Yay, it's Tom Baker's birthday! He's 71 today (!), but I'm not sure how old he'd be in Time Lord years. ;) (I'm a geek!) I've actually been getting much more back into watching Who, and am appreciating the Fourth Doctor and his Doctor-y-ness all over again. I love Tom Baker. <3 Best. Actor. Ever.

I've updated The One And Only Doctor Number Four with lots of goodies - 40 (!) new pictures, 9 new 100x100 icons (one of which you can see to your right), 4 new wallpapers, and a revamped layout. I had a lot of fun working on the icons - I like that icon style that's been floating around for awhile now. I'd call it "Vaguely Artistic" - emphasis on the "vague". I like the style, but, as with a lot of graphic trends, I think it can sometimes be pretentious (says the girl who used the lyric "I see a little silhouetto of a man" on an icon of the Doctor in a slightly Bo Rhap-esque pose!). Which doesn't seem to stop me from jumping on the bandwagon, apparently. :/

Tom Baker's b'day is the only good thing about today. I'm embarrassed to be an American today. Chimpy and Co. are going all-out for this coro-nauguration, while our troops aren't properly equipped and millions are suffering as a result of the worst natural disaster in history. It makes one's mind boggle. It makes one sick.

I guess the only way to counterract such badness is to distract yourself with something that has... HEALING POWERS! Yes. I've started up a fanlisting for Tie Your Mother Down, which as everyone should know is "sheer bloody poetry" [(c) The Times]. I made 57 (!!) screen caps from the video, as well as four rather lovely icons, if I do say so myself. It was danged hard getting good quality captures of Freddie - he moves SO much in TYMD! The screen caps really don't do the video justice - it's one of those things you just have to see for yourself (because it's spangly).

Let's see... still doing... not too well, actually. But, things have got to get better, and they will.

Cheery bye, Scarlett


Listening to: Nothing
Currently amused by: The Complete Peter Cook

Sorry for the mass-posting - Blogger's being weird today (no doubt a lot of people are blogging today). :/

Cheery bye, Scarlett

(Subject refers to the post, not to anyone mentioned in the post!)

No updates about anything, everything's still the same (went from bad to worse exactly a week before Xmas, but I'm working on getting my OCD sorted out - will see my therapist on Fri., in fact).

But, I wanted to show off one of the products of my "too-much-free-time"-ness (I've also started up two new fanlistings, made new layouts for others, installed a FAQ database - for more info, I point you to this post in the nifty Sari's journal - because I have WAY too much time on my hands).

I found this excellent tutorial that gives great instructions on how to make a "comic book"-style icon. I had found (this was about twenty minutes ago, actually) a gorgeous wallpaper of teh Peter Cook on the BBC's site, but it was of a horribly poor quality, and made me shake my head in sadness. I thought it might look OK in a smaller size for an icon, but found that wasn't the case (it just looked weird in a smaller size).

I had seen a comic book icon in an icon post this user's LJ, and there was a link to the tutorial that was used to make it. I had a vague notion that the picture would look great with simple, clean lines, and I wanted to try out the comic book technique, so... It worked for me, and thusly, you now see - my new Peter Cook icon. *is happy*

*loves icon*

I have a theory (how one goes from rambling about icons to theories, I have no idea) that all brilliant people are "flawed" in some way. Their minds are always on, and their brains are ultra-creative. For a dim person, an overractive brain doesn't sound like a problem, but it is (I'm not saying I'm brilliant, cos I'm not - but my mind *is* always on, and *is* somewhat ultra-creative). That brilliant mind is also a curse, for whatever reason.

My dad, for example, is a computer genius - among other things! He's a voracious reader, is a math whiz, and is just really sickeningly intelligent. He's also a complete goofball (which seems to go hand-in-hand with brilliance). He has OCD and depression too. Each causes him an equal amount of suffering (not physically, of course, but mentally and emotionally - which some would argue is just as bad, if not worse), but he just pushes on. He's been on so many meds to treat both disorders, but his psych has never hit on a winning combination, so he's never had a really nice stretch of time without symptoms. But he keeps being brilliant, solving problems at work, reading a bazillion books.

I don't know why I'm going on about this, but it goes along with my theory that brilliant people have a tragic aspect to their life. My dad's mind - rich and creative, full of knowledge and the odd useless fact - provides him with his career, but also provides him with suffering. It's not fair. But that's the way things are, I suppose. One must just keep going, which is what my dad does. I'm gonna be corny - sorry! - and just state for the record that my dad is my anti-hero - he doesn't do anything earth-shatteringly important, but he gets through extremely difficult times while still being the best dad ever, and to me, that's danged heroic. (I think "anti-hero" is the right term; it probably isn't, but to call him my "hero" would be terribly cliché. Plus, he's more of the underdog than the hero to me, so I'm guessing that "anti-hero" works. Maybe?)

I've been reading The Complete Peter Cook, an excellent collection of Peter Cook's work that I got for Xmas, and I suppose that that's what brought on my contemplation of brilliance. Peter Cook was exceptionally talented, but tragic too. I like to think of myself as vaguely talented in some areas (I'm only 18; I haven't found my true calling yet! - though I do plan to study to be a history teacher...), like websites/design and such, and I also think I'm probably a bit tragic too. I mean, I've already been through cognitive behavioral therapy once, and my experiences with OCD would probably make a normal person cry. (And I know that everyone has something bad in their lives that's just as tormenting as OCD - I'm not foolish enough to think that everyone else's life is all flowers and bunnies!) I'm not the only person to have dealt with all this, of course, but I *have* dealt with a lot. I identify with that "brilliant but tragic" thing in Peter Cook and others (but I continue to stress that I'm hardly brilliant and that things could probably be worse). It helps you to get through the day, really, to think that other people who've had difficult lives have been able to keep going, to be successful, whatever. I sound so pretentious right now that I may slap myself around the head once I post this. I don't mean to sound so high-falutin', honest - I'm just sort of writing to feel a bit better about stuff. It gives one a sense of accomplishment - hey, I'm not doing well with my OCD, but at least I can still write somewhat coherently!

Well, that's all.

Cheery bye, Scarlett


Listening to: Too Much Of A Good Thing [Original 12" Mix] (Kylie Minogue)

I had meant to do this earlier, but better late than never!

I have to include Fall 2003 here, because a "year" to me always begin when school begins. Old habits are hard to break!

August 2003
+ The week before school started, one of my birthday gifts finally arrived in the mail - Inferno (a Third Doctor Story). I got round to watching it the night before school started, and got through, I think, 3 and a half episodes of it before I finally went to sleep - it was that good! So I had my first day of school as a senior, la la la, fun, got home and watched more of Inferno, then went to sleep. The next day my mom woke me up to say that school was CLOSED because of power outages (for some reason, there were power outages that week). Insted of going back to sleep, I finished watching Inferno. It's a good memory. :)
+ The rest of the first week of school was cancelled because our school's power was out. That was fun, except they opened school that Friday WITHOUT AIR CONDITIONING because, quote, they "thought the sun wasn't going to be very bright" that day. Needless to say, we got out of school early because it was sweltering by fourth period. We stood around in Digital Arts (my old 4th period) and complained about how hot it was and how stupid the school was, which was fun and was pretty much what we did in every DA class (although the complaints varied, of course).

September 2003
+ Nothing interesting happened in September.

October 2003
+ I got into the show Ballykissangel, and cried while watching it on two occasions (when Father Clifford left, and when Assumpta died). Cool stuff (except for the bits that made me cry, but even they were nifty).
+ I took the SAT for the first time. My name wasn't on the list, I had to run all over the school to get this fixed, and then I finally got to take the danged exam. I fell asleep while taking it a few times, actually, which sounds bad but it didn't have any effect on how I did on the test. I vowed, "Never again."

November 2003
+ Nothing happened in November, either.

December 2003
+ Working up to the end of the first semester of school took up most of December, including a project for AP Lit that turned out to be rather fun. In groups, we had to make a movie sort of thing of a scene from King Lear. To tell the truth, I only read the bit of King Lear that we personally acted out. Heh, I'm sneaky, or something like that. Anyways, we worked on stuff at the house of one of our group's members, and it was after one "rehearsal" sort of thing that she decided I had to see Pirates of the Caribbean. "The real movie starts here," she said, and went to the scene where Capt. Jack Sparrow does the best entrance scene ever. Gah! Why had I not seen this movie before?
+ I took the SAT again. Never say never, right?
+ I completed my application to the University of Maryland and anxiously awaited a response...

January 2004
+ I finally got round to getting POTC (well, my mom got it, but anyways), and promptly decided that Johnny Depp was the best thing in the world and I had many discussions about this with my best good friend R., who had spent a lot of time trying to force me to see the movie in the first place (I initially didn't care about the movie at all!), so she was happy that I could finally appreciate the pirate-y goodness of the Depp.
+ THE HAREM TOUR! I saw Sarah Brightman IN CONCERT! On January 29! It was surreal! I broke out in hives! No really, I did. I was that excited. :D I wrote a review of the concert when I got back, you can read it here. There's nothing quite like walking to the MCI center in the heart of Washington DC in the middle of winter and trying to eat a sandwich at the same time... (The picture to your left is of me holding the Tour CD. The hotel had this gimmicky photo-taking thing in a bar/restaurant, so I had to take a piccy of me with my CD! The gimmicky-cheapness of the thing also explains the red hue.)

February 2004
+ This was the month I caught Bedazzled on PBS. I had MPT on in the background while I was working on the computer, music blaring in my ears, when my dad popped his head in the door and said "Mommy [yeah, I still call her Mommy...] said to tell you there's a funny movie with Peter Cook and Dudley Moore on?" (on the other PBS station). I knew of them, had heard about some of their sketches and stuff through other British comedy stuff I'd read/seen, but had never seen them "in action". I really wasn't that interested, but thoguht "It might be good", so I switched the channel and hit "Record" (I was going to tape it for the British Comedy Club). And there was Peter Cook.

I fell in love with the movie, because it's brilliant. I fell in love with Peter Cook, because he's brilliant (and, ok, because he's terribly dishy).

+ I got through my midterms, but a short time later, I got the flu. BEST TWO WEEKS EVER. A few weeks before, I had borrowed my mom's "Queen's Greatest Hits" CD but had only really liked Killer Queen, so tossed the CD onto my dresser, never to be listened to again... or was it? Well duh.

I had the flu, so I felt awful, but I was home from school, so I actually felt pretty OK (aside from the coughing and exploding nose and the awful Vicks humidifier smell). It was the second semester of school, and I missed absolutely nothing during those two weeks. It was wonderful. I was in a sort of limbo - waiting to hear from UMD, waiting to get better but feeling reasonably well, waiting for the end of school. It was a bit of a transition, if you will, from a "school" mentality to an "independent" mentality - I was aware that there was definitely an end of school in sight at this point, and I wouldn't always be subject to a high school schedule. I also "discovered" Queen.

On a whim, I popped the CD in my CD player, and got hit by a Queen stick. I couldn't believe that I had lived so long without Seven Seas of Rhye! Somebody to Love! Killer Queen! Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy! Queen became the soundtrack to my senior year of high school (and my summer, but that comes later).

I'm not done with this yet! Pirates of the Caribbean was put up for captioning at Glitterrock.org, and seeing as I had just become obsessed with it, it was extremely cool to caption. I've never captioned so much - about 60+ captions in those two weeks! That was the best week ever - home, flu, Queen, captions.


March 2004
+ Nothing happened in March... Move along, nothing to see here! :)

April 2004
+ I got word from UMD that my app was still being processed. Anxiety!
+ I think April was the month that I got a cheap Spanish import of Queen's Greatest Flix at Suncoast. I had aboslutely no interest in Queen except the music - I didn't care how they looked, I just adored the music. I wanted to see the videos for the songs though, so I got the DVD, and as I watched Bo Rhap, I realized that I had fallen deeply in love with Freddie Mercury (as well as the rest of the band, but mostly Freddie). But I can honestly say that I got into Queen because of the music, and NOT just because I thought they were disjy. I'm not THAT superficial, thankyouverymuch!

May 2004
+ May was spent tying up loose ends at school - tests, homework, all that sort of thing. I took my senior final exams, did excellently, and waited for ...

June 2004
+ ... when I graduated! The day was enhanced by the crazy bus ride to DAR, where my friend red_panda_ban and I discussed many important things, such as the "secret bathroom question", "pig doots", and of course the graduation itself. The speeches were very dull, except for the principal's - which was a shock, but there you go. It wasn't one of those "Independence, future, la la la" speeches - she actually spoke about the past school year and such. Very good.

The bus driver drove through Virginia on the way home, for some reason. It may just be me, but I really think that if the place you're going to is in the same state, you shouldn't go through another one.
+ I got the Queen video DVDs plus moolah as my grad present! Whoop!
+ I started my blog!

July 2004
+ I found the Ofra Haza Chai/Bait Ham 2 CD set at Borders! I never thought I'd find it in a store; I'd always thought I'd have to order it online. Yay!
+ On a whim, I bought a Natacha Atlas remix album. Amazon.com's "recommendations" thing had listed her as a similar artist when I was searching for Ofra stuff once, so I thought, "It might be good". It was! I became an insta-fan, and went out and got all the CDs that were available of hers (luckily, not that many - only 4, and I'll have to find her first album online sometime). The remix album was/is responsible for the "Yalla Chant" getting stuck in my head. The chorus goes like this: "Yalla, yalla yalla, yalla, yalla yalla...". Yes. Apparently it means "Let's go!", but I just like the word "yalla". :)
+ Vacation! Watched the Democratic National Convention at night and finally got interested in politics.
+ Became a huge fan of The Daily Show.
+ Was accepted at UMD! Woo-hoo!
+ Started entering blend challenges at my favorite blend site of all, Acid Rock Blends!

August 2004
+ My birthday (Aug. 21)! Fun fun fun, except I was starting to go downhill with my OCD...
+ The Bedazzled and The Best of What's Left of Not Only But Also videos I had ordered for my b'day finally arrived, and I instantly became a fan of NOBA and finally saw the first ten minutes of Bedazzled that I hadn't seen when it was on PBS. Yeah!

September 2004
+ OCD kept geting worse
+ Started my Withnail and I fanlisting! Huzzah!
+ I also at some point finally downloaded Who Wants To Live Forever (The Trouser Enthusiast's Cybernetic Odalisque Mix) and super-rare Eden video of Sarah Brightman's, which was excellent.)



October 2004
+ Started Some Kind of Blends, a Kylie Minogue-only blends site! I've received entries, but it would be great if more people entered! *please please please?*
+ Went to Solomon's Island as a mini-vacation, plagued by OCD. But the weather was nice and such...



November 2004
+ Voted for Kerry, was crushed when he didn't win. Vowed to never miss an episode of The Daily Show for the next four years. "Don't forget Poland!"
+ Began reading political blogs (OK, I only regularly read one, but still). Became even more thoroughly disgusted with the gov't and the election.
+ Approved for the Enya fanlisting! Whee!

December 2004
+ Christmas! OCD flare-up! Peter Cook stuff! Yes, I got The Complete Peter Cook and The Dagenham Dialogues for Xmas and am thoroughly enjoying them. I also got Jon Stewart's Naked Pictures of Famous People, which I enjoyed immensely. I also got the Cook and Moore version of The Hound of the Baskervilles, which apparently is pig doots, according to everything I've read, but I don't care (I haven't had a chance to watch it yet, though). We had to order it from Canada cos it wasn't available anywhere else, nifty!

January 2005
+ OCD is still bad, bah. But things have got to look up.
+ So it was a fairly busy year, but one thing must always be remembered: Deaky is a great bass guy.

Cheery bye, Scarlett


Listening to: BPM - Kylie