Samantha's Journal

Throwing Brandon a Pirate-themed birthday party on Saturday. Might post pics here or I might just FB them. For the cake I am making a Neapolitan cake made from chocolate, strawberry, and vanilla (yellow) cake mixes. There will be pudding in the middle (vanilla), chocolate frosting on the outside and the strawberry cake will be made with strawberry juice for more flavor. Pics of that will also be posted.

Researching and writing a paper on the Christmas holiday, specifically two things: (1) The differences between celebrating as a religious or secular holiday and how this may be tied into the political correctness that has overlaid all December holidays, and (2) Traditions surrounding food in the Christmas holiday, looking at similarities and differences people have and perhaps why they have certain traditions.

If you would like to be a part of my research please let me know and we can set something up.

:)

I almost can't believe that I am getting married in 7 days. The whole thing has been so surreal, I think because planning has been so simple for me; other people ask me what I want and then make it happen! The only thing I regret is not having enough money to have a larger wedding where I could invite all of my family and all of my friends. Other than that I am getting super excited and having strange wedding dreams that have nothing to do with MY wedding. Bound to happen I guess. :)

It's only a month away! Invitations went out. Most of the planning is completed. We filled out our marriage license (THAT certainly made things real) and I have a shower at the end of the month. It's kind of unreal and unbelievable.

I'm only taking two classes this semester (three if you count my directed studies) so I am done with my first week of school. It's going to be a great semester I can already tell. I am taking sign language and Anthropology of Women both with very enthusiastic teachers. I am also doing a directed studies in screenwriting, working on my screenplay I started last semester. I have to say I wish I hadn't waited so long to start college because I love it! I always enjoyed school and it is wonderful to be able to choose what classes I take and go in some sort of direction. I don't really have anything else to say so I will end it here. :)

Sick. Ugh.

So Brandon and I and my family went to Long Beach for Thanksgiving this year and like always we stayed at the Ayres Hotel across from my aunt's restaurant. We decided to go shopping this morning at 5:30 so I got up at 5am. We went shopping for a few hours then came back to the hotel to eat breakfast. By 8:30am my brother, his girlfriend and I were all fast asleep again in our room and Brandon was reading. At 9:15 I am woken up by this horrible noise that sound remarkably like a fire alarm. I tell Brandon to turn it off...he tells me he can't and then I remember I am in a hotel not at home. I immediately jump out of bed and start running around gathering stuff trying to wake up Andrew and Amanda. I then go see if every alarm is going off and I (and here is where all those fire safety tests come in) check the door to see if it's hot before I open it! I'm amazed I thought to do that! So we all pile down the stairs with all the other guests and when we get to the bottom floor I smelled something like burned toast. The fire department comes and checks everything out. Apparently someone was microwaving something and REALLY burned it and set off the smoke alarms.

It was quite a rude awakening.

So that's my Thanksgiving story. Other than that it was pretty boring.

I just set up an E-Bay account. I bought a reprint of the first American cookbook called 'American Cookery'. I fear this e-bay thing will lead to more and more cookbooks, none of which I have room for of course, unfortunately I want them ALL!!! If anyone finds an ORIGINAL copy of this book (published in 1796) PLEASE let me know!

Well yesterday was Marble Slab's first day open. It was super busy which is a good things but made for a hectic day. Now it's the 4th of July and we are expecting it to be even busier. It's a fun job though, I get to make ice cream, cakes and cones. If any of you come to the Oxnard/Ventura area be sure to come in and get some of the best ice cream ever!

Finally I got a new job! There is a new Marble Slab opening in Oxnard and I will be working there starting next week! I am very excited about this job. I love ice cream and I will most likely be decorating cakes for them! Hooray for ice cream!!!!

It's my birthday!!!!!

We saw Cloverfield tonight. It was very good although the shaky camera was a bit much for me but I understand why they did it. Very well done.

I am very excited for tomorrow's (technically today's) episode. It's the season finale! Who will live? Who will die? We will find out tomorrow!

This Saturday Brandon and I will be celebrating seven years of dating! I look back on it and it feels like such a long time (yes I know it is!) but just thinking of the here and now it feels like no time at all. Being with him has definitely helped me grow into a person who is completely different than I was 7 years ago (all of you who knew me in high school know this to be true if you have talked to me since then.) We have also been engaged for almost 2 years and hopefully we will be able to get married sometime soon. When the time is right I am sure it will be a wonderful affair and fun will be had by all (wow I am rambling...) I am also happy that we will be celebrating our anniversay with Justin and Mackenzie whom we have not seen since before Christmas (did I just use the word whom?) Hopefully yummy cheesecake will be involoved along with a trip to Golf & Stuff...but maybe not, it's awfully expensive. Please excuse the scarily un-casual writing mode, I just finished writing a paper for school and it is hard to get out of that mode sometimes. Well thank you all who took the time to read about me talk about myself, :) have a Wonderful weeked because I know I will!



then



now

I don't really have much to say but I thought I would post something here because it has been so long since I last posted and I am tired of looking at the last post. For anyone who cares here is an update on my life so far: Just got back from watching LOST at a friend's house. I love that show! If they do another panel at Comic-Con I am so there! Work is going ok. I only work on the weekend because of school so I am not making a lot of money but every little bit helps. On March 3rd Brandon and I will be celebrating our 7 year anniversary. I am excited. I think we are going to go play Miniature Golf.

Random image because Yoshi is awesome. Oh, and we moved again because our lease was up so please, come visit!

What type of Fae are you?



It looked interesting so I thought I would give it a try.

So Comic-Con was so awesome! Thanks to Katie we managed to have a hotel to stay in that wasn't too far from the convention and it was pretty cheap. We got in Wednesday late afternoon. Checked in, unpacked some things we thought we might need and headed over to the convention center. Traffic was horrendous as we thought it was going to be; it didn't help that San Diego is full of one-way streets. Finally we found a parking garage. $10 to park for the rest of the day but we knew parking was not going to be cheap. The walk to the center was a bit too long for my taste but it was the first day so it wasn't too bad. The line for getting badges from pre-registration was really long but after a few minutes a whole bunch of people moved forward and we ended up inside. We were glad that didn't take too long because it was fairly late and preview night was only from 6 to 9 pm. We basically just wandered around that first day, trying not to spend all of our money in the first three hours :) Went back to the hotel to look at all our free stuff and stuff we had bought. We decided to order dinner from this flyer we got in our room. It said we got an extra-large pizza with five toppings, bbq wings, free 8 chicken nuggets and 3 cans of coke for $10. we thought "wow thats sounds almost too good to be true." So we odered it and for some reason it was actually $20 (I am still trying to figure that one out.) After about 1 hour it comes to our room so we open everything up and begin to eat. I am sure you can see where this is going but let me tell you, the food was terrible. Definitely not worth the money we paid or the time we spent waiting for it to come. Oh well; it was late now and we had to get up early the next morning.


We got up about 8:30 hoping to leave by 9 or 9:15. We ended up leaving a little later than that because it is hard for four people to use the bathroom at once. It was only about 9:30 or 9:40 when we left but of course traffice was still bad. We managed to park a little closer this time so it wasn't such a far walk. Unfortuantely it was HOT. Not as hot as it would be on Saturday but hot none the less. We started off at the Nintendo booth; looking at what they had. We discovered that Charles Martinet, the voice of Mario (and most others) was doing signings all week. We were excited to hear this so we got in line. Then we found out that they were giving away Nintendo Monopoly games to the first 20 or so people in line, of which we were not. We were sad about that but excited to meet the man who is Mario. (He is a very friendly, outgoing person by the way, and very funny) After Nintendo Brandon and I went upstairs to the Autograph area (AA) to get Ken Foree's autograph (character in the original Dawn of the Dead) Unfortunately he wasn't there yet. We sat down to wait. He ended up being about an hour and a half late but he was very nice and didn't overcharge like some of the singers. After we were done with that Brandon went to go to a panel Marv Wolfman was doing and I met up with Justin and Mackenzie to eat before the WB panel. By the way, if you ever go to the convention center for anything do not but food there. It isn't very good and it is WAY WAY over priced. $4 for a hotdog and $8 for a sandwich? I don't think so! So we went to the panel where they talked about The Ant Bully, Happy Feet and the New TMNT movie. The panel was only ok and I left early to meet up with Brandon after his panel ended. Back we went to the AA to get Reggie Bannister's (Phantasm) autograph. He wasn't there yet either so we camped in front of where Forrest J. Ackerman was going to be doing his signing at 4. We got both autographs which was great for Brandon because they were two he really wanted. After we were done with the autographs we went back to the exibit hall to walk and shop. Brandon had ended up winning the chance to buy the Spectre giant (about 18 inches) heroclix figure so he and I took turns carrying that around. At 6 was the Pan's Labyrith panel which we just barely made it to. Guillermo del Toro was hilarious and it was a great panel. So that was the end (for us) of day 1. We ended up being at the convention center until about 9or 9:30 because Justin and Mackenzie went to the Star Wars Fan Film awards and we didn't think of how we would get back to the hotel. Luckily Katie was nice enough to come pick us up after they ate dinner. So then ended our first full day.


Friday we tried to leave earlier so that we could get in line first to get Monopoly. Unfortuantely that didn't work so we settled on staying in line to get the second of four giant postcards that we Comic-Con exclusives signed. We were dressed in our Mario constumes. I was Mario, Mackenzie was Luigi, Justin was Waluigi and Brandon was Wario.We did not have moustaches or gloves but it was pretty cute. We got our picture taken for Nintendo Power magazine which was pretty cool. After we had gotten our postcards Brandon and I went upstairs to the AA to see Sean and Brinke. Sean is an acquaintance from a store and he happens to be a writer/actor mostly for B movies. His girfriend is also an actress of B movies. Friday we pretty much walked around trying to get some of the floor covered (we did not accomplish much) Mostly we were just killing time before we went to the Snakes on a Plane panel. The line was rediculously long so we were in line for about 30 minutes before we went in. The panel before had not even let out yet so we watched the end of the Star Wars/Lucasarts or whatever panel. the new Indiana Jones games looks awesome. The Snakes panel was actually a panel about Final Destination 3, the Tenacious D movie (looks so funny) and then Snakes on a Plane. It was hosted by Keenan Thompson. First they brought out the director and the snake handler; who brought out this HUGE snake. Then they showed us 10 minutes of the movie and then Samuel L. Jackson came out. That of course was awesome. He talked and then pepole were allowed to ask questions. Most of them were dumb but what else can you expect? So ends another day. That evening we decided to work more on our costumes because while we were at the Mario singning we were told that people who had good Nintendo costumes were getting DS Lites. We tried but ultimately lost to a good Link. We did win two DS games. We were determind to win the DS or Monopolies so we scoured the phone book for party stores to get gloves. Luckliy there was one not too far from us. We ended up buying white gloves for the four of us, 2 gold stars to make star buddies with and black poster board to make moustaches with. Then we tried to find a yellow shirt for Brandon so that he go full Wario the next day. That was quite a challenge but we found a good one. So the rest of the night was devoted to making our costumes better.


Saturday we decided to be our day to do all of the exibit hall since we had done a poor job so far. But first, of course, back to the Nintendo booth. We had to wait a bit for the right person to come back (she was in charge of everything) and after much deliberation she gave us two Monopolies in exchange for the DS games! Hooray for us! And Charles signed them. W00t! We also got out picture retaken for Nintendo Power so hopefully we will be in it. We took so many pictures for people that day. It was cool. Back upstairs to visit with Sean for a bit and then we walked around some before going to luch (away from the center) After luch it was back to the shopping. There are so many people there it is insane! Saturday was extremely busy. I met Jeff Keane again and he drew me a sketch which is really cute. We walked up and down Artist Alley; purchased some art. Justin and Mackenzie again had a nightime program to go to so we ened up taking a cab back to the hotel. It wasn't too expensive actually. We were a little sad that the next day was our last but we knew that all good things must come to an end. We managed to go to bed at a reasonble time that night which was nice.


We didn't rush to the convention the next morning because although we wanted the last postcard signed, the first signing was at 10am and we knew we would never make it in time so we didn't hurry. Sunday is a day for sales for some people. They are trying to sell as much as they can so they lower their prices. Some, not all. I bought a cute Yoshi plushie for $40. An outrage but I really wanted it and it was the only expensive thing I bought all week. We finished up buying all of our stuff and left early to try to beat some of the rush. We had a nice sit down dinner to celebrate our farewell. Then we did a bit of window shopping and then we left.


So ends a very, very long blog about my awesome week. I apologize to any of you who got bored and left. We had such an amazing time are are definitely going back next year. We will be more prepared and have even more fun!

Comic-Con was awesome! More details to follow shortly.

As with my deviantART journal, I got bored of seeing the previous one and decided to post a more interesting one.

So, this Wednesday Brandon, Justin, Mackenzie and I are go to the San Diego Comic Convention. I am so super excited! We went last year but it was just for one day and it was a last minute decision so it wasn't planned well. When we got home we decided that we had such a good time that we would try to go for all 5 days the next year (and NOT take a bus!) Luckily our friend Katie posted a bulletin about anyone wanting to share housing for Comic-Con. If it hadn't been for that I don't think we would have been able to afford going for the whole time. Thank you so much Katie! One of the things I like about the convention is that you don't have to be a comic book nerd to enjoy it. I certainly am not into comics and I had a blast last year. I met Jeff Kean who is the son of Bil Keane who is the creator of the comic, The Family Circus. This was a big deal to me sice I grew up reading that stip in the papers. I seem to have become a bit more nerdy in the past year (thanks to Brandon) so I think this year shall be even better. Of course it has to be better anyways because we are going for five days instead of one. If anyone wants to go and needs a place to sleep, I am sure we have a very comfortable floor to offer. You can be sure photos will follow in the coming weeks.

X-Men 3 was awesome. Go see it.