hello, lovely

PLEEEEEASE don’t make me have to do anything at this stupid presentation other than say “Hi, I’m Manda… I do pregrades and sub the files.” (actually… if I can just say “Hi, I’m Manda..” that would be better. ACTUALLY.. if I could just not say ANYTHING, that would be SUPER [aside: remind me to post a joke later.. LOL].)

I sorta slipped in the shower this morning, and I think I was subconsciouly trying to KILL MYSELF so I wouldn’t have to go today.

(Okay, not really. It just happened… and I’m okay.. didn’t fall or anything.)
Why can’t I just sit at my desk and do my work like any normal day?

EDIT: UPDATE!! The meeting wasn’t as bad as I dreamed it up to be… I shook a few hands, but pretty much I was the girl in the corner clicking the mouse button. The first half of the meeting barely even involved us… so it was pretty cool. I ended up working a little later tonight cuz of all the hoopla, but that’s fine.

I remembered the joke I wanted to post, and here it is:

A major airline’s passenger cabin was being served by an obviously gay flight attendant, who seemed to put everyone in a good mood as he served them food and drinks.

As the plane prepared to descend, he came swishing down the aisle and announced to the passengers, “Captain Marvey has asked me to announce that he’ll be landing this big scary plane shortly, so lovely people, if you could just put your trays up, that would be super.”

On his trip back up the aisle, he noticed a well-dressed rather exotic looking woman hadn’t moved a muscle. “Perhaps you didn’t hear me over those big brute engines. I asked you to raise your trazy-poo, so the main man can pitty-pat us on the ground.”

She calmly turned her head and said, “In my country, I am called a Princess. I take orders from no one.”

To which the gay flight attendant replied, without missing a beat, “Well,sweet-cheeks, in my country, I’m called a Queen, so I outrank you. Tray-up, Bitch.”

Stolen from Dina, for once:

You Are A Walnut Tree

You are strange and full of contrasts… the oddball of your group. You are unrelenting and you have unlimited ambition. Not always liked but always admired, you are more infamous than famous. You are aggressive and spontaneous, and your reactions are often unexpected. A jealous and passionate person, you are difficult in romantic relationships.

Really? I don’t see myself as an oddball. I don’t really consider myself ambitious. From what I can tell, people like me. I’m definitely not aggressive. The only thing that fits is the last one. Ask Joe - he’ll tell you I’m difficult, but his ass is difficult right back.

Last night kicked ASS!

We totally surprised Teresa w/ her bachelorette party stuff. ahaha It ended up just being her, me, Dina and Stacy, but it totally kicked ass.

I can’t tell you anything about it though, becuase what happens at the bachelorette party stays at the bachelorette party. Don’t worry though, nothing happened… “her grandmother was there” for crying outloud. (HAHAHA!)

Let’s just say I don’t think I’ve laughed SO FREAKING MUCH in my entire life. I should probably take a nap, but I’m afraid if I go to sleep now, I’ll sleep straight thru and wake up at like, 3am and be up for the day.

The show? Kicked ass. Now that I’m finally not completely exhausted (I went to bed at 10:30 last night, and I slept straight through til my alarm went off + a couple snoozes… about 9 hrs.), I’m going to post about my weekend.

FRIDAY
I ended up stuck at work til 5:30!! FIVE THIRTY! ON A FRIDAY! It was one thing after another, and in true “I need to be off” fashion, it was crazy-busy. I rushed to go pick Megan up from work because she was hanging out and waiting for me there… poor thing. I didn’t get there til about 6:15 or so because I hit every red light on the way there (could’ve been faster on the hwy, but knowing my luck, 635 would’ve been completely stand-still.), including a little outlet from a business park… one of those lights that never changes, but is there for people leaving? THAT LIGHT turned red on me too!!

I finally made it to her work, and we ran to my mom’s house so I could drop off a couple of things I picked up for her and so Megan could get her laundry out of the dryer so ppl at home could do laundry this weekend if they needed to. After mom’s, we went to Lane Bryant @ Collin Creek where we ran into Alex, Gabby and Teresa. I ended up buying a really cute top that I’m not finding online, but basically… it was a black lace baby doll shirt w/ a nude “under-cami” thing.. very pretty. I wore it to work today. I also bought a pair of jeans and 2 bras (was only going to get one, but they were buy one-get one half, and you can never have too many… so I got one that would look better under the shirt than the one I was actually buying). Megan got some jeans and shirts, and we went to Olive Garden for dinner. I didn’t want to because it’s sorta expensive, but by the time we got about half a mile, I was like… dammit, now I want some Olive Garden. So we u-turned and went back. We ate, then we went to my apt. On the way to the apt, I remembered I wanted some B&W film for my 35mm camera, so we stopped there. I almost bought camera batteries, but all of my cameras take different size batteries and I couldn’t remember what this one took, so I didn’t buy any. We went to my apt where I got all my crap together and printed directions and got stuff that needed charging on their chargers and went to bed about 12:30 or so.

SATURDAY

I was really excited and ended up waking up pretty early (about 15min before my alarm)… I got dressed real fast, and started getting my crap packed up. Megan woke up and got dressed and took care of her stuff, and then we left. I REALLY wanted to leave by 7:30, but we were out the door by 7:45. We ran to Walmart so I could get camera batteries (was checking the life on it, and it was at half-life per the indicator, so I figured I’d rather be safe than sorry). After Walmart, we filled up my gas tank and stopped for breakfast at Chik-Fil-A (mmm.), then headed out.

The drive wasn’t bad. I was very happy I printed 2 sets of directions because the ones we were following ended up not working out. LOL. Thank you, Mapquest for saving our trip and me from freaking out. Once I realized we weren’t following our intended directions, I stopped at a gas station to get gas & buy a map…. JUST in case.

We then continued on our way, and with the exception of construction on part of the section of 610 we were on (for about 10 min), nothing too terrible happened. It rained a little bit when we got closer to Beaumont, but not bad.. just enough to wash the bird crap on my windshield.

We arrived in Beaumont about 4 or 4:30, checked in, went to the room and rested for a bit… then went out to find out where we had to go. I wasn’t sure how busy it was going to be and I wanted to make sure we could not only get there, but get back, since it would be dark, and I’m driving in a new place. After we made it back, we went looking for a drugstore of some kind, and after going forever down this one street, stopped at a craptastic Family Dollar so Megan could get some “real” bodywash and shampoo since neither one of us packed any… (hey, the hotel had stuff. it was only one shower. she’s picky. lol). We got that stuff taken care of, went back to the hotel and showered, then went to find dinner. There was a Carrabba’s right next to our hotel, but by the time we ended up ready for dinner, they were having like a half-hour wait, and we didn’t want to wait that long. We ended up going down the street to Outback and had an ok dinner (wasn’t impressed.. but I was also more worried about getting to the show. lol). After dinner we made our way to Antone’s, parked, and waited in line for the doors to finally open.

We went in and hung out and looked around for a familiar face. Didn’t see one from where we were originally sitting, and we moved up closer to the stage. I still didn’t see anyone, really, except at one point, Taylor and Nolan walked past. I saw them out of the corner of my eye, but didn’t stop ‘em. What? I’m Shy. *lol* Megan’s like “DUDE! THEY WERE RIGHT THERE!” Apparently they walked past a few more times, but I don’t feel bad cuz they didn’t see or stop and say hi to me either.

Damian snuck up on me at one point and said hi. I sure missed him, and I didn’t realize how much until I saw him there in the flesh!! I love that guy!! He’s all like, “Looks like you have a prime spot, as usual..” and I’m like “yeah, we’ll move up once it’s your turn.” and he’s like “of course!!” eheheh LOVE THAT GUY!! We talked for a minute or two and then someone came up to him.. he talked to them and kind of disappeared. No biggie. We watched the other bands (The Blinding and Demagogue), but I have to admit I didn’t really give them a fair shot. I sort of just really wanted to see Damian.

Finally.. FINALLY it was his turn, and as soon as the floor cleared out and they started setting up, Megan and I made our way up there… front and center, of course. Damian stuck his tongue out at me at one point, and no one else really noticed us. ahah I waved at Taylor from across the room, and he was kinda like “who the hell is that?” but waved to be polite.. or that’s the vibe I got from the whole thing anyway.

Damian started playing. He started w/ No Longer, which was probably a safe bet. It’s a song, even with the changes, that they played a bazillion times as Plasma Jack. Definitely a good ice breaker, and something to sort of get them warmed up and in the groove. He played songs from the cd…at one point taking a break to throw some freebies into the crowd. I fully planned on slapping down all the cash I had on me to buy his merch (I’m just that kinda friend/fan!!), so I didn’t make a grab for the t-shirts, but he pretty much looked right at me when he went for the cd he wanted to toss out into the crowd. I didn’t get all excited about it, but he held onto it too long like he was waiting for me to do something, so I did, and I got the cd. I ended up buying another one + 2 shirts after the set. ahahah. LIke I said, I love that guy! *G*

He continued with the set, and played all the songs off the cd, but there were two neither Megan nor I recognized when we listened to our cd. *lol* So either we didn’t know them enough to recognize them or we’re stupid. Whatever. Anyway, after the set, the crowd started cheering for him to come back… lol. He didn’t, but that’s okay. One of the guys was all like “PLASMA JACK!!!!!!!!” and I about died. I sortakinda almost thought about wearing my PJ shirt… *lol* I didn’t. But how funny would that have been?

Anyway, so we made our way to the merch table to get our stuff, and D’s fiancee was there, and she’s like “Are you Manda???” and I’m like “Yeah..” and she’s like “I HAVE HEARD SO MUCH ABOUT YOU!! THank you for everything you’ve done!!” and I was like… aww. She was hilarious… and the two of them are so cute together. I’m very happy for both of ‘em!

I ended up putting on one of my t-shirts and opening the cd to see I’m mentioned in the Thank Yous!!!! HOW COOL IS THAT!?!?!? And–Damian had to point this out, since I didn’t open the liner notes all the way–photo credits because he used 3 of my pics from the PJ days!!! He signed my cd for me and we talked some more… then we kind of watched Flickerstick from the sidelines. They started out with some slow-ass song, and that’s during when i was talking to Nolan. he ended up coming up to me, and I was like “DUDE!!” and he’s like “hey you!!” and I gave him a hug and we talked for like 10 min or so… it ROCKED. he’s so awesome.

But it was pretty cool… we talked to Damian some more at various times, then we left to go crash at the hotel. I wanted to say bye to Nolan and say hi/bye to Taylor, at least, but we didn’t see htem on our way out. We walked out and there they were surrounded by like 7-8 girls. ahah I hated to interrupt them, but I had to at least say bye. So I gave Nolan a hug, and said hi/bye to Taylor. Haha.. he was totally not all there. but it was nice to see him again.

We ended up going back to the hotel, crashing, and waking up the next morning only to return home. It was a pretty awesome weekend. We listened to the cd all the way home, and knew most of the words. I think after the last couple days, I know all the words, and I will be prepared for the next show.

WHEEEEEEE!!! Can’t wait for the next one!!!

I still don’t have time to post (I’m hoping to have time tonight, but I need to get the B&W film developed & go grocery shopping.. food is a good thing.), and I was going to copy/past my cd review from my myspace, but I can’t access that here…

While you’re waiting for me to have a few minutes to update with my review of the cd/show, go look at my pics from the show (enter via the above photo). Also, go check out Damian’s myspace to hear some of the songs. If you’re interested in a CD, let me know. I’m taking orders… I BELIEVE cds are $10, so comment or email me.

Because I’m on my way to bed and too tired to post the details of the show last night, I leave you with another quiz result.

You Should Rule Saturn

Saturn is a mysterious planet that can rarely be seen with the naked eye. You are perfect to rule Saturn because like its rings, you don’t always follow the rules of nature. And like Saturn, to really be able to understand you, someone delve beyond your appearance. You are not an easy person to befriend. However, once you enter a friendship, you’ll be a friend for life. You think slowly but deeply. You only gain great understanding after a situation has past.

Good night.

SHOW KICKED ASS!!!!!!!!

I’m completely wiped out though (up long enough to get the cd on my ipod so we can listen to it all the way home), so I’m going to bed.

It was great seeing my boys again. I sure have missed them.

PIcs and details later. I’m gonna go pass out now.

Hell YEAH! I can’t wait until tomorrow. I haven’t been this excited in a long time!!!!!!!! I have lots of things to get ready today before we leave, so here’s a to-do list I can cross off and get stuff done.

- Pick Megan up.
- Drop off gumball machine & already-watched DVDs
- Shopping and dinner w/ Megan
- Charge Nikon battery
- Charge Canon batteries
- Buy a roll or two of B&W film.
- Make sure Nikon#2 has batteries
- Pack cameras (Nikon Digital, Nikon 35mm, Canon P&S) [Aside: Not sure if I’m bringing the 35mm, but if I do, I know I’ll get decent pics and will be able to get some B&W pics w/o falling in love with the color pics and having to change ‘em b&W since my dSLR doesn’t do b&W.)
- Pack phone charger
- Pack Laptop & charger (going to rip Damian’s cd so I can put it on my iPod for the drive back. hee)
- Charge iPod and update w/ new songs.
- Pack ipod charger. (dude. enough chargers? I know we’re only there a DAY, but I don’t want anything dying.. especially my phone and our entertainment)
- Listen to Damian’s new songs on his myspace (http://www.myspace.com/damiangiglio)
- Pack pjs & show outfit (that’s what we’re shopping for)
- Pack toothbrush, deodorant, makeup
- Remember Tickets.
- Find a suitable show purse, since I’ll have all those effing cameras
- Rethink taking ALL of the cameras.
- Get gas.
- *SQUEE!!!!! I’M GOING TO GO SEE DAMIAN!!!!!!!!! :)
- Print Directions.
- Add POC numbers to phone.
- Plan: Wake up at 7. Out the door by 7:30 (preferred) but no later than 8.
- *SQUEE!!!!* I’M GOIGN TO SEE DAMIAN!!!!!!!!!!! AND MY SISTER’S COMING WITH ME!!!!!!!! AND IT’S GOING TO BE AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!
- Get ready for work & go to work since, like, I have to go to work. ANd I have a meeting w/ Bossman. And I need to work, despite the fact that it’s Friday and tomorrow I get to go see DAMIAN!!!! PLAY!!!
- *HAPPY DANCE!!!!!!!!!!!!*