be posting to my LJ during the trip – will have to borrow the use of someone’s laptop (Judi???) But I’m sure I’ll keep a paper journal, which I’ll be sure to copy into LJ. So one way or another, you’ll have to get to read about my meeting Paul McGann and Janet Fielding for the first time and seeing Sylv again.

(I don’t leave until Friday, however, so I’ve got a ways to go before I actually get there…)

Back when I was looking through my credit card bills to find donations I made for doing my taxes (I like deductions), I discovered a check that had been stored with them, rather than being put into my checking account. It was medical reimbursement from Flexwin and the check was dated August something or other. And it stated that the check would be void after 90 days. Whoops!

Well, our school no longer uses Flexwin for medical reimbursement, we use another company instead. So I did a bit of searching online and found a phone number, called it, left a message with someone who might know what I could do, and an hour later, had a return call. The lady that I spoke to told me to send the old check and they’d recut me a new one. And you know what? She was right! The newly cut check arrived this week and I intend to actually DEPOSIT it this time!

Geez, you know you’re independently wealthy when you can let checks expire before depositing them…

Some while ago, I attempted a rice dish from a recipe book. However, during the course of making said dish, I made the mistake of using beef broth instead of chicken broth (long story there, too) and after the dish was said and done, it wasn’t terribly good. I was talking with my sister on the phone that day and she said to freeze it and maybe it would taste better later on. Yesterday, I took the leftovers out of the freezer and decided to make the rice edible. The solution? Make fried rice.

So, after I put in my usual favorite ingredients (including some tofu that’s just this side of edible) and enough soy sauce to choke a horse, I ended up with a fairly edible concoction. Go me! Even Leo liked it. (Turns out he loves tofu. Go figure.) This is the first ever fried rice I’ve had which has beef broth and Parmesan in it, I will admit… But I ended up with 5 portions out of it, so left overs for trina! Yay!

Online quizzes and blogs seems to be a match made in hell heaven or something. One of the ones doing the rounds in my Friends list is What decade does your personality live in? (quiz brought to you by lady interference, ltd).

Turns out when I took the quiz (which was made in 2002, apparently) it informed me that “your personality hasn’t found its home yet! … but then again, you’ve still got some growing up to do, haven’t you? you need to experience all of what this decade has to offer before you can determine what decade you’d feel most comfortable in. you were most likely born after the year 1984. keep on growing up, kid.” (Emphasis added by me.)

Woah! Talk about getting things wrong… I’m president of the local 1971 club, here! I’ve lived during 4 decades thus far. I guess it just can’t handle the fact that I’m a 21st century gal. 🙂

(And what clued me in to this quiz being written in 2002 was the statement after the little picture: “don’t rush the growing up — you’ve got eight whole years!” So I checked the copyright date and sure enough, 2002.)