There is a lot of talk going on in bandom right now. Here is what I would like to talk about:

( Brendon Urie's semi-bare ass (possibly probably NSFW) )

The month of October may just kill me (in the best possible way, of course).

In terms of concerts, here is my tentative schedule:

Panic in Las Vegas - October 9th
Panic in Salt Lake - October 16th
Justin Timberlake in Las Vegas - October 17th*
Cobra Starship in Salt Lake - October 21st
Cobra Starship in Las Vegas - October 31st

*IF I can get tickets. I imagine that they're going to sell out fairly quickly and all I can do is hope my fingers are faster than someone else's! My friend Brian works for the company that owns Planet Hollywood so he's going to try to hook me up with his discount so that I can stay there since that's where the show is being held. I'm wondering who "and Friends" includes other than, like, Timbaland.

I'm not a member of Northern Downpour (ugh, self!) so I can't do pre-sale tomorrow and I'm feeling pretty zen about that. I'm a little bit slightly wee concerned about not being able to get a good ticket for Vegas, but it's all GA anyway, right? I mean in various weird pool venue GA forms? I want actual seats for Salt Lake so I'm not too fretful about that one. I was planning on heading out to LA the day after the Vegas date to see Panic again there, but I'd really, really, really like to go to the Justin concert so I think I'm going to have to pass on LA. Man, I just need to live in Las Vegas this October!

Also happening probably the first weekend of October (if we can make it work) is a fall/my birthday visit to Philly to see likeaspark. I'll also be seeing her and epiphery and ghettogreta in less than two weeks and I am SO super stoked and excited for that. I've never been to another city as many times as I've been to Philadelphia, but Las Vegas is certainly catching up! Yes, I actually keep track of the number of times I've been to big cities /o\

I am planning to do my part as a fan to vote extensively for Panic in their VMA nomination because I would really, really dislike to see them lose to the Jonas Brothers. I hate the Jonas Brothers. Here are two (somewhat admittedly irrational) reasons why:

1. I work as a Guide for ChaCha* and I get asked on a frequent basis who the Jonas Brothers are dating. I get asked who Selena Gomez is dating so that it will open up a discussion about the Jonas Brothers. I get asked if Miley Cyrus and whichever Jonas are still together or if they ever were together or will they be together in the future? I get asked if I think the Jonas Brothers are cute. I get asked questions like "Will Joe Jonas marry me?" "Is Nick Jonas a virgin?" "Can you give me the phone number of the Jonas Brothers?" I wish someone would ask me, "On a scale of 1 to 10, how ridiculous is it that the Jonas Brothers are on the cover of Rolling Stone?" Answer? 11.

2. The Jonas Brothers bassist's bash-y blog about Panic At The Disco. Don't get me wrong, people are allowed to criticize and dislike the band. That's totally fine. We all have different tastes and opinions and that's cool. It was the way in which he chose to do it, sounding so arrogant and pompous and self-righteous, like he above anyone else knows what amazing music is. Um. YOU'RE A JONAS BROTHER, DUDE. Come give us sparkling pearls of wisdom about originality when you do something outside of the cookie cutter Disney box.

So yeah. I would love nothing more than to see Panic win just because I'm petty like that. :-[

Also, I really like David Archuleta's new song. It's really, really catchy, and just the kind of "poppy" that I enjoy. I drove by Murray High yesterday and they have this huuuuuge banner of him up on the side of the school. If I hadn't been in busy traffic I would have tried to snap a picture of it for all the Archuleta girls I have on my FL.

*For anyone who doesn't know what ChaCha is, it's basically an answer service. You can text any question in the world ever to 242-242 (Cha-Cha) and an actual person on the other end at their computer will look up the answer and send it to you, citing a valid source. It's pretty fun! Guides get paid for every text query they answer and the program is super simple to use. It's also a free service so you can text as many questions as you like to them without getting charged for it.

eta: I would also like to see Panic win because I heart them a lot, but I figured that went without saying!

I just played Dance Dance Revolution for the very first time. I am not very good! During Fall Out Boy's Dance, Dance I was too distracted by the actual music video in the background. It was a lot of me being all "Yay! High school dance shenanigans!" and Trevor yelling at me to move my feet. /o\

It actually kind of reminds me of the time I was the coveted Napkin #29 in my high school production of Beauty And The Beast and I was probably the worst little dancer in the faux dining room. Two left feet, yay! Aww, I miss doing shows. Tell me dance/theater stories!

At The Cab/Hush Sound show with miss_saigon, ficbyzee and elucreh. Great show. We really liked Steel Train. Everyone stayed for the Hush Sound, and there might even be even more people here than for any of the openers, so that makes me happy. Alex Marshall was just sitting five feet away from us. This is, occasionally, a very surreal fandom!

I am so bored tonight. It's one of those nights where everything is dead. The internet is dead, text messaging is dead, I can't for the life of me concentrate enough to read fic or a book (I seriously don't know when I developed such a short attention span) so I've just been sitting here playing Mahjong and contemplating my life. I even called up most of my close-by friends to see if they wanted to grab some food around 9:00 and everyone was either sleeping, working, or not answering their phone. That worked out ok though because my mom and I ended up setting up and playing Wii Fit for the first time which is THE BEST GAME EVER OMG SO FUN AND ALSO EXERCISE! \o/ I am total crap at the ski slalom but I rock at the ski jumping and the rhythm aerobic steps and am ok at hoola hoops and various other balance activities. I did the short run but I think I was too close to the TV because Wii!me (also called a Mii) was just not cooperating. All in all it was a blast and I'm pretty thrilled to have something that actually gets me excited about physical activity. I mean, what? Physical activity is totally awesome! ;-)

My mom and I went to the American Idol concert Monday night. That was the most surreal thing, man. It was craaaazy packed, which we were expecting, given that it's Utah and David Archuleta, but not to the extent it was. Yikes. We couldn't even get a table at any of the venue's nearby restaurants well over an hour before the show was scheduled to start. And there were seriously so many elderly couples there. I'd say about a good half of the crowd was over 50 years old (and little old ladies cooing and perving over David Archuleta? WRONG AT THE AMERICAN IDOL CONCERT). And then the screaming. Oh my GOD, when David Archuleta came out I was pretty sure the universal sound barrier was going to break. I've been to my fair share of concerts and I don't think I've ever heard a crowd be so loud. I am glad that he got a lot of hometown love and support, though -- he cried he was so moved, which was admittedly pretty cute, and he sang his set very well. David Cook was awesome as usual, and so were Brooke and Carly and, to my slight surprise, Chikeze! In retrospect I definitely believe he deserved to be higher than 10 on the show. I absolutely would not kick Kristy Lee Cook out of bed (because, damn) but she sang ( small spoiler ) Ramiele left me totally bored and unimpressed, Jason was good but didn't interact with the audience at ALL, and Syesha is just so desperate for love and approval that I'm just indifferent to her at this point. Michael Johns was good vocally but ( another small spoiler ) and b) he is SO arrogant. I just can't get behind his brand of self-importance. But overall the show was tons of fun and I'm glad I got to go with my mom.

My mom also took today off and we went to lunch at the California Pizza Kitchen, yum. Seriously, they have this banana chocolate cake thing that is SO DELICIOUS OMG. It would be difficult for me to name a better tasting dessert. After lunch we saw Wall-E which was SO SO SO SO SO ADORABLE. Oh my goodness I wanted to go see it again right after it was over. The short film before the movie was also incredibly darling. I'm amazed that after so many movies Disney and Pixar still haven't lost their magic. DISNEY + PIXAR = 4EVA ♥

So likeaspark was here the first week of July and it was really fun to have her out here! She got to meet my mom and my dogs and we did fun things like drive up to Park City and meander Temple Square and go see the U2 light show at the planetarium. We saw three different fireworks shows on the Fourth of July and I took her to lots of yummy Utah food places. She had real fry sauce for the first time and it was an A+ experience! We also watched Stardust which is one of my new favorite movies EVER. I've had the book since Christmas and seeing the movie motivated me to start reading it. So far so good!

I'm done updating but I feel like I should have included some fannish content in here, like maybe talk about how Brendon Urie's ass needs to have some naked sexy fun times with his bandmates or something.

At about 3:30 last night/this morning I heard the most awful yowling sounds from outside my window. It was a cat, I could tell, and I got dressed and went outside to make sure that it was ok. I really thought the poor thing was hurt or dying, like maybe it had been hit by car, or maybe was caught in a fence wire across the street. I got to the end of my sidewalk and saw two cats across the street in the gutter -- one was standing and the other was on the ground curled up in a ball. I thought to myself, oh God, the second cat is dead and the first one is upset and that's what the noises were about. I was hesitant to approach them because it was dark and I was unsure of whether or not they'd be defensive. The street lamp gave me just enough light to see the second cat move, so I knew it was ok. I watched them for few more moments and once it was obvious they were all right, I went back inside and went to bed. This morning I was telling my mom this story, all earnest about how worried I was about the yowling cats in pain, and she starts laughing and says to me, "Honey, they were mating." OH. MY. GOD. I did not know that such a sound could come out of an animal during such an act.

I've been amusing myself this evening by watching Ghostwriter videos on YouTube. Did anyone ever watch Ghostwriter back in the day? I loved that show so much. We had our VCR set to tape it daily while I was at school and my parents were at work. He's a little glowing ball who uses words to help inner-city kids fight crime! What's not to love? And Grandma Jenkins! Come on! True story, I used to pretend Ghostwriter and I were friends, although instead of worrying about purple slime monsters and toxic waste, Ghostwriter and I would solve complex dilemmas such as "boys: cute or cooties?" and "way hard 2nd grade math". Right now, as I type this, I still have a handful of Ghostwriter novels on my bookshelf in my room. There's this one story that takes three books to tell about the Ghostwriter crew up at camp and bad stuff happens, yo! Sabotage! Cut bike breaks! Vandalism! I re-read it last year and still enjoyed it. I am being completely honest. Once upon a time I stumbled upon Hector/Alex slash and realized that it meant I probably had very little lines or morals, much like the time I mentally 'shipped Kirk Cameron's character on Growing Pains with Leonardo DiCaprio. Leo was TROUBLED and Mike Seaver SAVED HIM and then Leo LEFT and Mike was TORN UP, ok? However, I can safely say I never 'shipped Uncle Jesse with anyone other than Becky, but as I understand it, somewhere out in the interwebs Danny Tanner has been slashed and I'm just not sure how I feel about that.

LATE 80's/EARLY 90's TV ♥

Let me flail at you about how awesome you are!

Reply to this post, and I will write one thing I love about you. Maybe more than one. Then (if you want) repost to your own journal and spread the love.

Warped tomorrow with my fantastic Utah girls miss_saigon, ficbyzee, and C. I'm so stoked, even though we are going to melt to death. Guess who else is going to be there? callsigns!!!!! And on top of that, it's a special birthday for Zee so make sure to send her some birthday love <3

eta: p to the s: likeaspark will be here in FOUR DAYS!!!

I have a spare ticket to the Las Vegas HCT show! Is anyone going to be in the area or know someone who might be interested in sitting with me? I have actual seats and I promise not to be creepy or annoying or anything! Since I loathe and despise Ticketmaster service fees, I'd only ask for the face value of the ticket, which is $35, but I'd also be more than willing to work something else out! So if anyone out there in LJ Land is interested, just let me know! :-D Comments are screened for your safety, seat-backs and tray tables in the upright and locked position, etc. etc.

I haven't been on LJ since Friday, so some of this may be old hat, but some (POTENTIALLY SPOILERY! WARNING NOW!) tidbits from the Salt Lake HCT show:

- Spencer said that he's from Denver, Colorado and that Brendon is from Utah. I'm assuming he meant that they were born there since obviously they grew up in Vegas, but if Brendon Urie wants to be a native of the same state as me, I'm not going to complain!

- They ended the show with a rocked out version of that "na na na na, na na na na, hey hey hey, good-bye" song, and they didn't do that when I saw the show in Philly, so that was fun!

- For those of you who pay attention to the girlfriend/dating side of things, Ryan didn't call Brendon out as being single in the introduction to Lying. Ryan also didn't sing/mouth along to the Keltie related lyrics of Northern Downpour. So whether Brendon's dating someone or the Ryan/Keltie break-up rumors are true and Ryan didn't want to have to single himself out as well or if it means nothing at all, for all the relationship aficionados, there you go!

- Ryan and Jon made the most hilariously awesome and awful segue into the whole "jazz hands" thing right before There's A Good Reason with a bit about the Utah Jazz. Ryan said, "Jazz fans!" and everyone screamed and Jon was like, "Jazz fans?" and Ryan said, "Oh, well I meant Jazz HANDS." And it was so stupidly funny. And then he and Jon shouted in unison, "Jazz hands!" right before the chorus started and the entire floor threw up jazz hands and it was so ridiculous! I was laughing sooooo hard.

- We got Ryan on guitar and back-up vocals during "Do The Panic" and Brendon singing during "Don't Wake Me Up", both also things that didn't happen when I saw the show in Philly, so again, cool. There were lots and lots bubbles, twice! So much fun.

- Zack is amusing. He was sitting side stage the entire show looking seriously bored eating chips and tabasco sauce. Ryan threw his tambourine at Zack and it totally flew over Zack's head and he tried but couldn't catch it. Very funny. And I know talking about Shane makes some people feel uncomfortable, but he was filming between the barrier and the stage by all the security guards and Brendon came up to him and they did this total buddy fist bump finger wiggle thing, and you guys, it was just really cute.

- Randomly, for a while miss_saigon and I were convinced we saw Eliza Cuts in VIP. "Oh my God, it's Emma!"

As always, I had a wonderful time with my Utah girls, and I can't wait for Vegas next week! Paaaaanic.

ETA: Because I got teased at dinner for thinking this was funny, I felt I should include it. Brendon dropped or tipped over his cup of beer with some impressive splash action and the second it hit the ground he LEAPT back, guitar in his arms, like a freaking cat, and immediately looked at Zack, who dutifully came running with towels to clean it up. I think Jon and Ryan were stalling a little bit because Mad As Rabbits was about to start and Zack was furiously wiping away beer from Brendon's rug. Speaking of Mad As Rabbits, I don't think Jon and Brendon switched instruments this time, perhaps because Brendon was attacked by his plastic red cup.

I'm so sorry this is a little late, but HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY FAVORITE THEIF MENTOR/AWESOME INFLUENCE, ghettogreta! I hope you had such an awesome day. I love you so much and I'm so glad I got to see you this month! I'm really looking forward to seeing you again this summer! I always appreciate how fun and chill and cool you are, and that you so graciously allow me to be your own personal laugh track ;-) I love you! <3

I don't know why, but this made me laugh so hard. I had this long and semi-emo post written up about various long and semi-emo things, but I'd so much rather laugh about cat macros.

I spent the first ten days of May in Philadelphia with likeaspark and we had a lot of fun. I took a lot of pictures and a handful of videos, so once I finish uploading those to photobucket, I'll try and be proactive about posting some. But in an nutshell, things that are cool: Atlantic City, Paramore + Jimmy Eat World, ghettogreta and the Mountain House of Doom (tm), My Chemical Romance, the Mutter Museum, the Franklin Institute, downtown Philadelphia and fountains and old buildings and the LOVE sign, the Betsy Ross House, Elfreth's Alley, the Liberty Bell, the Christ Church burial ground, the Reading Terminal Market (pronounced redding! I don't know either), THE MELTING POT OMG, ghost tours with a cute dorktastic tour guide, my magical $1 poncho, The Hush Sound, the lead singer of Motion City Soundtrack, and Panic At The Disco. Things that are less cool include multitudes of school children in small houses without any air and torrential northern downpours. I continue to be amazed by cities with crazy convenient public transportation set-ups, because Salt Lake City is not one of them.

I picked up my glasses on Tuesday and so far so good. I think I'm still adjusting to them because I can't wear them all day without getting a headache/sore eyes yet, but I do notice that wearing them does help when I'm reading or looking at a screen, so that's good! Also, they are so dorky and I kind of love them.

So the initial tour dates for The Hush Sound + The Cab tour that were posted over at thecab_fbr weren't quite correct and there is actually NOT going to be a Salt Lake City date. Woe! I was so, so stoked and then I was really bummed out to find that the day they were supposedly going to be here they're actually going to be in Colorado Springs! Boo. But as luck would have it, I was planning on heading out to Philly again in mid-August so that likeaspark and I could go up to visit with ghettogreta and epiphery for the weekend for a birthday party, and the Philly tour date of the Dance Across The Country tour is the following Friday! Yay! So I'm just going to stay out there for another ten day excursion.

In the meantime, I have the Honda Civic Tour, the Glow In The Dark Tour, and Warped Tour all with my Utah girls in June, which will be so fantastically awesome. I'll also be heading to Vegas for the second to last HCT show on June 13th. I cannot wait to gamble and hang out with fangirls and also gamble ;-) I'm strictly a slots girl, but maybe one day I'll be gutsy enough to try the tables! Haha. Speaking of concerts, I just bought my mom and I tickets to the American Idol tour in July, mostly so we can fangirl David Cook and scream, "It's all for you, David Archuleta!" It was slightly surreal watching his visit home because it's like, oh, hey, I recognize every single place he's visiting! It was kind of ridiculous how many people were swarming him at the Gateway Mall, clearly we Utahns are crazy! I loved his, "Where do they park?" comment because FOR REAL, DAVID, DOWNTOWN PARKING SUCKS. Also, I'm almost 100% certain that David Archuleta and I have the same laptop purchased from the same Utah-specific chain and that amuses me so much!

So, uh, in conclusion, Bob Bryar?

Panic At The Disco like bracelets. I could watch this all day.



Video courtesy of frogy!

Update from the My Chemical Romance show in Philadelphia: instead of Billy Talent, Taking Back Sunday is currently on stage. One of the guitarists is wearing the Mikey Way t-shirt. They came out wearing masks and people freaked the hell out. Pretty cool.

I made it safely to Philly and am hanging out at Casa de likeaspark while she's at a work training. I still have a couple of hours to shower, eat some lunch and get ready before she gets back and then we're off to Atlantic City to see Paramore and Jimmy Eat World. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for a good show! I didn't get to see them when they came through Utah so hopefully this will be fun. Plus, Atlantic City! I've never been! I so can't wait to gamble! /o\ Tomorrow we have a Pirates of the Caribbean marathon planned and Sunday we're seeing ghettogreta for lunch and fun hangs! Yay! \o/

So I want to talk about The Cab for just a minute. I am completely, absolutely, ridiculously in love with Whisper War. I literally cannot stop listening to it. Much to the distress of my inner Disco fanatic, in some ways I like Whisper War more than Pretty. Odd. Whisper War is an immediately likable, fun, listenable album with pretty much great everything. Some of the songs from Pretty. Odd. had to grow on me. Don't get me wrong, I loved a lot of stuff upon first listen, but it wasn't like Whisper War where every single track made me want to marry the album immediately. So, to sum up, The Cab? TWO SUPERB ENTHUSIASTIC THUMBS UP AND A GAZILLION HEARTS FOR WHISPER WAR. This makes me even more bummed that they weren't able to make it to the Salt Lake RRRGL tour date!

Before I sign off to go do productive person type things, I'm waffling between some concert decisions for this summer. I'm going to the Las Vegas date of the HCT and I'm considering making the trek to Anaheim for the last date the very next day. I'm seeing the show three times, so I'm not exactly sure it's necessary/practical? Plus it's an extra free flight I'll be using up. Also, I really, really, really want to go see The All-American Rejects and Bon Jovi at MSG in New York in July. I don't know if I ever mentioned this here, but I went to see Bon Jovi in Anaheim last month and it was a seriously awesome show. I was by myself, but I had SUCH a good time. I immediately wanted to see them again. So I think it'd be fun! But New York hotels in July, ugh. And I'm always torn by the want/need factor. Like, I want to do these things, but do I really need to? Especially since I have no idea what'll happen with my job situation this fall and I should probably think about being smart with my savings. Adulthood, bah.

I just caught up on ten days of LJ so if you get a random comment from me on an old post, that would be why! And now, a list!

- April 11th was the My Chemical Romance concert here and I had a lovely time with ficbyzee, miss_saigon, C, Zee's friend Other!C, sharpest_rose and elucreh. They had a completely random but highly enjoyable set list and I'm just really, really grateful to have such awesome, fun, wonderful fandom friends right here in Utah (minus Mary, of course, who was visiting from fabulous Australia). It was my first time meeting sharpest_rose and elucreh and they were both darling and wonderful and fun. Fangirls for the win \o/

- I've gone through some weird social changes in the past couple of months. I've started approximately 439857234583745 posts about this, but when it boils down to it, I just don't really know what to say. Some bad friendships are over and it's a very, very good thing for me, even if some days are harder than others. I feel good about where I'm at and where I'm going.

- I have to find a new job this fall :-\ My supervisor resigned and I just don't want to wait until after school starts to maybe have a job because I have to re-apply with the new supervisor. I'd rather have a job set up before classes start. I'm not working at all this summer because I have money saved up, so I have three months to find something new, but bah, I just have no idea where I even want to start. I wish I could snap my fingers and just have my degree already.

- After 21 years of perfect vision, I have to start wearing glasses full time! I had my annual eye exam today and I'm far-sighted in my right eye. I had a feeling I might need glasses since I've been getting headaches whenever I've read/watched TV/looked at a computer screen. They should be in on Thursday, hopefully early in the morning so I can pick them up before I leave for Philly. I got thick black dorky frames and I'm so excited to geek out in them.

- Philly! I'm leaving on Thursday for ten days in Philly with likeaspark! We'll be seeing numerous concerts, doing touristy things, and having an uber movie marathon throughout the week. It'll be a blast and I'm really, really excited. I hope I'm better at keeping up with LJ shenanigans while I'm there than I've been lately here!

- TV! TV shows are back! Yay! This is very lovely. Ugly Betty, Grey's Anatomy, and Lost were all really, really good, I thought, and I'm so excited to have evenings free from work in May so I'll be home to watch things as they air. I'm getting caught up on Desperate Housewives (after watching all seven seasons of CSI, the first three seasons of The Office and the first two seasons of How I Met Your Mother. Love love love!) through Netflix which is like the most addictive crack television show ever. I love it and I was totally not expecting to. I've been enjoying American Idol. I think David Archuleta will win (and hahaha I still love that he's from Murray, Utah) but my favorite is David Cook. I hope he has a successful post-Idol career, and I think he will.

I'm sorry to post something that is not happy and squeeful in a time of such wonderful concert shenanigans, but I feel like it's important. This is really, really awful. I cried ridiculously over this and I wish I hadn't seen the pictures (warning: the source link and the blog link contain pictures). I'm not sure how effective online petitions are, but if you've got a free minute, maybe it can help. If my posting this offends anyone, please let me know and I'll take it down. I just. I don't know. This makes me feel sad and angry and I believe in the power of human good, so, I like I said. Maybe it'll help?

( 'Artist' Leaves Dog To Die On Exhibition Display )

This is a post about online dating. Even if you decide to skim/skip this post, which is absolutely and totally cool, I'd love your opinion on dating people you meet/have primary interactions with on the internet -- are you for it, against it, don't really care, can we just talk about Brendon Urie?, feel conflicted, et cetera? Let's have some discussion! Awesome!

I have been thinking about this topic a lot lately and I'm not sure exactly why. It seems to be something people are either all for or all against. I've had friends who have gone on lots of dates with people they've started talking to on dating/networking sites and I've had friends straight up laugh at/mock me when I've said that I was going a date with someone I started talking to online. It was embarrassing! Lately I've been thinking about why. Why is it embarrassing when people make fun of you/don't approve of you going out with someone you "met" on the internet? This was something that was pretty frowned upon a few years ago, but in a society driven by the world wide web, hasn't online dating become more or less commonplace? There are commercials for dating websites on TV every day, singles websites advertised on the radio, and free forums to post and browse personal ads. Is it because there's still a level of "pathetic-ness" attached to trying to find a connection online? Is that why it's embarrassing when people mock or laugh or judge?

But then, ok. You make a bunch of friends through LJ, right? Friends you've made through fandom, message boards, common interest forums, etc. Friends you meet up with, hang out with, have fun with, laugh with, develop a connection with. Is online dating any different, really? You talk to someone, discover you share common interests, e-mail and IM and text and maybe even exchange phone calls, meet up in person, and either you click or you don't. Is it because online friends are platonic and online dating isn't? A person isn't pathetic if they look for friendship online, but they are if they look for something more? I'm genuinely interested in the reasoning behind the various mindsets of people when it comes to this topic. In my experience, online dating is usually somewhat of a letdown -- your online personalities really click and you're getting along great, but there's no spark when you meet up in person. It's pretty impossible to gauge that from a picture or a bunch of words, you know? I get that that's why a lot of people claim that online dating never works out, because it's impossible to feel chemistry through a computer. Absolutely, that is true. Is that why online dating comes across as a bad idea to some people? What if you approach it from a friendship standpoint? You decide to go get coffee as buddies and see where things progress, no pressure. Is that bad? Isn't that what usually happens in, say, LJ-based relationships? A mutual friendship turns into more? I know/know of plenty of couples here on LJ and in fandom. Two good friends of mine met through fandom/LJ, have been together for years, and are getting married! They're wonderful together, and that's awesome for them. I know that it doesn't work out like that more often than it does, but hey, clearly sometimes it works! Is that luck? Or is it just like doing the dating dance with the guy who sits next to you in college algebra or two cubicles over?

Here's the thing. Someone once said this to me regarding online dating: "In a world where the only thing we have time for is working overtime and going to school, how else are you supposed to meet people?" Now obviously there are a lot of ways to meet people and make connections out in the "real world", but like, ok. Using myself as an example, I am not at all into the bar/club scene. I'm not religious, so I don't attend church services or church related activities/functions. I have two male co-workers. Most of my male friends are gay. I'm not in school right now. I work nights. That limits me somewhat in my opportunities to go out and try to be fun and interesting and meet people with similar interests/beliefs. I wouldn't use that as an excuse, and again, that was just an example, but is there a difference between putting yourself out there at a club or a coffee shop and putting yourself out there on the internet? You give a random guy/girl your phone number because you liked or felt attracted to them, without knowing very many things about that person. Is it not essentially the same thing, responding to a person's online profile or personal ad to say, "Hey, you seem pretty cool, tell me more about yourself!" Isn't the internet better, in some ways? It's easier to be rejected, you have a veil of anonymity, and if you're not interested in someone, it's a lot less awkward. Right? Or not?

I have friends who say, "I love online dating!" and friends who say, "I'd rather be alone than ever date people from the internet." Where does that huge discrepancy come from? Is it all about personality? Culture? Personal beliefs? Being afraid of being judged? I'm not trying to make a case for or against dating people you meet on the internet, I'm just really curious about all the differing opinions I've come across. So yes! Good people of LJ, if you have feelings on this topic, talk to me about them!

In other news, I didn't make it to the east coast this weekend due to oversold flights, which really sucked, but c'est la vie, you know? I'm working on trying to keep my zen place and not be bummed out and sad about it. Spring break season is definitely not a smart time to try and fly stand-by, my friends.

Also! When I saw that The Academy Is... are opening for Panic in Australia I was entertaining pipe dreams of flying down there. I've always wanted to go back to Sydney, I'll have all this money saved up for this summer, and I can fly all the way to New Zealand for free. But! As crazy as I am, I also try and extend some realism into my life every now and then ;-) HOWEVER. Now that Cobra Starship has been added to the lineup? Oh my God, I totally just want to be reckless and do it. Or, alternately, I could go for an American Decaydance Fest. That'd be nice too.

Random *NSYNC question for any *NSYNCers who went to the Celebrity Tour in 2002! Does anyone remember all of the opening acts? I'm trying to compile a list of all the concerts I've been to in my lifetime and I'm stuck on who opened for *NSYNC on that particular tour. I remember that P.Diddy and Tony Lucca were at my show (shows?), but I swear there was some forgettable girl group in there somewhere too? And I know the opening acts were different for different shows? I went to the Philly and DC dates and we definitely had P.Diddy and Tony Lucca for at least the Philly one, but I feel like I'm forgetting someone, and Google is being somewhat unhelpful.

Spent time with miss_saigon, ficbyzee and C yesterday. Cookies, laughs, and overall fun times were had by all. April is shaping up to be a really exciting month. It's funny that this should be a post about *NSYNC, because I was just thinking to myself this morning about all the concerts and fangirl hangouts I've got coming up and how it reminds me of the *NSYNC days. After the hiatus, I found other fandoms, but this one is the first one that's felt as interactive (even moreso, I think) as *NSYNC did, and that's just a really neat thing. I used to envy all of my east coast girls who could meet up and go to shows together all the time when I could only fly out there once in a while to see them, so it feels pretty neat to have a little bit of that for myself these days.

I LOVE YOU, FANDOM *squish*

So, I hear Jimmy Kimmel is fucking Ben Affleck. High-larious.

I was super, super late to arsenicjade's love meme, but today I listened to Miley Cyrus (I don't know either) and I left some love! It was a lot of fun to just read through the entries and get that warm, fuzzy lurve feeling. N'aww. Thank you so much to those who sent a little love my way -- I seriously got a little misty-eyed when I saw my name in there, what a wonderful surprise! Infinite hearts to my Utah girls and everyone else who has stuck by me and this journal and been my friend in years both past and present. Love love love ♥

Ok! So, here's a bit of Brendon picspam I put together. I've been wanting to do one for a while, so a couple of weeks ago I started collecting pictures. Originally I was going to post 50. I bumped that number up to 100 when it was clear that the number of pictures in my picspam folder wasn't going to stop growing anytime soon. By the time I was done, I had over 300 hundred pictures saved, some duplicates. I whittled that down to 150 pictures. These aren't necessarily my top 150 pictures of Brendon Urie, but they are 150 pictures that I love and that I think capture a lot of the things that I love about Brendon. So, here goes!

( The Brendon 150 )

Whew! I know there's a distinct lack of pictures of Brendon and Ryan in here, and that's because while I was saving pictures for this spam, I noticed myself saving A LOT of Brendon/Ryan-esque pictures, and I had to sit back and ask myself if I liked the picture because of Brendon or because of Brendon and Ryan together. So, I have a bit of a side Brendon/Ryan spam coming sometime soon.