Long Weekend

So I had an extra day this weekend, since I had Friday off, but it still didn't feel long enough. It never does though.

Marc had to work Friday, even though it was supposed to be his day off, so I bummed around most of the day. I went to the fish store and scored a nice teardrop maxima clam. I hardly ever see these in the store, so I had to snatch it up. It's huge, probably 6" or so. I also picked up a baby ORA cultured (captive grown) squamosa clam, which is the first time I've seen cultured ones of this species available. It has a pretty cool pattern and color. I think we now have 5 clams in the tank, which is probably enough.

I spent my afternoon watching August Rush, which is that movie with Keri Russell and Jonathan Rhys Meyers about two musically gifted people who have a a son, but through a series of events, the baby is given up for adoption and neither parent realizes he exists/is alive. The whole movie is about the son, now 10 or so, turning out to be a musical prodigy and hoping to find his parents through music. I know, it sounds treacly and sappy when I describe it, and it didn't get great reviews for that reason. I liked it though! I didn't have a hard time ignoring all the contrivances and what-not. I just kind of thought it was a nice, sweet movie. I'm sort of a sucker for music related films like this though.

My brother Leslie came over late (really late) in the evening, and the three of us watched Bee Movie. Leslie finished it, Marc and I both fell asleep about halfway through, so we'll have to watch it again.

Cynthia came over Saturday afternoon and the two of us spent a few hours making cupcakes from my recipe book. It was an...adventure. Our chocolate frosting didn't really come out the best, and our strawberry glaze gelled up way too fast. The cupcakes turned out decent, but I think we need to try it again.

We went out to dinner at Mahalo Grille with Elaine, Vicki and Kelly, Deepali and Will, and Cynthia and Steve to celebrate the February/March birthdays. Came back home and played Rock Band. Cynthia and Steve stayed a little later, and Cynthia and I did some karaoke for a while. It started to sound pretty ragged at around 1 am, haha.

I downloaded more songs for Rock Band, and Sunday night I did the ultimate dorky thing. Marc rigged up a lamp to serve as a mic stand, and I simultaneously played the guitar while singing. I could only do the few songs that I have most of the words memorized to, because it's impossible to look at the vocal track and the guitar track at the same time. "Maps" and "Wonderwall" were both easy to do, although the guitar part on "Wonderwall" is tough. I can do vocals on Expert level, but I have to go down to Medium for the guitar. I got five stars once! You can't do the tamborine part on the mic, obviously (although you can emulate the taps with your voice, if you know where the taps land). The game doesn't seem to care though, because I ignored those parts, and my performance meter never dropped. I don't think I could do drums and sing together - it would be way too hard to have to keep rhythm while singing, I think.

Maybe I should videotape and put it on Youtube like these guys, haha (I think these guys are playing online, so those are just the original vocals in the vid). But they're all playing on Expert, so pretty impressive!

Alright, that's enough geekiness for one day. :)