ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL


As Johnny D pointed out in the comments section of the last post, it's been a while since I've blogged. Almost a month has gone by. Why haven't I blogged? Well, not because it's been an uneventful month. I think because it's been TOO eventful. With so much to blog about it almost seems like a chore. You know, I've seen so many old friends and so many visits with family, I wouldn't want to leave anybody out. But I've decided...I'm leaving some of you out! ;) You know I love ya, but if I blogged about every single one of you I'd be here all week.


So, why is Alexander Grahm Bell at the top of this blog? Have I spent the last month celebrating the invention of the telefono? Not exactly, but close! Well, ok, not even close. But let's start with:

...............................ALEXANDER............................

Uhm, wrong Alexander. Let's try this again:

ALEXANDER! Alex is the little guy in the middle, along with Dad, Chris, and Mom, Julie. These are our friends in Columbus, OH. Yes, we went to Ohio for a week. I think one of the funniest moments of the trip happened here with little Alex. It was his bed time, and Julie said:
JULIE: Alex, are you ready for some milk?
ALEX: Milk! Milk!
Julie opens the fridge and--
JULIE: Oh no, Chris, we're out of milk.
Alex's eyes go wide.
ALEX: Miiiiiiiiiilk? Miiiiiiiiilk! MIIIIIIIIIILK!!
The baby is crying and repeating Milk. Milk. Milk. Milk. Milk. Milk.
Julie: Ok, I'm going to goto the store and get you milk.
Chris: Dave, Angie, I have to go do 'X', Would you watch Alex for a minute.
Yeah. Dave and I know absolutely nothing about kids. Now we have 2 year old standing before us, balling his eyes out, saying



"miiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiilk!"
Must. Improvise. Must. Find. Way. To. Make. Happy. I spot the small American flag Alex was playing with earlier. I grab it, begin waving it around, and belt out my best "Stars and Stripes Forever". Dave joins in with some percussion and woodwinds.
Angie and Dave: Do doo do do doo do do doooo...
We perform this elaborate John Phillip Sousa routine. It's working! Alex is stunned in to silence, his little mind trying to wrap around this bizzarre turn of events.
Finally, the grand finale with cymbol crashes and all!! We were so into the routing we're a little out of breath. There is a beat of silence....

Alex:........Miiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiilk? Miiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiilk!

I know this is so wrong, but the comedic timing was so perfect, Dave and I burst into laughter. This is, of course, when Chris walked back in. He walked in to find his son crying his eyes out and us crying with laughter. Yup, we're going to be outstanding parents some day. :)

GRAHAM

The primary reason for the Ohio trip was to attend the Graham's wedding.

Dave was the best man!

BELL


Prior to going to Ohio, we were in San Francisco for Christine and Bevan Bell's wedding! We know Christine from when we worked in Vegas.

In fact, many we knew from Vegas was there! We made so many awesome, lifelong friends during our 3 years there. The last time we saw them all was 2 years ago-- at our own wedding! The gang now has to travel from all over the country to get together.


Ha, for this picture I said "hey, everybody look off in a different direction". 3 our of the 5 of us looked in the exact same direction. hehe. Guess that needed more planning. Oh yeah, and summertime in San Fran was chilly as usual!! But wow, was the Boba tea delicious!

Turned out Christines father is Captain Picard. That was really cool! (I stole that bit from her. I know, I know, I'm a 'bit stealer')

Now that we live in LA, I imagine we'll see these guys more often! Many of the Vegas mafia ended up in San Francisco.


Of course, my Panda buddy lives in Phoenix, but she may be in LA soon for a visit! And no, I never explained 'Panda buddy' at any point on this blog. I'll save that story for Cara's visit. :)


Check out my photog tan. It's not just for farmers, ya know. We loved seeing you all again!! I hope somebody in our group gets married again soon! All I can say is:


ENGAGE!
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A couple other bits of news. My Stargate video won 2nd place. I'll show you all what I won when it arrives!

On Friday, Saturday and Sunday I shot my brother-in-laws short. I have pictures on my phone (crappy quality) but haven't sent them to flickr yet. I'm real proud of him! He was a fine director and the shoot went great.

One more funny Ohio story. Well, I'm not going to really tell a full blown story here. I don't think I need to. All I need to do is explain who is in the following picture:


Left to Right: My husbands ex-girlfriend from college, Ronni, her son, Aiden, my husband, Dave, my husbands ex-girlfriend from college's gay ex-husband who is the father of her son and former roomate of my husband, Chris. haha, they were a lot of fun, it's just weird to explain who we spent the day with. lol.

Aiden is a doll! He loved me. hehe.

Okay, I have to go. I finished my cousin's reception video for her upcoming wedding and need to mail it to her. Yes, I have another wedding to go to! I'm soooo looking forward to going home to Kansas and seeing everybody!

THE LENGTHS A STARGATE FAN WILL GO TO:


Some of you may have noticed when I like a sci-fi show--I LIKE a sci-fi show! When I heard that nearly the entire casts of Stargate SG1 and Stargate Atlantis were going to be at Comic Con in San Diego-- oh yes, I immediately bought my ticket online!


I got up at 3AM yesterday, downed some (ok, a lot of) caffeine, and drove myself to the:




"Best.Comic Con. Ever.". Why did I leave at 3AM? Because I was determined to get a good seat for the Stargate panels! And the sacrifice of sleep and hours of standing in line paid off!




I was in the 2nd row center! After waiting hours just to get in, I had to sit in that seat for 3 and a half hours to wait for the panels to begin. Many interesting conversations took place in those front rows. A lot were regarding the Sci-fi channel's "unforgivable" misspelling Col Sheppard's name on a promo. Most were regarding *spoiler alert* the killing of Scottish Stargate Atlantis character Dr. Carson Beckett. Man, I liked Carson just fine... but these fans actually had:

Kilts and bagpipes and banners referring to Carson as "The Scot in the sky"!
And that's certainly not all! But more about that later. The next most popular topic was Michael Shanks (Dr. Daniel Jackson) who was scheduled to be at the con. I have to admit, if I could only meet one actor from the Gates I would want to meet Shanks. Daniel, in my opinion, is the heart of Stargate. Even more so than Jack O'Neill.

Finally the time arrived! Christopher Judge took the stage! Amanda Tapping took the stage! Ben Browder took the stage! Michael Shanks---didn't show up... for unspecified reasons... D'oh! That was a tad dissapointing. Then-- the first fan to ask a question recieved an autographed copy of the 200th episode script. The crowd, green with envy, went wild: "Oh WOW!! WOW!!!! AWESOME!!! OH MY GOD!!!!"

...Ahem, You may recall, I won a Stargate video contest 9 months ago and the prize was an autographed copy of the 200th episode script. They still haven't sent it to me. I have a bizzare sense of humor so I couldn't help but shake my head and laugh: I woke up hours before the crack of dawn to find my favorite character actor was a no show for unknown reasons and then they give away an autographed 200 script like they have these things just lying around taking up space --while I've been trying nearly a year to get my beloved prize from them.

Then, it happened:

One of the Save Carsonites posed a question to the panel:

"WHY DID YOU KILL CARSON! WHAT DO YOU HAVE AGAINST DOCTORS?!"

The crowd ROARED as they waved their Scotland flags!

They CHEERED in their Scottish hats!


They SCREAMED as the bagpiper piped!
And Stagate Producer Robert Cooper responded:


"It's not that I have anything against doctors... it's just that I hate Scottish people."

Oh.My.God. I think I blew a funny fuse. I do not believe there was anything funnier that could have possibly been uttered at that moment. The rabidity of the fans mixed with the innapropriateness of the comment= FUNNIEST MOMENT EVER.

From then on it was non stop laughter! These guys are a riot! This is Christopher Judge who plays Teal'c on SG1.


Amanda Tapping who plays Col Sam Carter on SG1 and now Atlantis.

Ben Browder who plays Col Cameron Mitchell on SG1

Joe Flanigan who plays Col John Sheppard on Atlantis.

David Hewlett who plays Dr. Rodney McKay on Atlantis (and who is putting on the current Stargate video contest. here's my entry!)

Jewel Staite (of Firefly fame) who will play Dr. Jennifer Keller

There's so much more to tell. But Dave's parents are in town and I must depart! I had a blast at comic con and enjoyed meeting fans who are as obcessed (many of them more so... MUCH more so...) with Stargate as me. ;)

Check out my latest Stargate video!!
Stargate Atlantis: The Counterparts

Yes, it's for another online Stargate video contest. :) This time there is no voting involved so don't worry, I won't be bugging you too much. hehe.

Call time was 10AM last Saturday. The smell of fresh (or at least made sometime this week) Simpson's donuts filled our home. I didn't try one, but it would seem the proper response to tasting a Simpson donut is "D'oh! Puh-puh-puh!". Oh well, can't go wrong with bananas (which incidentally did NOT go extinct last year as the drunk guy at The Cove predicted in 1990. (had to be there)).

After drinking our coffee and laughing at the kitten that eated a butter...

...it was time to roll!

My new friend Phillip played a spoof on the character Rodney McKay named 'Ronnie'. Phillip totally rocks! Click on his name to goto his myspace page and see his videos!

Good ol' Yoink (aka Mark) portrayed Col. John Sheppard's counterpart, Josh. Unfortunately, the lines which established Josh's name were cut. I wrestled with that for a while, but felt the piece wanted to move on rather than sit through another 15 second gag at the beginning. Don't you dig the hair? It was a mullet wig, but I cut it short. Mark used to work with us in Vegas-- and now here we are at the same station in LA! It's so awesome to have our Yoink back. To celebrate our reunion we went out and eated a butter.

Meredith played Tanya, the spoof on Teyla. Mer gave up her ticket for Harry Potter at the Imax in the name of Stargate! Thank you!! She also has the funniest gag in the video (in my opinion). That gag being **SPOILER ALERT** her 'serenading the Wraith into passivity'. I feel like I have to write why these gags are funny considering how obscure they are... but I'm not gonna. Trust me, 1 out of every million of you will find it hillarious. ;)

Michael played Roland, Ronan's spoof!

He went above and beyond the call of duty and grew a goatee for the shoot! I had no idea he was doing that! AWESOME!!

Here's the special effect of the wormhole being established.

For the Stargate puddle we actually shot a pool! It worked!

To achieve the puddle reflection we shook an aluminum foil covered box at a light. As it turns out, this is very similar to how they do the actual effect on the show!

To show the explosions during the battle scene, we used orange gel on a light with a dimmer to create the effect.

And of course Hartman made an appearance! She's so easy to shoot because she is so curious about what I'm doing. Well, that and we bribed her with turkey-- which fit into the scene nicely!

Wow did that sandwich stink! We held it at arms length and fed it to the disposal as soon as soon as we were done shooting it!
Thanks to everybody involved!

HERE'S MY HEINZ KETCHUP COMMERCIAL! LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU THINK!! THANKS AGAIN MOM! YOU ARE SURE TO WIN AN ACADEMY AWARD. :)

If I make the top 15, you can all expect me to e-bug you to vote for me! I promised blooper footage in my last post. This will be uploaded soon so keep checking back.

Saw the Transformers movie last night. AWESOME! (Do you dig my shirt? My ridiculously talented husband made it for me!). I hope they have my favorite Autobots in the sequel (which is sure to be made!). Namely: Smokescreen, Prowl, Ultra Magnus and Hot Rod. Jazz would have been on that list, but uhm, well... they brought him back already. I also believe we should start an internet campaign for them to have Soundwave in the next flick! lol, who wouldn't want to see the trials and tribulations of a sing songy robot that transforms into a cassette tape deck in the 21st century! Poor Soundwave. All you Transformer fans should check out the youtube video below. I promise hillarity will ensue! (I did not make the following video... but I wish I had!):

MOM AND DAD'S EXCELLENT ADVENTURE:

The parents were here for a visit last week! Yay!

Hartman was especially thrilled with her week long spoiling. :)


The evening they arrived we had our first adventure: Dinner at Zen Chi in Studio City! If you're ever in Studio City, Zen Chi is a must. The edamame is crazy delicious! I couldn't get Mom to try my black tiger shrimp... Someday, Mom...someday! ;)



The next day we went to Beverly Hills and walked around Rodeo Drive where we did not buy a thousand dollar t-shirt or hundred dollar socks.


I think this is where they shot part of the Beverly Hillbillies opening sequence!




After taking Hollywood and the hills by storm-- we had a special Mothers/Fathers day dinner!

On Friday I took them to Starfleet Academy!

Yeah, okay, it wasn't Starfleet. We went to the J. Paul Getty museum! I've always wanted to ride that tram we always drive by on the 405! That wasn't the primary reason for going, but it certainly wasn't a drawback.


While there we learned way more than we ever wanted to know about 'Clara' the well traveled Rhino. You know how America goes crazy over people like Paris Hilton? Well, in the 1500's the world went crazy over a freaking Rhino... I guess we've evolved... or not. ;)

THEN...THAT EVENING... WE SAID GOODBYE TO:

My beloved Stargate SG1! I loved the series finale. For months now I've avoided Stargate websites, Forums and even Joe Mallozi's blog so as to not get accidentally spoiled on the plot... Then, the day of the finale, I decided to check out google news to see what kind of press SG1 was getting. Guess what. They got Press. And the press dropped plot details left and right! I know, I know, once I looked left and got spoiled why on earth did I look right? I dunno. Darn press! ;)
Oh well, it was a beautiful character episode about *SPOILER ALERT* the crew trapping themselves in a time dialation field to figure out a way to escape impending death from the final blow of an Ori blaster to their ship. I still have that old CCR song stuck in my head. Here's one of my favorite scene's from the ep:



Not to worry, Atlantis has it's 4th season next year and SG1 has 2 movies in the works!


The next morning was KETCHUP DAY! I somehow mangaed to convince Mom to star in my Ketchup commercial for an internet video contest.

I'm very close to uploading it to the internets. Just a few minor tweaks left in the edit bay! I won't spoil you on the plot. I'd love to get feedback from everybody once I upload it!

There will also be a hilliarious blooper posted soon as well! We were all laughing so hard we were crying! Thanks Mom for doing this crazy video!!

Oh yeah, and check out our new camera! The JVC HD-110U! Yeah, baby! This shoot was it's maiden voyage. Very happy with it! Hopefully it's going to get quite the workout in the coming days as I venture into the world of freelance.

Next stop: the La Brea Tar Pits! My Dad has wanted to see the tar pits since he was 10 years old!



You gotta respect the people who volunteer to spend their summers digging in a hot, smelly pit of tar!

Next day, next stop: Universal Studios!

We took the awesome studio tram tour:




After the tour I was nearly eaten by a shark! Luckily, some kid got right in our shot and saved my life by holding the jaws open by a single tooth. Thanks kid. ;)

Would anybody like a quick snacky fish?

Check out Dad's cool hat! He had a person or two come up to him who 'had a story for him'! I had to laugh!

One of the trip highlights was going to see a live taping of the Tonight Show! Since they didn't allow cameras in there, we took a picture of the episode as it aired that night. :)

Thanks for 'Murray' the plant!

One last adventure: SUSHI! You may not believe this, but we actually got Dad to try it! Really! See:

Now you believe, don't you!

See you in September at Alissa's wedding!! Love you!!