5 Reasons

Why Brian May is currently my favorite rock guitarist:

  1. The ‘Dixieland jazz band’ in “Good Company” is actually Brian recreating each instrument—clarinet, trombone, trumpet, etc.—on the guitar.
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  2. He hand-made his Red Special guitar with his dad, using pieces of a fireplace, table, and bike, and measured the fret placement in the nerdiest possible way:Guitar Player interview, April 16, 2012.
  3. Adorable tweets about astrophysicsScreen Shot 2014-12-11 at 10.35.09 PM.
  4. Two words: Star Fleet
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  5. This pic:

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Bonus: The quote at the end of this instructional video (which I may or may not have watched all of): “Best of luck, do good things.” For some reason, the universality of it makes me so happy.

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Catching up

It finally happened!:

Winner-2014-Web-Banner

I made it through November alive! This was my third time attempting NaNoWriMo, and I finally succeeded in writing 50,000 words in 30 days. WOOO! Quite a lesson in commitment. I guess you could call the (un)finished product a “novel,” except I’d have months of re-writing and de-suckifying to do before I could ever consider it readable. So while there’s a good chance the story will never see the light of day, I must admit I had a lot of fun writing it. :)

That said, I’m happy to be back on the ol’ blog! Here are a couple of things that came up during November that I vowed to blog about once I hit my word count:

Nez on Portlandia
Alex and I have been catching up on Portlandia, and one night we were watching an episode in which the Mayor’s parents are introduced (turns out they’ve been paying for all of Portland’s major purchases, including a 3D printer). And I thought for a split second that my eyes were tricking me but BY GOLLY I was right: the Mayor’s dad was played by NONE OTHER THAN MIKE NESMITH OF THE MONKEES.

AHHHHHH. You have to remember that I have a hardcore crush on Monkee Mike Nesmith, but appearances like this don’t help my cause (I swear he didn’t always look like the dad of a mayor!). Luckily for you (me), I found a very relevant episode of the Monkees:

I may or may not have watched the entire episode after finding that clip. Silliest. Show. Ever. “It’s a watch fob for a giant!”

How the rest of my November was spent: fangirling HARD over Queen
I CANNOT stop loving this band, you guys. My only purchase on Black Friday was Queen Rock Montreal from Rasputin Music (at full price, haha). I have no regrets! It’s an amazing concert.

Ugh I love this song so much. Freddie’s voice is perfect and Brian is the king of the power ballad. It’s also part of my NaNoWriMo14 soundtrack, which I have on 8tracks and might post later, if I can ever think of a good title for it.

Ok, turns out those were the only other things keeping me occupied over the past month. I’m also getting back into Tumblr, which is where obsessions are born. So I’ll probably be back soon. BRACE YOURSELVES.

Quiet in November

Hi,

This is just a little message to let you know that this blog (and any semblance of a social life) might go through a brief hiatus for the month of November while I try to devote every non-work, non-sleeping hour to my NaNoWriMo project. I’ve tried to do this every year since 2010, and never made it past 3 days because writing a novel is HARD. This time I’m 10 days in and just a tiiiiiny bit behind, but the fact that I haven’t stopped yet really makes me want to finish this thing.

So, sorry in advance for the lack of posts here. But I did want to take a moment to express my absolute delight in a couple of things:

1. Interstellar. Because it’s basically the Queen song “’39” in movie form (space explorers embark on a mission to find distant planets but risk never seeing their families again due to time dilation. Relativity, y’all). I saw it on Saturday and although it didn’t quite live up to my super-high expectations (maybe because we’d recently seen 2001: A Space Odyssey on the big screen and what could be more epic than that?), it was definitely a mind-bender. Would recommend! Here’s the trailer, and here’s the Queen song, written by band astrophysicist Brian May.

2. Also, I haven’t yet seen Big Hero 6 but am really looking forward to it for one reason: San Fransokyo!

3. And finally, while getting in the mood for NaNoWriMo, I read a devastatingly good YA book called I’ll Give You The Sun. You guys, this book has my heart. I loved the character Noah’s voice and if anything I ever write is half as good, I’d consider it a great accomplishment.

Ok, that’s it. Back to Google Docs now. See you on the flip side!

When Starship Captains Tweet (and other Internet adventures)

Disclaimer: I never wanted to write a blog post about Twitter. It just kind of happened, after I realized there were some real “tweet gems” out there, many of which come from my favorite famous people. End disclaimer.

Sometimes (read: most of the time) I feel like the Internet is just one big timesuck. People are spending all their time arguing on YouTube, sharing awful Buzzfeed articles, trying to create the perfect Pinterest board…all of which are pretty pointless ways to spend your time when you think about it. Unfortunately that doesn’t stop me from spending a gross amount of time staring at my computer screen, although I’m working on beating the habit.

Twitter can be especially/surprisingly addicting, whether you’re tweeting about what shampoo you just bought or searching #shampoo hashtags or reading about what shampoo your favorite celebrities are endorsing. The most mundane subjects can become hot topics in the Twittersphere. But then when Diane Keaton tweets to you about where you should get married, you can’t help but admit that Twitter (and social media in general) is a pretty cool thing. I mean, one of my idols acknowledged my existence! And liked the picture I shared! And gave me life advice! I generally don’t follow too many celebrity accounts, but I do really respect those who regularly engage with their fans. And it’s amazing that probably 10 years ago that interaction was much less common. In honor of this, I wanted to share some of my other favorite celebrity Twitter accounts (currently, 40% classic rockstars, 60% Star Trek actors):


@DrBrianMay Brian May tweets about a lot of random things, including nerdy space posts, concerns about wildlife/environment, and epic concert selfies. Occasionally he gets offended by someone saying Adam Lambert isn’t talented. Kind of a wild card, and a truly fascinating/educational rockstar Twitter account:


@RingoStarrMusic Oh myyyyy gosh, I only recently discovered the phenomenon that is Ringo’s Twitter account. I’ve never seen someone embrace emojis so sincerely:

There’s something delightfully endearing about old rockstars embracing the art of the selfie. Please never stop tweeting, Brian and Ringo.


@WilliamShatner If you’re looking for detailed live tweets about TV shows and a reliable source for National Food Days, William Shatner is your man. The man loves social media (reading material: his surprisingly insightful Tumblr post about G+…keep in mind that Shatner is 83 years old!), and I’m pretty impressed by his dedication across different sites:

Also, love his interactions with NASA and ESA:


And in the Impossible Not to Love category… @TheRealNimoy Leonard Nimoy has the most adorable tweets. My favorite thing was when he declared himself grandfather of everybody who wanted to be his honorary grandchild:


@SirPatStew And finally, a one stop shop for Patrick Stewart’s awesome pics, especially all those with Ian McKellen:

I also love how most of them have a Twitter signature: Bri, R***, MBB (My Best, Bill), LLAP (Live Long and Prosper). A little something left over from the days of more formal communication, perhaps?


PS, speaking of social media: I did in fact spend part of my weekend creating new Pinterest boards about space, midcentury houses, and trivia (picture rounds in trivia are surprisingly tough – I’m determined to get better at identifying flags, state quarters, and 1940s actresses). I like to think that at least some of these boards are educational, and not all of my Internet surfing is mindless. Point of this post: the Internet is cool (except when it’s sucking away your life), and reading famous old men’s twitter accounts can be hilarious. Now go read a book or something.