Wedding Shower Pictures

The happy couple...my brother and my friend Amanda. Mom and I traveled to Michigan for their wedding shower last weekend. Don't they look (disgustingly) in love? Don't mind me I'm just jealous....of Amanda's kickass kelly green dress. Seriously, how cute is that dress? Although she had to add a jacket later in the day as the high temperature that Saturday was 70 degrees.

The shower was held at Bill's best friend's (Adam and Danita) home. There was a large white tent erected in the backyard, and the food was delicious and vegetarian so Amanda would be able to eat it all. Believe it or not, the flower arrangement in the middle of food table was made by Amanda's brother (and my soon-to-be brother-in-law), David. Who knew that flower arranging was part of an engineering degree at Virginia Tech?

After all the food was consumed, we made left quite a mess! But we all dragged our chairs over to the other half of the backyard for the best part of any shower, the loot!

The crowd eagerly watches each gift being unwrapped....

That must be a really interesting gift card....

And Bill is really excited about those towels!

And then, finally, the children in attendance took over the shower. Note to self--do not allow children at my wedding shower. But Bridget and Julia are mighty cute!

A donkey? Really?

Tonight Chris, Kent, Doug, and I went to a little club in Arlington called The Comedy Spot. Tickets cost 10 bucks and it was inside a mall, so our expectations were not very high. It was late-night adult improv show and it ended up being quite funny. Some of the gags went over better then others, but on the whole it was very good and we will definitely go back. But the best part, nay, the part that will live on in INFAMY, occurred during a game where the audience had to supple an action that one of the contestants would have to reenact. Allow me to transcribe what happened.

Host: Someone give me an action.
Random Dude in the Audience: Oral sex!
Host: Ok, now whom is she giving oral sex too?
Kent: A DONKEY!!!!

Allow me to provide some background. Earlier that night, I had tried to get Kent to yell out masturbation in response to a similar question. He refused on the grounds that he was too shy. Ten seconds later he was shouting out that a woman should perform fellatio on a donkey. And he didn't just shout it out either, it was like he had lived and waited his entire life for the moment when he could answer this question, and the words burst forth from him like a seismic reaction. Needless to say, the crowd was horrified, but it ended up making for a very funny sketch, and we only had to pretend we didn't know Kent for another hour or so.

LOL Me

Part of me finds this whole LOL Cats thing to be ridiculous. I mean, pictures of cats with poor grammer. Wha? And the other part of me thinks it's just about the funniest thing ever. I suppose the most enjoyable aspect of it is how it has spilled into other areas. For example:

LOL Presidents

LOL Doctor Who

LOL Tribbles

Where will the madness end??!!

This seems to have all started on the livejournal community, of which I am not a member, but I need finally break down and join Facebook. I honestly don't see how people have time to have myspace pages, livejournal blogs, blogspot blogs, and be on Facebook. Maybe my problem is I prefer interaction of the face-to-face nature.

Prophecy 2007: who knew HP fans were such freaks?

This past weekend, Selvi and I attended Prophecy 2007, a Harry Potter convention held in Toronto. We had a great time and I managed to give myself whiplash. Don't ask.

The majority of the weekend was spent running from conference room to conference room seeing presentations and participating in discussions related to all things Harry Potter. There was a roundtable discussion of Snape (I still think he is a magnificent bastard and a horrible person, but apparently much of fandom has a major hard-on for him), presentations on the themes and progression of the entire series, and a discussion on the symbolism in Deathly Hallows. Not only were these sessions informative, but they really increased the understanding I have for the books, and I think I appreciate them even more, especially from a literary standpoint.

I have come to the conclusion that I am a canon purist. Meaning, if it's not in the books, I don't really get it. I think that Harry Potter fandom overall is huge, but the people who come to these conventions tend to be the more rabid fans, who take it all to the next level. I have never really been one for fanfiction, but I was surprised by the number of people who are all about the fanfiction. I have tried to read a couple fanfics before, but if it's not JK writing it, it just seems wrong. But I think it's awesome that people love the characters so much that it inspires them to write their own adventures for them. But don't get me started on slash fanfiction; I don't begrudge anyone their tastes in fanfic, but reading slash is like seeing your parents have sex. It takes people you know really well and puts them in a context you never imagined. It's definitely not for me.

The weekend wasn't all intellectual, however. On Thursday night, Selvi and I went to a wizard rock concert, where we saw Harry and the Potters and Draco and the Malfoys (party...like...you're....EVIL!), and went to a screening of Prisoner of Azkaban. The crowd at the movie had a lot of slashers, and all I will say is, I will never look at Sirius and Lupin the same way. On Friday night there was a midnight live podcast featuring the folks from Pottercast and Mugglecast (OMG y'all Andrew is the best!!!11!!!), and on Saturday night we attended the Decade of Enchantment Ball where we got gussied up and shook our ass to the excellent DJ for 4 straight hours. Hence the whiplash.

We had time for some sightseeing; on Saturday afternoon Selvi and I had lunch at the top of the CN Tower (the tallest freestanding structure in the world) in their revolving restaurant. It was a gorgeous day and we had the best view of the city. Then we walked back to the hotel down Toronto's main drag and did some shopping. Canadians are very nice, and their city is very clean, but Jesus CHRIST, their signage sucks. It's like they get enjoyment out of confusing tourists and watch us wander around like the people in Roller Coaster Tycoon.

So here are some top Prophecy moments:

-discussing how awesome Molly Weasely is to rebut the catty neo-nazi "feminists" who look down on her as being "just a mother."

-seeing the dancing Snapes at the Decade of Enchantment Ball, siriusly, there were like 5 of them dancing at once, it was awesome.

-reading Selvi's HILARIOUS fanfic about Draco's new pet.

-discussing symbolism in Deathly Hallows, JKR is a genius.

-meeting a rad girl named Jessica in line for the podcast who didn't mind that I called her a whore after knowing her for 5 minutes (in all fairness, we were playing hearts and she stuck me with the queen of spades).

-cutting to the front of the line to get to the top of the CN Tower; "we have lunch reservations," "right this way!"

-Slytherin winning the House Cup, they take a lot of shit in the book, so it was nice to see them win something for once. Plus, they deserved it.

-Selvi teaching me how to swing dance.

-seeing so many people waling around the hotel in wizarding robes; it was like stepping into the twilight zone. If the twilight zone was made of AWESOME.


Prophecy Quote of the weekend:

Me: Maybe it's a magical force that nobody understands, like gravity!
Selvi: Maggie, we know how gravity works.
Me: Oh.