I liiive! Kinda. :P I've been feeling really crappy this week, and I'm still trying to figure it all out. A couple of weeks ago, I more or less gave up caffeine, thinking that's what's been giving me headaches (I noticed that my headaches tended to come right after drinking a pop or coffee or something). I also started chugging bottles of water like crazy to help fight off dehydration and all. It worked for a few days, but now I'm getting headaches every afternoon, sometimes accompanied by dizziness. I've gone to bed really early a couple of times this week. I'm starting to wonder if it's an eye issue, though. Both my parents have glasses, but neither my brother or I ever needed them. But I'm finding that I have trouble with headaches when I'm focused on something like the computer screen or a drawing or a book or whatnot. And the dizziness comes if I'm scrolling a lot on the computer screen, or looking back and forth a lot and switching pencils or markers or whatever while I'm drawing. I don't feel like my eyesight is bad - everything looks fine to me - but I wonder if I'm getting the headaches because my eyes are straining to make a correction to a problem I'm not even aware of. Grr.

Anyways, as I mentioned, I did some drawing this week. I really wanna learn my Prisma markers well, so I played with that. Man, those are cool. I looked around online for techniques with those, and played with it a bit. It's very reminiscent of watercolor painting, but with markers. I have no idea where the inspiration came from, but I did this little doodle. I had to get creative with colors, because those markers are hella expensive and I only have a set of 24. As such, I have no grey. Yay, creative coloring!

On to the good stuff! Wolf Center yesterday morning - I played around with pulling weeds in the garden again, then did some office work. And while I was eating lunch, a tapping sound on the sliding glass door scared the crap outta me. I turned around, and there was a roadrunner pecking at the glass. I ran into him several more times, startling him once and causing him to make a FUNKY clicking noise that is apparently their alarm call. Too cool!

Got home and had a message from the place I interviewed last week, saying they needed to get some information from me. But of course, when I called back today, they'd had a power outage so everyone had gone home. Doh!

But the freakin' coolest thing this week? So almandot invited me to go along and chaperone for Grad Nite at Disneyland. Getting in was a bit crazy (I ended up beating them to the resort by nearly an hour, and had dinner at Denny's while I waited) but after some running around Harbor Blvd, we got it all figured out. We got into the park around 12:30 in the morning, and took a quick look around Main Street. They had a lot of R&B/dance-type music blaring over Main Street all night. They also had the parade lighting up, synched to the music. I can accurately describe the area this way: think of a club, and then think of sticking it on Main Street, and that's exactly how it felt. They also had a dance area right in front of the castle, with the bass turned up high enough that I could literally feel my guts shaking even as I stood way back by the Partners statue. They also had smaller club areas around the park, like in Tomorrowland (Club Buzz) and Frontierland (Rancho del Zocalo). It really made me laugh, just to wonder what Walt would have thought of Disneyland being turned into a club scene. It seemed so horribly inappropriate that I just had to take a photo of the Partners statue and Castle with all the dance floor and DJ stuff in there. :P I mean that all in the nicest way possible, though, because it was definitely fun.

First thing, we headed over to RockIt Mountain. The line was insane - it went all the way through the upstairs queue, and down the ramp and filled that entire hallway beside the Pizza Port seating area. But hey, that was a ride we weren't going to see open to the public for another year or so, and even then, in all likelihood, it would be quite different. So we settled in for the wait. And we waited. And waited. And waited. And over an hour and a half later, just as we're getting close to the part where you go inside, The Announcement comes. Space Mountain is closed due to technical difficulties and likely won't be open for at least another hour, possibly much longer, and to do an about face and leave the queue. DAMMIT! Needless to say, we were REALLY bummed. Really disappointed, yes, but we understood that shit happens. But the behavior we saw out of some people... wow. Seriously, there were guys pissed off and kicking over trash cans. *headdesk*

Anyways, the 3:00 fireworks showing was about to start, so we headed over to the Hub to see that. Mad cool - I loved it! It was done using a variety mainstream music - some songs I heard were "Graduation," "Wake Me Up When September Ends," "My Humps," and a whole bunch of others that I can't remember off the top of my head. *waits for the video from almandot* Tinkerbell flew to start it off, but she looked REALLY out of place, even with the dance remix of "When You Wish Upon a Star" playing (which I actually really liked - must find that one). And since it was a fireworks show that played three times in the middle of the night, it was all stuff shot off the castle and Hub area - none of the big stuff shot from Toontown. It worked REALLY well, I thought! Nicely-timed effects that really accentuated the music. I recognized a lot of Remember effects that were used in there - the Indiana Jones segment flames, the PotC cannon battle "cannons," the Roger Rabbit spinners, stuff like that. They did have one really cool shell that was new to me, though. It was one that shot straight up, but then burst into little spinners up in the air. Very, very nifty-looking!

Headed over to Frontierland after that. They had the Columbia at the dock, which struck me as odd because I didn't think they'd have it out while they did the Pirates overlay on it. But just as we approached, the Rovers of America filled with fog, Jack Sparrow's theme began to play, and the Columbia pulled away from the dock and sailed into the mist. Holy crap, that was WAY cool. Apparently they were testing stuff for the big premiere tomorrow night! The fog cleared, and we got a good long look at the Columbia as it stopped in front of the grandstands set up for the premiere. It looks GOOD. IMHO? Dude, keep it as a pirate ship the rest of the summer as a theming thing! Granted, I only saw it in the dark, but still!

Back to chaperone headquarters for our free breakfast, then we stopped and talked with another MiceChat-er while the last fireworks showing of the night went off. Then, we decided to try our luck on RockIt Mountain one last time. It must have just opened shortly before we got there - the wait time sign still said 45 minutes, but the line was back out into Tomorrowland. It moved MUCH faster that time, thankfully! We were a bit worried that we wouldn't get on before the end of the event, but we waited only maybe an hour or so, despite the masses of line-cutters. Seriously, I have never seen a group so unrepentant about line-cutting. Mad props to the CMs, though, there were a few of them who were AWESOME about catching line-cutters and then publically humiliating them loudly before pulling them out of line. ;) We saw more than one group dragged off by security, too. But finally, we made it inside! WOO! I'd guess we waited maybe an hour at most.

The ride itself? AWESOME. It's a lot more brightly-lit than normal, with lots of bright stage lighting along the turns in the track especially. You really can see all the track and everything, although I have to say that it didn't feel nearly as freaky or closed-in as WDW's with the track lit. The whole band warm-up as you're going into the lift areas was very reminiscent of Rock'N'Rollercoaster at WDW. As for the soundtrack, it was a Hoobastank song, I believe. I don't think I would have liked it as a stand-alone song, but I gotta admit that it worked REALLY well on the ride. Just the right feel for a rock-themed coaster. All in all? Well worth the wait, and I'm anxious to see how it changes when it gets its public debut next year. :) Oh, and the photo proof!

By the time we came out, dawn was breaking and the park was clearing out. We had about a half hour left, so we ran over to Fantasyland and did Peter Pan - about the only time you'll see a five-minute wait there! :P We also had a quick ride on Alice in Wonderland (not a guest to be seen in the queue). Headed back out to the Hub and got a few last photos then headed out.

I got plenty of photos, of course, particularly of the setup on Main Street/the Hub, the fireworks, and the Pirates Columbia testing. None of them are all that great - I was more focused on playing than really taking photos. But they're different, and they're fun. :P And a link to the post of videos that almandot has posted so far, over at VF. As of this writing, that includes the "Black Pearl" Columbia stuff and RockIt Mountain (including a cameo of me at the end! :P).

I got home about 7:30 this morning... and promptly fell into bed. I wasn't tired at all while I was there (in fact, it felt like midday to me) but I think the drive home through early rush-hour traffic this morning made me more tired than anything. But it was all SO worth it. A total blast!