josie

The last night in Nashville my friends all went out to hit up the honky tonk bars and such. I stayed in because I was so sick (cold hit me right before going on the trip) and cleaned the house up/took a nap on the couch with a movie. Honestly enjoyed myself way more than if I'd gone out. Well, about the time I popped my NyQuil and was headed to bed, two of them showed up, too drunk to open the door. Their Lyft driver had smoked them up on the way home- so they were wasted and stoned and freaking out because he walked them to the door. He saw me, waved and left- pretty sure he was just making sure their idiot a$$es got home safe/were at the correct address. Turns out he wasn't even their driver- they just hopped in the first Lyft they saw after ordering one. They tipped him 20 bucks... unfortunately they didn't even pay for the ride because it wasn't theirs (ride would've cost about 20-30 bucks). So while I'm pretty questionable on the whole "here, let me smoke up these two wasted girls on a Monday night" thing, I'm grateful he got them home safe even though they weren't his fare. Hope he made that money back somehow. We took Ubers/Lyfts all weekend- most were pretty great. Had a couple who were downright rude. You couldn't pay me enough money to be a Lyft/Uber driver in a party city. Between the antics and vomit and horrible traffic- not enough money in the world.

Looking forward to a docile weekend with friends and my freelance to-do list. Need to catch up on some awesome projects both local and national. And hopefully find some time to do a little playoff hockey art... I've been drowning between 9+ hour days at work, working at the studio, and pulling late nights trying to get freelance jobs done. Learned a lot already- learning AfterEffects today, picked up some HTML and CSS this week and have already been implementing it. But it'll be nice to breathe a bit.

So, in stock photos, there is a lot of German content for some reason. In German, "We are Searching for You!" is... Wir Suchen Dich! Indeed.

My coworker Mark says hit up the outlets in Niagara Falls

Lol yup Nothing fancy. People really do love it down here though.

Been in Nashville since Friday. Caved today and got myself a Preds shirt in the airport. It’s a good hockey feel down here. Lots of love for the game and visiting fans (one of my friends here was wearing Avs gear). Color me impressed.

Saturday I did my first public performance! We performed at the Ugly Disco in Rochester- a big drunken bash full of wasted middle aged people in shiny polyester and wigs that raised money for Golisano Children's Hospital. Here's a few shots of me as a bright lisa frank cocaine fantasy

Absolutely devastating. I remember when the Bluffton University baseball team crashed when I was a senior in high school. It was a small college- everyone knew everyone. I had many friends who went there who were absolutely heartbroken and it raised the question again of "should entire teams travel together". The answer is, it makes sense to have them all together- this doesn't happen often but when it does... my god it's just terrible. I think of Lokomotiv, Marshall, Chapecoense, other air accidents, too. I saw a picture this morning of a couple of the players in hospital gurneys holding their hands up together in solidarity. All my love goes to them.

Other possibility to the ones posed by dark and NS... too much easter candy? As a kid I often got car sick if I read or had to face backwards or sometimes the back seat of bigger cars/smoother rides (still do). But nothing got me sicker than binging on candy. Didn't even seem like much candy to anyone else- but I'm "prediabetic" (which some think is a load of ) and drinking soda or juice or eating too much candy often resulted in barfs or nasty headaches. And yeah, if I was dreading something (always my piano practice), there was a good chance I'd hurl on the way there. Other option- what's for breakfast? Any milk? I developed my lactose intolerance fairly young. Went from drinking tall glasses of milk to violent stomach/gut issues pretty rapidly. Hope she's ok!

Bobblehead night. My coworker got free tickets to go tonight from a friend- I said hey, at least you get the Hasek bobblehead out of it. Nope.. the one thing the friend asked of him was to relinquish the Hasek. Poor dude.

When the authorities discovered I dislike hot sauce and bleu cheese, they refused to even issue me one. Apparently it's a Sin.

When you have your hand up a beaver's a$$.

I'll have to check out Three-Body Problem! ". It comes off as some weird power fantasy that Ernest Cline wrote about his childhood. Lots of eyerolling in the writing." THIS is exactly what I've been hearing, negative wise. And that is the main reason I probably won't see it! And what I remember of it definitely had me eye rolling. Different strokes for different folks, tho

i think the trick there is most gamergaters were also trump supporters. There are intersections, but they're the vocal (and unfortunately, somewhat influential) minority. You were probably replying to d4rk not me but hey, people probably assume his opinions are also mine or the result of some of the sh!t my friends and I went through. Yeah, no one believes all gamers are GGers. No one. That absolutely is farcical. Gaming culture has changed for the better, it's just the scum rising to the top for us to notice. Every subculture and hobby has its a$$holes. These a$$holes were just particularly dangerous and presented as "the average gamer" although they certainly were not. Gamers are fine. Games are fine. I'm sure RPO is fine. Probably not worthy of this much discussion, honestly. Go watch it. Enjoy. I'm a little on the "huh?" side of having my beloved Iron Giant using his gun, though... he hated his gun... :(

I think I read somewhere there'll be a shortage of vanilla soon because it is used so much. Artificial vanilla is actually partially from wood pulp, I believe.

Aw I dunno. I've had plantains a few ways- they are a very starchy food, more like a potato than a fruit. But done right in the fryer, those evil things are the perfect salty/sweet combo. One of the few perks of my last job was a coworker who was Dominican and she'd make them fairly frequently to bring in. Mercy. ... fun completely random fact to do with bananas... the fact is somewhat argued, but the Gros Michel banana nearly went extinct and most farms switched to the Cavendish. The cavendish banana is what you get in the stores. The Gros Michel is a much more pungent/flavorful fruit- and much closer to what artificial banana flavoring tastes like. Also... there's a chance a disease will wipe out the Cavendish and then... no bananas. Also on the fruit flavoring topic... didja know that more raspberry flavoring (and vanilla and strawberry) used to be "natural flavoring" not from raspberries, but from a beaver's castoreum? Yep, beaver a nal gland secretions. Still used today, but not to the same extent. But it IS used in perfume commonly! Just like ol' ambergris... aka whale vomit. ok this concludes Jo's random dumb fact dump

Goddammit Jayne. I haven't seen it, can't claim to know. I think it's just that a celebration of a culture that's been under a microscope and was in the midst of turmoil/transformation during the movie's production can raise some eyebrows. What I've read of the book (didn't like it or finish it, so take as you will) felt very gate keeper-y and man-splain-y- to use two terms that I'm sure ruffle some feathers. But I'm also really touchy on the whole subject after my years of dealing with that industry. It's hard to explain the whole GG thing to someone who wasn't there to see it happen or feel its effects, but it's completely ruined any chance of me enjoying that culture for a long time. So I guess while I have a unique view of the situation, I'm not entirely sure it's applicable in this case. FWIW, I fully expect RPO to be a pop culture nostalgia cash-in with a Tron: Legacy feel. Which is cool. Pop the corns, enjoy the graphics, escape for a couple hours.

Oh. But have you had fried plantains. Them suckers be delectable.

My first week at Haley is done- pretty sure I'm staying for good. I'll get into it more but... My cover for the Beauts centric episode of Kicking Ice (the NWHL kickstarted thing I mentioned some time ago) is out!! I'm thrilled.

Oh my God Swamp, I'm so sorry. My heart goes out to you and yours. Woody- hope recovery isn't too rough!

I did Rochester to Toronto once. It takes forever because of customs. They stop you at the border and one of two things happen - you all disembark with all your crap while they check the cars and you go through a quick passport check then get back on the train and settle back in - or - you sit still and they come on board with a dog and check you seat by seat and move you to different cars. It's a mess. Also- you're at the mercy of shipping- there's a section you can't go through if there's a ship in the channel. So you sit and wait near the falls. My friend and I did it because the money was ok and we had plenty of time to catch up with each other but yeah it's not quick by any stretch of the imagination.

I've had an idea to do a series of scout style patches for my Buffalo wanderings for awhile. Today I threw together the first one- Broadway Market at Easter.

Yeah, this was sticking a big needle in his jugular while he nervously licked his nose and tried to look at me while shaking like a leaf. Made me feel a little weepy, cuz I can't just tell him in any way he understands that this is ok and necessary and will be over in a minute.

I got surprisingly emotional when they drew his blood for his senior panel. Every place I've been to in the past does it in the back, not in front of you. This must be what motherhood feels like.

Ugh. I wish I could drop carbs. They're the only thing I can eat that doesn't make me sick. Sugar I could stand to do better on...