The most heated topic on the MFP board is regarding “starvation mode.” There are people who believe that all women, regardless of height, weight or body type, should be eating a minimum of 1200 calories, and men should eat no fewer than 1500. This is, of course, one of those general rules for which there are always exceptions. Obviously someone who is 4’11″ would not need the same amount of fuel as someone who is 5’11″. A person with a small frame would need less fuel than someone with a bulky frame. But this is a good rule of thumb for beginners to pursue. It can be difficult to ascertain without the assistance of a licensed nutritionist and doctor how much food one should eat per day to accomplish weight loss. And, let’s face it, bodies are not mathematically perfect. What might work for me one day is not necessarily going to work the next day or long term. It’s just how it goes.

This 1200/1500 baseline is in place so that people can avoid going into so-called “starvation” mode. This is when your body stops consuming fat and instead stores it, because it is not getting enough nutrients and believes it is heading into a time of less available food. As such, it will put up stores just in case things get worse. This does happen to some. It can stall weight loss or even create weight gain, even though people are eating relatively little food. What can also occur when eating too few calories is that the body will consume fat and muscle, thereby giving weight loss, but the metabolism has slowed to a point of being able to accommodate the smaller amount of calories. Then, when these folks who have been eating so little start to eat an amount that should help them maintain the weight loss, it piles back on. The body has been sabotaged into believing that this new amount of food is excess, and therefore stores it as fat for the next time that food is scarce. It’s a biological response to aid in ultimate survival. Our brains might know that we’re well-off enough to be able to get a meal next time we’re hungry, but the bits of the body that control the weight loss are not that “smart.” They do what they’re biologically programmed to do.

We can’t know at what point our body is going to start storing instead of burning. Height and weight are a good way of estimating how much a person should eat for weight loss, but all the same it’s difficult to know where that line is. Even an expert nutritionist with the assistance of a doctor and a myriad of tests may not be able to ascertain that. Bodies are fickle things. The drama comes because what is right for one person is not necessarily right for everyone. But, when people seek to give advice, they most often draw on their own experience. It was that way for them, so it must work this way for everyone, right? I would wager that a majority of the people giving advice on MFP are not experts in any way. And if they are, they’re not posting their qualifications. This leads me to believe that they are not. (Just like me!) So, advice in these cases should be taken with a grain of salt, as each person’s experience is different and can’t possibly apply to everyone.

What really bothers me about these posts (and please don’t ask me why I read them – I’m apparently a glutton for punishment) is not that these people are sharing their personal experience. Those experiences are absolutely relevant, particularly for someone who has a body type similar to theirs. However, these posts often claim that their way is the Right Way. They claim that science can’t be proven and that starvation mode is a myth. These claims can ultimately be harmful to a person who is new to the weight loss process and hasn’t done excesses of research on the subject the way I tend to do. (Often it’s more confusing the more I read, yet I do it anyway.) People often believe the first thing they’re told, especially if it sounds convincing, and many of these people are. I worry about the damage that could be done to people who eat a minimum of calories per day (for instance, 1200) then exercise every single one of them away. There are people who have ended up in the negative digits for their calories in vs calories out goals. It’s not healthy to burn so many calories without putting in a sufficient amount of fuel, and it’s definitely not healthy to lose a lot of weight in a short amount of time. That’s a fact that these folks seem to pointedly ignore.

I’m not claiming to be an expert in any sense of the word – I am categorically not an expert at this (or anything else, for that matter). I’ve done a little bit of research and found some truths which I will stick to. I’m not going to give advice where I am unqualified to do so, and I’m certainly not going to feed the trolls by suggesting that starvation mode is actually real, thereby getting into a war of words over what happens to one person’s body versus another’s.

I don’t know why I keep reading the threads on MFP. It’s not beneficial to me, and only ends up frustrating me more often than not.

Science can’t be proven? Seriously, people?

Until the release date of Toy Story 3, it was at 100% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes according to the professional reviewers (T-Meter Critics). Enter a few contrarian jerks. On the release date of Toy Story 3, long after many of the reviews had already been posted, a couple of stray reviews were posted, stating that Toy Story 3 was rotten. This has ruined Toy Story’s perfect streak on the website, with both Toy Story and Toy Story 2 remaining at 100% fresh ratings, robbing it of the chance to be the only trilogy ever with a perfect 100% rating. Another negative review showed up on Sunday, making Toy Story 3′s rating a sadly imperfect 98%.

If the reviews were genuine, if they had real criticisms about the movie, I wouldn’t be so incensed by this. I admit, the Pixar fangirl inside of me would be annoyed, but if they were real reviews, that would certainly mitigate the fury that I feel right now at these three men, who can only really be characterized as assholes. Yeah, I said it.

One reviewer, Armond White, has a history of giving contrary reviews. If everyone loves it, inevitably, he hated it. He criticizes Toy Story 3 for having too much product placement, though he gives no explicit examples of how Toy Story 3 has any more product placement than either of the other Toy Story films. The blurb on Rotten Tomatoes reads: “Toy Story 3 is so besotted with brand names and product-placement that it stops being about the innocent pleasures of imagination — the usefulness of toys — and strictly celebrates consumerism.” In the full review, his main point seems to be that the movie is about toys, and that’s just not a good movie! Wow, how useful. He has gotten a lot of attention for his negative review, something I suspect was not on accident, and has managed to say absolutely nothing about why he has cursed the movie with the “rotten” rating. What is the point of a review if the reviewer cannot actually tell his readers why he did or didn’t like it? That’s left for us non-professional reviewers, who are allowed, by dint of not doing it professionally, to have an opinion of “I liked it” or “I didn’t like it.” We don’t have to ascertain whether the movie is good, merely whether we enjoyed it or not, and those are two vastly different things. He has cheated us all out of a real review by preferring to have a different opinion than everyone else on this and other popular films. (It’s not the first time he’s panned a fan and critic favorite.)

The second reviewer who posted his negative review on Friday is Cole Smithey. His blurb is this: “Once you get past paying the inflated price for an animated “3-D” movie where nothing floats in front of your eyes as with quality 3-D films, the story that unfolds is more sad than joyful.” I am amazed at how he has managed to say absolutely nothing critical about the movie itself other than the fact that it was sad. Really? A movie is sad? This makes it bad, apparently. His opinion of the 3D is equally ridiculous, since it seems like he wants the gimmicky 3D with things “flying” at his head. (That’s the first time I’ve seen anyone other than a kid want that experience.) Smithey’s website claims he’s the smartest film critic in the world. For a man that smart, one would think he’d be able to come up with more than a couple of short paragraphs about why he hated this otherwise universally loved film. “‘Toy Story 3′ is about neglect, betrayal, and the planned obsolescence of plastic toys that end up as so much toxic landfill.” And this is a bad message for the film, apparently, to have. Maybe if he spent his time focusing less on the fact that Andy had enough sentimental attachment to keep his childhood toys until he was 17 (I still have  my Holly bear, and I’m 25 in two days. What does that say about me, eh?) – Smithey implies that Andy can’t possibly be getting any dates as a result of his emotional attachment to toys that he’s had since he was a small kid) – he would have seen that the movie is less about the sad reality that eventually we all have to put away toys and do grown-up things for the majority of our lives. His review is forced at best, and he says nothing about what makes the film other than it includes themes like abandonment and the danger of planned obsolescence. Gee, definitely not things that people have to deal with in real life! And he totally ignores the ending, claiming that the film is sociopathic and promotes the wrong message to kids. Definitely don’t donate your toys to daycares or other smaller kids, folks! Definitely don’t do what you can to ensure that your old toys don’t end up in landfill, but instead go to other kids who will enjoy them as much as you did! Definitely don’t form emotional attachments to your toys that give you fond memories of your childhood, or you’ll never get any dates! Yep, I totally see it.

The third negative review that Toy Story 3 has been smacked with is by Jeremy Heilman. I’m not really sure what I can say about his review except that he totally pans Toy Story 3, calling the plot threadbare and accusing it of being a rehash of Toy Story 2. This man gave a more favorable review to a movie called The Human Centipede, in which people bite the butts of a person in front of them, forming a long line – in essence, a human centipede. What the hell? How can a movie like that garner more favor than Toy Story 3? He accuses:  “Toy Story 3 frequently indulges in the cheap brand of crass humor that has defined that series, with fart jokes, ethnic jokes, and gay jokes throughout its run time.” I’m not sure what movie he was watching, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t Toy Story 3. This smacks of attention whoring to me – giving a negative review late, destined to be on the front page of Rotten Tomatoes, and scarring the reputation of an otherwise well-loved film.

These men do movie reviews at least semi-professionally. They are the ones that the rest of us look to (in theory) to help us decide whether a movie is worth our time and money. How are we supposed to trust any reviewer when there are those who are willing to give negative reviews simply for the sake of doing so, or for the attention that will inevitably follow for being in such a minority? There ought to be a level of integrity expected from those whose job it is to tell us whether something is good or bad. These reviewers should have some kind of check and balance to keep them from habitually panning fan and critic favorites for the sake of being contrary. You like a specific genre better than others, yet you review all genres? You are not a reviewer whose opinion should be broadcast to the general public, because what you are spreading is a false representation of the truth. Perhaps you don’t like this film (and that goes for any film), but if you have a history of disliking specific kinds of films, how is that a real review? It isn’t a criticism of the film itself, it is a criticism of the genre, disguised as a review for a specific film.

In the case of Toy Story 3, these reviewers have gamed the system and gotten away with it at the loss of something that Toy Story 3 and the Toy Story series deserve: a perfect record. The people at Pixar have poured their hearts and souls into this film, and it shows, just as it has with all of the ten films released previous to this. They strove to tell a good story, and they did. The only people in the world who disagree are these three assholes who can’t even manage to say anything real or valid about why they don’t agree that it was a cinematically well-told story.

Roger Ebert called Armond White a troll last summer for his inconsistent review history, and I’m going to go one further: Armond White, Cole Smithey and Jeremy Heilman: You are all trolls of the worst order. You don’t deserve to write reviews that other people are expected to take seriously. I hope Rotten Tomatoes yanks your T-Meter Critic status.

Disclaimer: I loved Toy Story 3. I am very incensed by what these men have written, but I think you should know that my bias in the other direction regarding this single film may affect your view of my thoughts here.

Every now and then an event occurs in my life that makes me think “Wow! This would make a great blog entry!” But, alas. When it’s go time the drive is lost before I even start my browser.

I have so many things to say but I think the problem I have when it comes to blogging is two-fold. I have too many places I’m able to express myself online and what do I have to say, exactly that hasn’t already been said? Thanks to the proliferation of Internet availability more people than ever are online, each with countless things to say. With those things to say come more and more tools to say them with.

If I have something quick to say I can trim it down to a nice 140 characters and send it to Twitter so that the 30 people and 175 spambots that follow me can hear my quick thoughts on why Hot Fuzz was the best police comedy ever made. It’s easy, near real time, and doesn’t require much thought. I can send the tweet and not think about I any more. It’s a bit like the Showtime Rotisserie Grill- set it and forget it.

When it comes to a real blog there is more of a time commitment and a lot more thought. Not only am I more aware of the potential for the size if my audience to be exponentially larger but I’m forced to think more about what it is I’m trying to say. If I want to talk about Hot Fuzz being “zomg so awesome” I have to actually explain myself.

But has it been said before?

That’s what trips me up every time. I start to think not just about adding content to Bits of Existence but about adding to he discussion in the Web at large. Nobody wants to be the guy who walks into a group of people already involved in conversation and brings up the topic that was just laid to rest 30 seconds before.

I find myself worrying so much about keeping my signal to noise ratio so low that I just don’t say anything at all.

And that is why blogging is so hard for me.

Once I got down the basics of knitting, I decided to tackle knitting in the round. I couldn’t tell you why I decided to jump into that first. In the course of about a month, I knitted a whole scarf in Slytherin for my brother, just by knitting it while I was at work. I later ended up frogging it because it was far too wide and thick to be useable as anything, let alone a scarf. At some point after I finished it, I blindly quit that job with no immediate opportunities presenting themselves afterward, so I kind of lost sight of my knitting for a while. I didn’t do much by the way of productive knitting, as my brother’s scarf sat idle and the yarn that I had ordered for my own Hufflepuff scarf stayed in its packaging.

When I went on vacation in late August of 2006, I started on my Hufflepuff scarf for good, and got about a quarter of the way to finished, then laid it aside. I’ve since managed to get it to about 50% of the way completed, but again lost interest in it some time ago. It seems that working full time at a job where I can’t knit at work and knitting do not go well together!

Well, thanks to my recent change in employment status (something I haven’t told many people about yet, sorry – it’s not exactly something one shouts from the rooftops!), I found myself with more time on my hands. Since I’ve been used to doing things for nine hours straight five days a week, I didn’t really know what to do with myself at first. I pulled up Ravelry (friend me?) on a whim and was reminded of all of the patterns that I’d bookmarked and drooled over, but never gotten around to making. I started on the Matilda Scarf, just trying it out, on Monday, June 1, as something to do in between the chores around the apartment. On Tuesday, I tore it apart and started over again. I made such good progress on it that I decided that I would pursue it to completion. I hadn’t decided what to do with it, but it occurred to me that my mother-in-law’s birthday was coming up and neither Johnathan nor I had done anything for her by way of a gift. Aha! A purpose!

Well, I knitted like crazy through Wednesday and Thursday, trying to get it done as quickly as possible. I ran into a lot of issues – I’d drop a stitch and not notice right away, or cross my cables the wrong direction. There was a lot of swearing, a lot of grumbling and I’ll admit I thought about ripping the whole thing out more than once. By Saturday, I had about three feet knitted up, and instead of helping make pierogis (our reason for going over that day), I knitted some more.

It took me until about 10:30PM yesterday, but I finally did my very first bind-off on a knitted project. I did 7.5 feet of cables with 2.5 skeins of yarn (Caron Simply Soft Eco in Ocean – I really like it!) in one week. I can tell you I don’t think I’ll be tackling something like this again for a little while, simply because it is a lot of work to do so much cabling on one scarf, but I definitely want to do another one. Maybe even one for myself! The way it looks when finished is simply lovely, and I like the weight of it. It’s a fantastic scarf for a colder climate. And damn, isn’t it stunning!

I can tell this is the start of something good. I took today off of doing any knitting, but tomorrow I’m going to start on something else – another gift. It will be a little bit late, but I think it will be appreciated nevertheless. I’m exciting. I have something to do which gives me a sense of accomplishment. I am a maker. That works for me!

Thinking about it in the abstract, it seems like lately things have been pretty much the same as they have been for several months. In the specific, though, we’ve been doing quite a bit.

So far this theater season, I have been to or have tickets for ten musicals or shows. In the fall, I traveled to Indiana to visit Allison and see Hairspray with her at Indiana University. I drove back and that night saw a local production of Into the Woods. The night after that, we saw A Chorus Line at the Palace theater. Later we saw Legally Blonde with “Smart Seat” tickets (the nosebleeds for really cheap, basically). In January, we saw RENT. Not a month later, we went to see a high school production of RENT (which wasn’t quite as bad as I thought it might be, but certainly not the best production, either). Allison came up to visit last weekend and we went downtown to see Cinematic Titanic, which is essentially Mystery Science Theater 3000 done live. I’ve enjoyed all of the things that we’ve seen so far, and I had, at one point, intended to write about each of them individually. Procrastination reared its ugly head and I just don’t think I could do them the justice that they deserve.

Coming up, we’re seeing Spring Awakening from the stage next week. The week after that we’ll be at a Lake Erie Monsters (hockey) game, which should prove to be entertaining. At the end of that week, the film festival starts and we’ll be seeing fifteen movies over the course of two weeks. We went to the film festival last year and I’m really hoping that we’ll enjoy this one even more than we did the last one.

Johnathan and I may not be writing much but we’re keeping busy enough to write tonnes of entries. If only we would motivate ourselves to actually do it!

That’s it, I’m resolved. I’m bringing my mishmash journal (as opposed to my book journal) to work with me from now on and I’m going to try to write out some entries while I’m sitting on my lunches in the coming weeks. Perhaps I can retrieve memories about the various shows I’ve gone to see, and maybe I can manage to rekindle my love of blogging and of writing and breathe new life into this poor, neglected blog of ours. We’ll see, right?

I will be changing the theme here and at TGR as well as encouraging anyone I know who uses these themes to change as soon as possible. I didn’t agree to boost his stats, and even though he won’t be doing that in the future (his promise to Google in exchange for a new adsense account), it’s the principle which infuriates me. He’s taking advantage of bloggers who don’t necessarily know any better. That is not okay with me. I’m going to be shopping for new themes as soon as I get home today.

I am not willing to support someone who is willing to take advantage of those who are less web-savvy in the name of statistics and money.

Things are looking up lately. I got an offer for a job on Sunday at a place I hadn’t even applied. All I wanted was to exchange a shirt that Johnathan’s mom bought me for Christmas. (It was an orange-y coral; definitely not my color.) The strange part of it, though, was that after the interview I had on Tuesday, she asked me to have my references call her. I’ve never had that happen before. Unfortunately, two of the people who I contacted didn’t reply at all, so I have no idea if they’re going to call her or not. Allison’s going to act as my personal reference, and I’m hoping that the others come through. I really need a job at this point, and even if it seems a bit backwards. I’ve never heard of anyone doing that before, asking the person to have their references call them. I dunno.

In other news, um… well, we got our rings this month, our engagement rings. We had to deal with a lot of trouble at JC Penney (where we bought the rings) to get mine, but I did eventually get it, and I think it’s quite pretty. What I’m unsure about is whether we got the same rings or not. Mine seems to have bigger diamonds in it, but not by enough that it’s clear. I’m not sure, really. We’re thinking we might have them appraised to make sure. It seems to me that mine must have bigger diamonds, though. Since we paid the same for both, and ordered the same, if mine has more, we definitely got more than we paid for, although considering how much trouble we went through to make sure we got the ring in a reasonable amount of time, I’m kind of considering it an even trade. All the same, I’m not planning to shop at JC Penney again for quite a while.

Scattergood MOO has reopened, and I’ve made two characters there and gotten them pushed through chargen. It makes me pretty happy, because I like the time period, and since the theme is different enough from HogwartsMOO, I can come up with totally new character concepts and play in a new theme. I think this will help my urge for RPGs a bit, at least for a little while. So, hey, there’s a plug. Go try out Scattergood!

That’s all I can think of right now. I think it’s about dinner time!

I think what I’m afraid of as I’m thinking of this forum is that I’m afraid of the same thing happening that has happened with all the other forums I’ve tried to participate in. I’ll stay for a time, forge friendships or at least acquaintanceships and hang out in some interesting threads for a while. Then after a while, people will start to get on my nerves as usual, and I’ll find it more and more difficult to stay and have fun like I did at the start. This inevitably ends up with me leaving the forum, usually fairly quietly so as not to create a big dramatic scene and feeling disappointed that once again, I did not find the virtual home that I was hoping for.

Do I do this to myself? Do I let this stuff get to me to the point where I can’t go on enjoying it anymore? Is it my intolerance for stupidity that does it? I know I can be a little bit unreasonable with what I expect of others at times, but usually that just involves me venting to Johnathan about it and leaving it at that. I’ve never told anyone on any of the forums exactly what I thought of them or how I thought they should behave. That would be presumptuous of me and I refuse to do it. I’m afraid of this happening again. I liken it to the ending of a friendship. I’m investing time and big chunks of myself in these forums, and when in the end I’m forced to leave them or be stressed and annoyed all the time while I’m visiting, it’s painful. I’d like to be able to say, ‘I found this forum four years ago and I’m still there! ’ like I do with HogwartsMOO. I joined on January 3, 2002, so just after the new year will be my six year anniversary at HogwartsMOO. I will grant, I did not spend 100% of the time there and I believe there was a six or seven month hiatus involved around 2003, but all the same, I never outright quit. With these forums, I just don’t find that I can come back. Too many bad memories, too much drama involved… too many people who just seem to post with malice or without thought or real interest completely.

I take the internet too seriously. This is my problem. I want to find an online home where people take online relationships seriously – as they should be taken – and where people can also have fun and enjoy one another’s company without the feelings I have so frequently associated with my time on forums. I’m really hoping that Cittàgazze can fill that urge for me, even though there are people on there who seem to be, well, operating on a few less cylinders than the rest of us. I think that’s normal of anywhere on the internet.

Maybe I’m making too much of this trend. Maybe it’s natural to spend some time at one place and move on. Perhaps it doesn’t have to be the painful experience that it has been in the past. I don’t know, really. I just know that I want this to work out, and if it doesn’t, I may have to forbid myself from forum participation in the future. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

The long of it is so: I’ve been applying for jobs left, right and center and still have nothing, not even retail. I think after the holiday is over, I’ll contact a temp agency and get the ball rolling that way. I vaguely tried a few weeks ago but it came to nothing and I didn’t really follow up. That was my fault. It’s not a lot of fun, this job searching thing, and honestly it’s a bit frustrating for me overall. I will prevail, though. Somehow, I’ll prevail.

What I’ve been doing since Allison left is trying to keep up with the housework, and doing so poorly, fighting off several colds (Johnathan working in a hospital and all, and me not having any immunities to the exact cold strains that will have gone around over the years in Ohio, I’m very susceptible to basically anything that comes home), and reading books. I’ve gone through several over the last month or so. I’d say six or seven, at minimum. I don’t know.

Let’s see, Thanksgiving happened in the meantime. Johnathan’s mom came over the Saturday after and we had dinner and played Mario Party 8. Not a big to-do, but fun nevertheless. Christmas is next week, obviously, and we’re going over to her house for a couple of hours, but spending the majority of the evening on our own. We’re going to see his dad and step-mom on Friday, so that’ll get all the holiday stuff out of the way, and then we’ll be able to coast until the new year.

As far as Christmas, due to a constrained budget, we weren’t thinking we were going to have any decorations and certainly no splurging on gifts for one another. I bemoaned our lack of festive decor on my livejournal and some of my friends from there, particularly the people I knew in Hogwarts Elite stepped in and sent a large box filled with sweets, cookies, ornaments, lights and a few knickknacks like a reindeer with teeny bells on its antlers and some poppers which I put into the stockings that we put up. Allison sent a tree and a bunch of ornaments as well so we’re done up quite a lot with lights and our adorable three-foot tree. Incidentally, here are some photos of what we were sent:

So, we’ve got a fair amount up now. I haven’t taken pictures of the rest of it all done up yet, but I will before it comes down and I’ll share for sure. Unfortunately, we had to take the tinsel off of the tree because the cats decided it was incredibly tasty and I know that’s no good for kitties. So, we have a huge bag of tinsel that we’ll have to sort out something to do with for next year. Obviously we can’t use it because of the feline buttheads. Ah, well!

While we’re on the subject of Christmas, it’s been an interesting year what with our plans to get married in April. We want to get married this year, which means we’d like to go on our honeymoon this year, so all we’ve told anyone that we wanted for Christmas (with the exception of my drooling over a Kitchenaid Stand Mixer…) is money toward our ideal honeymoon trip. So far, my mom has pitched in, which I’m really grateful for, as has Allison. So as of right now, we’re at…

$210 / $4000

Super impressive, I know! But hey, a start is a start, right? I’m hoping we can afford it by April, but if not, we’ll have to put it off until September or so, or maybe as long as next year. I know his mom has something up her sleeve so we’ll see what happens. I’m really excited about all of that, too. (Of course, if anyone wants to contribute, you’re more than welcome. )

I guess I should mention that we’re officially getting married on April 25 of this year. It’s going to be very small – his parents and anyone important to me who can manage to get out here. I’ll be inviting my mom, step-dad and brother for certain – inviting my dad and step-mom is a bit more iffy because I haven’t heard anything from either of them since before I moved and really, I mostly don’t care – but I don’t know whether they’ll be able to get out here this April for a one-day, very small and unassuming situation. I’m planning to invite Allison as well, because I figure she’s close enough to come to it so long as school or work doesn’t interfere. It’s exciting to know that in about four months, we’ll be married. A Smith no more, hurrah! So, there’s that.

Recently, I picked up the His Dark Materials trilogy because I read about all the controversy surrounding it from religious groups. I want to write about it, but I haven’t sat down and done so as yet. Honestly, I loved them and I really don’t see where the controversy is coming from. Of course, after I finished reading, the immediate thing I thought of was how awesome it would be to roleplay in the world that Philip Pullman presents. Go figure, huh? Geeky ’til I die! That said, I’ve jumped in – well, not jumped so much as eased in – at HisDarkMaterials.org which is honestly one of the most attractive websites I’ve seen. It’s set up nicely and the graphics are pretty without being overwhelming. It’s not often I find a black-themed website that suits my fancy, so it makes me happy. Oh, incidentally, they’re having a book giveaway for a book about the Golden Compass books and I put in for it on a whim, because who doesn’t like winning, right? Well, I got notice today that I actually won! So I’ll be getting a free copy of the book, autographed by both the author and illustrator as well as a pack of Golden Compass cards (which are movie-themed, I believe).

Another new interest of mine is the Young Frankenstein cast album, which I recently acquired. The cast is very talented, and the songs are very amusing. I’m glad I have the soundtrack, and I think if it were to tour, I’d probably make an effort to see it. Oh, speaking of musicals, awful news! The Drowsy Chaperone which is by far my favorite musical right now (I say ‘right now’ because it’s always subject to change, but it’s been ‘right now’ for almost two years now…) is closing on December 30th. When it closes, it will have played 32 previews and 674 performances. It’s so sad that it’s closing after only a year and a half on Broadway. I’m sad that I won’t have seen it on Broadway before it closes, but I did get to see it on tour and loved it. Can’t be too choosy, right? I’m just saddened that it’s ending. Who knows, though. Maybe it will pull a Les Mis and have a revival in three or four years.

I’ve also thrown myself into the groups and talk area over at LibraryThing. I’m really enjoying that as well. I finally got my whole library catalogued there, and it’s interesting to note that even after parting with a fair number of books to make the move, I have 160 books. I’d very likely have over 200 if I hadn’t parted with some before moving. There are others that I’ve made the decision to part with as well, since moving here. So, I’m impressed with my own numbers. Of course, there are people with upwards of 10,000 books, and many people have between 2,000 and 5,000 in their libraries, but I’m still fairly young and just moved across the country as frugally as I could manage. I know I’ll get more books together once I’m fully settled and employed. At any rate, if anyone wants to friend me, I welcome them to do so!

So, really, I’ve been keeping myself busy, I think that’s plain to see. I finally met some more of Johnathan’s friends, including his friend Nicole, who we wanted to see when she was performing in Forbidden Broadway here but unfortunately we didn’t manage to do it before it closed this month, and his coworker Dennis. I think we’re going to start doing more social things – meaning more things outside the apartment that don’t necessarily involve computers or gadgets of any kind. It will be good for me, even though it still gives me a fair amount of social anxiety.

I think I’ve made this entry long enough, don’t you? So, I leave you with my dæmon and go back to … whatever it was that I was doing before.

Not a very interesting first post. Have a song that I’ve had stuck in my head all day, courtesy of Legally Blonde the Musical. (Yes, it really is a musical now. Go figure.)

So, here we go. Off on the adventure of life. Off on the adventure of blogging. Hold on tightly, it’s going to be a bumpy ride.