Time Travel 5

I think a lot about time travel.

Not only if it would ever be actually possible by people that aren't Time Lords/wizards/Doc Brown, but what would we do? What would be the limitations?

Where and when would we go? (We meaning me, and anyone who would use the time machine for harmless but irresponsible fun things)

Naturally, I made a list, as I am wont to do in situations, and I had 10 places/times at first, but I have boiled it down to an essential five.

Here we go.

1. August 15, 1965 at Shea Stadium, which the Beatles played on their second US concert tour. I think it would have been nice to see the Beatles when they were touring/together/alive together, and this concert just seems fabulous. Come on. Look at this and tell me it was a bad concert. Also, my sport-minded brother tells me that Shea Stadium was destroyed a few years ago, so I will also have the  advantage of going to a stadium that doesn't exist anymore and that I know nothing about.
2. The Chicago World's Fair in April 1893, for the primary reasons that I love Chicago very, very much and that they introduced the Ferris Wheel and spray paint at that fair. And it's a fair! In Chicago!
3. Times Square in New York City on December 31, 1999. While I was alive for the new millennium, I was incredibly small and I wish I had remembered something of it, because there are overwhelming odds that I will never see another millennium again. I will also enjoy it more than anyone else alive, because I will be the only person there who knows for sure that Y2K is not true. Unless there are other time travellers there.
4. September 7, 1533, for  the coronation of Queen Elizabeth I. I think she was the best ruler England has ever had (even if there are all of those sketchy rumours about her being William Shakespeare's mother). It would be nice to see the start of that era, especially since I would be able to experience 1500's England and see what England did for coronations in the 1500s.
5. Back to the beginning of this summer, to tell myself to actually do something before I waste three months. So I could do something before school starts in SIX DAYS. (I couldn't think of any interesting explanation for the last one, so I said something stupid instead of the six others I had on the list! Ta-DA!)

The problem with most historical events is that you know how it ends. You could say "JFK assassination" or "first moon landing", but you know what happens. The thrill is sitting there, not knowing what's happening next, instead of standing in the back, rolling your eyes and mouthing "One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind" along with Neil Armstrong. That's what I realized as I looked over my carefully prepared list.

But perhaps there's a different sort of thrill in hearing the words spoken by the original speaker for the first time in anyone's lives? Maybe there is a thrill in sitting in a theater with people who are finding out that Darth Vader in Luke's father for the first time, even though you have known for practically all of your life?

Hmm.

If you want, tell me your Time Travel 5. Put it in a comment or write a post about it. Whatever floats your boat. I just hope you lot are a hell of a lot more creative than me.
Now I will listen to Explorers 6 for the nineteenth time and then go to bed.

Favorite Thing on the Internet #45

Personally, I don't watch My Little Pony.
BUT.
If you're ever bored you should head over here where you can MAKE A PONY. You can even make yourself into a pony.
Love, love, love.
I am currently working on making myself into a pony, but first I made this gem:

Think of this as...the ideal FRAS pony. As what I dream I will someday be. I think my subtle title for this picture captures it all- "IDEAL UNICORN PONY WHO IS ALSO A COP."
And so it is.

Writing for You

Things that I have recently acquired:

• 80's Glam skinny Sharpie pens and I adore them very much.
• The Taming of the Shrew and Frankenstein for school. I do not adore these as much.

Things that I am reading:

• An extremely confusing, but tolerable, biography of Coco Chanel that I picked because it had cool pictures and I have the methods of a  four-year-old
• (Rereading, actually) Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, because that is my second-favorite book in the series and the book is good
• Hound of the Baskervilles. Yeah. Because Sherlock Holmes makes me wish I knew him. (Also, did you know there's a TV show? My friend showed it to me a while back on Netflix. It takes some ideas from the Arthur Conan Doyle stories, but it's not bad.)

Random somethings I have on my nightstand:

• An empty bottle of Coca-Cola that commemorates the company's 125th Birthday
• A plush bear that I think I got for Valentine's Day. It has a little pocket in which I keep paper clips. When do I even use paper clips? Hardly ever. But I have them. In this bear.
• A wooden cat, for some reason.
• A partially broken camel from Luxor, in Las Vegas. He has been dropped so many times that it is a wonder that he is only partially broken.
• A guitar pick.
• Three tennis balls for my juggling endeavors.

Things that I have realized that don't affect me in any meaningful way:

• Sandy Olsson, in Grease, looked better before she went all leather. Compare this picture to this picture. I don't know about you, but I prefer the first one.
• Whoever thought of backlit keyboards was a clever person.
• My blog is a hyperlink minefield.
• A man named Benedict Cumberbatch plays Sherlock Holmes on Sherlock.
• Is that not the most fantastic name you've ever heard?
• David Tennant, who played the Tenth Doctor on Doctor Who, is getting married to Georgia Moffat, who is the real-life daughter of Peter Davison, who played the Fifth Doctor.
• BUT
• Georgia Moffat played the Tenth Doctor's daughter in an episode of Doctor Who.
• So she is the real life daughter of the Doctor and the TV daughter of the Doctor and she's getting married to the (former) Doctor.
• Is this weird or what? It feels like this is some convoluted kind of incest when it so obviously isn't.
• Anyway, if you don't watch Doctor Who, I imagine that was somewhat confusing and meaningless for you and I'm sorry. Here is some soap that has a cookies-and-milk pattern. It even smells like chocolate-chip cookies.
• No, but seriously, you should watch Doctor Who.

Quote for Saturday, August 6, 2011:

It's okay to be fat.  So you're fat.  Just be fat and shut up about it.

-Roseanne Barr

Summing It Up

It is a new(ish) month and I, for one, will be heading off to school towards the end of it. So let me start August off with a lazy post.
Frankly, the last week of this month will involve more work than I have done these past two months. Well, three months, since I started counting school as over in mid-May.

1. I am not doing BEDAugust. I was considering it. And I missed the first two days, so honestly I don't think it counts anymore. Also, I am not interesting enough to do this twice a year. I'll stick to April. Anyway.
2. For the first time ever, I went to a real, full-blown concert. There was an enormous number of people there. It was stickily and blisteringly hot. And it might have been the best night of my entire short life. Seriously. Best day ever. Insert your Tangled gifs here.
3. I might have a job working for a company I hate. Well, I say might. They've offered. Did I imagine my first job would be this? No. Is it legal and does it pay me more money than I thought I would get at my first job? Yes. Do I need/want money? Yes. Am I going to work for Evil? ...probably.
4. Also, my friends and I registered for Pottermore beta, for which I am inappropriately excited. For not knowing what is and having serious doubts about the actual function of the site, you could even say there is absolutely no call for me to be so excited.
5. One of my friends and I spent the last thirty minutes coming up with bad pre-set Pottermore usernames, like BezoarSeeker89 or MugwumpMandrake456. Some of these have the potential to be truly atrocious usernames.
6. I am teaching myself how to juggle, and I am actually not doing that badly. I don't know where I will use this, but I do have a plan.

And that is all.
Music: Sunny Afternoon/The Kinks
(Deviating from my usual Quote/Muse format because I really like this song, The Kinks have recently reclaimed my heart, and I wanted to put only this at the end of the post.)

Frets of AAAAH

Perfectionism is something that I strive for. I have always aimed to be better than everyone else at everything, and while I rarely accomplish that, I am usually pretty proud of what I have done. "Practice makes perfect" was an adage lodged into my brain at five, and I have never been able to shake it off completely.

But.

One downside to my quest for spotless, holy glory is that whenever I can't get something after practicing, I begin to lose it. I begin to doubt everything I've ever stood for. I fail at things I used to be good at before, like writing or standing up.

Like now.

I recently started learning how to play the guitar, like every teenager who thinks they're cool because they know how to play guitar (only I am hopefully not that annoying, because I hate people who can play three chords on the guitar and suddenly they think they're Paul fricking McCartney, and one of my fears when I started this was that I would become one of those).

And I can't get it.

I can play a bunch of chords, and I have good hands for guitar (because they're man hands, according to Ginger... *shakes head bitterly*) but I can't...you know...actually play guitar. I can play chords individually, but when I put them together, they sound like Death is skinning a drugged hyena. My fingers can't move fast enough.

And the thing is, even with all of the practicing, I can't get it. I can't get it! And I'm beginning to wonder if I am just being too hard on myself because I started a short while ago, or if I just suck at instruments and should give up now before somebody dies due to my atrocious playing, or if it just takes longer for some people to stop wanting to lie on the floor and die every time I they mess up a chord change.

Muse for Today:

This is wonderful. He's obviously making up for his stupid name.

(Source: http://thecountercurseisunjellify.tumblr.com)