So I’m reading this comment thread on Whedonesque which started off as commenting about some site’s listing of the “Beer Bad” episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer as the worst ever and ended up as everyone listing their idea of worst (and best) episodes our of the series.

Do you remember sitting in class back in high school, most likely during a test or something, and someone will whisper something funny to you and you just get an attack of the giggles so bad the teacher asks you to step out? Or maybe not quite that bad, but you know the feeling of trying to hold in a giggle fit. Everyone does.

Well, while reading the comments, someone quoted a line from an episode. The line is, “Nothing can defeat the penis!” Mildly amusing line if you read it dry. But hear it in your head with a deep superhero voice. Worthy of a chuckle? Now imagine that you’re remembering that episode, the way the line was delivered by goofy Xander, and how absolutely random the line was and how you spewed Dr. Pepper all over the place because the timing and randomness was so perfect and hilarious.

Now imagine remembering all that while sitting at your desk at work, surrounded by your coworkers all diligently working away and concentrating hard. And throw in the realization that you can’t guffaw aloud at this because no one here watched Buffy and would find it very funny and explaining it to them would be pointless because by the time you finish, it’s just not really all that funny.

Suppress those giggles. Turn bright red in the face as your chest shakes and your hand is clamped in a death grip over your mouth. Desperately try to stop thinking about that damn line! Ummm… baseball… Wrinkly David Brinkley… That time you walked in on your grandma in just her bra… Ok calming down now… PENIS! Oh no!! Breathe Steph breathe… it’s not that funny… Oh god the phone’s ringing. Shit! Deep breaths… No don’t take a drink of water. You’ll ruin the keyboard.

Yeah, that was me about 10 minutes ago. I’ve got it under control now 🙂

I’m directing this week’s HuskersHQ talk show. Well, mostly just running the camera switches, but there’s no real script so the switches are sort of freestyle.

When I do the daily newscast, I’ve got a script and camera changes written in. Easy-peasy. So freestyle makes me a little nervous. Especially since it’s a sports show. I know SFA about Husker football so I’m hoping it will be easy to tell when to flip cams.

I’m also excited about it. As I learn more and more about video, producing and editing etc, I’m discovering a new thing that I love doing in my field. It almost feels like it did back in college when I was a bit directionless until I discovered the Internets. I had an epiphany moment when I realized I could make a living out of something I love to do as a hobby.

And I’ve always dug editing. Been making WAV files and soundclips for eons. But I never had really good tools to learn the stuff full force. I do now and yep, it suits me 🙂 I’m gong to be learning how to shoot video next. Looking forward to that.

Anyway lunch break’s nearly over. Check out http://theindependent.com/overtime/ tomorrow and let me know how I did 🙂 Or you can catch my newscasts every other day at http://theindependent.com/video/.

…Later that afternoon…
Well that wasn’t so bad. I kind of like freestylin’ 🙂 I felt stiff at first and afraid to get too crazy with the switching but you really do kind of get a feel for when to throw it to 1 or toss it to 3. AND you don’t have to know football either 🙂 It’s more about tone of voice and you can just tell when the talking head is winding up his spiel.

I’d do it again.

On any given day, I’m extremely proud of my daughter. She’s a force to be reckoned with really. It’s funny though, because from the time she reached double digits I always had other parentals giving me words of warning like, “Just wait until she’s a teenager” followed by rolling eyes and rueful shaking of their heads. They were letting me know that I’m really ‘in for it.’

Well she’s been one for several years now and I’m still waiting for the Pod Person to appear. Instead, she’s pretty level-headed and definitely smarter and older than her years.

Where I’m going with this is we had the first parent teacher conferences of the year today and I went in knowing the kid is doing extremely well grade-wise – she’s really applying herself this year which makes me proud. But what I didn’t expect are the wonderful things her teachers were saying. I won’t gush on here but I left the place practically bursting with pride in my daughter.

I love you kiddo. Well done and keep it up!

Woke up this morning, took a shower, got it in my head that I needed bangs (that’s ‘fringe’ for you weirdo Brits 🙂 ) so I cut my hair. Then I did hair and makeup and went to work where exactly zero people even noticed.

I hate that. Sometimes I think I could walk into work with one of those electric light-up suits and huge red arrows suspended above my head and I wouldn’t get more than a cursory ‘Morning Steph’ as coworkers barely glance up from their computer screens.

Back in high school, I was the girl with a different hair colour every week. It was sort of my ‘thing.’ My Creative Writing teacher even signed my yearbook that way: ‘To the girl with the rainbow hair…’ What can I say? It was the 80s, and I was a little rebellious. Plus I loved experimenting. Got even worse when I had my stint in cosmotology school. I’ve had about every hair colour you can think of except for blue.

I think a lot of kids go through that ‘pay attention to me’ phase – not wanting to be normal, wanting to stick out and be an individual who was also quite cool. I never really kicked the habit I guess. Don’t want to be thought of as typical. I like to shake up people’s perceptions when they take a minute and look at me.

I could pass you in my car, at first glance at me in my office appropriate attire, what sort of music would you think a nondescript chick in boring attire would b listening to? Light rock? Classical perhaps? Surely when you pull up alongside at a red light the last thing you’d expect to hear are the raucous strains of the Dead Kennedy’s going on about rioting and how terminal preppies just like to get drunk and be taught how to f___.

Or if I’m in a different mood, and to counteract the thumping beats of some godawful (c)rap song, I might roll the windows down and pop in my Placebo cd and let Molko moan about being a nancy boy at full volume.

Ok I’ve disappeared off on a tangent here. Point is, I still don’t think I want to be thought of as typical or normal and despite appearances or affectations, I probably am anyway. But my bangs look cute anyway 🙂

It’s homecoming tonight and the kid is off, all dressed up with flowers in her hair. I took a piccy with my cell and promptly forgot to hit ‘save.’ So no pics. So it’s just me tonight and I’m bored.

I did make a new tune… Finished it up today. It’s quite creepy and I like it a lot 🙂 I call it ‘Deviant.’ I really dig Sony’s Acid Pro. It’s a lot of fun making these weird songs.

Mostly I’ve been catching up on my Tivo-ing today. I looked at my playlist and couldn’t believe all the shows I forgot to watch. I’m down to the Torchwoods I’ve recorded off BBCa. I was right, they edited the juicy stuff out for the Yanks. Wankers. I want to buy the DVDs but damned if I’m going to shell out 60 or 70 bucks for a 13 episode series. It’s ridiculous. I could buy the entire 22 episode series of Buffy or Angel right now for around 20 bucks. It irritates me that the Torchwood and Who’s are so expensive 🙁

Oh, I watched ‘Last House on the Left’ last night. It was more disturbing than scary. And I think my intense dislike of all things 70s kind of coloured my view of it. I really hate that decade. Thank goodness I have few memories of it. But, I can see why the film is a cult classic. I just couldn’t really get into it. I’ve got ‘Carnival of Souls,’ ‘The Ring 2′ (the first Ring kinda freaked me a little and I’ve been told the second one is scarier. We shall see.) and ’28 Days Later’ coming next week.

Well I think I’ up for a while. I’ve had a mocha and I’m sort of wired. Wired and Bored. Think I’ll go see what sort of trouble I can get into.

With a little techno wizardry, I now have a smaller version of the painting I so adore hanging on my very own wall.

It’s not perfect and I f’d up the matting as you can tell from the gash down one side but it pleases me for now, at least until I can get better framing or even better, someday own the actual print.

And someday, when I build my home theatre and fill it with props and replicas, this can go next to my VampAngel puppet so I can stop feeling silly for buying it 🙂 Hey, I’ve got a replica of Sting too. Need a place for all this stuff 🙂 Stop mocking me. Yes you, Mr. ‘I bought a Stormtrooper prop helmet on eBay.’

Came home to find my latest Netflixes waiting for me 🙂 Every year as it gets closer to Halloween I find myself in the mood to be scared out of my gourd by a scary movie. The problem is that it’s difficult to find a movie that’s truly scary. Usually they end up being mere gorefests.

Gore squicks me, it doesn’t scare me. I’ll tell you what scares me:

– Freaky-looking woods at night.
– Things I can’t see.
– Ghosty things as long as they aren’t cheesy.
– It’s more terrifying to me to open a door to a basement and not see anything but an inky blackness, not knowing what’s down there than it is to open a door and have some ax-wielding psycho chop your arms off in blood-spattering glee.
– Abandoned buildings, mental hospitals in particular.
– Hauntings.

Things that don’t scare me:
– Things I can’t bring myself to believe if the story’s not somewhat plausible.
– Demonic stuff doesn’t frighten me. Exorcist – freaky and cool but scary? not so much.
– The aforementioned gore. I’m not saying I’m against gory movies, I’m just saying they don’t really scare me.

Eh, that’s all I can think of. My problem is that I may be too desensitized to be truly scared. I can’t think of a single film since Blair Witch that’s freaked me out. Before you send me hatemail for stating Blair Witch is scary I just want to say save it. Some people it scared, some people just laughed at it. For me, it’s got the potentially haunted and freaky woods, the creepy things happening at night, increasingly scared kids lost and stumbling on increasingly scary items (the effigies hanging in the clearing? ca-reepy) and the added bonus of all the viral marketing making folks think it was real. I’m sufficiently creative enough in my imagination to let myself go and get truly scared by the film. I dug it. Sue me.

Anyway, so I’ve been on a quest to find a good scary movie. A friend made some great recs and so I’m looking forward to watching ‘Last House on the Left’ this weekend. I’ve also got one called ‘Psycho Beach Party’ but I just liked the title. Dunno if it’s actually scary.

Here’s hoping!

…Later that night…

Psycho Beach Party was great! So totally not scary, but more of an hilarious and campy take on Gidget-y type movies and slasher flicks. Boyish gal longs to be noticed by the boys so she ingratiates herself into a bunch of surfer dudes. Little do they know she’s a little… off. Anyway it’s a cool little b-movie.

The search for teh scary goes on (I will look into The Descent – thanks!)