I made a ginger mascarpones icebox cake for one of my coworkers. They recommend letting it set for 24 hours for the flavors to marry and the cake to set up. Yum!!! Dude is going to be lucky if he actually gets the cake ...

Last week, I bought three tickets for the upcoming Green Day show at Wembley Stadium. That's right ... London. Now, let me explain how it is that I'm justifying this one.

1. 80 has never been to the UK and really wants to go.
2. I've never been to the UK when it's summer.
3. The third ticket is for a friend who lives in Birmingham and it'll be a nice excuse to see him, since he's no longer traveling regularly to the US.
4. In my adult life, I've taken about three vacations that were longer than a few days.
5. I've got enough sky miles that one of the tickets will be 'free'.

See? That's a pretty good rationalization, isn't it?

Today, I applied for a free ticket to see Green Day in LA. I can justify this one, too.

1. Even with the one ticket to the UK, I've got enough to cover a trip to LA.
2. I really wanted to see Green Day in LA when the tour first started, but couldn't make LA and Sacramento work.
3. The actual tickets are free. (Granted, this means that things may or may not work. I'll know if I've gotten a ticket within a couple of days.)
4. I've got some wonderful friends in LA who just moved there. It would be great to see them.
5. I have three days of vaca that I need to burn this year or lose. This trip would completely cover it.

So, yeah, I know this is getting into the ridiculous. It's just that things keep kinda falling into place. Who am I to question the Music Gods? I may even offend them if I skip out on these great opportunities. Ok, that and after June of 2010, Green Day won't be touring and probably won't be on the road for another 4 years, so things will really slow down.

Muah ha ha ha ha ha!!!

Hey, is anyone interested in a little post-Halloween shopping this Sunday? I'd plan on starting with a sugary breakfast at Dunkin' Donuts, then hit shops in Decatur until mid-afternoon, when I have drum class.

I feel so dirty. I just set up a twitter account ... so I can follow Green Day's tweets. Totally worth it as there are already tweets about Tre applying eyeliner with his feet and Billie Joe getting his ass kicked by a Luchadore. Fear my squealy fan-girl-ness!

So, for the first time in 10 years, I went back to Athens to see Bassnectar. Well, in my eyes, Athens still sucks and is overrun by annoying frat rats wearing Grateful Dead t-shirts. WTF? However, the trip was well, well worth it. He put on a stellar show that had me dancing the entire set. Several folks made kind offers to us, assuming we were tripping because I was generally keeping my eyes closed. I was stone cold sober but the ugly folks that couldn't dance their way out of a paper bag, so I kept my eyes closed and danced and really enjoyed the show. So had you attended you would have missed a great show, but also a chance to see me strip down to bra, velvet boyshorts, fishnets, and big boots.

Today, I have officially gotten tired of the fuschia in my hair. I think I'm going to try some of my oranges with the black and hope I don't turn out looking like some bizarre candy corn. It could be ok ...

Just to remind folks in the Atlanta area again ... Bassnectar is in town (well, in Athens) this Friday the 9th. Tickets are a mere $24 with service charge. Go!

http://www.40watt.com/schedule.php

If you're not familiar with his music, check out the website and be amazed!

http://www.bassnectar.net/

Well, I'm back from Alchemy and still processing and decompressing. It was a strange experience for me.

In some ways, it was pretty bad and stressful. I ended up signing up as the Leave No Trace team lead, wherein I had no idea of what I was doing, nor did I feel like I had the backup/background to do a good job. Had my camp mates not been willing to pitch in, I'm not sure how much I would have been doing on my own. Some of the issue comes down to the fact that, particularly when in a situation where I don't know the 'rules', I'm very introverted and shy. Some of the issue probably comes from most folks involved spending a lot of time together, doing friend stuff and planning stuff, thus all tribal information seemingly disseminated. And, I know one person in particular would remind me that it's a burn, thus I make of it what I will.

Bleh. So, I walked away from that experience feeling kind of inept, weak, left out, shut out.

So what will I do in response to this less than stellar feeling? Try for LNT team lead next year, of course.

I think there are some factors, such as many of the team leads being close friends and socializing a lot. There's some 'good ol' boy' interactions going on - not maliciously, just because of proximity. I think that I need to get *more* involved, not less involved. I think that this can become a valuable learning experience and a chance to break out of my shell a bit. I just have to be a little patient with myself - that kind of change doesn't happen instantaneously for me.

I really want to find a way to make LNT meaningful at Alchemy. To me, this doesn't just mean picking up garbage, but really gets into how make burns more sustainable. I really want to see more recycling, more composting, fewer plastic bottles, fewer damn glow sticks and on and on. If I want to see this happen, I need to find a way to make this happen - even if just a bit more.

On the other hand, this was the best burn, thus far/overall. It started while driving into the event, seeing the signs, and knowing I had painted them. Then we went on to have a camp of 8 folks, which was a good size. I think if we had the kitchen area a bit more organized, it would have been almost perfect. Folks seemed to love the idea of Camp Fairy Vomit - all things obnoxiously cute. I'm pretty well bent on finding a way to dovetail LNT with Fairy Vomit. I want to see us create large banners and all kinds of sparkly things that glitter and glow, but DO NOT create MOOP and use renewable resources. This year, I think we did well. The camp sign and tiki statue both were covered with glitter, yet we left none behind - the trick is to seal the glitter, etc. Next year, I want to offer up sweets and treats with edible glitter along with more glittery bottle cap pendents. I think Camp Fairy Vomit can offer some valuable education about LNT.

The best part was burn night, despite a rocky start. Unknown to me, team leads were expected to arrive at the effigy at 8 for a meeting, then stay until the actual burn. For safety sake, more volunteers were needed to keep people outside the perimeter and folks at my camp were too inebriated to help with that. So, there I was standing on a red rope light, wearing a stop, drop and roll t-shirt with a beret, supposedly looking bad ass, but definitely making sure that no one crossed that rope light. Much like last year, as it got closer and closer to burn time, it just simply stopped mattering. It didn't matter that everyone I'd be spending the evening with was messed up, while I was stone cold sober. It didn't matter that my feet and knees hurt like a mofo, because I wasn't dressed for standing stock still for a couple of hours. It didn't matter that I was cold. I just didn't matter. Things were good.

Then we had the huge explosions that were so hot I was worried the glue holding my bindis on would melt (heh, always worrying about the MOOP), but loving every second of it. Then the real burning got down to business and, yeah, everything was perfect. I'd been contemplating watching a burn sober and I'm so glad I did. It was far more beautiful for being able to see every single detail and all the different colors. I didn't directly build on the effigy, but I really was a part of the burn and helped make happen. I cried through the burn and even some after. That was similar to what happened last year (Alchemy only), but not to the same degree. This year, I felt so happy, so proud, so happy and a bunch of other feelings that I don't really understand. I don't get what it is about watching the Alchemy effigy burn that feels so joyous and cathartic.

The bad, since I like to get that over with quickest:

* My allergies (?) are still out of control. I don't know. Or it may be a cold. I realize that I actually can no longer tell when it's allergies or a cold. *sigh* What this tells me is that, while I no longer need an allergist nor am sick all the time, I just don't have my allergies under control. I used to. I think it's been a slow sneaky decline. What this means is that I have to actually get off my butt and find a new GP that has competent office staff and who is willing to work with me to come up with a reasonable solution. Feh.

* My sleep hasn't been going great. It's the second month in a row that my meds aren't really keeping me down. I'm still getting enough sleep to function, but the early and frequent waking is not great. Last month, we thought it might be stress from Spodgumene's seizures, but she's gone a month and I'm not feeling as freaked out. So, experiment #1 is to switch to extended release Seroquel. This should be weird. You actually take it around 5 PM to get to sleep hours later. We'll see how that goes. If it doesn't, then we'll up the dose. I feel so frustrated because in the past few months I've been being so careful about eating right and exercising. Oh, yeah, and doing that cognitive therapy thing. Theoretically, my sleep should be getting *better*, not worse.

The good-bad:

* Accidental experiment with my bottle cap jewelry illustrates that if the base coat or decorative glue is not fully dry, it will boil while the embossing powder is melting. While definitely not a technique that I'm planning on using again, it did yield one sugar skull that looks like some jacked up snow skull monster. I'm keeping that one!

The good:

* I just got my custom artwork from a super talented artist friend of mine. It's a Marian figure that is BEAUTIFUL! At some point, when I don't feel like death, I'll snap a pic to show the finished product. She's got music notes above her head and music notes and stars coming out of her hands. On her robes, she's got band logos that I love. It's just fabulous! This is the foundation that I'll be using for a big ass tattoo on my abdomen. Woo!!

I posted about Beats Antique a while back, trying to determine what in the hell genre they might be. I think I'm getting closer. As I started doing more research on glitch and breakbeat, which are definitely in the mix but not it, I found a genre I'd never heard of before - wonky techno.

According to several sources (on the interwebs, so it must be true!), basically wonky techno is a combo of glitch, electronica, and breakbeat. Ok. That's cool. I've now managed to condense several of their influences into one genre.

That still doesn't explain or address the circus or Middle Eastern portions, but I think I'm on the right track.

So for now Drunken Clockwork = Middle Eastern Wonky Circus Techno or thereabouts.

I think I still prefer Drunken Clockwork, but imagine it'll be a tough sell ...

I just wanted to put some feelers out for the folks in the Atlanta area. Saturday, August 15 there is a belly dance workshop going on from 10 AM - Noon.

http://www.atlantabellydance.com/Workshops/AliciaWorkshop.html#ws1

Pre-registration cost is $28. However, if we get a group of 5 or more together, we can get a group discount. I'm already aware of 3 people who are definitely going, so if I can scrape together a couple more people, we can go cheaper. All levels of experience are welcome, one just needs to know some basics (like if you've made it out to a drills session, you can survive this).

There is a choreography class in the afternoon and an evening performance, but I'm not going to do those.

I just ordered my fist hula hoop. Muah! Unsurprisingly, it will be decorated with purple, black, and green. Mmmmm ... mourning colors ...

I'm trying to find the name of a music genre, but am having no luck.

I think that Beats Antique is most illustrative. I have had people describe their genre as Asian Massive and Urban Middle Eastern Dance. I don't think either of these are accurate. Beats Antique self-describes as "BEATS ANTIQUE forges a curious alliance between middle eastern traditions and potent west coast circus, underground hip hop, breakbeat brass band, downtempo, glitch and dubstep." And it's true. They are all of that.

Other bands that are similar (and definitely used in a similar manner by Tribal Fusion dancers) include Pentaphobe, Maduro and Solace (the newer cds, not the older more traditional sounding ones).

For lack of a better name, I'm calling it Drunken Clockwork, because it's the breakbeats, odd key changes and syncopation that are most appealing to me. This, unfortunately, gets me no closer to finding more bands with such a satisfying sound. I've started checking out any compilation that has Beats Antique on it, but it seems that many of the other tracks are a little too heavy on the circus/vaudeville or the more traditional Middle Eastern dance stuff.

So, anyone have any guesses?

Pretend like you care: I got my Green Day tickets for Atlanta!! I'm feeling hopeful that Sacramento will go as smoothly! (Then, I just have to wait and find out how the pre-sales ticketing will go for LA.)

Ooooohhhhhhh!!! Excitement!

US Green Day pre-sale tickets go on sale on Wednesday. They will be going on sale at 3 PM at the local time at the venue. So, yeah, don't expect any work or coherent communication at 3 and 6 PM ET. Muah!

I now have 100 red ultra-bright diffuse lens led lights and 100 lithium coin cells. The leds glow with a glorious evil light. Hee hee hee hee!!

Please all, if you have any to spare think smarty-smart, particularly smarty-smart-sql thoughts for me from 6 - 7 PM tonight. Don't let me psych myself out.

It feels like it's been too long to really go into detail, but I'll say that I did have a marvelous time at PreHeat. I feel like I'm starting to find my Burn Groove. One of the things that I did was gift a bunch of pony falls to a costume camp. By late afternoon on Saturday, there were bunches of people running around with my pony falls on their heads. That was awesome!! I think I'll start making some more for gifting.

I've also totally caught the bottle cap jewelry bug, so I'll be making necklaces, bracelets, and key chains for gifts. They actually sell sprockets at craft stores, so I think I'll do some steam punk items in addition to sugar skulls and fire. Muah ha ha!!!

Yesterday, I spent the day in Norwalk, CT. I hadn't been there since 1993, when I was working for IBM. It hasn't improved any, as far as I can see, in the intervening years.

Yesterday wasn't a great day. So, what is a reasonable response to a crappy day? For me, of course, it means that it's time to change my hair!!! Last night when I got home, I dyed my hair jet black. I don't think it's been black for about 5 years. Today, I pulled out some of the black in streaks and am applying a combo of blood red and cherry bomb red. I think it'll be fun. The results will be in this afternoon. Stay tuned!

Green Day has announced their upcoming tour dates. There will be a show in Atlanta!! Chee chee!!

However, I'm determined to see them a second time on this tour. The big question will be where. I definitely would love to catch them in Cali, but am unsure of whether I'd like to see them in LA or Sacramento. Granted, taking a quick check at Delta, I could fly out to Sacramento, catch the show, fly the next day to LA, catch the show, then fly back to Atlanta on the following day for a whopping $10. Muah ha ha ha ha ha!!!!!

Please, if you can spare, direct as many good thoughts for me from about 4 - 5 PM today - particularly smarty-smart and good-answer thoughts.