Bolt of Blue

Where do I begin?

For months now, I’ve been helping my husband and two friends build an epic LEGO recreation of the The Last March of the Ents from The Lord of the Rings movie. We unleashed the photos online on September 28, and then displayed it for a public exhibit that very weekend in Seattle at BrickCon. BrickCon was an insanely fun and exhausting time hanging with new and old friends. The drive up to Seattle and back was long… but surprisingly nice to just spend time with my husband and little Baxter, who came along for the trip. And our creation won Best in Show. Really amazed!

It’s been a smashing success and one of the most fun creative projects I’ve ever been a small part of. I hoped people would like it after all the hard work put into it, but never expected the reception to be as enthusiastic as it’s been. We’ve been interviewed for a podcast, made CNN and a ton of blogs, and we’re getting close to a million views on the photos.

We got the crazy idea after watching a marathon screening of the trilogy at the Egyptian Theatre earlier this year. One thing I will always love about Los Angeles is that there so many amazing revival movie theatres. Any night of any week, you can pop into theatres all over town to check out classic, cult, weird, obscure, popular, indie or new movies…

The idea was just to build one Ent. This snowballed. Quickly. It’s been a real labor of love though and came together so seamlessly. We’re pretty proud. And it’ll be on display again at a local event in Pasadena called Designer Con.

What else have I’ve been doing since my last ages ago post? Took a week long road trip exploring the California coast as well as attended several events celebrating the opening of the new Dinosaur Hall at the Natural History Museum. Still going to shows including Fiona Apple, Jon Brion, and the members of Nickelcreek put on one of the best I’ve ever been to in my entire life! Oh, and in between all the LEGO madness, I still managed to see Duran Duran at Nokia Theatre. It always comes back to Duran Duran in the end…

Sat, June 24 at the Greek Theatre
Fiona Apple plus special guest Damien Rice

Wow.

Dream concert.

I have to be there for this.

Wow. Man, oh man.

I’m doing better. A day of rest definitely helped and I kicked the fever. Glad the weekend is almost here. More rest in store for me.

I actually watched the Grammy’s this year. I normally will only tune in for a minute or two, get disgusted and change the channel pronto.

From the opening seconds, I got hooked for some unexplainable reason. The show wasn’t any better than previous years and the winners were mostly generic and lame. And don’t get me started on U2 winning as many awards as they did. Makes my blood boil.

But what I did enjoy was seeing Fiona Apple looking gorgeous and how amazing Christina did. She looked great and sounded fabulous. And getting see Damon on US television. Ok, so they only showed him for a brief second when Gorillaz were up for an award, but still. And his voice opened the show!

I had been so looking forward to the opening performance. And the portion with Gorillaz did not disappoint. It was hilarious and cheeky and I couldn’t believe they got away with it. Loved every second. I was however, disappointed that Madonna didn’t interact more with Gorillaz. She was hot but it would have been more interesting if she had done something different than yet another performance of Hung Up – that’s she done before almost the exact same way. Oh well.

Coldplay were just ho-hum for me too. I did like that Chris tried to give Jonny the spotlight when he went out into the audience. But it was ruined when the stupid people doing the lights didn’t even put a light on Jonny when he went into his solo.

Other random musings: Teri Hatcher would be gorgeous if she only gained 10 pounds. Kayne West is the new Michael Jackson. He’s a FREAK. Joss Stone is Joss Lame. Kelly Clarkson’s speeches were terribly cute. The show was too freaking LONG. I can’t believe I watched the whole thing. Next year, I’m only downloading the performances I want to check out. I vow not to get sucked in again. Yep.

I’ve been quite busy. You know how. The usual. Get up, go to work. Come home, eat. Spend time with my husband. Sleep. See movies. Help friends with parties. Dream. Shop. Live. Breathe.

I have my good days. I have my bad days.

I try to be thankful for all I that have and not get too bogged down in the silliness of every day life. But of course, it’s not always so easy.

This week has just been one of those weeks. When it gets hard to remember that I just had a wonderful Thanksgiving with my family. Or how incredible it was to see Fiona Apple again perform so magnificently. Or how I had a great time hanging out with a number of my friends the other night. Or you know, that I have a roof over my head, money in my pocket, and an amazing person to share my life with.

Yah. Ok.

So I haven’t posted in a long time. Jeez… well over a month. I don’t know why exactly. Plenty of things going on or pop culture events I could rant about. But I just haven’t been too motivitated lately.

On one very happy note, Match Point is going to be out in 26 days. Before that there’s Christmas, my first real Christmas with Remi after 6 years. And my friend Autumn’s birthday party is tomorrow. I’ll be baking some yummy cakes with my man. And then spending time with many friends I love.

So yah.

Ok. Live has it’s bittersweet moments. But I just got to remember to keep that chin up.

Wow. Finally. News on Fiona’s new album.

It’s due out October 4th.

They redid her website with all the news and you can listen to some tracks.

The album was remixed and has a new producer. Will be interesting to compare the two versions.

Listening to Fiona Apple’s Extraordinary Machine album. Only 2 tracks had been leaked months ago but the entire album is out there online. It’s everything I imagined it would be and more. Raw, aggressive, beautiful, and another step forward. She’s grown so much as a songwriter from her last album and it shows. It’s really incredible and breaks my heart that it’s being held hostage by Sony and there’s nothing that can seemingly be done about it.

There’s plenty of ways now to get the album. It’s just such a frustrating example of how much the music label industry is failing. Fans can’t go out and buy an album they want to spend money on. An artist is stifled by a contract that does not allow her to own her own music. And a label that doesn’t care what it’s depriving the world of.

More photos coming. More details too. I met Fiona Apple. I helped Elijah Wood get to a bathroom. I cut up my heel. I walked ten miles up and down stairs. I’m quite floored we managed to pull off such a fabulous party for fans. Oh yeah… CLEAN SWEEP!

I had planned to write up a more detailed entry but I just got some really not so good news so trying to deal right now. Posting this is helping me get my mind off things. And since I can’t hug Remi because he’s a thousand miles away, I’m going to see my mom and get the hug I really need right now.