Abracadabra

Last night we watched a dvd of Lance Burton magic shows.
I love magic...used to watch every special I could catch.
After looking up some of Burton's other tricks on youtube, my Mom said I ought to do a special not-so-random youtube friday.
I thought not. Instead I'll do a whole blog about magic, with lots of links to videos. *grins*

When I think magic, my first thought is David Copperfield. He'll probably always be my favorite famous magician.



[If you go to the url, and don't just watch the embedded video, there's three more parts to the this video linked. ^^)

My second thought is the "Masked Magician" He did a couple of shows several years back where he showed how some of the best magic tricks are done.
Now, his tricks are actually hard to find, but I found a guy who had several...this was one of the coolest.



[After some more hunting, I found this site, which has more videos.]

I was reminiscing as I searched, lamenting the lack of famous magicians today when I came across this interesting video.



Guess I'll have to look for it. *grins*

And now, this post has come full circle, to end where it began...with Lance Burton.

I believe this to be an actual clip from the show we watched...and if I recall correctly, one similar to it is what netted him the Grande Prix prize at the international Fédération Internationale des Sociétés Magiques (FISM) competition - first American to do so, plus he got it at the age of 22.



This was also on the dvd, and we nearly died laughing.



Finally, Lance Burton's roller coaster escape.

Random Youtube Tuesday!

It's that time again!
Welcome to this week's Youtube Tuesday!
Made even more special by the fact that it is actually happening on Tuesday this time!

Today is AMV day!
AMV is an acronym that means "anime music video" It's one of my favorite things to search for.
Basically what happens is that anime fans pick a song, then choose scenes from the anime to fit the music. There are good AMVs...and really bad ones.
The ones I have today are some of the better ones I've seen.

This is a Sailor Moon AMV...I thought it was beautiful, and it's done to one of my favorite Evanescence songs: "Bring Me to Life"



Sadly, I cannot embed this AMV (or should I say GMV?)...it does not allow embedding. However, it is a very beautiful Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess AMV set to the music of Nickelback's "Savin' Me."

See you next week with more random Youtube videos!

New Pictures!

Well, not really new...more like pictures that I finally got around to scanning in.
The edges are a tad blurry - the scanner hates me. I need to learn to draw further away from the edges of the sketchbook.

Click the pictures to see a bigger, better version.

First up is a (late) set of Halloween doodles.



There's four pictures, in varying angles and completedness.
The coloured one is my (evil) muse Lanyia, dressed as an angel.
Directly beneath her is Rama, a demon from the story I was co-writing with a friend of mine a few years back. He is stuffed into a poofy pumpkin outfit, and not happy about it.
Upper right has my roleplaying character Irian, who is dressed as what he is - a snow leopard. (He's a were)
The last picture is an image of my internet persona, Ari, "testing" the Halloween candy.

The next two pictures are only the most recent in a very long line of pictures I have drawn for a friend of mine on the 'net.
I spend much time on a website called GaiaOnline...and several years back, when I joined, I set up a thread wherein I gave away free art (which was nice, for it made me practice drawing. ^^ It's my experiment thread...I play with mediums and poses and such in the freebies I give away).
In the first few pages entered a user by the name of Dominique del Mer...and she hasn't left yet. *grins*
Of the 600 or so arts I've done for Gaia in the past four years, she's gotten about half of them.
Just kidding. (Mostly) She does have her own folder in my art files, though.
You'd think she'd get tired of my art style after a while. >>

Anyways. Onto the pictures.




I think this was a birthday gift. I don't know anymore, I drew it a couple weeks ago.
It's cute because on my avatar (the image that represents me on the site, for those who don't know) I have the little black kitty, and she has the little white kitty. The hat (of eternal drawing damnation) is also part of her avatar...and I've fought the thing for years now. It's not easy to draw, therefore to get revenge, I had my kitty rip the feather off. ^______^

Final picture.



This is one of Dominique's roleplaying characters. (She has as many as I do. *grins*)
She's a drow (I think) who makes magical toys. So all the little critters are broken toys coming to her for help. My favorite's the bunny whose tail has come off. And the ball with a band-aid.

Random Youtube of the Week.

Next week I'll do on Tuesday, for "Random Youtube Tuesday"
This time I decided to do it, but it was after Tuesday, so I'm doing it today...Thursday. >>



Actually, I'll put two up.
Mom found this clip yesterday and I don't wanna forget it.



Some guy lipsynching Moosebutter's song "Star Wars"...it's cool (and...somewhat nerdy) that he listened to the song enough to find the 4 distinct voices to lip synch, then recorded himself 4 times. In different shirts.

Playlist

Just yanked a bunch of songs off my mom's playlist.
So it's like...doubled in size. *laughs*

School Results Page

Here is where I'll put the results of my many tests these couple weeks. I'll update it as necessary.

Spanish test: Got an 86.5. Better than I'd thought, not as good as I'd hoped.
Geology test 1: Got a 94 after the curve, yay.
Literature paper: Turned it in, waiting for it to be graded.
Geology test 2: Also a 94, surprisingly. Yayness. ^^
Geology test 3: A 95.
Religions test: An 88.

Have you ever...

Been driving along, somebody in another car does something stupid and illegal, and you say "If only a cop had been here"?

Well, yesterday I was driving to school, and there's a road where the speed is 20...it's on a hill, so it's hard to keep to the speed limit, but I was driving down, going maybe 22...and there's this guy behind me who's just right up my tail, glaring daggers at the back of my head. Finally, he cuts around me (illegal), and zooms down the road (too quickly)...right in front of the cop sitting in front of the school who goes out after him.

It totally made my day. ^_^

Rindercella

[Today's post definitely counts as a ramble..make sure you have lots of time to read. ^__^]
Yesterday I was telling Mom about how I used an mp3 upload site to get the anime songs on my playlist onto my playlist and I realized that I could use the same process to upload songs from our cds.
I asked Mom what song she would like me to try it on, and it happens to not really be a song.
You see, up in Wyoming there's this place called the Bar J Ranch, where they have a supper and western show, with the Bar J Wranglers singing and making jokes while you eat (really good) old style western meal.
I've gone a couple times, and I've always enjoyed it. The food is great, the songs are good (though I'm more a rocker chick than an old-style western one), but what I enjoy most are the short skits.
If they had all songs, I'd die, 'cause though they're good singers, I'm still not fond of the style of music. They mix it up, however, with jokes and stories and short skits.
One of their skits has one of the singers (can't remember who) dressing up as "Grandma," coming out on stage, and telling "Tairy Fales." Full of spoonerisms, gags, and jokes of all kinds, the stories tend to have the audience breathless from laughter.

All right. Backstory done.
The real reason this Rindercella is on my playlist is because I've performed it myself. Lots.
I took drama in high school my first year (and acting the next three years running, but that's neither here nor there). Time came around to do monologues, and I've always enjoyed comedy more than drama when it comes to performances. It's actually what I ended up getting known for in my acting class later. (When I finally tried to do drama, I had to do monologues because noone knew I could do it and didn't want to chance it with me. ><) I asked Mom's suggestion on what I should do, she whipped out this cd, and I fell in love with it. It took me almost an hour to transcribe the darn thing, though only about 15 minutes to memorize it. I haven't forgotten it since...mostly because SOMETHING comes up at least once a year that lets me pull it out again and use it. I've performed the monologue for school, for family events, for performances, for talent shows - I almost took first place in a school talent show with it a couple years back. I became known as "Wimberly Keatherston" in high school...>>

Second backstory aside, let me shush up now and let you enjoy the incredibly entertaining original performance. ^^

[What to expect over the next couple days: geology field trip report/s (as many as necessary...may take more than one, and pictures will be added at a later date.), school updates (I will post my paper when I have finished with it and will also record test scores as I get them), a rantle (ramble/rant) about my friend Dominique on Gaia (don't worry Dom, I'll be nice. *grins*)....that's all I can think of at the moment. See ya!]

School

I don't see why people always complain about finals week.
It's my experience that about the 12th-14th week of school is the busiest time period.
I mean, last week I had a paper due for Geology, I've got another one due tomorrow, and I'd have a Literature paper due Monday if the teacher hadn't bumped it forward a week.
Next week I've got a Spanish test Monday, Geology tests Tuesday and Thursday. The week after I've got a Religions test Wednesday and another Geology test Tuesday.
We had an oral report due today in Literature (went fairly well).
I've got a Geology field trip this Saturday (whoo-hoo!) (Note to self: ask about taking camera. Swear upon life not to let it come to harm and beg profusely.)

Bunches'o'stuff, ne? All within the span of like, three weeks.
This has proven true in the past as well.
Ah, well...back to work on my Geology paper.
[Edit] To add to this loveliness, my paper got eaten the other night when I was almost done with it, so I had to retype it. ><

Playlists

Soooo. Playlists.
Mom spent a couple hours last night setting up one for her blog, and I thought it looked fun, so I'm going to put one here too.
It will be...interesting, to say the least. Mom's songs all have some sort of meaning for Dad, whether it's injokes or just songs he likes.
Mine has no restrictions. It's gonna have whatever catches my interest. *grins*
If I put it up today, it won't have many songs on it, but I will sporadically add to it in the coming weeks.

[Edit]
Playlist is up.
It will be an interesting mix of Broadway, rock, anime, and game music, with a few (very few) various other types thrown in.

Brief Life Update

I warned you when I started, I tend to be a rather sporadic updater. ^^

Brief update on my life, then I'll try to post more regularly. Like, once a week or so.
School sucks, except for my Geology teacher who is awesome.
I'll save my Spanish rantings for a whole post all of its own.
My other classes are okay, just not real thrilling.
Got a tablet couple weeks ago, haven't started playing with it yet much. It works on my laptop, I just have to wrestle some good art software onto my laptop to go with.
Also, Tegaki. Very cool.
My dad left for Iraq this week. Missing him already.
And...my mom messed with my blog a bit, adding in a nifty cool background. Maybe it will distract from my text...or lack of it. *laughs*

I'll be adding in a playlist sometime this week, so y'all can enjoy my...varied tastes in music.
That's it fer now, I guess.