A while back I watched the United States of Tara pilot knowing that I enjoyed it enough to watch the full season. Obviously, there were numerous other television shows that I wanted to catch up on first so it took me some time to get through them all. As of recent Netflix sent me the two discs of the United States of Tara. Here is a list of the songs I enjoyed the most in Season 1, which is based on an extensive list found in this United States of Tara blog.

Order of Episodeness

Episode 1 - Souljacker Part I by Eels [Last.fm clip]

Episode 2 - Flyswatter by Eels [music video tells a story - surfer nun, skateboard nun, and undercover clown featured. LOL]

Episode 3 - Straight Lines by Dawn Landes [myspace clip]

Episode 4 - Lucky by Kat Edmonson [music video with cute children rainbow drawings in it]

Episode 5 - Fine is Fine by Peasant [myspace clip]

Episode 6 - Second Chance by Liam Finn [music video is creative with the camera work and such, singer is McHottie, and the flowers in it are just gorgeous; much like a dream. This song is so good with for this show. Interesting dance moves too!]

Episode 7 - Tricycle by Psapp [adorable music video about trying to get to a teddy bear]

Episode 8 - The Wolves (Act I and II) by Bon Iver [music video is scenery in the mountains, bonfire and other stuff that happens when camping in nature.]

Episode 9 - Keep Your Eyes Ahead by The Helio Sequence [early on this song reminded me of Explosions in the Sky. The music video made me feel like I was watching the band on the streets, and you can never go wrong with Christmas lights on people and their instruments while rocking out on a platform that moves around on wheels. LOL]

Episode 9 - That Knot Unties? by David Karsten Daniels [song reminds me of an old boyfriend, so naturally, it's awesome. The music video is mainly scenery, which brought back some memories of a trip I took to Texas last year.)

Episode 10 Good Morning Heartache by Billie Holiday [linked to Last.fm clip - can never go wrong with the classics]

Episode 11- Arms of Harm by Haley Bonar [linked to myspace clip - it's a weird song as it starts off as almost a Christmas song, then it gets better after I got over the Christmas vibe.]

Episode 12 & Episode 1 - Love of the Loveless by Eels [linked to Last.fm clip - this song is at first nothing to me, but after watching the show it becomes an okay song to listen to. Not a favorite among the others, but definitely a nice melody]

Order of Awesomeness
This is my list in order of preference.

1] Keep Your Eyes Ahead by The Helio Sequence
2] Flyswatter by Eels
3] Second Chance by Liam Finn
4] Souljacker Part I by Eels
5] That Knot Unties? by David Karsten Daniels
6] Tricycle by Psapp
7] Fine is Fine by Peasant
8] Lucky by Kat Edmonson
9] The Wolves (Act I and II) by Bon Iver
10] Good Morning Heartache by Billie Holiday
11] Straight Lines by Dawn Landese
12] Arms of Harm by Haley Bonar
13] Love of the Loveless by Eels

By now you should understand why I enjoyed the music on this show. If you have not, we don’t have the same music taste buds, and that’s a true shame. To get my taste buds you must lock yourself in a closet with ONLY these 13 songs in your mp3 player and listen each of them 5 times each. This is the only method that is known to unlock awesome Jody music taste buds.

As of February I completed my Associate’s degree. The original plan was to begin a BA in Business Communications this spring but I’ve been thinking more and more about how much I struggled juggling two courses at once with a full time job for over 2 years. When I would attend conventions or leave town this made things extremely uncomfortable because I could never relax my mind. Looking back now and realized that my brain never had the opportunity to chill that often.

I need time to be less rushed, anxious and stressed for the time being. My priorities shifted when I started to understand how much of that time I traded knowledge for my relationships with family and friends. Now, that does not mean I won’t continue education here and there. After realizing how much education helped in many aspects in my life my plan is to always continue education through some method or form; be it conferences, books, or college classes. I may even gradually work on a BA degree, but I do not need to rush and deprive family and friends any further. Not to say I didn’t do any socializing, I just wish I was free to do much more without getting a bad grade on a paper and such. For instance, if I did not want to miss an opportunity to spend time with family or friends I had to risk a bad grade for a school assignment for submitting it late

Back to my point, I am in the process of cleaning up CaliGirl.net and my other site. There is so much content on both of these sites. I just need to sit down and focus on making the sites the way they were intended to be.

So, please excuse the mess. I plan to nurture these dormant websites; you’ll see them back in full bloom soon enough!

Exciting news! I got rid of that couch I inherited when I moved into my place last summer. Last November I had mentioned that I could not figure out how the couch fit through the door. I had plans to tear it apart.

With a help of a friend it finally happened! The neighbor below me did call asking what I was doing. He thought the roof was going to fall through his room and asked us to move the couch into the hallway/kitchen to continue further. lol.

The demolition took us about an hour and half of hacking with two hammers. The scissors came in very handy to cut away the material. One of the hammers didn’t survive the demolition.

When we went to take the couch to a nearby trash dumpster a cop drove by and continued about his business. He appeared to be on the phone talking casually. About 45 seconds later he turned around heading our way. My friend told me to get the hell out of here since we’d be questioned if we lived there.

I posted some pictures in memory of the abnormally long couch. R.I.P. Mr Hammer.

I moved into my new place last summer. I have been loving the area and the place ever since. However, I have 4 pieces of sitting furniture in a wide enough apartment space. When company comes over they have a place to sit but it’s really crowded. There are two modern dutch couches that are mine. The sofa chair plus an abnormally long couch was from the previous person who lived here. If I could remove this abnormally large couch out of the living room it would free up space for either an office area or a little breakfast nook.

The problem I have been having is that there is no way to get it out of the front door. What has been making things worse is watching HGtv again! I stopped watching the television channel for about 6 months. Now that I have so many ideas with the living space, it seems like the couch stands out like a sore thumb even more so than it did before. Today I thought about cutting it in half to get it out the door. Today I did a search online and found a blog with someone who has split his couch in half before. I am considering to have a friend come over with a chain saw, but this guy’s idea seems better. Any of you have a saw, wire cutters and pliers I can borrow?

I chuckle every time I see the Surrogate Sharers videos by Rhett and Link. It seems like this happens to me frequently because I’ve known so many gamers over the years. Most of them I have known by their online alias. When I meet people in person at LAN parties or live events, it gets worse because not only do I forget their alias, I may end up not known their name. The good thing, I have a photogenic memory so there are many occasions I’ll recall meeting them at one time. That’s what I get for meeting so many people huh? I usually just wait for others to call out their name. I feel so bad when I have to ask for their name again or ask them when I met them previously.

I’ve been on the hunt for Heavenly Sword’s Kai cap for a project I haven’t revealed on youtube just yet. I am actually waiting on one thing that is being shipped from Japan. I contacted them yesterday because I purchased it on October 2nd. They said I should receive it some time next week. However, I am thinking about finishing this project without it this weekend. I cannot wait to show what I want to do. I’ll have to compromise with something else I have in my closet. teehee.

After about three days of internet browsing and many attempts of different keywords known in the English language, I realized that I needed to make it myself. Sure, I found some cute cat and bunny headband ears and different fox ear hats. Those fox ears were very, very tempting to buy just because! I figured out later that these animal style hats were related to cosplay and anime on many of the sites I visited.

The more I looked around, the more I realized that Kai’s cap was just that unique. The fabric on the hat kai is wearing reminded me of a fisherman’s hat; definitely not a typical hat found on ebay.com or Etsy.com. I did tons of research and found this bad ass website called gobbolino.co.uk. This rapunzel hat here reminded me of Kai’s hat, but it looked more like a beanie. I thought about it a long time and realized it would cost more to have it mailed to me and it would have taken much more time to get.

I had a variety of friends tell me that if I figured out a way to make one I should tell them how I did it. I was so determined to have a similar hat that I made up my mind that I needed to at least give it a try. I ordered a skull bandanna cap from this place on ebay.com. Once I received the bandanna cap in the mail I took it to the fabric store and found a similar color of fabric. The silk fabric was more than I wanted to spend on fabric for the hat, but I was that crazy….. seriously. That same day I also went to a neat craft store a block away for the buttons and paint.

Then, last weekend I stayed up all Friday night to get some of the video recorded while creating the hat. Woke up early enough to get some more done and it was done! On Sunday I edited the video and uploaded it. Here’s the final result.

The interesting part about the video was the introduction. If you watch the shadow in the background it looks like Batman. Yes, I’m that silly to notice and get excited about that. lol!

I haven’t forgot about you! The past few months has been insane. Most of my latest happenings have been posted on youtube or gamespot blog.I also posted pictures from E3 and Quakecon in my smugmug page. Other than that, I’m extremely stoked about Lego Batman. The game will be released on store shelves tomorrow!

Also, I recently was able to get internets again from home. Other than school and other nonsense. Oh, and might I add my desktop computer is dead. Not sure what happened to it. I am contemplating on whether or not I should try to buy a gaming laptop, a new computer or to hire someone to fix this one. decisions, decisions….

It has been a week since I have injured my toe. I worked from home all last week and let me tell you it pretty much stunk. I hate not seeing human beings in real life. I guess some people would be excited, “hey, I get to work from home and I can do what I want.” Not me. Once Wednesday came along I was in jail.

I decided that it was best not to take any pictures because it’s un-lady like to show ugly feet. This toe was so ugly black; it looked like it was going to fall off by Monday afternoon. Having an ugly toe is fine but it hurt to an extreme while I slept; when I woke up in the mornings; when I stood for too long and when I hobbled. Any type of pressure gave an electricity of pain. This week I was supposed to be moving into my new place. I also have some traveling to do near the end of the week and of course my buddies decided to have PaintBall this coming Saturday. I’m not sure if I can safely do all three.

Backing up a bit, last Monday morning I hobbled my way to the Doctor’s office to grab a slip that would allow me to get x-rays at another place. I hobbled back to my truck, drove to the next place and hobbled into the X-ray place. Let me tell you, people sure look at you weird when you hobble. The nurse offered a wheelchair and I hesitated at first. The thought of getting in the wheelchair was a bit humbling but that wasn’t the problem. I had this sense of being an old lady and imagined myself 30-40 years from now. Being in so much pain from standing I ended up sitting down in the wheelchair. It was actually a lot of fun riding in it because the nurse drove the wheelchair pretty fast. The nurse mentioned that she didn’t get any tickets from driving crazy with wheelchairs yet. lol.

The x-ray experience was kind of weird. Even though I was in pain the nurse mentioned that my toes would be doing some stretching while she taped them to the x-ray board. She avoided touching the 4th injured toe by taping my pinky toe to the x-ray board. Then she taped the other two toes in the opposite direction from the pinky toe. The x-rays looked hilarious when I saw her loading them on the monitor screen. The cool part of the visit was how she kept me in the wheelchair and offered to drive me out to my truck. I had to wait 3 and half hours for my actual Doctor appointment so I drove another 45 minutes to get home. I should really change doctors closer to the city.

I spent about 3 hours total driving that day. I was very happy that I injured my left toe instead of my right. I wouldn’t have been able to drive that long if it was my right toe. The doctor didn’t do much but tell me about four steps to do, which anyone probably could have told me. Although, the Doctor was right about how I would have bruising farther up the toe near the veins of the foot.

My right leg and foot have been sore from shifting all of the weight to hobble. Since Thursday I have been walking extremely weird from having something wrong with both legs. What does not help is that I live on a hill. Any errands for food or anything means I have to park down the hill (darn truck is too big for SF neighborhoods!) and hobble up the hill. These are times to beg friends to drop off food. Sadly, some of my friends don’t have cars in the city to do any food drops.