two towers trailer

I'm a whole day into my 40s and still no major life epiphanies. Fine with me; too many things going on in my life already without having to worry about epiphanies. :-)

One of the major disadvantages of having a birthday on a Good Friday, we found yesterday, is that everything is closed. Our original plan was to have brunch at Mildred Pierce, do some book-browsing at Chapters, then at Saved By Technology. All three places were closed yesterday. :-(

Still ended up to be a fun day...I found out from Allison and Ruth that the trailer for The Two Towers (the second Lord of the Rings movie) was debuting with the first LOTR movie yesterday. Jeff and I had already decided to see a movie in the afternoon since the Paramount was still open, so this worked out well. Ruth came to see the movie with us.



Have to say, I still really love the LOTR movie even though I'd seen it six times before. In fact, I enjoyed it more this time than any other time I've seen it except for the premiere. Bawled in all the same scenes. The IMAX theatre was packed. I was pretty surprised, since the movie's been out for ages. Perhaps a lot of them were intrigued by all the Oscar nominations the movie had received, or maybe a lot of them were there for the same reason that we were...to see the new trailer.

Someone's baby kept crying near the front of the theatre. It was far enough away that it didn't really bother me, but I have to say that I was ticked off for the sake of the people seated in that area, and for the baby's sake. What was that mother thinking, bringing a baby to LOTR? I can't blame the poor thing for wailing; it probably kept getting woken up by all the loud noises. I'd scream, too.

The trailer was shown after the movie, just before the credits. Thanks to Allison for warning us about this! Else I would have expected the trailer to be shown beforehand, and been majorly ticked off when I didn't see it. I found the trailer to be more of a mishmash of scenes rather than a carefully-themed piece like previous trailers, but I didn't care. Lots of interesting new characters, lots of intriguing glimpses of new scenes. It was a much longer trailer than I expected, too, yay! But...

HOW ON EARTH AM I SUPPOSED TO WAIT UNTIL DECEMBER???

Ah well, I'll just have to work out my impatience through Waiting For Frodo (which I just updated yesterday, by the way).



Celebrated my birthday at my sister's place with my family. Sara and Annie had made me a very nice birthday cake (I had the last piece for breakfast this morning, yum). My family pitched in for tickets for Sara and me to see Mamma Mia in June, as well as some very cool-looking Lord of the Rings posters.

Hey, I forgot to mention what Jeff got me for my birthday! One of the reasons we're going shopping at Saved by Technology today is because we're going to buy stuff for a mini-home recording studio! It's something I've wanted for a very long time.

We've been talking with Jeff Bohnhoff about software and equipment I need. I'll be using my laptop for the main piece of hardware, but will also be getting software (Logic), an external audio interface (since my iBook has no built-in sound input), a mixer, a good condenser microphone (I already have one mic, hope to accumulate others in the future), an external drive for audio file storage, and some self-powered studio monitors.

And yes, this would be something that Urban Tapestry could use for future recording projects, as well as for possibly recording guest musicians at various conventions (using a professional recording studio would be fun, of course, but not financially feasible for us). I'm also looking forward to doing some experimenting with some personal composition projects of my own as well, using my harp, flute, Roland JV-80 keyboard, other instruments.

If any of you know of any good online resources where I could learn more about the basics of digital recording, please do let me know, thanks. I've had very limited experience with Jeff's ancient 4-track recorder.

Having dinner with Scott and Jeff tonight at Ruth's Chris steakhouse.

Tomorrow's the last day of my Virtual Online Birthday Party! My very last 40th birthday party ever, so please do drop by. :-)

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Today's Blatherpics:

	Lord of the Rings posters up in my home office so far. The small one is the one Heather Borean gave me at Ad Astra. The larger two are ones given to me by my family last night. Pretty cool, eh? I still have other LOTR posters (Black Rider & hobbits, Gandalf, larger poster with two statues and the Fellowship in boats) to put up somewhere.
	One of the chocolate Easter bunnies that Allison gave me.
	One of the chocolate Easter bunnies that Allison gave me after I bit its little head off (insert evil cackling here).
	Sara showing us how she can pick up Annie. Annie cheerfully obliging.