The Pitt already has almost 3000 fics on AO3, which is up from the last time I looked at it.  I could definitely see doing a Pitt crossover someday when I'm in the mood for some serious medical drama.  I'll have to think of a different idea from a bus/van crash, though, so it doesn't feel the same as my ER story.

I will apologize in advance for asking for ranch in Buffalo LOL.  I can't help it; I was born and raised in the Midwest, and we love our ranch here!  I guess that's the equivalent of putting ketchup on hot dogs in Chicago.

Hey, I can't really judge about the whole chicken wing thing because I actually HATE chicken wings. I hate them with a passion. I also hate blue cheese so if I had to eat them, it would be with ranch, holding my nose and grimacing. In fact, when it comes to Buffalo I unilaterally fail by every account because not only do I hate chicken wings, but I also don't enjoy beef on Wek, sponge candy and hate hate hate hate hate football. I'm as anti-Buffalo as they come. My sister is always like no matter what when someone says Go Bills to you you say it back. Because honestly that's the way people greet each other here. I wish I was kidding. I'm not.

Nick keeps wearing pants in Vegas summer. lol

I was updating hubs on this conversation, and he said it was the hill I should die on. And we discussed how the ranch with wings phenomenon is probably due to Buffalo Wild Wings and the Midwest. I'm pretty sure Midwesterners love their ranch and mayonnaise. lol Also Mustard is the superior condiment. A hot dog is basically an American sausage, and what do Germans put with sausage? Mustard. Chicagoans got that correct also. I don't dislike ketchup with like... fries, tater tots, potatoes? But there's other condiments that go better with everything else. I also don't really like hot dogs, but that has nothing to do with ketchup. Tomato juice is my most disliked tomato-derivative.

I'm judging no one for disliking chicken wings or bleu cheese, because I get so much hate for disliking hot dogs, but I will still defend bleu cheese, lol. Beef on Wek is okay? I think it depends on what type of horseradish you use? It's better than a garbage plate, though. I've never had sponge candy (I googled it, lol), but I'm a little hesitant to eat spongey-texture inside chocolate; I'm not a huge toffee person. The greetings by football team is so true though. I first started noticing it with hubs and his hometown college team, but the more I get used to it, the more prevalent I notice it everywhere. It feels really welcoming, I really like it. But, I've only really seen it if at least one of the people involved is wearing gear. It would be a little odd going to like the grocery store or wherever and having someone say "Go Bills" if I left and was just wearing a regular coat or something.

Hopefully you get Book of Mormon someday!  I originally saw it in Chicago, but it's come to my part of the state at least three times in the last ten years or so and always does well here.  I just heard that Merrily We Roll Along was filmed; I'm looking forward to watching that.  I've never seen that musical, but Daniel Radcliffe and Jonathan Groff is a good combination.  I love that they're making more stage productions available to watch on a screen.  Like you said, it makes it more accessible for people who can't get to a show.  People who watch it that way and love it will still go see it live if they get the opportunity.  That's how I fell in love with Hamilton, and I did go see it live in St. Louis the first chance I got after watching it multiple times on Disney+.

I have heard about Guttenburg the musical but didn't know anything about it. I'd also love to see The Producers. Dee, I forgot which town you mentioned for The Book of Mormon, but it's not really that close to me. Buffalo has it's own mini theater district so I would imagine some of them would come all the way up here. And yes, the other town you mentioned is in the Catskills as is Sleepy Hollow. I do live by Jamestown, which is where the Carters lived.

Good Night and Good Luck is on Youtube now, I wanted to see it when it was on CNN but it was showing the day I got back from NYC, and I missed it. I might watch it later. Just another random Broadway mention, just cause. lol

I think the accessibility is nice! It's not any different than the PBS sweeps ones they did when we were growing up -- didn't make me want to see them in person any less. After you mentioned it, Mare, I saw some articles about the Evita balcony performances (mostly due to the heatwave) and I have mixed feelings. I think if I paid for the show, I would want to see it on the stage and not via streaming, but I like the idea of bringing it to the people (a big part of the story/real life person). It's complicated. I'm sure the actress wouldn't want to do it twice, so I wonder if there was something they could do with the understudy, either on the balcony or on the stage. Or they made the intermission longer so that anyone who paid for the show could also go out and watch it. Logistics, am I right? 

Oh, don't worry, I googled Elmira when I was trying to figure out where in the state it was as well as it's driving distance from the various metro areas in Upstate/Western NY, mostly because they listed themselves as close to several of them that are very spread out and Toronto and I was skeptical that any of it was true, lol. It wasn't quite like saying somewhere like Pittsburgh is right by Buffalo, but it's only a hair better.

I'm dog/house-sitting for a week starting today, so I'm treating it as a staycation and using it as an excuse to hopefully get a lot of writing done while I'm away from my Sims and housework LOL.  It's a cool, rainy day today, and I'm sitting outside on her covered back porch, listening to the rain and the wind chimes while I write.  I absolutely love this kind of weather!

Yeah, I started breaking it up by year and setting annual word count goals on NaNoWriMo instead of monthly.  Each year's document is shorter than the previous year, but I've kept up my daily writing streak for about 3.5 years now.  A spreadsheet sounds like a good way to keep track of your word count.  I haven't been keeping track since NaNoWriMo went down, which is actually kind of nice.  I deleted half a scene that wasn't working the other day with no guilt or pressure to write enough to make up for it so that my word count wouldn't go backwards.  I would have had a harder time doing that when I was entering my word count each day.

Wow, 4500 in a week is great!  Big chunks of uninterrupted time and little stress definitely makes it easier.  I do most of my writing on the weekend during the school year, but even then, writing for long periods of time means ignoring other obligations, like errands and housework and a social life, and I always end up feeling guilty for whatever I'm neglecting or overwhelmed by everything I still have to do before the work week begins again.  Much less guilt in the summer.  This time of year makes the worst parts of teaching worth it.

I get the computer thing too.  I didn't write a lot of fanfic during the first couple months of Covid, when I was working from home, for the same reason.  I had so much more time, but I couldn't focus on fanfic while I was technically on the clock and responsible for keeping up with Google Classroom, and once I was done with that for the day, I just wanted to get off the computer and do something else.  I still don't write after work very often because I'm brain dead, but at least I don't have to spend entire work days staring at a screen anymore.  I'm sure having kids makes it even harder to find the time and energy to write.

I just finished my last real chapter of my story today. Now all I have to do is write the epilogue and I'll be all done. Feels good. I'm glad you have your writing mojo back, Dee. And now you have the whole summer to write at your own pace, Julie.

Yaaaaaas, staycation! I'm sure dog/house sitting is pretty relaxing as far as taking care of things goes. I could go for some rain. It's finally under 100 here, but not by much!

And a toot for you, Mare! Great work finishing your last chapter!

I think our brains are pretty anti-screens, overall, and the more we deal with them, the more they want to do something else. I'm curious if TV does the same thing or what it is about computers specifically. I'd love for my brain to be like "don't look at that phone," but you can't even really keep up with the news without a screen these days.

I'm of the opinion that the deleted scene still counts in your word count. You wrote it in service of the story and I often find that I have to write something down or several versions of something to find the one that works best, so if you don't commit to writing it, you'll never know if it was or wasn't the right choice. Some food for thought. And I certainly don't delete anything from my words written when I'm editing, I just have less new words to add on editing days.

What I'm taking from all of this is that we need less hours dedicated to working and more hours dedicated to living. Then we could write and not feel like we're neglecting anything, lol.

I honestly didn't love All American overall the first time I heard it, but it quickly grew on me.  It's a really fun album!  And I love the song All American, even if it is about butts LOL.  I love all of Nick's solo albums; they're all a perfect reflection of the stage of life he was in when he released them.  We have really benefited from him being such a workaholic and using music as an outlet for all his personal stuff.

Which, speaking of which, I'm surprised by the media/fan reaction to him losing weight.  He has obviously been working hard to get back into shape for the residency, and he looks great!  It's interesting to see how that is being twisted into "He looks unhealthy" or "He must be on Ozempic" this time around, whereas when he lost all that weight in 2008-2009, he was praised for embracing a healthy lifestyle.  He can't win!  And anyone who actually keeps up with the Boys can see that Nick looks completely normal; he just knows the right angles and/or filters to make his face look even thinner in his selfies LOL.

I can totally see Nick putting a really bad rap in the middle of a movie, whichever one it would be. I say for The Hollow, instead of Nick playing both twins, we might as well have Kieran play the other identical twin. I mean why not? Sure, one is 6'2 and blonde and the other is barely 5'5 and brunette. It would still work in Nick bad movie land. I was just thinking about this yesterday "Ah yes, they could be brothers!" but then it hit me that Kieran could play Nick's younger brother because he's three years younger than Nick! Like OMG I am lusting after someone younger than Nick.  It's all good. After you hit 40 age doesn't matter anymore, right?

It grows on you, lol. And yes, I love that each of his albums really represents where he was at the time. Part of me wishes he felt like he had more time to devote to downtime for his own sake, but then I think, well, he knows what he needs best. I think he has a healthier balance these days.

Yeah, genetics work that way, they could definitely be brothers! And I think age is just a number over 18.  It really depends on the people involved.

My sister has been having multiple mental breakdowns because of stupid google. She's on a board and she's the secretary so she's supposed to take notes, and the president told her to use the Gemini function but when she goes on to the teams or whatever the hell it's called, she can't find it. I looked and I didn't see it anywhere either. It's supposed to be there, but it's not. Anyone know what the heck to do? If so, can you explain it to me like I'm in kindergarten? So, I can explain it to her like she's in preschool.

Kieran and Jazz's anniversary is today. They've been married for 12 years. Sorry, bad mental health day so holding on to my little gremlin tightly today. Wonder why my mental health is bad? I wonder what could possibly be happening.  I hate Trump!

Okay, I think I'm going to take myself and my book and go read outside. I bought a little step, and it's helped tremendously with my back door situation, now instead of one big step to get inside its two really little ones. Much easier. I wish I could do that with the side door entrance and the three steps I need to take there. One dilemma at a time.

We all gotta take care of our mental health. I think reading a book is a good way to do so and glad you were able to problem solve a workable solution too!

As for Gemini, most importantly, she needs to be sure that she's trying to access all of this through an account that's on Google Workspace and not a personal account. If she's using her work email to do everything I list below, then she should be fine.

Does she need to update her Google Meet extension/app? Or the Gemini extension/app. If she needs to update either of those, they're in the "Play Store" (the sideways triangle icon), which you get by clicking the nine dot Google suite drop down menu that's on the right hand side of the browser in any g-suite application (Gmail, Drive, Meet, etcetera). She can figure out what apps she has by clicking on her profile (the circle with her photo or initials in the upper right-hand corner), then clicking "Manage Apps and Device." This is also how she should be able to get to the settings for any other App she's using, like Google Meet (see below).

My quick Google search says that she likely needs to 1. Make sure the setting for Gemini is on in her Google Meet settings, then 2. Make sure it's all updated on the app store (see above), and 3. that she might also need a different add-on/app called "AI Meetings and Messaging."

If none of those work, she should contact Google Workspace support for help.

Hope that all helps and is explained easily enough for the low-tech users!

Every time I come here, the forum isn't working so when I saw it was finally back up, I quick jumped on the computer. It's going down more and more often now. I'm not liking that. 

Amazing! LMAO

The forum literally went down yesterday as I was trying to post my last post - like, I clicked post, and it tried to load forever and then finally put up an error message.  I didn't think it went through.  I was glad to get on today and see that, not only is the forum back, but my post did post!

Glad you didn't have to retype it. I saw it was down and hit the back button so fast, so that I could save the work of art that was my rap. lmao

Poor forum. We've broken it. I always copy my posts before I hit "post" just in case!

I know, the forum has been down a lot lately.  That always seems to happen when it's finally somewhat active again.  AC (both the site and the forum) has lasted a lot longer than I thought it would, but at some point, it's going to go down and not come back.  We have a plan for the main site with the move to AO3, but maybe we need to start thinking of a backup plan for a discussion forum, too.  A new message board, a Discord server, a subreddit, a Google chat, something.  Any thoughts?

I've never used Gemini to take notes on Google Meet, but I googled it and found this help page: https://support.google.com/meet/answer/14754931?hl=en&co=GENIE.Platform%3DAndroid  It does say you have to have an eligible Google Workspace subscription, so that may be the problem.  I opened a Google Meet while writing this response and did not see the options it describes on the help page.  I thought maybe it was because I'm on a free Google account, so I switched over to my work account and tried it there.  Still no option to take notes.  So either my district doesn't pay for that option either, or this help page is full of shit LOL.  If I were your sister, I would check with the president to see if they're paying for that feature as part of their Google subscription.  He may not realize it's not a free feature.

Congrats on getting to your epilogue!  That is a good feeling.

I like chicken wings, although I rarely order bone-in wings at restaurants because they're so messy.  I make them at home in my air fryer from time to time, though.  I prefer BBQ sauce on them to Buffalo sauce.  I'm not a big bleu cheese fan in general; I don't bleu cheese crumbles on a salad, but I don't really like the dressing.

LOL at Nick and Kieran playing twins.  Maybe you should write a Nick & Kieran brother/buddy dramedy.  Happy anniversary to Kieran and his wife!

I'm glad the little step is working for you to make getting outside easier.  One thing at a time!

Every time I come here, the forum isn't working so when I saw it was finally back up, I quick jumped on the computer. It's going down more and more often now. I'm not liking that. 

My sister has been having multiple mental breakdowns because of stupid google. She's on a board and she's the secretary so she's supposed to take notes, and the president told her to use the Gemini function but when she goes on to the teams or whatever the hell it's called, she can't find it. I looked and I didn't see it anywhere either. It's supposed to be there, but it's not. Anyone know what the heck to do? If so, can you explain it to me like I'm in kindergarten? So, I can explain it to her like she's in preschool.

I just finished my last real chapter of my story today. Now all I have to do is write the epilogue and I'll be all done. Feels good. I'm glad you have your writing mojo back, Dee. And now you have the whole summer to write at your own pace, Julie.  

Hey, I can't really judge about the whole chicken wing thing because I actually HATE chicken wings. I hate them with a passion. I also hate blue cheese so if I had to eat them, it would be with ranch, holding my nose and grimacing. In fact, when it comes to Buffalo I unilaterally fail by every account because not only do I hate chicken wings, but I also don't enjoy beef on Wek, sponge candy and hate hate hate hate hate football. I'm as anti-Buffalo as they come. My sister is always like no matter what when someone says Go Bills to you you say it back. Because honestly that's the way people greet each other here. I wish I was kidding. I'm not.

I can totally see Nick putting a really bad rap in the middle of a movie, whichever one it would be. I say for The Hollow, instead of Nick playing both twins, we might as well have Kieran play the other identical twin. I mean why not? Sure, one is 6'2 and blonde and the other is barely 5'5 and brunette. It would still work in Nick bad movie land. I was just thinking about this yesterday "Ah yes, they could be brothers!" but then it hit me that Kieran could play Nick's younger brother because he's three years younger than Nick! Like OMG I am lusting after someone younger than Nick.  It's all good. After you hit 40 age doesn't matter anymore, right?

Kieran and Jazz's anniversary is today. They've been married for 12 years. Sorry, bad mental health day so holding on to my little gremlin tightly today. Wonder why my mental health is bad? I wonder what could possibly be happening.  I hate Trump!

I have heard about Guttenburg the musical but didn't know anything about it. I'd also love to see The Producers. Dee, I forgot which town you mentioned for The Book of Mormon, but it's not really that close to me. Buffalo has it's own mini theater district so I would imagine some of them would come all the way up here. And yes, the other town you mentioned is in the Catskills as is Sleepy Hollow. I do live by Jamestown, which is where the Carters lived.

Good Night and Good Luck is on Youtube now, I wanted to see it when it was on CNN but it was showing the day I got back from NYC, and I missed it. I might watch it later. Just another random Broadway mention, just cause. lol

Okay, I think I'm going to take myself and my book and go read outside. I bought a little step, and it's helped tremendously with my back door situation, now instead of one big step to get inside its two really little ones. Much easier. I wish I could do that with the side door entrance and the three steps I need to take there. One dilemma at a time.

OMG, a rap! I'm ready!

[beatboxing] Yo, Crane, I bet ya gonna go insane listening to tales of ghosts insteadda the mundane. Best believe it ain't no fantasy, it's straight up horror in da Hollow but if you follow dat bridge you might see tomorrow. [/end beatbox] And then somewhere he drops the line "I ain't afraid of no ghosts" because obviously.

Amazing! LMAO

The forum literally went down yesterday as I was trying to post my last post - like, I clicked post, and it tried to load forever and then finally put up an error message.  I didn't think it went through.  I was glad to get on today and see that, not only is the forum back, but my post did post!

Welcome back, Steph!  It looks like you had a nice (but hot) holiday in Spain!  So pretty!  Iceland looks absolutely beautiful, too; that sounds like a good option for your next vacation!

The Pitt already has almost 3000 fics on AO3, which is up from the last time I looked at it.  I could definitely see doing a Pitt crossover someday when I'm in the mood for some serious medical drama.  I'll have to think of a different idea from a bus/van crash, though, so it doesn't feel the same as my ER story.

I will apologize in advance for asking for ranch in Buffalo LOL.  I can't help it; I was born and raised in the Midwest, and we love our ranch here!  I guess that's the equivalent of putting ketchup on hot dogs in Chicago.

Hopefully you get Book of Mormon someday!  I originally saw it in Chicago, but it's come to my part of the state at least three times in the last ten years or so and always does well here.  I just heard that Merrily We Roll Along was filmed; I'm looking forward to watching that.  I've never seen that musical, but Daniel Radcliffe and Jonathan Groff is a good combination.  I love that they're making more stage productions available to watch on a screen.  Like you said, it makes it more accessible for people who can't get to a show.  People who watch it that way and love it will still go see it live if they get the opportunity.  That's how I fell in love with Hamilton, and I did go see it live in St. Louis the first chance I got after watching it multiple times on Disney+.

You deserve a break! Go do nothing. And then more piles of nothing.

I agree, it's the multiple platforms on Google suite that make it the most accessible.

Ooh, documents by year, interesting. I have a spreadsheet that does math for me.  By year isn't a terrible idea if you're writing regularly, but I'm just imagining a document with like 500 words from writing here and there for a year and that sounds pretty silly.

I'm dog/house-sitting for a week starting today, so I'm treating it as a staycation and using it as an excuse to hopefully get a lot of writing done while I'm away from my Sims and housework LOL.  It's a cool, rainy day today, and I'm sitting outside on her covered back porch, listening to the rain and the wind chimes while I write.  I absolutely love this kind of weather!

Yeah, I started breaking it up by year and setting annual word count goals on NaNoWriMo instead of monthly.  Each year's document is shorter than the previous year, but I've kept up my daily writing streak for about 3.5 years now.  A spreadsheet sounds like a good way to keep track of your word count.  I haven't been keeping track since NaNoWriMo went down, which is actually kind of nice.  I deleted half a scene that wasn't working the other day with no guilt or pressure to write enough to make up for it so that my word count wouldn't go backwards.  I would have had a harder time doing that when I was entering my word count each day.

Y'all, I got two partially started chapters done. I'm killing it; I've written like 4500 words over the past week. Apparently, I just need uninterrupted time to myself and no other looming things and I can just crank things out. I think it helps not having to look at a computer for work for the bulk of the day too. I wrote a lot less when my role involved more computer work for sure. How much of that was computer work versus small child versus general life stress is a toss up though.

Wow, 4500 in a week is great!  Big chunks of uninterrupted time and little stress definitely makes it easier.  I do most of my writing on the weekend during the school year, but even then, writing for long periods of time means ignoring other obligations, like errands and housework and a social life, and I always end up feeling guilty for whatever I'm neglecting or overwhelmed by everything I still have to do before the work week begins again.  Much less guilt in the summer.  This time of year makes the worst parts of teaching worth it.

I get the computer thing too.  I didn't write a lot of fanfic during the first couple months of Covid, when I was working from home, for the same reason.  I had so much more time, but I couldn't focus on fanfic while I was technically on the clock and responsible for keeping up with Google Classroom, and once I was done with that for the day, I just wanted to get off the computer and do something else.  I still don't write after work very often because I'm brain dead, but at least I don't have to spend entire work days staring at a screen anymore.  I'm sure having kids makes it even harder to find the time and energy to write.

I think overall, All American is my least favorite of the albums overall, but when I think of it as experimenting with different styles and genres, I like it a bit more. Plus if you just looked at the cover, you'd be like, sure All American kid, whatever. But then you've listened to it and remember that the title is from a song about butts and you just go "Oh Nick..." and you can't help but laugh at the humor of it all. Plus 19 in 99 is a bop, so.  For some reason, I forgot that I had heard Dirty Laundry before. I was trying to figure out why it was so eh to me, and I was thinking about the track list and was like, well of course Easy feels kind of eh, because Hurts to Love You comes directly after that. But Dirty Laundry, that's not the case. Now obviously, of course it didn't sound quite right when it's a cover. Makes so much more sense.

And yes, just listen to Storms like four times in a row.

I honestly didn't love All American overall the first time I heard it, but it quickly grew on me.  It's a really fun album!  And I love the song All American, even if it is about butts LOL.  I love all of Nick's solo albums; they're all a perfect reflection of the stage of life he was in when he released them.  We have really benefited from him being such a workaholic and using music as an outlet for all his personal stuff.

Which, speaking of which, I'm surprised by the media/fan reaction to him losing weight.  He has obviously been working hard to get back into shape for the residency, and he looks great!  It's interesting to see how that is being twisted into "He looks unhealthy" or "He must be on Ozempic" this time around, whereas when he lost all that weight in 2008-2009, he was praised for embracing a healthy lifestyle.  He can't win!  And anyone who actually keeps up with the Boys can see that Nick looks completely normal; he just knows the right angles and/or filters to make his face look even thinner in his selfies LOL.

Look, I'm far too lazy to go and quote things so just know I'm talking Broadway now. lol

lol! This is the perfect way to summarize. In your honor, I won't quote you either, aside from the above.

Yeah, I also don't love when they're like, better add a new song to this so it's up for award contention! In a weird turn of events, Moulin Rouge the musical did not add a brand new song like the movie had originally, which I thought was odd.

lmfao! Your Cats story! I feel bad laughing because that's what I hate about Cirque Du Soleil. Just the fact that you both screamed is hilarious. My mom had mentioned that once when I used to watch Cats on PBS growing up, that Rum Tug Tugger originally entered from the audience and did a coat swagger to her. Anyway, all this to say, please share this story more often.

Okay, so my soapbox about Cats. It's just... it's just a musical about cats. But the cats in the musical are having the best time. It's a Chorus Line for why certain cats should get to go to cat heaven. That's it, that's the musical. But the songs are great and the actors just lean into the fact that they're portraying cats who think this is serious business, but it's all a little wink wink nudge nudge like, yeah we know, it's just about cats. and it's just fun. The movie, in addition to having weird CGI, was missing that wink wink nudge nudge bit, so it just came off like they were taking themselves too seriously and it didn't work. Except in Skimbleshanks. That's the only song I will recommend from the movie because it had the same flair as the musical.

They roller skate in Xanadu too and it is fantastic. Something about high energy singing while roller skating just feels mesmerizing.

I've seen Hamilton twice. It's definitely worth it. What they do with a minimal set is wild. Obviously the subversive casting choice. The evolution of hip hop. That rotating stage though has really changed how they stage shows from a technical standpoint. Just fantastic.

Wicked, also fantastic. Worth seeing.

And like Julie said, Book of Mormon is hilarious. It's the only show I've seen on actual Broadway and not as a touring production. Just great. It comes around here every couple of years, so I don't think they'll stop touring any time soon. On a whim,  I googled their touring website because I was like, yeah, they probably don't go upstate/western because they figure you'll just get to the city and see them, but then they have Elmira listed as a touring stop.  Which according to my Google search they like to say they're near all the major metropolitan areas, including Toronto and I'm just over here like, I guess, Elmira.

And as an aside, Gutenberg! The Musical. If you like a stripped down show, it's The Producers, but if it was about the writers of the show (which just so happens to be about Johannes Gutenberg) and the titular writers are played by Elder Cunningham and Elder Price. Just go see it if you get a chance. You'll laugh until you cry.

My other high recommendation s for "newer" musicals (both are almost ten years old in their current form at this point) are SIX and Hadestown. Go see them if you can.

Who knows, maybe The Hollow - the musical starring Nick and Kieran will make its way up here someday. Then you guys can all road trip up here to see it with me!

OMG, The Hollow the Musical! lmao

LMAO!!!  I would love to see Kieran co-star in Nick's next SyFy movie!  Maybe his acting talent will rub off on Nick.

Side note: I was over at my parents' house today, helping them put together this pergola they bought for their patio, and we ordered carry-out for dinner. My dad rode with me to go pick up the food, and I had Nick's new album playing. He was like, "Dirty Laundry by Nick Carter?  Wonder what Don Henley has to say about this..." and was teasing me about Nick, as he tends to do.  (He's also an Eagles fan, so Nick could never compare to Don Henley in his eyes.)  I was like, "If you think the song is bad, you should see the video" and was trying to describe the low-budget green screen effects to him.


I would also love The Hollow 2! LMAO.  Too bad Melissa Schuman probably ruined his memory of the first film.  I still want him to do a follow-up to Dead 7.  Not a sequel, since his character died, but another campy horror movie starring fellow boyband singers would be right up my alley!  I was really excited to meet Jeff Timmons at 90s Con a couple years ago and have him sign my Dead 7 poster that was already signed by Nick, AJ, and Howie.

Yes!!!  Honestly, if they made a musical of The Hollow, it would have to debut somewhere in New York because Sleepy Hollow is in New York!  Wrong part of the state from where you are, but same state, at least.  It would probably be an off-Broadway show, in any case LOL.  We'll have to get Rose to suggest this to Nick the next time she does VIP; she's never afraid to ask questions or make suggestions.  I would love to get his reaction to the idea of The Hollow: The Musical LOL.  His character would probably do a delightfully cringey rap!

I can't see anyone funding The Hollow musical unless it's off off off off off Broadway, like in someone's basement. True story, the only reason I used The Hollow was because I couldn't remember the name of his other movie, but since you said it, now I know. Dead 7 lol I forgot he does die in that, but does that really matter? He could just come back as a really bad acting zombie. You're right though, I bet he has blocked that one out of his head because of Melissa.

He would probably never do it because of Melissa. Suggesting it would get Rose back on his list of people to exact revenge on, probably.

(lmao, your dad reacting to Nick's version.)

I mean, it turns out that our favorite Western zombie apocalypse hunter had a twin brother, but he's been running a hoard of zombies and then Kieran pulls him back to the good side and they visit Nick's original charter's remains and then he absorbs his essence and somehow two Nicks makes him a better actor? It could work.

Conversely there's a lot of campy horror films that could be made. Maybe the Backstreet's Back video could be a whole movie, but it focuses on the monsters long-term goings on. Brian and Kevin would never, so someone's gotta play Wolfman or Jekyl/Hyde. 

OMG, a rap! I'm ready!

[beatboxing] Yo, Crane, I bet ya gonna go insane listening to tales of ghosts insteadda the mundane. Best believe it ain't no fantasy, it's straight up horror in da Hollow but if you follow dat bridge you might see tomorrow. [/end beatbox] And then somewhere he drops the line "I ain't afraid of no ghosts" because obviously.

Yup, Sleepy Hollow is in the Catskills I believe which is upstate as opposed to near me which is western NY. That's something that riles up the Buffalonians, when they call Buffalo upstate NY lol These people are easily ruffled. They also hate when people use ranch instead of blue cheese for their chicken wings. I'm serious they will publicly shame you if you ask for ranch here.

Okay, I have two related things here to this upstate/western New Yorkness.

1.  We were driving on the highway on a foggy day between two cities where hubs' family lives and he looked at me and goes, "You know what I always think of when it's foggy like this?" "How a deer could jump out at you and you would never see it?" "No, the headless horseman. I bet it likes foggy days like this. You'll just pass a bridge and there it is." And then I tried to start a conversation about Washington Irvine and his works, which as a non-literary type hubs' was not at all interested in. I think Washington Irvine was from Westchester County if I remember correctly? That's near the bottom of the Catskills, yeah?

2.  Buffalonians should publicly shame everyone because they're absolutely correct. Ranch sucks. Sucks. Bleu cheese is the superior dipping sauce/chicken wing accompaniment. Why would you even consider having ranch when you could have bleu cheese? Ranch doesn't even stick on your celery spoon, so what's the point? Plus, why argue with the originator of a dish? They know how to do it correctly.  I always thought ranch sucked, but I have been thoroughly indoctrinated at this point. I will die on this hill.

I've been away to Spain for a week and it was lovely there, although too hot for me which I knew it would be.  Thank god for aircon in the hotel and my little portable fan!  I've decided the next time I go away on holiday it will have to be somewhere cooler like Iceland lol.

Spain sounds amazing! Have also always wanted to visit. What was your favorite thing you saw/did?

Just finished three days of professional development, so trying to catch up on what I've missed here!

You deserve a break! Go do nothing. And then more piles of nothing.

The longest story I've written all in one Google Doc is Once my current story, TWWBW, hit the character limit, I started breaking it up into separate documents by year so I could keep track of my annual word count more easily.  I'm on my fourth one now.  They're all of varying lengths, but none got long enough to be super slow to load.

450 words is a good start!  That's not a bad day of writing for me lately, depending on how long I stick with it.  And finishing a chapter after four years is a major accomplishment!  Yay for you!

I agree, it's the multiple platforms on Google suite that make it the most accessible.

Ooh, documents by year, interesting. I have a spreadsheet that does math for me.  By year isn't a terrible idea if you're writing regularly, but I'm just imagining a document with like 500 words from writing here and there for a year and that sounds pretty silly.

Y'all, I got two partially started chapters done. I'm killing it; I've written like 4500 words over the past week. Apparently, I just need uninterrupted time to myself and no other looming things and I can just crank things out. I think it helps not having to look at a computer for work for the bulk of the day too. I wrote a lot less when my role involved more computer work for sure. How much of that was computer work versus small child versus general life stress is a toss up though.

We really haven't discussed Love Life Tragedy too much here because not everyone has heard it.  I agree with you about the rawness of the album.  It has a completely different feel from All American, which makes sense, considering it's ten years later, and a lot has happened in Nick's life since then (mainly having kids, but also losing more of his siblings and all the legal drama he's had to deal with).  It's a lot deeper, more serious, and very personal.  Don't Let Me Go is another one of my favorites; it makes me cry!  I'm obviously not a parent, but looking at it from his perspective, or even just from my own as an aunt, I can empathize and relate to how fast kids grow up.  I also can see it from the kid's point of view, watching my own parents age and knowing they won't be around forever.  It's a tearjerker for sure.  Hey Kid is also great!  I still really love Superman too, and Made for Us and Nothing Without Your Love are bops.  I wasn't crazy about Dirty Laundry at first because it felt almost too simple compared to the 80s catchiness of the original.  But it has grown on me, and I've come to appreciate that it's just Nick's vocals and the guitar.  I don't like it better than the original, but I do like it as a cover.  I also enjoy the 80s rendition of Help Me - again, not better than the original, but it's fun as a fresh take on the original.  The only tracks I'm still not big on are Wild Heart and the two Cold Nights.  I tend to skip them so I can listen to Storms again LOL.  I'm kinda "eh" on Easy too, but I do like this solo version better than the original collab version.

I think overall, All American is my least favorite of the albums overall, but when I think of it as experimenting with different styles and genres, I like it a bit more. Plus if you just looked at the cover, you'd be like, sure All American kid, whatever. But then you've listened to it and remember that the title is from a song about butts and you just go "Oh Nick..." and you can't help but laugh at the humor of it all. Plus 19 in 99 is a bop, so.  For some reason, I forgot that I had heard Dirty Laundry before. I was trying to figure out why it was so eh to me, and I was thinking about the track list and was like, well of course Easy feels kind of eh, because Hurts to Love You comes directly after that. But Dirty Laundry, that's not the case. Now obviously, of course it didn't sound quite right when it's a cover. Makes so much more sense.

And yes, just listen to Storms like four times in a row.

Yay the site is working again, it was down before I went away on holiday so I missed a lot!

Mare, I'm so glad you got to the show and mey Kieran and all the other cast members, but not happy to hear about the train and hotel experience.  How awful that the train staff didn't help you, they would over here.  And that woman who barged past you and took the seat, how selfish of her when there were probably lots of other seats she could've picked!  But the hotel's attitude was really bad, they should've let you know there were no rooms so you could've booked somewhere else.  $50 refund is not good enough.  I'll have to look at your videos.

I've been away to Spain for a week and it was lovely there, although too hot for me which I knew it would be.  Thank god for aircon in the hotel and my little portable fan!  I've decided the next time I go away on holiday it will have to be somewhere cooler like Iceland lol.

I loved seeing all your pictures while you were away, Steph. It looks like a beautiful place, but I can only imagine the heat. Was it humid? Hopefully you got a chance to be in many pools and thank goodness for air conditioning. I've always wanted to go to Iceland! That and Alaska! Nice and cold.

Yeah, that whole experience was pretty horrible. Kieran made everything else not feel so bad, although I cannot see myself ever doing it again. I watch my video at least once a day like a lunatic. My life sucks, everything sucks, but then I watch Kieran staring at me and smiling and it's all worth it. lmao I'm so grateful for that. If it was a meet and greet situation it would only be some kind of generic picture with no video. I'm going to be very sad when he's done with his run a week from tomorrow.

That sounds like a good plan!  I also like to get a good start on a story and make sure it's going well before I post anything.  Better odds of seeing it through to completion that way.  I can understand your fear about interest dwindling the longer the show is off the air, but I think the die-hards will stick around.  I discovered when I posted my ER crossover that the ER fandom on AO3 is similar to the BSB fandom in terms of size and activity - 1700-some stories with new chapters still being posted daily.  Not bad for a 30-year-old show that ended in 2009.  I frequent the ER subreddit, and that show has seen a resurgence lately because of The Pitt - a lot of younger people who watched The Pitt are now watching ER for the first time and loving it - so I could actually see that fandom growing exponentially if these younger first-time viewers get into writing fic for it.  Similarly, it seems that the Millennium nostalgia has brought some old-school BSB fanfic writers - and probably also readers - out of retirement.  My point is that you never know what might happen that would spark new interest and bring new readers to an "old" fandom.

Yeah, I'm sure there will probably be people around to read the story. I bet there are a fair share of The Pitt stories on there by now. Probably some crossovers between the two. I'm glad the whole Milennium thing has brought some old fanfic fans out of the woodwork. I still get random kudos from people for my BSB stuff.

Yes!!!  Honestly, if they made a musical of The Hollow, it would have to debut somewhere in New York because Sleepy Hollow is in New York!  Wrong part of the state from where you are, but same state, at least.  It would probably be an off-Broadway show, in any case LOL.  We'll have to get Rose to suggest this to Nick the next time she does VIP; she's never afraid to ask questions or make suggestions.  I would love to get his reaction to the idea of The Hollow: The Musical LOL.  His character would probably do a delightfully cringey rap!

Yup, Sleepy Hollow is in the Catskills I believe which is upstate as opposed to near me which is western NY. That's something that riles up the Buffalonians, when they call Buffalo upstate NY lol These people are easily ruffled. They also hate when people use ranch instead of blue cheese for their chicken wings. I'm serious they will publicly shame you if you ask for ranch here. I can't see anyone funding The Hollow musical unless it's off off off off off Broadway, like in someone's basement. True story, the only reason I used The Hollow was because I couldn't remember the name of his other movie, but since you said it, now I know. Dead 7 lol I forgot he does die in that, but does that really matter? He could just come back as a really bad acting zombie. You're right though, I bet he has blocked that one out of his head because of Melissa.

I used to love Trivia Crack too!  I enjoy trivia in general; I like to play bar trivia with my teacher friends.  We're pretty good!  I also play Wordle and the other free NYT games sometimes, not every day like I used to.  I used to be pretty into Harry Potter Puzzles and Spells (a Candy Crush type of game), but I haven't even opened that app in months.

All this Trivia Crack talk is making me want to go back to playing it again.

I didn't realize Nick covered an Eagles song. That's interesting. And people are worried about his weight? Why? He looks perfectly fine.

The Book of Mormon never comes up this way for some reason, but if it ever does, I'm going to try to get tickets to go see it as long as the whole accessibility issue is fine at the theater here. If it went to where we were going to see Macauley when he came for Home Alone, I know that would work, otherwise a lot of the theaters here are really old. I love that Hamilton was ProShot. I watch it every fourth of July. I've only watched the Wicked movie once. I heard they did a ProShot of Hadestown and Merrily We Roll Along with the original cast (Jonathan Groff and Daniel Radcliffe.) So, that's something to look forward to. There was a rumor that they ProShot Glengarry too, but I can't see it ever being on Great Performances, they'd have to bleep out every other word. Maybe HBO? I hope that's true. I doubt it though. We shall see. I would think more and more shows would do it because Broadway is so inaccessible to so many people. I love the fact that they are doing a version of Evita in London where every performance, she comes out and does the biggest song from that show out on the real balcony of the Palladium theater to all the passersby outside as part of the actual play. It pisses the people off who paid for a ticket because the one song everyone knows from there is being sung outside so they only see it on a huge screen, but it makes it accessible to people who can't afford a ticket.

I guess you can't please everyone.

Yay the site is working again, it was down before I went away on holiday so I missed a lot!

Mare, I'm so glad you got to the show and mey Kieran and all the other cast members, but not happy to hear about the train and hotel experience.  How awful that the train staff didn't help you, they would over here.  And that woman who barged past you and took the seat, how selfish of her when there were probably lots of other seats she could've picked!  But the hotel's attitude was really bad, they should've let you know there were no rooms so you could've booked somewhere else.  $50 refund is not good enough.  I'll have to look at your videos.

I've been away to Spain for a week and it was lovely there, although too hot for me which I knew it would be.  Thank god for aircon in the hotel and my little portable fan!  I've decided the next time I go away on holiday it will have to be somewhere cooler like Iceland lol.