Uuuugh my sleeping habits are sooooooo gross right now. I had to FORCE myself out of bed at one in the afternoon today. I hate this. D:

But in other news, I just watched this unsubtitled Morning Musume interview and understood quite a large chunk of it, so yay! :) (And yay for Aichan talking about Disney Sea. xD )

Answers to yesterday's book meme:

1) The Elephant Vanishes, Haruki Murakami, and I'm kinda surprised no one guessed this just because I was under the impression that Murakami's so hot right now. I don't love his writing but I like it well enough; mainly I keep this book around because I find collections of short stories somehow really inspiring and motivating. x)

2) The Odyssey, Homer. I thought this would be slightly less obvious than if I had gone with The Iliad but perhaps I am incorrect in that assumption.

3) Full Frontal Feminism, Jessica Valenti, although the_wykydtron is correct, I ignored the fact that there's an introduction.

4) Notre-Dame de Paris, Victor Hugo. Guys, what's the point at which you recognized this one? I'm curious. xD

lol, one non-fiction and then three translated fiction. Actually I think most of the books I own these days are non-fiction, and a lot of those are language textbooks ... I don't think this meme would work very well with those. :|

In other news, it's Friday night and I hope This Is It sells out tonight because it still hasn't yet!! Meanwhile we have nine showings a day of A Christmas Carol, what is this madness.

In the middle of a lolarious conversation about a certain manager who likes to move everyone around to different tills for reasons no one else understands--

Co-worker 1: "And so by the end I was looking around and all I could think was, 'This is not where I belong!'"
Co-worker 2: "'Not where you belong'? You sound like a Disney movie."

Ahaha. x) I continue to adore my co-workers despite the fact that I seriously need a new job. On Wednesday we Slytherins got our prize of mini-golf and dinner. The mini-golf was really not exciting but the free dinner was so worth it. I definitely ordered more expensive things than I would've if I'd had to pay for it. >xD And now we're about a week away from paintball! I'M ACTUALLY GOING THIS TIME, unlike last time when I decided sleeping in was the preferable option. I've already made a financial commitment to this round, so. xD;

Anyway, I guess it's time for me to answer the questions from this post! (Which you are still allowed to contribute to, if you'd like!) ( Read more... )

Quick! Two fun facts!!

One! Now that it's past midnight -- today is my mom's birthday! :) Why yes she is indeed one day younger than the King of Pop. I think I always remember this fun fact so well only because it is perhaps the only semi-positive thing she has ever said to me about MJ. ^^;

Two! The first time I heard any of the songs on Pink's Funhouse album was on my flight home from Tokyo. That whole flight felt like such a neverending visit to a strange parallel universe that when I was flipping channels the other day and caught the music video for the title song, my first reaction was surprise, like This song exists here, too??

MICEAGE IS REPORTING THAT CAPTAIN EO IS RETURNING IN JANUARY

BRB FLAILING AROUND IN FANGIRL JOY

THIS HAD BETTER BE TRUE DISNEY OR I SWEAR--

P.S. JANUARY TRIP TO DISNEYLAND WHO'S WITH ME?? :D :D :D :D

Captain EO thanks you for your time:

Things my dad bought me in Europe:

· the Latvian DVD of The Sword in the Stone

· the Latvian DVD of Pixar Short Films Collection, Vol. 1 (lol, my love for Pixar is almost non-existant these days unfortunately)

· a German guide to Disneyland Paris

· the Polish version of King of Pop (the tracklist for this album is different for each country it was released in, and omg the Polish tracklist is a thing of beauty)

· a Polish music magazine featuring an MJ cover story

Before anyone asks, no I don't speak any of these languages. But even so, it's a pretty awesome bunch of souvenirs I think! xD

Last night I had a co-worker tell me that Disneyland Paris (actually, she said "Euro Disney," but every time someone says that I inwardly cringe because IT'S NOT CALLED THAT ANYMORE!!) has no Haunted Mansion. To which I replied, uh, yeah it does, it's called Phantom Manor and it opened with the park.

Today in a ridiculously long guest service meeting at work, the presenter was trying to make the point that no one talks about how expensive Disneyland is because they have such a good time there, only he quoted the price of a park ticket as $99. To which I thought, uh, no, your most basic ticket is $72 U.S., which is still only $78 Canadian. But thanks for coming out.

I'm sorry to post about this stuff all the time but this is obviously my version of SOMEONE IS WRONG ON THE INTERNET. I seriously just want to be like, GUYS. It's a THEME PARK. It's not ROCKET SCIENCE. GET IT RIGHT!!

Ugh omg why am I not at Disneyland right now. Can someone explain this to me plz??? D:

Step 1: Steal a pair of 3-D glasses from a Disney theme park attraction.
Step 2: Wait fifteen years.
Step 3: Put the glasses on eBay.
Step 4: Profit!!

brb stealing glasses from HISTA!!

So people keep posting picspams of Michael Jackson in Disney parks, and as you might imagine I am totally down with this, one of the reasons being they are often posted without context and I like to test my skillz at figuring out which Disney park is being depicted. I'd seen photos that could be easily identified as having been taken in Disneyland, in the Magic Kingdom, and in Disneyland Paris, but I hadn't seen any that struck me as Tokyo Disneyland, leaving me to wonder if he ever made it there. (Does this become more weird or less weird when I confess I wonder the same thing about basically anyone ever?)

Then the other night I came across this gif in a party post:( mj and disney )

So today on the bus I thought I caught a glimpse of a shooting star and felt for a brief moment that I was on everyone's favourite piratical ride, and when I remembered I wasn't I felt slightly miserable for the rest of the trip home.

GUYS MY (TOKYO) DISNEYLAND WITHDRAWAL HAS REACHED A LEVEL OF PATHETIC EVEN I DID NOT REALIZE EXISTED ;_;

Man, but speaking of which, isn't seeing the shooting star at the beginning of Pirates supposed to be like a special thing? I swear I saw it almost every time. @_@

This bustastic story also reminds me of how once when Dad and I were on Splash Mountain, he made a comment about how realistic the sky was, I agreed . . . and then we realized we were outside. Ahaha, oh god, this is your brain on Disney.

So if I start making a list of all the books I read in 2009, do you think I'll actually get through the year without forgetting I was making it?

LET'S FIND OUT!!

1. The Girls in the Back of the Class, LouAnne Johnson
I don't think I read anything in January besides travel guides, so the book I finished today gets to be first on the list. It's the sequel to the book that became the movie Dangerous Minds - basically a fictionalized (though I'm not sure to what extent) account of one of the years the author spent teaching English in a California high school for underprivileged kids. Despite the author's insistance that she would pay more attention to her female students this time, I feel like the title doesn't fit the book; most of the stories still focus on the guys. Because their stories are more exciting? (Two of them get shot at, for example. D: ) My other complaint is that the author spends like four pages describing her and a student's attempts to kill a spider, and I thought that was rather unnecessary. Other than that, it was a really interesting book (and a surprisingly quick read) covering a bunch of different issues. I'd like to read the prequel if I come across it (haha, I came across this one just browsing the shelves in the public library), although I don't think I'll actively seek it out, at least not until my pile of books to read has considerably shrunk. D:

Starting around the middle of last summer, I started keeping track of the books I read using Facebook's Visual Bookshelf application, although I fudged that list a bit more than I intend to fudge this one. ^^; If anyone cares, ( the books I read legitimately last year include ... )

From when I started to read up until about eighth grade (when the time I spent on the Internet began to go from an okay amount to Way Too Much), I basically read a book a day. While I don't feel a need to go back to that, I'm definitely happy that my attempts to read books for fun again seem to be working! :D

hahaha oh man I love reading the official descriptions of theme park rides. xD; From Universal Studios Japan's description of JAWS:

The 9.75m and 2.7ton JAWS continuously attacks you at the speed of 6m/sec.
And worse, your boat is engulfed in fire ...

MAN, this just isn't my day!! >:(

In other news, DisneySea's version of the Indiana Jones ride will be closed while we're there. :( Sad face!

So I never told you guys my most very favourite story from my short time working at the toy store!!

Some Guy: "Is there any store in the mall that sells ... girl stuff?"
Sarah: "You mean like Claire's? Like, jewelry?"
Some Girl: [looking quite embarrassed] "He means tampons."

HAHAHAHAHAHA!!! I just loved this so much because I totally imagined the girl being all "Oh I'm too embarrassed to ask, you ask for me," and the guy asking for her, and TOTALLY MESSING IT UP. xDDDDD;;

Or maybe I'm just dense.

I was reminded of this story because today at work one of the tampon dispensers ate someone's quarter, and she came to box office to tell me, and I had to direct her to the floor staff, because yeah, definitely not my area. (My first thought was, "Give her a refund!," because that's what we do when the candy/toy/game machines ARGH I HATE THEM ALL eat people's money, but then I realized that would probably not be the best of help.) So she left to ask them and I forgot about the whole thing until we were all in the office at the end of the night and my manager was telling the continuation of this story. After her visit to the box office, this woman went to the podium and told my male co-worker there that the tampon dispenser ate her quarter. (Sidenote: this guy is one of my favourite co-workers because he is so much like my brother, except for the fact that he is ALWAYS IN A GOOD MOOD. Amazing!!) This co-worker calls over the (male) manager and tells him that "the machine in the women's bathroom" is broken. Which confuses the manager for a second, but then he figures it out and goes with the woman into the bathroom to open the tampon dispenser. At which point the conversation apparently went something like this:

Manager: "Well, that's why it ate your quarter; there aren't any tampons in here. There are plenty of pads, though, would one of those be okay?"
Woman: "Oh, this is really awkward."
Manager: "It's okay - I'm gay! :D "

AND APPARENTLY IT WASN'T QUITE SO AWKWARD AFTER THAT. And they had a merry trip through the washrooms, and eventually found a dispenser that actually had tampons in it. hahaha!!! Okay maybe this story isn't actually that funny, but the way he told it was HILARIOUS. xDDD;

And then as I was leaving work, this same manager called me back into the office as if he was asking a favour. I thought it would be something of the usual sort, like "Can you take tomorrow's sign-in sheet out when you leave?," but NO, his question was, "Can you take a karate class for me? Some sort of martial arts? Jijitsu, maybe?"

BECAUSE HE WANTS TO SEE ME BEAT SOMEONE UP

>>>>xDDDD!!!!!

Man I know I have been complaining more than enjoying my job recently, but oh how I do love my co-workers. <33333

On a completely unrelated subject, today I searched YouTube for "Tokyo DisneySea" and discovered that for the park's fifth anniversary, they apparently made a series of overlapping short films in the park. And not only that, but they have been FANSUBBED!! You don't even understand my shock at the idea of people other than me actually wanting to watch this stuff. I've only watched one of the films so far (part one / part two) and was pretty weirded out! haha. Like, who has these kinds of conversations? And at a Disney park??? While simultaneously advertising the park, too, hahaha! I'm sure I'll watch the rest, but man, I can't decide which is weirder: these Sea of Dreams short films, or my discovery that World Vision has its own television show. I thought I watched it on Channel M but I can't find it on their schedule now (unless it falls under "Paid Programming"?) so maybe I'm misremembering. But ... that was a little weird, too.

Anyway, I was looking up Tokyo Disney stuff not because of my usual obsession, but because my dad and I are finally getting some concrete plans for our late October-early November trip to Japan! :D (I realized today that if we time it right, we could catch both Disneyland's Hallowe'en stuff AND their Christmas stuff, so that is A+ in my books.) ANY SUGGESTIONS OF STUFF TO DO IS TOTALLY WELCOME!!! My list right now is so pathetic. I'm like, "Disney ... MoMusu ... Shibuya? ... maybe a castle??" So yeah. Those of you who have been to Japan, help me out here. D:

So at work tonight when I went to cash out there was a FedEx envelope in the safe, upon which was written, "Happy birthday, [nickname that reveals my last name xD; ]! From Santa." It confused me greatly for like ten whole minutes, before my managers ordered me to open it. And so I did, and three Hannah Montana DVDs fell out.

YOU GUYS.

MY MANAGERS STOLE HANNAH MONTANA DVDS FOR ME.

<3333!!!!

This almost-but-not-quite makes up for scheduling me till 12:45am tonight and then from 11:30am tomorrow morning. ^^;

hahaha, I'm so amused by all of this, because I guess I'm used to hiding my interests for fear of I have no idea what. But revealing my ridiculous love for Hannah Montana has really been paying off spectacularly. xD!! Ahaha well I shouldn't be so crass. I really was touched that they thought to hang onto some DVDs for me. :)

Oh, and one of my co-workers, recently returned from the Disneyland Resort, informed me today that she thinks DCA is better than Disneyland. Wow, talk about an opinion you never hear! xD It made me really happy, though. I personally don't think DCA is as good as Disneyland, but nor do I think it deserves all of the bashing it receives.

hahaha okay I think I'll like this entry better than the rest of you do. xD; My recent lack of postage is due to not having anything to post about, except my vague angst about my lack of plans for the future or, I dunno, how my Sims are doing ... xD;;

From disneyland_news:

This weekend may have marked the final performances of the Aladdin and Jasmine Storytale Adventure at Disneyland. The attraction is not listed in the entertainment guides published for the rest of the summer on the Disneyland.com website, and there have been persistent rumors that the small outdoor theater venue will be repurposed to host an Indiana Jones show or meet-and-greet.

*CRY*

;_;

I mean, Indy is cool and all, I guess ... and if they want to put a new show in Adventureland they kind of need a stage, I guess, that street show idea they've been talking about would totally clog up the walkway and Adventureland is already crowded enough ... but-- but-- the Al and Jas show was HILARIOUS!!!!!!!!

;_; ;_; ;_; ;_;

Also: luv this fandom!secret

So my friend/co-worker K is going to Disneyland in June (leaving there on her birthday what the heck worst timing ever - I should tell her to grab a birthday button anyway xD ). Last month, she went on a roadtrip for which another of our co-workers made her a sort of scavenger hunt type of list of things to find and take pictures of. (One was "Take a picture with a hot guy" - they took a picture with a standee of the Maytag Man, hahahaha. xDD ) She seemed to really enjoy it, so I asked if she would like me to make her a similar list for Disneyland, and she said YES. :D But now I have to actually come up with stuff!! haha. This is roughly what I kinda have so far:

- Take a picture of a tourist with a cowboy hat. (Suggested by my mom haha. x) )
- Take a picture of the sails in New Orleans Square. (This one might be too hard, though? the_wykydtron and I only found them 'cause I knew roughly where they were.)
- Take a picture of the Evil Queen in her tower. (I think this one is easier but still maybe too hard.)
- Take a picture of a ride that's under construction. (Is Small World down yet? I should probably check.)
- Take a picture of a real live animal.

K's own suggestion was "Poke Dumbo," and then she mimed it and it was hilarious. xDDD

So after my break I go back to the office--

Sarah: "I'm gonna make K a scavenger hunt list for when she goes to Disneyland. What should I put on it?"
Manager: "... What do you think you should put on it?"
Sarah: "Well the only thing I've thought of so far is 'Take a picture with Jack Sparrow,' but she'll probably do that anyway."
Manager: "... I don't think they have a Jack Sparrow walking around Disneyland."
Sarah: "Yes they do! I met him!!"
Manager: "Yeah, well you're a liar."

hahahahaha awwwww xD;;;

Oh I should mention, another of my co-workers, also with the initial K, went to Disneyland last month, and this manager was teasing her, saying he was going to call Disneyland with a bomb threat so that they would have to shut down and she wouldn't be able to go. D: I asked him what he thought would happen if he really called Disneyland with a bomb threat and she said he would be arrested. Immediately. xD;;;;;

(Man I find it really bizarre how after I got interested in Disney parks, they started popping up all over the place and now all of a sudden everyone I know is planning a trip. o_O;;; You know how when you learn a new word you suddenly see it all the time? It's like that, but so weird.)

Okay this next conversation has nothing to do with the rest of this entry.

Brother: "So why do you wanna see Jumper?"
Sarah: "Because it has two Morning Musume songs in it! :D :D "
Brother: "... That's all?"
Sarah: "... Yeah! :D :D "
Brother: "You need to rethink your life."

hahahaha aw man, I was afraid of that. D:

One: My brother and his girlfriend made me a chicken quesadilla and it was not only edible, IT WAS DELICIOUS. Status of my mind: BLOWN!

Two: My cousin's baby was born this afternoon!!! And guess what guess what! They named him Eric!! xDDDD

NOW TAKING HIM TO TOKYO DISNEYLAND WILL BE EVEN MORE AWESOME!!!!!

A little detective work while I was searching for something completely different has revealed that the seventh issue of The Claremont Review (published, apparently, in 19995) included a story entitled "Naming the Baby."

Okay, yes, I'll admit, I am a little saddened by this news, but now that I know I don't have to worry about being blamed or honoured for such an awful title (I'm sorry but I hate it! ^^; ), I can get back to watching YouTubey goodness such as this video of the Jungle Cruise in Japanese (I love this ride so much I sometimes think I might die of it).

SO ENDS THAT SAGA!

Edit: I added the answers to that lyric entry I did last week. If anyone cares. Which probably they don't. @_@

Last night at work was my first Saturday evening at the movie theatre, my throat hurt, I had to practically shout because it was so loud, people kept replying to "Sorry, the seven o'clock/eight o'clock/nine o'clock/ten o'clock Pirates is sold out" with "Are you guys kidding me??," and a woman who wanted to see Knocked Up (which is rated 18A) got annoyed with me when I asked to see ID. I thought we lived in a culture where looking young is supposed to be everyone's ultimate goal, but APPARENTLY NOT. (My favourite part is that she was like, "I've never been carded before in my life! I'm almost twenty-one! I'm getting married!" (as if getting married automatically means you're over eighteen, hahaha, c'mon here, I'm a Disney princess fan, that means nothing to me) as if explaining all of this and hoping I would take her word for it was easier than just pulling out her driver's license or pointing to the obviously over-eighteen guy she turned out to be with and telling me she was with him.)

WELL ANYWAY. If that's the only customer to get annoyed with me so far, I guess I'm doing pretty well. :)

I did not mean to write a whole paragraph about the bad, hahaha, when I meant to make a post about the good! XD Such as this: last night we had a visit from a small group of pirates, including the famous Captain Jack Sparrow himself! :D I am going through unhealthy Disneyland withdrawal, haha, so it was so awesome to hear someone shout, "Hey, it's Captain Jack Sparrow!" and look up from my cash drawer and see him! XD His costume was very good, and people were pulling him out of the line in order to take pictures with him (haha pretty funny), but his acting was actually pretty terrible. XD;; He just shouted the whole time. So even though no one would mistake him for Johnny Depp, hahaha, it still totally made my evening just that I could watch him wandering the lobby for a good fifteen minutes. XD

( A touch of PotC3 spoilers. )

I love that my adoration for this new job depends so much on this being a Pirates and Harry Potter summer. XD I just hope it doesn't make me sick of them!! There's a Dead Man's Chest poster in the break room and to get there you have to step around the people in line for At World's End and of course the lobby is covered in Pirates and the only time I pay attention to the screens in the lobby that advertise upcoming movies is when I all of a sudden hear a snippet of "Hedwig's Theme." XD Oh, I love it so, it's a total fangirl job. XD And also, when there's no one in line I get to watch people playing DDR. Twice now I have come home from work with "Butterfly" stuck in my head. XD XD XD XD

But like I said, I seem to be getting a mild cold and also I am going through crazy Disneyland withdrawal, so life is not all good. XD hahahahaha!

1) RABBITS RABBITS!!!!

2) athena_crikey has posted FOUR TIMES since I last posted. I obviously need to step it up.

3) Morning Musume is killing me with its scandaliciousness. KILLING ME.

4) How are we supposed to wait two years for the opening of this Harry Potter theme park? They should've just built it in secret and then told us about it. I can't wait two whole years for the chance to say, "Well, it's good, but it's not as good as Disneyland!!" ... el oh el oh el.

5) My copy of the PotC3 soundtrack arrived today and I'm going to see it again this evening~~ :D (I can't believe it's only been a week since I saw it, it feels like so~~~ much longer~~~~.) And I am almost finished playing the tie-in video game, not because I have mad skillz but because it is crazy short!! My dad today was talking about how my PotC craziness and how it seems off to him that people who are making $8 an hour (=me) spend all their money on PotC goods that will make the people behind PotC even richer than they already are. Hahaha, and he doesn't even know about my all-PotC Amazon.ca order that should ship out today ... XD XD XD XD

6) I finally got around to getting myself a copy of The Little Mermaid on DVD and proceeded to go through a mini-obsession with it, which I totally was not expecting! I hadn't seen the movie in ten years, why would I care that much about it? But man! It's so interesting! And the documentary? And the ride? OH MAN THAT RIDE!! I have also decided that "Poor Unfortunate Souls" is one of my favourite animated Disney sequences. It's so good! And I never before really agreed with everyone who sung the praises of Howard Ashman, but listening to some of those songs again, wow. If you actually listen to the words that are in his lyrics, it is amazing that they can be sung and sound good. And I feel like I am getting really crotchety in my old age about song lyrics. I am actually ridiculously critical of the songs I hear on the radio. Which is why I never listen to the radio. XD

7) Sorry this entry is a JOKE. XD

Last night I had a dream about Big Thunder Mountain Railroad (only of course it was nothing like it is in real life) and today at the mall I saw a man wearing a Jedi Training Academy shirt (I probably wouldn't have bought such a shirt had I seen it, a fact that today I ridiculously regretted), and anyway these two things together made me remember what I forgot to tell you guys! Which is that once I begin my new job, I will no longer be an employee, and I will no longer be an associate -- I will be a cast member. Oh, I do like to pretend I work at the happiest place on earth.

FOUR DAYS TILL POTC3 HOLY COW!!!! I feel like just yesterday it was two full weeks and then zoom! Four days! I have to be on my best behaviour when we go to see it, hahaha. I don't want to give the theatre reason to regret hiring me before I even start. XD