Sunday, November 27, 2011

CTNX, Part Deux

By the time I made it to my hotel, my roommate Jordan, whom I'd never met before, was already either snoozing or on the verge of it, so I unpacked my bags and found, to my dismay, that my phone was not responding when I plugged it into the wall to charge. I opened it up and discovered this:

Why yes, that is a battery I am holding. A bulging, unresponsive, awful-looking battery. Thankfully after a few minutes it did manage to react to charging, so I took that time to re-update my manual phone archive, which everyone should totally do. You never know when your electronics will fail you.

It wasn't long before I ran into Tyler and his chum Eli, and from there stumbled upon a massive flood of SCAD alumni and students. I must say, everyone from school had shown up dressed very well. Monty was always full of great dressers, but I was impressed anyway. For the duration of the expo I just drifted around and switched friend groups every hour or so, and wound up picking up the following memorable quotes:

"Love is as fleeting as a Listerine breath strip."

"There are no cowboys in Africa."

If anybody who was there wishes to claim those quotes, I've totally forgotten who quoted them and probably should have mentioned it when I wrote them down. Maybe I was just trying to write a ballad.

I also ran into Mario again this year in line for the Andreas Deja panel. This year I think he picked up some extra lives, because it seemed like every other person I met at CTNX was named Mario after that. He picked a few caricature duels, which wasn't a bad idea at all. I think I might steal it for later.

By that point, I was sure beyond a shadow of a doubt that, during this presentation, my phone would do something disastrous like leak battery acid or explode in my pocket.
However, it miraculously held throughout the presentation, including a brilliant display of the differences between Kaa and Juju. After THAT, who should appear but Richard Sherman himself for an impromptu segue into the presentation that I would phone my grandmother about the next morning and speak of incessantly until this very day.

Casey managed to recite the word "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" backwards and got major props that evening.

My grandmother is a very avid Lawrence Welk fan, and claims that they just don't make music like they used to. Seeing Sherman perform live was definitely an amazing experience, and it was certainly my kind of concert, if you can call it that. No mosh pits, no overdone guitar solos, and my ears weren't ringing afterward! And, musicians, you know you totally can make music like they used to, right? If I had musical composition aptitude I'd definitely go old-school with it. It's so retro it's cutting edge!

*Zane is not a real pain, he just plays one on television.

For dinner that night a handful of us went off to Denny's. We had most of our meals at that Denny's, since it was right across the street. I'm not sure if this was a Hollywood-area thing, but every time I went to that place out of all the CTNX's I'd been to, they'd been showing professional juggling on the TVs instead of regular sports. If this is true of most restaurants in the area then I really need to start living in California ASAP.

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

CTNX

Hi there, Zelda here. I just got back from a fabulous weekend at CTNX with several dozens of the most awesome friends I could ever ask for.

Basically, ever since last May, I took a cue from The Wizard and Close Encounters of the Third Kind and wandered around aimlessly since then mumbling "California" in a zombielike trance. If my voice actually resembled Jimmy's it was purely coincidental, as I haven't seen that movie since I was a wee lass, and I doubt that guy still sounds like that.

Eventually, it was then decided that I needed to go to Burbank for the Creative Talent Networking Expo to frolic about with others of my kind. I finally took off last Thursday, and a lot of stuff went down so I'll break it all up into a few entries. I've got a lot to do now that I'm back, the least of which is hosting Thanksgiving tomorrow!

Personally, I love airports. I know it's a little odd, but I've just been on so many planes I feel good about knowing my way around a bunch of them and being prepared for security...but I definitely reached a new high in airport savvy when I convinced the woman running the first class counter that I was lost to the point where she just checked me in without me having to wait in line, despite the fact that I was carrying one non-obtrusive carry-on and my check luggage was within the normal weight specifications.


I switched planes in Pittsburgh first and there was a pretty hefty wait between flights, so I wandered over to the bookstore to indulge in my filthy habit...buying celebrity comedians' novels and autobiographies. Hey, it beats collecting self help books about cleaning your clutter, right? Eventually I wound up in this life-altering mental debate...

Ellen DeGeneres' latest book, or a sandwich from Subway? No contest there.


I regret nothing.

By the time the plane came along I'd finished Seriously...I'm Kidding and felt more good-looking than usual thanks to the incessant compliments Ellen DeGeneres put on the back cover.

Several hours later I arrived in Phoenix and finally got brunchinner. That was at Burger King. Now I'm not sure about you, but I find Burger King fries phenomenal under normal circumstances. Unfortunately, the fries at THIS Burger King were noticeably larger, softer, and less flavorful than usual, and on top of that they did not sell chicken tenders. I sincerely hope that this is unique to that specific Burger King and not something that originated in the west and has plans to migrate eastward anytime soon. If I hadn't been eating airline pretzels and pages of Ellen's book all day I think I'd have imploded from hunger. It made the subpar fries taste somewhat edible.

At the gift shop in Phoenix, instead of magnets and postcards they were selling Grow-Your-Own Saguaro Cactus kits. I personally would have purchased ten if I had real estate on which I could plant them.*

Who needs barbed wire or real gates when you can make a wall of giant cacti around your property?! Take that, you lousy kids!!! So, uh, now my dream house will need to have a Saguaro wall and a lyophilizer. Classy.

*According to the seed packet they'd grow anywhere, but only flower in the desert after about a hundred or so years.

I made it to Burbank in one piece...and that's when the real fun began!

TO BE CONTINUED...