Confessions of a Chronically-Impaired Procrastinator

What a weekend! It's almost as if Saturday didn't exist, which really sucks because I had a LOT I needed to do that day. A lot of appointments missed, promises broken, engagements not kept due to a little car shuffling that was totally my fault! I'm almost too upset about my lack of follow throughon Saturday to even go into details. I'd like to just forget all about it and just say SORRY to everyone I let down, including the boyfriend who was so gracious to drive nearly 100 miles to help me out at 3am Saturday morning.
Sigh....
I say this too often and don't follow through but I'd like today to be "the first day of the rest of my life." I actually heard that phrase on "Rocko's Modern Life" years ago and always thought it was pretty philosophic for a cartoon about butt-jokes and other disgusting bodily functions. A good start to a new rest of my life is to admit my issue: I am chronically-impaired. In other words, frequently tardy. Time-retarded. Always late.

I can almost rewind any big issues I've had in my life with procrastination and being late to something. If I had started earlier/on time for A I would not have been late for B, run into C situation en route, and could have been ready when I needed to be at D event. And thus, I might be considered for E more often.

I should give up blaming things on physical barriers, namely anemia, because I know a LOT of talented, famous, and on-time people who have much more dire health situations than something that makes me a little sleepy and can be put in check by an iron pill once a day. I think my whole body just got into a lazy, procrastinating groove that's never really been punished to the fullest extent. Sure, warning at work and the occasional demerit, but usually I fix the issue just enough to get by. It's by no means acceptable and everyday I fear it'll will be the day I pay biggest for it.

Playing around with my work schedule is pretty dangerous (I gotta pay those bills!), but I'm most disappointed in myself when I let others down in areas that I care about the most. Showing up late for call time, forgetting to post an important flyer, missing an event completely because I've overbooked or underestimated my time. It's terrible because no one wants to work with someone who cannot be on time or follow through with commitments. And even more sad that I talk so much talk about wanting to perform, travel, meet tons of people, maybe even get a bit of stardom and fame one day for talents I can improve on. No one's ever gotten famous oversleeping, miscommunicating, making excuses, or showing up late.

As of right now I'm prepping to move out of my apartment, and wouldn't you know it I have until Wednesday (3 days from now) to be out. Percentage of my apartment packed, cleaned, and ready to ship out? I'd say maybe -4%. That negative accounting for all the trash and useless crap I shouldn't even still have lying around, but do because in my case procrastination seems to tie in with a bit of hoarding. That, however, will have to wait for another blog.


This move is supposed to help me save money and maybe get me closer to downtown so I can be closer to the action there. Contrary to the boyfriend's beliefs, it's not all about partying and clubbing. My hoop instructor is downtown, members of Musee de Coeur and the Imperial OPA perform downtown, and there is so much I haven't explored to the fullest after living in the Metro area for 16 years! The downfall is that my commute to work will go from 7 minutes to 47 minutes (without traffic), at least for a couple months until I find a nice happy medium between my work and play. Still, distance won't mean a thing if I can't manage my time better! This should be the ultimate test of my ability to change. I know have it, the ability, but I need to shake myself violently from my comfort zone.

Again, sorry to anyone who reads this who I disappointed this weekend. I really dropped a few balls, maybe even made some dents in the pavement where they fell that could lead to bumpy roads in the future. At this point all I can do is keep going forward with what I have and prove I can do better. This is pretty far from the usually content of BGVTA, but had to be said!

Thanks for all the opportunities! :)

A Confession of Hoop Love from a Student of Flow

Photo by Kevin Stoll.

Woah! I have a blog! Actually, this one never went anywhere, and I've at this point probably had about 100 different ones I've manages, but we won't go into my day job....
I found through a rather helpful website, Brownielocks.com that this week is Yoyo and Skill Toys Week! While my yo-yoing days are behind me for the moment, anyone who knows me is aware of my new love for the hula hoop. To some I'm even known as "The Hula Hoop Girl," which is incredibly funny because I'm nowhere near as good as my other hooping friends or my hooping sensei, Rebecca DeShon!

Still, if there is enough room and music to dance to, I'll have my hoop in tow! It's been great learning even up to the level I am now and I don't plan on leaving it behind anytime soon. I have about 5 hoops currently hanging up in the entryway of my apartment and I don't plan to stop the collection there! I think what makes hula hooping an activity I can remember to do is the fact that there are always those hoops hanging right within sight. Unlike drill team or belly dancing, there's no colorful prop to scream "Hey! Let's play!" while I'm sitting on the couch munching on french fries. Thank goodness my living room has just enough space for me to practice in, because without music and a couple of friends I still have not built up enough confidence to head outside of my apartment with my toys.

All of my hoops, except for my newest LED hoop, were handmade by Rebecca's HoopEssence. She's also who I've learned almost all of my skills from! My LED hoop was made by Cosmic Hooper's Emporium of Bliss in North Carolina. I found him through a work buddy who, surprising, also is a hooper! She's taught me a bit too, like the very basics of leg hooping and a few isolations pointers. After that, it's me in my living room flinging the hoop around, trying to remember all I've been taught, scuffing up walls, knocking over glasses of sweet tea, and destroying my window blinds. It's going to be hard explaining a lot of that damage to my landlords when I move out in a week, but I never expected to get my deposit back anyway!

Like a yo-yo, the idea of "flow" is something you'll hear a lot of hoopers, aerialists, poi performers, and other dancers talk about. Of course you have to grasp the basic skill of keeping hoop on your waist, then you move to your hands, and before you know it you can reproduce that circular rhythm with almost any part of your body. I can remember getting excited about doing an Around the World with my yo-yo in high school and college, but I could never dodge the feeling of smacking myself or someone else in the face if I wasn't careful.

Now I'm not saying that the hula hoop is safer than the yo-yo because I've definitely smacked a girl in the face during practice with my hoop. (Super sorry about that!) But with yo-yos the look is about skill more than that feeling of flow. I couldn't dance with a yo-yo and draw in astonishing looks of a crowd with it like I can with my hooping. Sure, it's not the most amazing skill display, but the overall look of hooping is more than just up, down, around the world. Not to mention, that string on a yo-yo is almost invisible when its moving fast enough, making it hard for anyone to get close without the inevitable clock in the face.

Photo by Kevin Stoll.

With a hoop, unless you're seriously not paying attention or rolling really hard (which, to be honest, is definitely a possibility depending on where you're hooping), you'll see a hoop and will probably avoid it for fear of either breaking the flow. (By the way, if you knock someone's hoop over after you HAVE seen it and can easily avoid it, you're just rude. No one knocks books out of YOUR hands when your reading or cigarettes out of YOUR mouth while you're smoking. Just saying.)

The best part about hoop flow is that you're whole body is moving. I mention belly dancing again because, even though I can't break out in an enchanting tribal routine, I can use what I've learned of isolating parts of the body, arm placements, and hip movements to put on at least a semi-entertaining show. Even if I only do the same 5 moves over and over again, I'm still maybe 4 moves ahead of the girl twerking on some stranger across the room. Believe me, I can grind, and thinks it's great when the mood and music call for it, but it's about as restricting as dancing with an airplane seat compared to the freedom of hooping.

Since I've never really had the chance to express how I much I love hula hooping before now I got a bit out of control with the word count. Still, now was as good a time as ever to mention it given this obscure, albeit appropriate observance this week. In the midst of a million things I need to get done this week, I'll try even harder to pick up and play with my hoop for at least 30 minutes of my day. And with a few new hoop isolation videos I've found, I have a lot of learning to do!

Don't let go of your skills! Whether you like to hoop, yo-yo, jump rope, sword fight, breath fire, belly dance, pole dance, pole-vault, whatever! Fall back in love with it this week or give something new a chance!

I think this woman is adorable and totally working her hair! I love it, but if someone's going to digging in it every  other time I want to fly, no thank you. I'm already usually running late to a flight anyway. I remember I was stopped and scanned with those hand scanners because my shoes had metal studs on them and kept irritating the metal detector. I was only about 12 and I'm sure I started crying. This was also when they let people who weren't flying all the way to the gate with their guests. Does that show my age?

My Heart Belongs to Blue

For those who know me in person, this is old news. But I wanted to share a bit more of myself with the cyberspace readers who are only learning about me through my very few widely-spaced blog entries. I love blue chicks. No, not the marshmallow Peeps that only every appear on Earth once a year during Easter and Passover. Nor do I mean some yet to be discovered country group of Miley Cyrus wannabes. I'm talking about blue women; and yes, they do come in that color.

By now you might have already skimmed over my article about the Real Women of Color found in science fiction episodes and--my personal favorite--a certain spectacular video game called Mass Effect. Once I discovered that the Asari were as enticing of an alien race as they were androgynous, my heart was stolen. Granted, my only completed run-through of Mass Effect does not find my female Sheppard character interacting intimately with any of the possible Asari vixens, but the love was there nonetheless.

Since beating Mass Effect I have thought much about the love-lost Liara and her bisexual race of cerulean sisters. My friends joke that I could never truly love another woman unless she indeed was blue (preferably with tentacle cornrows or some other exotic hair/head-style). My infatuation seemed futile, but I was willing to suffer. Only months until Mass Effect 2 would open new doors of inter-species relationship possibilities for Commander Sheppard, and perhaps a second (or third or forth) chance to bask in azure affection.

But then I saw them: goddesses floating in a whirl of ice and metal. Every metallic fiber of their bodies was impossible and (to quote one of my favorite Yoko Kanno songs) incredible math. They worked perfectly together to achieve their highest purpose which was..to both get ridden by a guy named Snow???


Let's shift into reverse for a moment. I'm talking about the Shiva summon from the highly anticipated Final Fantasy XIII coming out in March. There are actually two sisters, Styria and Nix, who make up this summon in the new Square-Enix project, and boy are they intense! Not only do they support giant headpieces of gold, silver, and steel, but they do an awkward little yoga move and transform into a freaking motorcycle! And once they become said motorcycle, the main protagonist gets to hop aboard and take out enemies on his sweet new ride. Crazy, but I love it.



Final Fantasy Shivas of the past have all rocked the icy skin and elaborate locks, but none so Tron/RoboCop as this new duo. And if there is anything I love more than blue chicks, it's anything remotely related to motorcycles or, of course, robots. After a couple of days of learning as much as I can about the Shiva sisters, I was hooked. I had found love again, mainly in the older sister, Styria, who is darker, trimmed in gold, and forms the front of the blue babe bike. Her extraordinary attire (no pun intended) and unnatural poise gave me a new ambition in life: I wanted to DO Styria.

GUTTER MIND! Not like that! I want to DO her costume. I want to become Styria. At first, the thought was overwhelming and as fantastic as Square-Enix's namesake games. I studied her legs (exhaust pipes), her sharp gold accessories, and, for the love of the goddess, her headpiece! Maybe I'm disillusioned or overestimating my novice cosplay abilities, but one thing is for certain: I am crazy in love with her complete design. So crazy that I have already begun to purchase the basic materials needed to attempt such an outrageous costume feat--gold rings, foam sheets. If the annual designers of Brazil can dress their carnival queens up 10-foot high costumes, I can at least try my semi-experienced hand at one of Enix's most exquisite and whimsical creations.

It's going to be hard sharing the love when Mass Effect 2 comes out in January. I'm just one girl in the universe surrounded by beautiful blue distractions.

Borderlands Blurb

I'm pretty good with RPGs, but I suck at FPS. And with the abundance SMGs, RPMs, PvP, and all other outrageous acronyms this game offers, I won't ever get bored! The graphics are stunning, the enemies are eccentric and engaging, and the guns are...well...EVERYWHERE! I can almost venture to say there might be too many guns for my limited firearms experience and knowledge, but at least the options are there in abundance.

What's so great is that you don't always have to take on those corrosive alpha skags and crazy axe-wielding midgets on your own. Unlike all other RPGs where you can only call on the assistance of your AI party, Borderlands allows you to link up with your ACTUAL friends (hopefully you have some) and take missions in co-op mode.

So makes some new friends happy treasure hunting!

L4D2: Super Engine, Super Human, Super Ego

After marveling at the fact that it only took my party and me 45 minutes to complete a Left 4 Dead 2 campaign that alone took me twice as long, we breathed a sigh of relief into our mics and pontificated the major differences between this game and its much loved, and apparently much preferred, big brother, Left 4 Dead. I personally am very much delighted by the new game, regardless of its release barely a year after the first. There was no new gameplay to learn, save for maybe a couple of zombie commands in Versus mode, nor was I attacked with an unnecessarily profound plot twist that might have spun the game into Kingdom Hearts mode until the creators unanimously decided on an ending that could finally rest. We have 4 new survivors in a completely different part of the country fighting off an infected population that sadly spread its way further than the metropolitan streets we explored in L4D. We have better guns, some new and nasty melee weapons, gruesome Specials, and some even more unnerving settings, both rural and urban.

"But," DJZ (as Coach) confessed, "they make these zombies way too hard."
"Yeah," replied Havokk (as Nick), "the Director is definitely out to take over everything!"

Let it be noted that Havokk takes credit for inventing (or at least coining the phrase) the "Death Run," during which each player sprints for their life to the safe room, ignoring as many zombies as possible, in hopes that at least one Survivor will make it to the end alive. Where that proved successful maybe 40% of the time in L4D where the levels and AI became predictable to the seasoned player, L4D2 has recognized players like my good friend Havokk and have literally placed a big sturdy wall in their way. It really isn't a problem for players like me who like to think that every run through a campaign might reveal a little surprise or two. It does, however, make the game about twice as difficult and usually requires a few more tried before finding the right path between the strategically placed Witch/Tank/Smoker/Spitter.

Isn't that what a new game is about, though? For a title that is so similar to its predecessor, shouldn't there be more challenges than sly maneuvers through knee-high swamp waters and roller-coaster tracks? If anything, just to make it to the final stand of each campaign itself should build up genuine excitement each time. L4D2 traded out a bland old boat house finale for a grand ol' plantation mansion middle surrounded by acres of backwater swamps and spooky shanty towns. And you can't tell me that running impatiently around a hospital rooftop waiting for a helicopter rescue still gets your heart racing faster than the sprint for your life across a busted bridge, where any false step or chance Charger could instantly bring you face to face with the Mississippi River. If any part of this game were to give in, especially to the fans who weren't too proud to remove the original from their Xbox trays and replace it with the sequel, Valve would have failed to deliver the adventure we all were hoping for.

"Well, maybe," retorted Havokk, "but what about the characters? What do we know about them? How can we even be certain these people even make the cut as Survivors?"
"That's right!" DJZ states. "There's no extra dialogue, save Ellis' rantings at the beginning of each level and the others shutting him up. It gets old, and no one else ever says anything."

Now this I can agree with. We all remember Zoey's hospital elevator rant about "calling zombie bullshit." And who doesn't chuckle whenever Francis mentions how much he hates, well, everything? These were moments where in the calm of a post-horde storm we were enlightened by the reminder that our Survivors did have personalities and were, in fact, human. It was proof of life before the infection.

All the life we have to go by in L4D2 is a few Valve renders of each character in his or her natural habitat before the outbreak--Coach, all smiles, witnessing his star player hit a home-run out of the park; Rochelle, clipboard in hand outside of a channel 10 news truck, desperate to make her big break in broadcast. Anything else outside of the obvious visual stimuli of each character is pretty much left to our own imagination. In fact, the only character who gets the most introduction and exalted storyline IS Ellis. The game makes sure to feed you a nice anecdote of his life at the beginning of almost every campaign. You can almost count more on being enlightened by a new Ellis-Keith adventure than you can that second pistol or Molotov being in the safe room when you respawn after an unsuccessful run-through. And who is this crazy man Keith? Obviously he is quite the daredevil/idiot/fortune-hunter; so why isn't HE "still alive?" For someone to take so much damage, as Ellis accounts, a mere zombie infection should not have been enough to take this superman out. As for the rest of the surviving team, we're pretty much left in the dark. Rochelle worked on a news team. One could only imagine the fascinating horror stories she encountered, especially during the last days before the outbreak when full-blown. And what about Nick? A man with that suave of a haircut and three-piece suit has got to have some tales of casino debauchery or maybe some run-in with the Russian mob. We don't know, because Valve won't let them talk! Instead, we get to know the meaning behind Ellis' "hard-ass zombie-killing machine" tattoo...and yet another epic tale of the legend Keith.

Overall I would still say that the game is a must for the Xbox360. If you have Live, you won't want to miss out on one of the sickest zombie-slaughter fests of the decade. For all the haters who swore against Valve's "premature" sequel, I can maybe understand you fear of such an involved game. Timing your chainsaw attack just right to grind a Hunter midair might be a bit too advanced for you. Also, you might not be up for the challenge of 2 Chargers, 4 walking Witches, and a torrent of good-ol' summer rain. Hey, it's not called the Dirty South for nothing.

CLEAR-ly You Have No Idea

This week has been full of tickle-me-moments! First, I find out that the voice of my Halloween costume inspiration (Nakiro from Heavenly Sword) is my television idol, Olivia Dunham (Anna Torv)!! It's like we were meant to be BFFEs! Not even Raven Symone and I share such a deep connection. Now I must master Nariko's battle attire in homage to my favorite Fringe star.

Today, the moments were not as excitingly giddy, but I still felt good about myself for being informed in the industry I plan to make money in. More than I can say for the Clear Wireless salesman approached me in Best Buy. The scenario played out like this:

The Clear salesman walks up to pretty little uninformed me and wants to tell me about this great new wireless service called Clear. I told him I was already very familiar with his product and was interested until I realized that they did not have service in Tempe, Arizona. He looked at me puzzled as if he had never heard of the place. I repeated the city and stated that if he had never even heard of the town that it proved my point. He then asked if I was in school and told me I would need internet on my campus. Well, wireless on campus is free, so I really saw no need. I then told him I was a journalism major and he immediately assumed I was a writer. No, I'm more broadcast and TV, says I. Oh, he replies, so you want to right for commercials? I guess the term journalist has a very small career spectrum for some people, namely this guy. I told him I wanted to work for a company dealing with electronics, like CNET or G4. Again, an even blanker stare than when I mentioned Tempe, AZ. How can someone who works with electronics not know of the top media sites and reviewers of all things that run on electricity? I decided that he was nothing more than a simple salesman selling a product he knew less about than I did. I left him with a promise that if Clear ever made in to the west coast I would definitely need his services and that I would write a nice review for him on my electronics commercial when I start my real career as a journalist.

I then consulted the king of all Geek Squad geeks about the difference between USB and Firewire when it came to FinalCut Pro.

Now a not-so-giddy moment was trying to maneuver myself around the Wii Motion Plus during the Wii Sport Resort frisbee game. Even in practice mode my tosses were off screen and kamikaze-ing into the polygon beach sand. The little digi-dog was done with me after 2 and half tries. I blame the huge black Do-Not-Steal-ME sensor that took up almost the entire side of the Wiimote. I know that I've played at my own store (when I wasn't working, of course) and done quite the successful job. I know because the of the happy music notes that floated above his head, indicating delight in any Wii game.

Well, I've spent enough time blogging. I didn't start editing until about 3pm, but I did get my 4 allocated hours down. I still have time to perfect genius.

TTYL whoever reads these!