Blue Christmas

I won't lie, I've been kinda feeling down in the dumps this week. My hours have been drastically cut at work, leaving me with loads of time on my hands and wondering how I'm going to afford Christmas. I feel like I've been stuck in the same phase of my life for too long and I really want to move on. I really hope in 2010 this can happen.

Anyway, to cheer me up I put out my tacky Christmas decorations, like my glowing plastic snowman. To the right of him, there's my Santa candle. I can't say for sure, but I believe it's from the 50's and he's still wrapped up in plastic!

Better view:

I've also been making more copies of my Merry Thriftmas! compilation to give to people for Christmas. It's actually been a great/inexpensive gift idea this year. Plus, it's made by me and I really love listening to it! Every song, even "Jesus was born today (it is his birthday)". I hope people are getting as much enjoyment out of this compilation as I am. haha!

Owen

BIG NEWS!!!: I'm an aunt! My nephew, Owen was born Saturday night (November 14th, 2009) at 10:44 pm. He weighed 7 lbs. 12.8 oz. Unfortunately, there's nothing to measure his amount of CUTENESS!

This was a photo Nuno (the Daddy!) sent me about an hour after his birth. My first glimpse of adorableness.

He loooves putting his hand in his mouth and squirming around, making hilarious facial expressions. It makes him so entertaining to watch.

Am I a terrible aunt for finding this picture hilarious?! He's wearing his future predicting "Donut Tycoon" t-shirt I got him. I'm thinking he'll more likely be a pastry chef (or pastry tycoon) because his parents watched a Cake Boss marathon while he was being born.

Here we are, Owen with his proud Aunt Katie. Doesn't he look like he's smiling? I'm not huge into astrology, but I know Taurus and Scorpio are supposed to be the most compatible, so that means we're going to get along just fine.

Dad, Mom and Baby (ordered according to height).

Hot Tot is incredibly curious about this new little guy taking all the attention away. "I've never seen a human this small!" Well, neither have I Hot Tot.

I keep on finding myself saying the most lame, cliche lines like "bundle of joy" and "good things come in small packages". *Gaaag* I know, but I'm now starting to understand why they were created in the first place. It's hard to describe the amazing feeling you get from being around an adorable, tiny human, new to the world, with an amazing life ahead of him! So much love, that's for sure!

analog to digital

For the past 2 1/2 years I've been listening to this album on the wrong speed and I just realized this tonight!! haha. Well, at least it sounds good on any speed.

I bought a vinyl conversion turntable (something I've been wanting to buy forever). It's been a blast digitizing my collection of records. I've been burning them on CDs and listening to them while driving. Now driving (45 minutes) to and from work seems less of an irritation. I was listening to a combination of Q107 and my 90's indie rock/pop collection and it's all been getting sooo repetitive and annoying. Being able to listen to things like the album below, has made my drive feel so rejuventating!

The Beehive State

As promised, my pictures from my trip to Utah. I love this state. The unique houses, amazing mountains and super nice people! These pictures only capture maybe 1/4th of my trip. So much of it was spent watching movies, going to theatres and screenings and stuff. We crammed so much into one week. Even more pictures can be found on my other blog.

This picture was taken when I first arrived in Provo, Utah - the home of Brigham Young University and the home of outsider rap artist, B-Money. It was kinda like meeting and going to the house of a celebrity, because I've listened to his raps on youtube so many times. He was so cute!

This is the window of Blair's house, where he hosts Incredibly Strange Movie Night every week. I wish I was as dedicated as Blair to host ISMN every week.

I wanted to do things in Utah that I couldn't do in Ontario. So, for the first time in my life, I got to go in a hot spring. I took this picture to see what the hot spring looked like before I hopped in because it was pitch black in the middle of a meadow. We didn't even have flashlights with us. Then we got lost in the meadow when we went to look for another hot spring. I thought I wasn't going to be alive to write this entry. haha!

OH MY GOD! This picture does no justice to Blair's VHS room. I'm so jealous he owns all these movies. I need to move to Utah, just so I can rent them from the Lost Media Archive. It's nuts. See why I spent a good portion of my trip watching movies?

And this is the view Blair gets to see every day when he walks out his door. I'm jealous of that as well.

The Joy of Marriage and The Joy of Depression. I'm not married, so I'm only lucky enough to experience the joy of depression.

Kiddies Fair Land!

Utah has this special thing called "Fry Sauce." I had fry sauce on my first trip to Utah and established I did not like it. I decided to give fry sauce another try on this trip (since it's only available there) and WOW! I've acquired a taste for fry sauce. I wanted to put fry sauce on EVERYTHING. I even brought home some bottles of "Some Dude's Fry Sauce" and now want to start my own business in Ontario called "Some Babe's Fry Sauce."

This is the view of Salt Lake City from "the Avenues." It reminded me of that seen in E.T. where Elliot looks down on his city from the hill above. Again, this picture does no justice.

It's Ripples!! The restaurant from the educational film, The Phone Call. It's barely changed since 1977, when it was filmed.

I followed Blair around to wash windows. We washed the windows of Gunnies. What a totally CUTE name for a gun store. Then I walked inside and saw a giant (once living) giraffe and a store full of guns. As a Canadian, I don't know what was more shocking.

Starry Night is a historical place to me. It's where the first ever Troll 2 reunion screening was held almost 4 years ago (by Blair!). Sadly, it's a head shop today...which is surprising that a prominantly Mormon town can keep a head shop in business. haha.

We held a Lost Media Archive Yard Sale! So much good goodies. I kept saying, "This is like my DREAM garage sale!"

Doubles from the archive's amazing collection.

Boxes and boxes of records!

Blair making deals with his yard sailin' customers.

I spent pretty much the entire afternoon saying "Oh my gosh, it's SO HOT HERE!" (in October) and previewing the albums I planned to purchase.

I can die happy now. I've found my very own copy of E.T. narrated by Michael Jackson! I've seriously been looking for this album for years!! :)

Inspired by Mar Tie (another outsider artist of Provo), we road the Heber Creeper, a train ride up Provo Canyon. They did a haunted train ride, which was so cheesily fun! "Look, there's a pheasant!"

Blair with his favourite ghost actress. Her acting coach must have been Creedance from Troll 2.

We went to Blair's parent's house and his mom made rootbeer. I'm not sure why, but it was frozen, so we had homemade rootbeer slushies and it was served in Blair's safety cups. I'm assuming they were found at Shavermart.

This is a typical driving in Utah picture. We did a lot of driving, which I didn't mind because of views like this.

Wind turbines on the entrance of a canyon.

This photo is Blair, a wind turbine and the moon. We stood under the wind turbines, which felt like being next to dinosaurs. They were so big and made such strange sounds as they spinned.

Bye bye beehive state!!

funnest fall weekend

I still need to update on my lovely trip to Utah, but I'll save that for later (it might be long and full of pictures). For now, I'll share my weekend: Halloween and Canzine.

I dressed up as a zombie from Carnival of Souls (my visit to the Saltair has created a small obsession). Only a couple people understood this costume, so I just said I'm a 1950's zombie. Friday night was my friend Carlos' (the pilot above) birthday, so I went to his Halloween/birthday party, filled with "sexy __________ (fill in the blank with ridiculous costumes)". Carnival of Souls zombie was obviously the sexiest costume of them all there.

I went to my friends Shaun and Leslie's Halloween party the next night which mostly consisted of Leslie and I talking film talk the whole the night, which of course made that party awesome!
The next morning I headed to Canzine. It's funny that I always look forward to Canzine, but when I'm there, I'm like "Ugh! When is this day going to be over?!"
Yeah, sitting at a table selling your zine in a very crowded room all day can be a bit overwhelming. But I made it through, and I had excellent sales and great feedback from those who bought my zine last year. It's inspiring to hear people say they enjoy your zine. I know I'd make another issue regardless of feedback, because I enjoy doing it, but it also makes the experience feel more worthwhile.
I'm thinking of signing up for some more zine fairs held through out the year.
Oh and another exciting thing I have in the works is Incredible Strange Movie Nights going Christmas themed and traveling!! More details on that to come.

Balloon Boy Obsession

I'm way obsessed with this balloon boy story. I happened to be home when the whole thing began and sat glued to the TV for hours while all the drama went down. I even taped it!! I got "we did it for the show" live as it aired for my funny tape.

I slept in the next morning, missing him barf on the Today show. Luckily, my friend Tracy gave me this link (which I watched repeatedly that day).

I haven't been obsessed with a news story like this since Elian Gonzalez. I've even been planning a Falcon Keene Halloween costume!

Right now, I'm sitting in JFK airport waiting for my flight and feeling so thankful that I decided to fly with jetBlue because there's no chance I'll miss out on any new balloon boy details since they have TVs at every seat.

I don't understand why no one noticed how completely drugged up those children were when they were on TV. That's why I believe little Falcon barfed on the Today show.

Though I think Nuno's theory on the Falcon Keene fiasco might be right: Falcon Keene got sick on the Today show because he had jetlag from his Flight of the Navigator trip.

Octoberfestivities!

I love this robot so much, I don't want to give it away. If it weren't going to such an adorable little girl, I wouldn't.
I booked a trip to Utah and I'm planning a fanzine release/Halloween/ISMN movie night party when I come back home.
October is definitely one of my favourite months of the year. It might be tied with April.