"I turn away just when you want me, and I know that home is where you want me. There's not much for me there. Never gave a thought to an honorable living, always had sense enough to lie. It's getting hard to keep pretending I'm worth your time." ~yeasayer

I've spent the last couple of weeks rewatching the entire series of Veronica Mars. It's one of my all-time favorites shows (maybe my favorite). The last couple of days have been devoted to season 3. I've seriously spent hours just sitting on my couch mesmerized. I don't want to go out too much because I'm still nervous about leaving the kittens alone for too long, and I want to take advantage of the little time I have left to just hang out. I forgot how much I love season 3; it surprised me as I rewatched. I love it a lot more than season 2. It has so many good LoVe moments (I'm a huge LoVe shipper). The elevator scene with the little girl sticks out to me as a particularly wonderful scene. One thing I love about season 3 is the exploration of identity and whether or not people can truly change. Logan and Veronica struggle with efforts to change themselves and each other, and neither one is all that successful. Weevil sums it up well, saying, "I am what I am, V. Leopard, spots, you know what they say." I like how the characters are imperfect, though. It makes them interesting. I like that the heroine is prickly and stubborn and sometimes too controlling. She's real. And I love Logan, even though he is far from perfect. He screws up a lot, but he loves V. I even love him when he's beating poor clueless Piz to a bloody pulp, and I know it's wrong, but he's just trying to stick up for V and it makes my heart ache for him. I love Dick in season 3. He does what he does best and adds quite a bit of comedy, but he gets some dramatic moments as well. I love knowing that Ryan Hansen (who plays Dick) is KBell's best friend and lived with her for a few years. It's fun to think of what was going on behind the scenes. I'm still disappointed there wasn't a season 4, especially because of how they ended it (and because of how good the 10-minute season 4 FBI pitch was). Ah, well.

Here are a few kitten photos:

Casey loves Veronica Mars as well. It's adorable. He just stares at the TV.
They're just too adorable for words. Jasper loves giving Casey baths. He licks him constantly, and all over. Casey seems indifferent.


And finally, because this post is somewhat KBell-themed, I've been meaning to post this music video. It made me cry. I've loved Yeasayer since I saw them open for The National a few years ago, I love KBell, and, well, what a combo. It's enough to make you an emotional wreck (but in a good way?).

"I'll eat you up, I love you so." ~where the wild things are

The waterworks always kick in by that line when I'm watching that movie.

I have two new babies. They're crazy full of energy and they're curious and loveable and wonderful. Be warned: you are going to see a LOT of kitty picspams here in the near future. They're 2.5 months old and their names are Casey (full name Colonel John Casey; sometimes he goes by Colonel) and Jasper. Colonel Casey is mostly white and Jasper is mostly Apricot. Here they are:



Maybe Casey likes his namesake? Returning the thumbs-up with a paws-up?
It looks like Casey might have his namesake's "natural born killer" instinct.
But really, they're buddies.
Who love to hang together. Literally. They love hanging from the sofa, and I keep waiting for them to fall.
Naptime.

"'Cause on the surface the city lights shine. They're calling at me, 'Come and find your kind.' Sometimes I wonder if the world's so small, that we can never get away from the sprawl. Living in the sprawl. Dead shopping malls rise like mountains beyond mountains, and there's no end in sight. I need the darkness, someone please cut the lights." ~arcade fire

I've been singing that song for two weeks straight. I absolutely love it. Scroll down to my last post to watch Regine sing it at MSG.

I've spent the past week-and-a-half in Colorado visiting my parents. I've gotten to do lots of fun things here, including waterfall-jumping (scary and freezing), whitewater river tubing (SO much fun), hiking, and just relaxing. It's nice to have a change of scene. Many of our activities involved water and didn't really allow for bringing a camera, so unfortunately I don't have pictures of most of the fun stuff. I do have some, though, so I'll share those:

The view from the airplane:
We went to the County Fair. It was quite an experience. We got to see cows being shown:
And a tractor pull (I didn't even know what that was before this visit, but apparently it's exactly what it sounds like):
There were lots of cool tractors:
My friend Lauren rode a (mechanical) bull:

We saw Chimney Rock:

We also went to a hot springs. Apparently it's the largest and deepest hot springs in the world. It was a really great day. The springs were right next to a river, which we also explored.

Me and Lauren under a waterfall:
Me and my mom under the waterfall:
Exploring the river:
More river fun:


A view of the hot springs from across the river:
On the way home, there was lots of thunder and lightning, and we saw a beautiful rainbow. Actually, it was a double rainbow:

Can you see both of them?:

On my last night, my mom and I celebrated my birthday. We had molten lava cake and I opened my present from my grandmother, a beautiful copy of Winnie The Pooh in which she hand-painted all of the illustrations. It must have been an incredible amount of work, but it looks gorgeous and I love Winnie the Pooh so it's really special.
My parents got me a new couch, which is pretty awesome.

I'm looking forward to being back in New York, but I had a great trip. It was good to spend time with each of my parents (I miss them when I'm in New York) and it was good to spend time with someone my own age (Lauren).

"I wish that I believed in fate, I wish I didn't sleep so late. I used to be carried in the arms of cheerleaders. I used to be carried in the arms of cheerleaders. I'm the new blue blood, I'm the great white hope. I'm the new blue blood..." ~the national

This is mainly a video post.

The National played Lollapalooza last week (I SO wish I could have gone). "Mr. November" is always an intense fan favorite where Matt goes into the crowd and basically goes crazy. I filmed this at one show I went to (I have other "Mr. November"s that I've filmed but I can't find them, but this is a decent example):


At Lollapalooza Matt was absolutely adorable; he changed the lyrics because of a young fan he encountered. Watch this video. I cannot get over it.

So, so sweet.

Next up (changing subjects): Yvonne Strahovski and Zachary Levi won Teen Choice Awards! It was fun to see them onstage together. Aren't they adorable?


Finally, you should go watch Arcade Fire's MSG concert here. They're slowly adding all the songs from the live webcast. Here are a few of my favorites:

My favorite song from the new album, "Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)": I love when Win kisses Regine. They started the song once and the drum machine screwed up so they had to start over, but the second time (this video) was perfect.

I can't decide if my favorite song of theirs is "Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)" or "Rebellion." So here are both of those videos:
Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels):

And Power Out/Rebellion:

I should probably post "Wake Up" as well:

You can watch more on their youtube channel. "Rococo" and "We Used to Wait" are my other favorite songs from the new album and they're up there. Basically every song is worth watching.

"Sleeping is giving in, no matter what the time is. Sleeping is giving in, so lift those heavy eyelids." ~arcade fire

Not-so-fun fact: I got less than four hours of sleep last night. I'm absolutely exhausted. Now I'm off to the airport to catch my flight to Colorado. But some goodies before I leave, from my concert last night. I saw Arcade Fire and Spoon at Madison Square Garden. It was absolutely fabulous. I've seen Arcade Fire live before and they're always such an amazing live act. I was really excited to see Spoon for the first time, because I love them. Arcade Fire's setlist was absolutely perfect. I filmed a few of my favorite songs:
Arcade Fire - Rebellion (Lies)

Arcade Fire - Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)

Arcade Fire - Wake Up

Spoon - You Got Yr. Cherry Bomb



They're performing again tonight and you can watch it live online here at 10:00pmEST:
http://www.youtube.com/arcadefirevevo

"Concrete jungle where dreams are made of, there's nothing you can’t do, now you're in New York. These streets will make you feel brand new, the lights will inspire you, let's hear it for New York, New York, New York." ~jay-z

I am back in New York. I had a great trip to London and Wales, but it's good to be home. I'm only here for a few days and then I head out to visit my parents in Colorado. My sleep schedule is screwed up; right now it's nearly 2am in NY (where I am), it's almost 7am in London (where I just came from), and yet I'm not tired. Anyway, I will hopefully get around to writing a full post about my trip, but I feel like I should try to sleep now, so I'll just share this for now. I made a video of the trip. It's a bit sloppy, and my filming skills are not exactly fabulous, but it serves it's purpose as a fun souvenir for me. It's long (10 minutes).




At Buckingham Palace:
Stonehenge:
Boat trip in Wales:
View from Mount Snowdon when the clouds cleared:
I couldn't believe this: