Longest Night!

[annathepiper]

I didn't get to do this last year, so it was quite satisfying to be able to observe Longest Night this year. solarbird, risu, and I got into our stockings and opened a present or two, though we're saving the rest for when spazzkat gets back from Virginia. For now, though: big shoutout of thanks to lyonesse for the awesome, awesome Elvis pub glasses she gave me (they have reproductions of Elvis movie posters on the side), and to mamishka for a DVD set of the last several episodes of Science Ninja Team Gatchaman, which I'm anxious to watch all the way through thanks to my days as a Battle of the Planets fangirl when I was a kid. Hee.

After gifts, we were joined by technoshaman for the duration of the evening, as well as visited briefly by former tenant Danny and a pal of his.

We had planned to spend most of the night installing new RAM in newmoon so that we could install the Livejournal code base on it--all part of the master plan of making our own journaling site. (We're not bailing off LJ yet, but we'd like to have our own site as a backup.) But Dara discovered that the RAM she'd purchased is not the correct stuff for newmoon, which torched that entire idea.

So instead, at least as long as Danny and Ryan were visiting, a bit of Guitar Hero happened and a lot of conversation. We got in an episode of Babylon 5 as well--the season 3 one where the station secedes from Earth Alliance. I had quite forgotten how intense and cool that episode was. I'll have to make an effort to go back and re-watch all the B5 one of these days.

Then Dara played several of her flute pieces for Glenn and nudged me to get out the guitar. I was getting quite sleepy by this time; it was after midnight at that point. So I had to break out the big guns--the Great Big DVD. ;)

Part of this was of course the desire to introduce Glenn to GBS, since he hasn't seen them perform yet. Part of it was however that playing my guitar along with live GBS is an excellent way to stay awake! After the entire Great Big DVD concert and certain selections off Courage & Patience & Grit, I had well and thoroughly hit my second wind. And much to my satisfaction, Glenn expressed his approval of the earth-rumbling chord my B'ys put out at the end of "General Taylor".

After that Dara noodled around on the little mandolin a bit, but both her hands and mine were starting to hurt, so we had to put the instruments aside. We shifted over to watching Eddie Izzard's Dress to Kill, which is always giggleworthy. And we finished up with watching Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, which carried us around to 7:55am and sunrise.

Dara and I did our circuit of the house to visit all the windows with our candles, and after thanking Glenn for joining us, we fell relievedly into bed. And got up, to my general surprise, around 1pm--earlier than I'd expected! We've been fairly limp with sleepiness for the duration of the afternoon, but it's been good to just hang out and do computer work, and watch old episodes of MST3K too.

Happy Solstice, all! And happy holiday weekend, rolling clear on over into Tuesday. To those of you who are traveling to visit friends and loved ones, safe journeys to you all!

Comments

[poodlgrl.livejournal.com]

Must. Have. A. Set. Of. Those. Glasses. Seething. With. Envy.

[annathepiper]

You can get 'em from the actual official Elvis/Graceland store! And look at 'em here.

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

Did y'all try any of the breads yet? :)

I was pretty happy as to how I was able to keep up with Bob (?) on Bodhrán using my thumb and pinky as a tipper... and, yeah, I know I definitely perked up when there was live guitar in the room as well as from the speakers...

And I got up around 1ish, too, and got stuff done and then went to Gaia Consort, who played a rather long show... apparently the noise laws in Snohomish aren't quite what they are in Seattle, which shuts you down promptly at 10... when we came out there was another concert at a nearby tavern still in full swing...

Hmmmm. A B5-a-thon, best of the best.... Or more likely, set up a regular night and we could watch a couple of'em...

[annathepiper]

We have not! I think I'll try a chunk of the bigger loaf with breakfast this morning. Which reminds me, Jenna asked: are there raisins in that? She's allergic to grapes so she can't have raisins.

Sean is the bodhran player--Bob's the dude who plays fiddle, accordion, the big whistle, and occasionally bouzouki. He probably could play bodhran if he wanted, though; I wouldn't put it past him. ;) There are reasons he is always introduced by Alan at the shows as "And, on the Everything, Bob Hallett!"

But yeah, it's very satisfying to be able to keep up with them. Especially when they rip into "Mari-Mac"; I can barely, barely keep up with the live version, and when I do, it's a genuine physical workout. Even when I'm sitting down. *^_^*;;

How was the Gaia Consort show, aside from long?

And ooh, there's a thought, scheduled B5 nights. I'll have to see about that, maybe after the radiation treatments are done. Right now I have barely enough time between when I get home and when I have to get to bed to get dinner done and dealt with, and then nightly tasks.

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

The lady at Great Harvest said "candied fruit". I would assume there are raisins. (And I think there are raisins in the other one too, darn it... )

Gaia Consort was pretty good; the crowd was totally different from their usual band of suspects (I suspect a goodly number of them were over at Wayward listening to vixyish and tfabris do their own Solstice concert) and the energy wasn't quite as ripping as it usually is, but they were pretty good otherwise; their (as yet unrecorded, alas) "Christmas Down South of the Mason-Dixon Line" was particularly good... it's a honky-tonk burlesque piece full of double entendre, and they had the keyboards flipped so it *did* sound like your classic Western saloon upright... they had a new second fiddle player too, who was pretty good... he had this electric half-viola (i.e. it was skeletonized so that the outside half of the instrument looked like a viola but the left half inside of the strings just wasn't *there*) that looked from my seat like it had more than the usual four strings...

They were seriously shoehorned into that space... they had the full band in there: Violin, viola, electric cello with a raft of floor pedals, full drum kit, bassist, keyboards, and Chris and Sue, all in a space not much wider than your living room... oh, *and* front-of-house sound. The floor space was chuck-full of 'tronics... they weren't doing much dancing around.

Chris had him a new silk top hat, though... heh.

*nods* I kinda figured it would be after your treatments... lessee, that weekend is conflikt... but after that...

[annathepiper]

Checking back in on this comment, as I work to get the Great Mail Cleanup moving along...

Glad to hear the show was fun. :)

And we'll see what happens once the zapping is finished. What will be interesting is that hopefully by then my brain will start coming back and I will have to start editing stuff again! But we'll see. :)

[emmacrew.livejournal.com]

If you need a source for B5 DVDs, we've got the full range, including the new-ish direct-to-DVD "lost tales."

[annathepiper]

Thanks! Dara has the entire original series on DVD, so I think that'll do us for the time being. :)

[emmacrew.livejournal.com]

Cool. I just purchased (some other complete set of DVDs which will go unnamed until after Christmas as wrog reads your LJ) that might make a fun future viewing thing someday, too.

[annathepiper]

*snicker* Yeah, there are some interesting and anonymous DVDs floating around the Murk, too. ;) We're probably not getting into those until spazzkat gets back, though!

[backrubbear.livejournal.com]

Longer days to you all!

[annathepiper]

And likewise to you!

[tiggymalvern.livejournal.com]

You can get the whole of Science Ninja Team Gatchaman now? Who? Where? I'm all excited! We got the first 24 eps combined with Battle of the Planets with the Rhino releases a few years ago, but then I believe Rhino lost the license for the Gatchaman eps, and I want the rest!

[annathepiper]

Yeah, I'd started collecting those dual collections too, since I always loved me some BotP. I've only got 18 of those, I think; volumes 1, 2, and 4 of the standalone discs, and then a box set.

What Meems got me was volume 9 of these! Those boxes are keen, aren't they? I need to cross-check them all against the eps I've actually got just to see which of them I actually need.

[tiggymalvern.livejournal.com]

Ooooh, pretty! I wants me some of those! Yeah, I'll have to check them against the Rhino boxes too, and see what I can get hold of.

The best thing about the Rhino releases was comparing the BotP versions - like the ep all about Saving the Astronauts where they conveniently edited out that the astronauts died. We just killed ourselves watching those XD

[annathepiper]

Yeah, that amused the hell out of Dara and me too. We were all "HOLY CRAP PEOPLE ARE ACTUALLY DYING IN THIS!" ^_^ Also, no 7-Zark-7 for the win!

Though I must admit, part of me will always fangirl Casey Kasem doing the voice of Mark. *^_^*;;

[tiggymalvern.livejournal.com]

Some of us just fangirl Casey Kasem :-)

It's the sort of thing that only ever occurs to you with hindsight, when somebody points out that the amount of 7-Zark-7 in an episode is directly proportional to the amount of non-kiddie-suitable material. I'm left to boggle at whoever had the bright idea of taking Gatchaman and marketing it at ten-year-olds!

[annathepiper]

Two words: Sandy Frank. ;) There are reasons, after all, that the Sandy Frank Song on MST3K had the lyric "SANDY FRANK! SANDY FRANK! He's the cause of all our PAIN!"

[lyonesse.livejournal.com]

i'm so glad you liked the glasses! happy sunreturn to you!! :)

(and credit where it's due, to imalion and mamishka for careful glass transport ;)

[annathepiper]

Likewise unto you! And I shall send imalion a thank you note. :)

[lickingtoad.livejournal.com]

People swear up-and-down that B5 was truly worth watching as it progressed; I caught the first ever episode and decided then-and-there that the searing pain in my 'production values nerve' meant I'd never see another. ;) Ah, well.

[annathepiper]

Heh! solarbird is the real big B5 fan in the house, and even she acknowledges that it did get off to a shaky start. It took at least half a season to get its feet under it, but once it did, it rocked.