Well, I’ve now finished my second day of my second senior year. I’ve had all of my classes now except for Cinema lab (and 255, for which I’ll be running the soundboard for Uncommon Women). I have a full 20 credits of classes, and unfortunately, this means that I’ll be unable to perform in any of the main shows this quarter (I had been looking forward to trying out for “Working,” but this year the theater department is trying to send a message to the University to say that putting on plays is actually part of school as opposed to extra-curricular by making the rehearsals from 3-6pm as opposed to at night - thus making rehearsals conflict with three of my classes.) (Of course, even if rehearsal was at the normal times, I couldn’t anyway because I need the 255 credit which could only be taken this quarter by working Uncommon Women (and thus unable to be in Working), or Working (and thus unable to be in Working). Oh well.

In other news, there’s a second Wolverine cartoon. In this, he is still sad, but to make himself feel better he is prettily singing “Castle on a Cloud” from “Les Mis.” This one is only available in flash format because when I exported from flash to AVI it messed up the frame rate, and so the audio didn’t line up to the video (not that it really does so much anyway since I made this by taking little bits of animation and roughly arranging them to fit the song as opposed to intentionally making it for this purpose. Last night I made another of these to the song ‘Sweet Transvestite’ from ‘Rocky Horror Picture Show,’ but didn’t put it online because I don’t have any action figures to use for Brad and Janet’s little interruption.) Anyway, that cartoon is up here: http://www.nathanieljones.com/cartoons/cloud.swf (And hidden bonus feature: If you’re sly with how you watch the cartoon, you can see my hand sneaking into the frame at bits to move the toy around!)

In otherother news… I’m fully enjoying being back in Bellingham. I’ve been scootering and walking and bussing all over the place (though I only bought the quarter bus pass instead of the year pass - they upped the year price from $50 last year to $90 this year. What’s the deal with that, yo?) and enjoying cooking my own meals. I went to Fred Meyer a couple days ago to pick up a new set of dishes (my old set is still in the garage at home), and discovered they were having a huge sale on kitchen stuff, so I got the plates, and I also got a set of pots and pans. Then I had fun trying to get these two big boxes all the way from Fred Meyer to my apartment on my scooter.

My apartment is pretty nice - it seems a bit smaller than 413, though that may be my imagination. I like my roommate (I haven’t seen much of the guys in the other bedroom, though), the balcony is nice (although I miss having a back door as a quick route to the street), and best of all: we’ve got the Power Shower! They took away the Power Shower in 413 and replaced it with what looked like a nicer shower head, but it was really just a weak little thing. But now I’m thrilled to be back with my Kramer’s-Elephant-Shower-style shower. Yay showers. I’m going to be taking ten showers a day to take advantage of the situation.

So - anyone watch The Office tonight? Yay for new episodes! But tear for (All character names and references here being withheld to avoid SPOILERS). And ha-ha about (more avoidance of spoilers here).

Well folks, this’ll be my last post from Federal Way - tomorrow morning I’m loading my stuff into the car and going back to Bellingham for the final quarters of college - no doubt it’ll be an exciting time as I use the next six months to figure out how I’ll be living in the real world post-graduation .

Since this is the last post until Bellingham, I’m making it a Grand Celebration one, with two Parting Gifts! The first is a new cartoon - the third in the Legends of Hogwarts series,

It’s pretty awesome, if I say so myself - and as a first, I’ve added “scene selections” so that you can watch a few chapters, and then come back and finish where you left off rather than having to start at the beginning.

The other bonus is the Summer 2006 Mix CD! For those of you who haven’t been reading my blog since I began making Summer CDs, you should know that I almost always add tracks, take out tracks, or change the order after I’ve had the chance to actually listen to the CD and say “what the heck was I thinking when I put that there?” But, here is the CD as of right now:

1: The Office theme (US)
2: Beautiful City - Godspell
3: Prologue from Hook - John Williams
4: Guitar jokes - Demetri Martin (who I’ve just heard is coming out with a CD/DVD soon)
5: Do You Know You Are My Sunshine? - The Stadtler Brothers
6: Free Love Freeway - David Brent (from The Office - BBC)
7: Wild Wild Life - the Talking Heads
8: The Bleeding Heart Show - The New Pornographers
9: He’s a Pirate (from “Pirates of the Caribbean) - Klaus Bedalt
10: Brent’s Dance - David Brent (From the Office - BBC)
11: Don’t Stop Believin’ - Journey
12: The Final Countdown - Europe
13: Defying Gravity - Wicked
14: Customer Care (scene from The Office - BBC)
15: The Mariner’s Revenge Song - The Decemberists
16: The Office Theme (BBC)
17: The Grass Isn’t Always Greener (motivational speech from The Office - BBC)
18: How I Long to be in the Mountains - The Lonesome River Band
19: Merry Christmas Everyone - Slade (yes, a Christmas song on a summer CD)
20: *Bonus Track* The Land of Obey

Originally there were more songs and less clips of The Office, but since this really was The Summer of The Office, I thought it should have its full share of representation on the summer CD. But as I say, it may change again as I listen to the CD.

Hey! Here’s an added bonus that I should share with you all: the other day I was looking around the internet trying to find sites with mp3s of Old Time Radio shows, when I discovered that there are piles and piles of shows to download on the internet archive here: http://www.archive.org/details/oldtimeradio. If you’re not familiar with Old time radio, I recommend you download some shows - they’re great for listening to on long drives (like an audio book), and for you actor types, they’re great inspiration for when you’re thinking of what voice a character might use.

And with that, I’ll bid you a fond farewell, because it’s almost 11, and I’ve barely started packing. So good bye Federal Way, and tomorrow I’ll be saying hello to Bellingham! See you all then!

So much so, in fact, that I don’t even need to go on a silly tv show to prove it. Yes, folks, it’s true - I won’t be on American Idol. However, it’s not because I auditioned and didn’t make the cut (which we all know would have been impossible) - instead, I will not be on because I was not waiting in line when they stopped letting people register at 8:30am (who the heck would ever even think of being awake that early?)

But the good news is that I have video footage of me singing “Free Love Freeway” outside of Key Arena, so the many hours I spent perfecting the song were not wasted. So now you can watch the video, and see that I really do deserve to win the top prize on American Idol: Free Love Freeway

The better news that came from the day is that I have a new job, as webmaster for a bunch of new websites all revolving around life philosophies (which remind me quite a bit of the blanket theory from “I <3 Huckabees”). So yay to new jobs!

In other news, I’m about halfway through the black and white illustrations on “Harry Potter and the Liberal Menace” (I’ll be coloring them when I finish with the b&w). I decided that I ought to spend a bit more time on the illustrations in this one, as opposed to the previous ones, which were very hastily scribbled. At this rate, I should have it finished before going back to school on Sunday (so close! yay! Come soon, Sunday, come soon!)

(today’s title is an actual gramatically proper sentence that amuses me greatly, though it has nothing to do with the content of this post, other than this explanation of it)

Well folks, tomorrow is the Big Day - I’ll be going up to Seattle to become the next American Idol (though apparently it takes longer than I thought. There are actually two rounds of auditions before you get to audition for Simon and those folks, so I won’t be instantly famous by the end of tomorrow afternoon. Unless I am, which would be pretty sweet. I’ve still not decided which song I’m going to sing, so I’ll sleep on it and whatever turns out to be the one that feels right will be The One.

Also tomorrow I’ll be meeting with a guy to see about getting a job as webdesigner for his website, which would be a good thing, as I’ll be needing to make money before the student loan people start getting their revenge (”Find him, bind him, Tie him to a pole and break his fingers to splinters, Drag him to a hole until he Wakes up naked clawing at the ceiling Of his grave *sigh*”) (bonus points to all that know the song)

And in other other news, Cosette is a fan of the Colbert Report now as well - see how she paws at the screen when he is on:

(she also paws at the screen when he is not on, but that is besides the point).

So - any of you other Seattle people going to be in the Seattle Center / Key Arena area tomorrow? If so, let’s get together (yeah yeah yeah), because this is the last week before I go back to Bellingham!

Hello, all - how goes it?

It’s been a good day for me - I had the day off today, and this morning I registered for classes for the quarter. Officially I’m taking playwriting, directing, intro to cinema, gay and lesbian lit, and when I get the form filled out, acting 460 (shakespeare). Should be a very busy, but fun quarter. This schedule means that next quarter all I have to do is take a couple classes and do my senior project. Fun times.

The new adventure I’m in right now is figuring out where to live. I’m currently scheduled to live in Birnam Wood, but I’m looking into getting an off-campus apartment so that I can bring Cosette the kitten with me. Anybody know of a nice, cheap, kitten-friendly apartment that I could move into in the near future? If you do, please let me know.

Tomorrow is my long day at Target (8 hours), and then after that I only have two days left at Target (I told them I could stay until next Thursday, but stopped scheduling me past this Saturday). That means I won’t have as much money as I’d like, but you know what it also means? It means that I have the day free to go try out for American Idol!

I’ve been thinking of what song I should sing, and I’m leaning towards “Free Love Freeway” from The Office,  because it’s both hillarious and amazing, and I’ve got some sweet dance moves to go with it that’ll knock Simon’s socks off. I think if I try out, there’s 99% chance of one of these two things happening: 1) they accept me into the show, and I win first place and become an American Idol, or 2) they turn me down, but put me on TV as a joke, and a Hollywood Big Shot sees it and gives me a billion dollar contract and I become even more famous than I would if I won American Idol. And the other 1% that might happen is that I’m so amazing looking that all of the judges leap on me in a fit of passion, and I sue them all for sexual assault (because I’m not that type of girl). And then I’d use the billions I get from that to make my own show, where I’d become even more famous than either of the other two options. So whatever happens, I’ll become rich and famous. That’s a scientific fact.

Now, since I have to be well rested so I can work tomorrow and start rehearsing my American Idol audition, I’m going to bed.

Hello, all - tonight I was going to go to sleep early, to make up for staying up too late last night, but instead I’ve been building a new site and writing a new story to go on it. The website is http://www.LegendsofHogwarts.com, and the new story that was just finished being written moments ago is Harry Potter and the Liberal Menace!”

It’s a lovely little story - see, what happens after “Legends of Hogwarts” is that J.K. Rowling flees the country so that she can’t be forced to write “Harry Potter: The College Years,” and so the publisher sends a scientist after her to collect a hair that they can use to clone her into a more willing slave. But rather than getting a hair from Rowling, he instead gets a hair from Ann Coulter. This book is the result of that error.

And now I really am truly tired, and so I’m going to go sleep as soon as I finish posting. Goodnight.

Hello - it’s now about twenty to three in the morning, and so I ought to be asleep, so of course I’m taking the opportunity to update the ol’ blog-a-rino. What’s been happening in the ten days since I last posted? Let’s see… where to begin…

I’m still alternating between working at target and playing with cosette most of the time - although now I’m also becoming addicted to “Starcraft” - I was doing pretty well at saving the universe from the evil Zerg, but now I’m playing as a Zerg commander, so better watch out, all you lowly humans.

In the online world there was a brief commotion over the Facebook (social networking site for students) when they created the Feed - a list on the main page that tracked every thing you and your friends did on the site (who you commented on, who you poked, what your relationship status is) that caused everyone on the site to go crazy. For one example of a person going crazy from The Feed, here is a little snippet of my personal feed from the first day:

Since then they’ve changed it so you can pick what you want to be syndicated on the feed, so we’ll see what happens next with it. As it is, I’m trying to ween myself away from facebook and myspace anyway, so this is just one more reason.

In work news, today somebody paid with a large pile of change, and in that large pile of change was this sweet old penny:

I swapped it for a penny from the give-a-penny, take-a-penny pile so I could take it home and add it to my old penny collection - this is now the oldest penny I have, since the next oldest is from 1941.

Well, it’s pretty darn close to 3am now (and I must be lone-lay-ay), so I declare this meeting of the midnight society closed.

*puts out the fire and goes to sleep*

(Ryan started the fire!)