The Wondrous Tales of a Valley Hoosier (it sounds like an autobio title, I know)

I realized I haven't posted in a while about my various life-related comings and goings, and I know that many of you have felt that your lives have lost all meaning during that time.  Well, have no fear, I'm back to regale you with wondrous tales of my adventures.

Okay, I may have built this up a bit too much.  Sorry.

Hmm, let's see.  What have I been up to that isn't birthday related?  Well, I've been spending money like crazy, and now I fear that as I enter the month of April, I'll be dining on spam, pork rinds, and Ramen noodles until things plateau again and I get back on budget.  Although, I haven't been completely frivolous.  I went ahead and filed my taxes at the end of February (All by myself for the first time!  Yay me.), so much of that money I spent was tax refund dosh.  Otherwise, I'd be in serious trouble right now.  As opposed to slightly serious, mildly sardonic trouble.

It sucks that most of that money is already gone, but I'm happy it was there to take care of the things on my Must-Do list.  Such as?  Car drama A: Smog check #1, smog check failure led to diagnostic exam from janky mechanic who told me that both of my catalytic converters were shot (yes, I have 2) and would cost $840 (front) and $975 (rear) to replace, second diagnostic a week later from a different mechanic revealed I only needed a major tune-up, not a new cat-converter, paid $175 for the tune-up, and passed smog check #2.

Handing Over the Car Keys

But wait, there's more.  Car drama B: Studied for CA written driver's test, gathered documents for registration, ignored boss's asshat behavior regarding taking time off during a busy shipping schedule, prepared backup story to address any evidence as to why I've lived in L.A. for almost 4 years, but am only now getting my CA driver's license and car registered, crossed fingers, said a prayer, dealt with a motley crew of not-so-interesting sitcoms personalities for 2-1/2 hours, passed driver's test, received license plates, and left the DMV 5 minutes before 5pm on the Friday before my Indiana driver's license expired on Tuesday.

And breathe.

Update: I received my driver's license in the mail last Thursday. Why does Califas mail them instead of giving them to you at the DMV like most states, I do not know.  Always have to be special, doncha?  I hate the photo.  I've never hated my license photo before.  I don't photograph well anyway, so I don't ever expect much.  And so far, there wasn't anything horribly grotesque about my license photo before, so I felt lucky.  Until now.  For some reason, I look freakishly orange against the blue background.  I swear I look like a member of the George Hamilton Excessive Tanning Society.  I've decided to continue carrying my Indiana DL and using it for ID purposes.  I don't need some smart-ass doorman asking me why I look like an Oompa Loompa.

Hmmm, what else? 

Oh, as a birthday gift/tax refund splurge, I bought a new cell phone.  My main objective was to get a better cell phone plan because I kept going over my minutes and crying uncle when the bill was due.  So that was more important than a new phone, but since I had the dough, I thought, "What the hey?"  I researched a few companies because T-Mobile is run by asstards, but none of the other company's plans and networks really suited me.  So I stuck with the asstards.

I bought the T-Mobile Shadow in copper.  Ta. Da.  Not bad, 'eh?  Yes, it's T-Mobile sad answer to the iPhone, but I kind of like it.  Although I use a Mac at home and my 3rd gen iPod nano is freakin' adorable, I have no interest in owning an iPhone, or more importantly, I have no interest in paying $400 for iPhone.  The Shadow does a lot of the same things as the iPhone, but for a third of the cost.  Now, this would be a huge boon if I had a PC and could actually use some of the features that they both share.  But I don't, and honestly, I probably wouldn't even use most of those features if I had a PC.  When did I become important enough to need access to my e-mail at all times?  Who am I, Spielberg?

More than likely, I'll use my Shadow for the phone (bluetooth & headset), text/picture messaging, digital camera, video camera, and mini-address book and calendar.  I could shell out an extra $20 per month to access e-mail, the Interweb, Yahoo Maps, send and receive MS Office docs to work on, and other unnecessary crap that I wouldn't make time to use, am not important enough to need, and couldn't be bothered to figure out if I did.  So yeah.  I have the option of using those features sometime in the future, but without the giant price tag of $400 hanging over my head to make me feel like a dingus if I don't.

Plus, the video capture function?  Fracking awesome.  Love it. 

I could've gotten a Blackberry, but I don't like having something that everyone else has.  And by everyone, I mean people with more discretionary income than I who can identify with almost every entry on Stuff White People Like.  The biggest drawback so far is that the online reviews about the battery are dead on.  The battery is one of the shortest I've ever seen in the history of cell/pda/wi-fi devices.  Seriously, I have to recharge this thing once every other day.  Boo.  Asstards, thy name is T-Mobile.

Other than those fascinating escapades, ladies and gents, I've just been sticking to my usual routine: work, dance, sleep, repeat.  Not that I mind, really.  Work's been draining, but not as horrible as it once was; dance has become more fulfilling now that I'm mixing it up with jazz and hip hop, and sleep ... well, sleep could use a little help.  I still have a long To-Do list, but until my money rights itself, I'll try to stick to things that don't require much cash.

Well, except for the next 4 weekends.  Oops.  I almost forgot.  This past Saturday, I kicked off about 4 weekends of busy-ness-ness.  Our lady in song, Ms. Madeline Wright debuted on the Don't Call Us Tori showcase this weekend at the Karma Coffeehouse in Hollywood.  I thought she had a pretty good turnout for a Saturday night.  I intended to arrive at 8pm for the whole show, but my head developed the beginnings of a migraine around 5pm, so I took some Excedrin TH and a nap.  Both helped, but they pushed me slightly off schedule.  Anywho, I showed up to quietly cheer the kid with a scooter and take photos of her shindig.  The photos are still on my desktop, but I'll shoot them over to Maddy this week so she can put them up on her site or blog if she wants.  The files are huge, unfortunately.  The ones I compressed came out really well (as seen here), but the others that I didn't compress before I sent them to my e-mail account are going to need a more skilled hand than mine to render them view-worthy.  I'll leave it to Madeline to work her magic.

Maddy performing at Karma

I thought she performed a good set.  My favorite number is "Pacific Tide," or as Chris would say, "The song dedicated to him and only him."  :-)  The only thing I would've changed is moving the second song to maybe the fourth or fifth song on the set.  After the cool opening ditty about your roommate, the new song you followed with kind of slowed down your momentum too soon.  Although, I did see folks stop typing on their laptops for your set, moreso than for the chica who went on before you.  So what do I know?

I, unfortunately, missed the SCB show on Thursday at the Hotel Cafe, but the guys have a gig down at The Troubadour on Santa Monica on Wednesday night.  I don't think they've ever performed there before, so you know I have to go and show 'em some love.  As for the weekend, the 6th is supposed to see me and Katrina and a small team of Sherpas driving up to Mt. Baldy for a wee bit of sightseeing and lunch.  Then, on Saturday, April 12th, I will be getting my geek on at Grand Slam in Burbank, where I will fawn over Michael Hurst and Kevin Sorbo on stage together for the first time since the 2000 Herc/Xena convention.

The following weekend, it's going to be me and Keisha at the SuperFest Hip Hop concert at the Gibson.  However, it's probably not a good idea to say that until I actually buy the tickets, which I haven't yet because I was waiting until I got paid on Monday.  ::ducks flying chair::  But here's hoping that stays on the calendar.  And if not, I can always try to console myself with cheap tickets to Chris Rock's No Apologies tour the following week.  Wait, wasn't I crying broke at the beginning of this post?

Anyway, I think that's enough of my wacky adventures and incessant tedium.  I need to get off of here and get back to work.  And by work, I mean reviewing this post for typos and then hitting enter.  :-)