To the Moon and Back

Phantom Menace

Sun, 27 Dec 2009 00:17:46 GMT

I was catching up on Twitter last night, and someone posted a link to this article, "Great Storytelling 101 (or: We've Forgotten How to Tell Stories)" from Writer's Digest.

The article linked a video review of Star Wars: Episode One that, if you can get past the annoying narration and a few inappropriate references, picks apart the movie in astounding clarity. I'd remembered Episode One rather fondly (it was quite pretty, and so was Ewan McGregor), but that review made me realize that I'd never actually thought about the movie critically before. Amazing! (Granted, I haven't seen it in probably ten years..) Anyway, the whole review is about 70 minutes long, but it's worth a watch.

Small World!

Thu, 24 Dec 2009 02:19:00 GMT

I was playing Rock Band with some of my sibs this morning, and somehow New Moon came up. My brother, who's a senior, said, "It's still so weird that Kiowa was in my German class sophomore year, cuz he never talks in a normal voice, ever." (I found out a couple weeks ago that Kiowa Gordon, who plays Embry (one of the werewolves), went to my high school, and my brother knew him. Crazy!!) Then my sister said, "I know, none of their family does."

Suddenly I put some pieces together. Kiowa Gordon, part of the Gordon family, who would also have gone to my high school. Part Native American.. I remembered someone else with those high cheekbones, wide face, and olive skin, and it occurred to me - I knew his brother Aaron. Aaron was on the football team and was in my AP Art class our senior year. Also, his family was in my ward for a while. WEIRD!!!

Who knew?! I wonder if Aaron's still around? I should look him up.

Tue, 22 Dec 2009 04:48:25 GMT

Happy Late Birthday, chibidrunksanzo!!!!

Sorry!! I was totally ready for it, but when Saturday rolled around, I ended up driving for 10 hours, and then when I got home I forgot to post. ^^; I hope it was a fun one!

Avatar-?

Fri, 18 Dec 2009 15:59:25 GMT

What are people's thoughts about "Avatar?"

I've been on the fence about it, honestly. Several people have said they thought I'd be way excited about it, given my tastes, but it hasn't had much of a draw. (The biggest one for me is Sam Worthington, who was really hot in "Terminator: Salvation.") I haven't been interested enough to go out of my way to find out about it.

I heard a review on the radio this morning that was bittersweet. The reviewer said that, on one hand, the technology is so amazing that it's the best movie of its kind, Ever. (I'm assuming he's talking about the 3-D part, which I almost didn't remember hearing about.) He said that it's an incredible experience to sit in the middle of the theater with your 3-D glasses and feel completely immersed in the world.

On the other hand, he said, the plot of the movie is quite weak. Like "Fern Gully" or "Dances with Wolves," it's about a guy from the invading team who gets into the enemy culture and develops such affinity with them that he then defends them against his own people. (He said there's a little of the environmental soapbox, but that's not what the movie's about.) The previews I've seen did look pretty weak, as far as story, but I actually quite enjoy "Fern Gully"-type stories (probably because I have elfish tendencies), so maybe I'll like it anyway.

I think I probably will end up going to see it, and probably liking it. I'll probably wait until the hype has died down (the reviewer said that "Sherlock Holmes" will probably kick "Avatar" out of the box office when it comes out), but it sounds like it would be worth it for the 3-D. I mean, how many 3-D movies have we seen that weren't full of 3-D gimmicks for kids? It'd be interesting to see what can be done with the technology applied for a more sophisticated audience.

If I see anything this weekend, I'd probably go with "Did You Hear About the Morgans?," "Young Victoria" (if I can find a theater), or "Invictus."

EDIT: Here's your quote for the day.

Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.
- Douglas Adams

Iron Man is BACK!!

Thu, 17 Dec 2009 05:29:33 GMT

Woo hoo!! Marvel has just released the first trailer for Iron Man 2! Looks like more of the same AWESOME as the first movie!! Good ol' Tony Stark. XD

Click here to watch it as many times as you like

I figured my Xavier Institute icon would be more fitting than my Batman icon.

Books to the ceiling, books to the sky

Wed, 16 Dec 2009 16:08:44 GMT

Books to the ceiling,/ Books to the sky,/ My pile of books is a mile high./ How I love them! How I need them!/ I'll have a long beard by the time I read them.
- Arnold Lobel

It's funny how I feel the need to post something - anything - so that I can put up a fun quote. ^^; I guess it's been a while since I've given you an update, though, so I might as well.

My trip was lovely. The weather was beautiful, I played with my niece (who's still afraid of me at first, every time), and it was fun to just chill and hang out with my mom/dad/brothers. I loved being home more than usual, even, because the emphasis was on "B's home!" instead of "Everyone's home!" It was nice to feel loved and appreciated. I'm back to work for a week, and heading home again probably Saturday for Christmas break.

I even got some creative work done, about 2000 words over the weekend - inspired by The War of Art, which I'll talk about more when my hard copy arrives and I can make references - but not on Muse. I worked on the story that this is from, starting at the beginning. I've been needing a high-fantasy outlet, and it's feeling good.

Also, since this post starts out about books, I might as well mention that I've listened to 3 (and a half) Miles Vorkosigan books, and loved them. (The half is Cetaganda, which I'm only partway through, but which so far I don't particularly care for. I just don't like the planet, like, at all. My brother assures me that it picks up, though.) And I've also listened to the first book (and a half) of the Mediator series by Meg Cabot, and I'm enjoying them, too. I'm on the second book.

Skynet! It's a-comin'!

Sat, 12 Dec 2009 01:33:50 GMT

Read this article by Scott McCloud (Understanding Comics), and make sure you check out the links - one is to an article by James Gurney (Dinotopia), and one is to an astounding video of AI in action.

Skynet. It's a-comin'!

Mission: Surprise Mom by Coming Home Unannounced = SUCCESS

Sat, 12 Dec 2009 00:58:56 GMT

Communism doesn't work because people like to own stuff.
- Frank Zappa

Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday, lying in hospitals dying of nothing.
- Redd Foxx

I'm in sunny Arizona now - my surprise worked out quite well. I left for the airport after work, and it took me an hour and a half to make the 45-minute trip, for no real reason. No snow or ice on the road, no construction.. but just for fun, three times in the trip traffic had slowed down to stop-and-go for stretches of a few miles. *mutters* I got to the airport half an hour before my flight was supposed to leave, and when I got my boarding pass, it said that my flight had been delayed about 15 minutes. I whirled through security and discovered at the gate that my fwe'd been delayed another ten. The plane had just arrived and the previous flight's passengers were just getting off.

Thank heaven for small favors. <3

Anyway, my little brother picked me up in Phoenix, and I got to hang out with my bros for half an hour or so before my parents came home from Dad's office Christmas party. (Two of the four were surprised. The other two had been informed.) My mom, instead of depositing her purse in the kitchen right away, headed toward her bedroom - so my dad snagged her elbow and guided her back toward the kitchen, where I was. When she saw me, her mouth fell open for a good several seconds. She said, "How did you get here?!" (I told her, "I flew" while flapping my hands a bit.) And she came over and hugged me for about three minutes, and I think she was crying a little. I couldn't exactly tell what was going on outside the death grip.

This morning I went to the temple with my dad - the Mesa Temple is really beautiful inside.. Outside, it doesn't look like much (the reflection pool is rather nice, though), but the inside has gorgeous stone and detail work, and lots of mural paintings on the wall. The decor is all golds and creams and rich dusty purples and pinks. I was surprised that I hadn't seen it before.

When we got home, I played with my niece, Amira, who my mom babysits a couple days a week while my sister works. (OH! She's just woken up from her nap!) She was afraid of me for a couple hours, but she warmed up to me. (Looks like her nap erased all of that - she's scared of me again. ;_;) She's adorable and a lot of fun, though. She got into cupboards and played with tupperware while my brother and I played Guitar Hero for a while. Tomorrow's her First birthday party!

The War of Art

Wed, 09 Dec 2009 20:03:16 GMT

"The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference.
The opposite of art is not ugliness, it's indifference.
The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference.
And the opposite of life is not death, it's indifference."
-Elie Wiesel

I'm listening to an audiobook that is really quite intriguing. It's called The War of Art, by usually-novelist Steven Pressfield - "Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles." I might buy a hard copy to refer to in the future, once I'm done listening to it. It resonates with me pretty strongly so far.

Its premise is that all human beings have great works and achievements in their souls, achievements and tasks that no one else can do, but we are kept from achieving them by the greatest enemy in ourselves - resistance. Resistance opposes us in any endeavor that moves us from a lower plane to a higher one, be it spiritual, humanitarian, creative, entrepreneurial, etc.

I'll probably post more about it when I've finished.

Would give more work to illustrators.. :P

Tue, 08 Dec 2009 16:16:41 GMT

I'll be more enthusiastic about encouraging thinking outside the box when there's evidence of any thinking going on inside it.
- Terry Pratchett

What is life but a series of inspired follies? The difficulty is to find them to do. Never lose a chance: it doesn't come every day.
- George Bernard Shaw

***

I dreamed last night that my mom had my novel published for Christmas. Even in my dream I thought, "Wait, I'm not done writing it yet!" (I don't know which one it was, though.)

Also, it had a different (gorgeous) cover illustration each time you turned the book over. I think we should look into that - it was amazing!

Sketches for you

Mon, 07 Dec 2009 04:43:19 GMT

You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.
- Jack London

Time is that quality of nature which keeps events from happening all at once. Lately it doesn't seem to be working.
- Anonymous

I drew stuff at Church today and decided to share. It's been a while since I posted any art.

A few images of the artist secretly called Orpheus. The pipes he's playing in the middle picture are not, I have just discovered, real pipes. Or at least, I can't figure out where I've seen them, and they are definitely not the Greek pipes I intended. Oh well, nevermind.

Here is a rough floor plan of Cassie's apartment, with furniture. Nick's is laid out similarly, but with much less stuff in it. I figured that I'd have an easier time drawing her apartment if I knew what it's supposed to look like first. It's not to scale, so please disregard discrepancies in size. Also, her walls are actually straight. And stuff.

Adventures in Baking

Thu, 03 Dec 2009 06:28:24 GMT

Have to bring Christmas treats for a Relief Society meeting tomorrow, so I spent my only free night this week baking. Like, three hours of it. :( Turned out pretty nice, though.

These are the cookies that are my family's secret recipe, from my mom's Hungarian side.

This is the last batch, the pretty one. Since I only make these once a year, pretty much, it took some trial and error to get it right. Oh well. People will still ~~probably~~ eat the imperfect ones.

I also - since I had extra pie crusts from Thanksgiving and needed to use them toute suite - made some quiche - spinach, bacon, tomatoes, onions, and Swiss cheese. It's tasty. It's also going to feed me for the next several days. Yay!

PS~ If you have a sore throat, don't eat pickles. It hurts. DX

Mon, 30 Nov 2009 00:38:15 GMT

"The whole art consists not in evoking the unexpected, but in evoking with a perfection and accuracy beyond expectation the very image that has haunted us all our lives."
-C.S. Lewis

Weekend's only half over! Woot!!

Sat, 28 Nov 2009 04:18:15 GMT

Spent a few hours today watching movies and researching Greek names. That is, I found a baby name website that had a good Greek category and spent several hours copying them into my story notebook. (I figured that'd be easier to reference than a digital list.) I came out with 7 pages (medium-size notebook, mind you) of male names, and stopped after 7 pages of female, even though I only got to the letter E. My hand and my brain ache. (How come there are so many more female names than male??)

Movie-wise, I went through Titanic and Alice in Wonderland, which I'd borrowed from my coworker several weeks ago, and Spiderman (1). Now my brain needs a rest, so I thought I'd play WoW for a little while and possibly read for a bit, then go to bed.

Been a nice day, though, quiet and simple. Tomorrow I've got to write a talk, but I think I'll work at my name list some more, and hopefully finish adjusting Ch1 sometime this weekend. I at least need to decide on last names for Tom and Cassie, and the name for Orpheus's alter-ego. I'll need to know them before I draw Ch1. :/

Also, my apartment is cold! D:

I sometimes compare my head to different states of mind that they used to affect the learning of new skills in DragonRealms (the text-based MMO that consumed my life through high school and early college). The scale goes from Clear / Fluid / Murky / Very Murky / Thick / Very Thick / Dense / Very Dense / Stagnant / Very Stagnant / Frozen / Very Frozen. Last Monday when I stayed at work til 9:30, my mind was somewhere around Frozen (I still was able to drive home safely). Right now it's probably Very Dense (but getting better).

Surprisingly fitting parallels, lol

Thu, 26 Nov 2009 06:37:39 GMT

Love the "I know what you are" bit..

PS~ In case anyone is wondering - yes, I've seen New Moon. And it was awesome. Like, really surprisingly good. Give it a chance.

(As Howard Tayler put it, via Twitter, "In case anyone is wondering, "Ninja Assassin" is not worth seeing. It IS worth aggressively NOT seeing. Men, if your lady-friend offers you the choice of seeing "New Moon" with her or "Ninja Assassin" with the guys, GO SEE NEW MOON.")

"He who can laugh at himself shall never cease to be amused."

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 17:57:48 GMT

My brain amuses me. It comes up with really silly things sometimes. Like once when trying to come up with the word that means "to invent new words," Brain supplied the word "spoon." (The word I wanted was, in fact, "coin.")

Yesterday at work I was listening to a bunch of random John Williams music, and the Superman theme came on. Good stuff. So while enjoying the music, Brain started to wander into the realm of me+comics and had an interesting train of thought. It went from Twitter to Ron Perazza (one of the comics pros I follow) to his work with Zuda Comics, an offshoot of DC that publishes webcomics. Brain thought about how it's too bad I don't want to sell Muse to Zuda (I don't like their rights agreements), then wondered if maybe I could participate by doing some kind of shorter work. I'd been pondering other directions in my me+comics future (if I'm going to study sequential art at the graduate level, I'd better have some plans for it*, right?), and have been thinking about short pieces that experiment with style or storytelling, or adaptations of famous works (so as to prevent the travesty of Marvel's "Pride & Prejudice" adaptation from happening again)..

Then Brain came full circle and handed me a gem - what if I wrote/drew a comic based on Superman?! That'd be so cool!

Then I laughed at my silly brain and told my coworker what was so funny. ("Brain, I hate to tell you this, but.. it's been done.")

I'm writing this because I just had another Silly Brain moment that I thought I'd share. This one actually may be a fun idea, as well as serving to amuse me. I was thinking about Twitter and Muse again, and the progress I've made lately (which nobody on Twitter ~~besides Ki, Fi, and Isaura~~ really cares about, since I don't actually have any readers yet), and had the idea of making a series of Tweets to this effect:

Just handed off Ch1 to the artist. Ch2 going well!

Then, shortly afterwards, Just got Ch1 script from the writer. Took her long enough! (Geez, when does she want this done by? She's kidding, right??)

And a little later still, Artists are so temperamental! She sure gripes a lot. Hope the book comes out nice, though. Can't wait to see it done!

It amuses me to refer to myself in 1st/3rd-person as though there are two people on this creative team. Maybe I'll actually do it, when it comes time to make the hand-off. XD Well done, Brain!

*Btw, this new direction in seq-art in no way negates my goal of becoming a novelist. I would adamantly do both!!

Best Escort Quest EVAR!

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 05:45:32 GMT

I love it when I run into pop culture references in-game.

Today I found a human named Harrison Jones in a cage inside some troll ruins. I took a few screencaps to commemorate the quest.

("Alright, kid. Stay behind me and you'll be fine.")

I let him out of the cage, and he leads us into a room ("Their ceremonial chamber, where I was to be sacrificed...") where he rescues a woman from another cage. ("You're free to go, miss.") She blows him a kiss and runs off.

Then he tinkers with some of the stuff in the room, causes the ground to shake, says, "Odd. That usually does it" - and then, when we turn to leave, the doorway fills with a wall of flame and a GIANT SNAKE appears!!

Which Harrison Jones then proceeds to kill, on his own. It's a 74 Elite, he's level 70, and I'm level 73. Neither of us should be able to tackle that thing alone, but Harrison Jones is Just That Cool.

Here's us high-tailing it out of the ruins. Seriously, an escort quest where the escortee kills everything and tells you to stay behind him? And you can actually do that? Best escort quest ever! (Notice that the quest objective is "Harrison Jones has escorted you to safety" and not the other way around!)

What made it even more epic is that I had the presence of mind to play the Indiana Jones theme while the quest was going. It *felt* that much cooler. XD

Thanksgiving Par-tay

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 15:57:14 GMT

Anybody need friends for Thanskgiving Dinner? phoenix_melody and I are staying in town, and any of you are welcome to join us. My house, next Thursday. (Fi says I'm in charge cuz it's at my house, so I'm coordinating.)

So post here if you'll be in town/coming, and let me know what you'll be bringing!

I need a food icon.

PS~ If you have a dream in which people keep asking you, "How do you ID a missing body?" you should let them know that their reasoning is wacky.

Also, if anybody's interested, the CW is marathoning "Vampire Diaries" December 14th through 18th (2 eps a day).

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 22:30:46 GMT

Happy birthday, spiritofeowyn!!!!!

Good Day

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 05:50:06 GMT

HOOOOLY COW, "Mentalist" was intense tonight! "Vampire Diaries" was, too (how many revelations/milestones can you have in one episode?), but the Mentalist definitely took the cake for intensity. (And I missed the first couple minutes that evidently showed Rigsby and Van Pelt showing skin. I was spoiled by the stupid TV Guide magazine.) The magazine also mentioned that somebody in the CBI would die, but I didn't expect them to go through with what they did. It leaves me wondering where they'll go from here.

Anyway, this is actually a happy post - pay no mind to the blood smiley in my icon.

I found out today that I've got 13 days of unused vacation/sick time that I'll lose at the end of the year. Six or seven days of that can be paid, if I want to cash out all my PTO hours (which do roll over at the new year).

So I took a good look at the calendar and determined that I'm going to take a whole couple weeks off for Christmas (and use the PTO there so I'm not hurting for funds in January), and a few other days here and there. That is, I'm taking a long weekend one week, and I'm only going to work one more Friday for the rest of the year! My boss gave me a bit of a hard time about my vacation plans, but hey, I earned it by not being gone the rest of the year. (A good bit of that was saved for Sirens Con, which didn't work out.) And I'm not going to feel too bad about it, cuz I'll still be there 4 days out of 5, except for Christmas break. So there.

This is where I finally make real progress on Muse! *crosses fingers and hopes for productivity tomorrow!* (But first, preparing my costume photo for the Simplicity contest!)

XD

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 16:44:20 GMT

see more Lol Celebs

More Tales of the Busy B

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 06:36:59 GMT

It's been a busy - but rather successful - day.

I took a long lunch break today and went to campus to talk to Rory Scanlon, costume professor (and, incidentally, Associate Dean of the College of Fine Arts), about speaking at LTUE. Though I underestimated the time it took to get to campus, I was only a few minutes late and we had plenty of time to discuss the matter. We came up with a few presentation ideas that I think will be really fascinating. (Unfortunately, he's leaving town that weekend, so we can only have him for one day, instead of all three.) Success here, though, makes me feel pretty good about my contribution to the symposium. Hopefully things keep working out. *crosses fingers*

After my meeting I took my brother and sister out to lunch (MOA Cafe) - it's funny how easily people find they can make time in their schedules when you offer to buy them food. Heh. Then I went to the post office on campus and mailed my mom's birthday present - hopefully it won't have gotten too misshapen by spending a couple days melting/cooling/melting/cooling in my car. And it'll be a few days late, too, but I'm sure she'll love it anyway. Especially since it's one of her favorite things (fudge) and she's not expecting anything.

Right after work I drove to SLC to attend an informational meeting for the Savannah College of Art & Design (SCAD). I think I mentioned it before. The meeting was very informative (even though it was a very general meeting, since we had prospective students from high school-age to post-Bachelor), and I got all excited about the possibilities. Really excited. There are a couple of hitches to the idea, though. First, (yes, I am that shallow) I don't know what I'd do about the humidity. I've never really dealt with it before, except for my Japan study abroad, and I remember it being pretty awful. Also, I didn't care so much about my appearance back then.

Anyway, the whole "moving to Georgia" thing does give me a bit of pause. Interestingly, the sheer cost of grad school doesn't seem to be too much of a deterrent, since it sounds like there's lots of scholarship money available. The real question is, would grad school (art school, particularly) further delay my chances of getting married. (Wow, that sounds awful.) Getting married and having a family is chief in my life progression, and I'm feeling my age recently; I feel like I need to be accessible and available when opportunity knocks - but there's also my career and professional aspirations to consider on the other hand. If I had to choose one or the other, I'd choose family, but as it's not something I can exactly plan for, I don't want to shortchange myself in the things I can.

So that's the big debate. I don't want to marry an artist, and I won't marry someone who's not LDS, so would going to an art school in a part of the country where LDS are somewhat few end up the wrong decision? But what if I don't end up getting married at all? Art school could be really good for my career. It's hard to plan for both contingencies. :( I guess I'll just have to move forward until I feel like it's the wrong thing to do, and then reassess. I've got plenty of time - I can even visit the campus in February if I need to - and I've got a code that will waive the application fee, so it's not even expensive. (Which reminds me, it might be useful (for scholarship purposes) for me to take the GRE. How does one go about that?)

One last event tonight - when I got home from SLC, I ran over to a friend's house to borrow her hoop skirt. And I finally found my camera's battery charger, too, so tomorrow I can take real photos of my Halloween costume and Friday send in my entry to the Simplicity Halloween Costume Contest (which needs to be postmarked by Friday). Phew! I don't like cutting things close like this, but at least it seems to be working out.

The rest of the week is going to be busy, too; hopefully I can continue to keep my head above water. Next week I think I deserve a break. In fact, I think I'll take a couple days off work next week. Yeah! That's a great idea!

EDIT: Did I mention that SCAD has an Equestrian Studies program? How cool is it that you can go to an art school and learn to ride! (English, it looks like.) That would be a lovely opportunity to cross off "jump horseback" on my life-goals list!

The library is my happy place.

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 00:11:13 GMT

Was browsing the SFF section at the library a couple weeks ago, mining for gems (brought home a few, which I haven't had time to read yet), when I had an interesting idea:

When I get published, who will be my shelf neighbors?

So I checked. Turns out I'll be sharing shelf space with the honorable Robert A. Heinlein. Cool. We're very different genres, but surely I'll catch some good collateral traffic from him, seeing as he's one of the "Big Three" grand masters of science fiction. :P ~~Or I'll be overlooked completely..~~

Who will be your shelf neighbors?

In other book news, I just finished listening to Shards of Honor by Lois McMaster Bujold. I guess it's a sort of prequel to the Miles Vorkosigan series, since it's the tale of how his parents met and married. Delightful. The proposal scene had me laughing hysterically. I'm definitely open to more by her. I bought The Warrior's Apprentice too, and I'm hoping I won't miss too much by skipping the one in between, seeing as Audible doesn't have it. Bah.

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 20:25:01 GMT

The will to be stupid is a very powerful force, but there are always alternatives.
- Lois McMaster Bujold

No one who cannot rejoice in the discovery of his own mistakes deserves to be called a scholar.
- Donald Foster

They certainly give very strange names to diseases.
- Plato

I love my ward. It's full of such neat people! Last night I met a fellow who, it turns out, is my next-door neighbor. I said, "Oh! You're the roommate who's out of town a lot." "Yes," he said. "What do you do, that you're gone so much?" He's an airline pilot. How cool is that? We had a lovely long chat about interesting places he's been, and in which I called him a glorified bus driver and he said that's exactly what it felt like sometimes. (It was appropriate in context, I assure you. I don't normally go around insulting people's occupations!)

It's so cool to be in a ward full of people with careers instead of just students! Although, technically, my neighbor goes to the family ward, but a lot of the family ward folks come to our ward prayer and activities, so I'm glad we get to know them, too. Cuz 31 is definitely not too old for me these days.

Sat, 14 Nov 2009 17:39:04 GMT

Whatever women do they must do twice as well as men to be thought half as good. Luckily this is not difficult.
- Charlotte Whitton

I like long walks, especially when they are taken by people who annoy me.
- Noel Coward

Last night's affair was a lot of fun, but I missed pixiepilot and pudges. :( We toured my house, chatted, vented about LTUE, ate my soup and the goodies people brought (Ki's brown butter sea salt rice krispy treats were a big hit - would you share the recipe?), sang me happy birthday and ate cake, watched "Wolverine" (and laughed a lot) and then the first two episodes of the 90's "X-Men" cartoon (and also laughed a lot).

It was a good night. Sorry if my crappy couches hurt anybody's back. :P