annainaustin

Many of you may have been following the saga of Chuckie, my black lab. On Saturday night, we took him to the vet clinic, where we was diagnosed with something called IHMA, which is quite serious.
Much drama passed, and tonight he is home and sitting on the sofa!

More details to come!

Please don't forget to register and vote for the *two* SXSW panels that I am putting together

One is a SXSW Film panel that will be showcasing Scare For a Cure and Edwin's FX work! We'll be talking (fake) body parts, vampire bites, etc! FUN!

"Making Cheap and Ghoulish Horror/Vampire FX"
http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/ideas/view/5110


(Slackerwood is fond of this one as well.... http://www.slackerwood.com/node/622)

The other is for SXSW Music!
This one is personal, not Scare related.
It's about why people are driven to copy the "Thriller" video. Don't you ever wonder why this is happening? Why people keep doing the Thriller dance in large groups? Why they copy the OK Go treadmill video? And, most importantly, how can bands make money off of this sort of thing happening?

"The Cultural Photocopy Phenomena: Making Your own “Thriller”
http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/ideas/view/5127



30 percent of the SXSW panel decision-making is based on the "crowdsourcing" date. I think this includes both the vote totals, and the comments showing that people are "excited about the panel."

If you think that either panel would be great combined with another SXSW panel, feel free to say so. If you know someone whom you think would be great on either panel, have them leave their name in the comments, or do so for them!

Lookie over here at my Willie Nelson pic's. He played at Waterloo ... though only Asleep at the Wheel was on the calendar.


http://www.flickr.com/photos/annaustin/sets/72157614497613062/

Just now coming back from the unvieling of my cousin's new baby. Think of it as sort of a secular christening

Posted via LiveJournal.app.

The two week headache has gone, and the chills and assorted awfulness of the last antibiotic. Am now feeling better and ready to face the christmas season.
What? You mean I missed it? Mostly? The parties? The shopping?
Thank goodness my brother-in-law did my Chritmas shopping for me (buying Paul a couple of graphic novels) and I sent my inlaws the same wreath I do every year. (LL bean stores sizes and shipping address from year to year...and they are happy to pull up the order from year to year.)

But I am feeling better. And my ENT friend said that she didn't think that I needed sinus surgery (not that she would do it on me anyway.) So, that's all good news.

Mystery pain in eyebrow is just that...there are fancy latin terms, and explanations, but let's not bother with 'em.

I'm actually thinking of going to the International Mall in Tampa tomorrow, to look for some christmas gifts for my parents. Paul is going to be doing a plumbing project for his brother just down the street from there, so I might as well go stimulate the economy. And it seems a shame to let the whole holiday season go by without fleeing the mall in horror at least once.

As many of you already know, I've had a headache for about two weeks, mostly in the middle of my left eyebrow. So I went to the western doc last week. He looked at the CT skan of my head, and noticed that, funny thing, there was lot of scar tissue in that exact spot on my sinus. And that, in addition to an antibiotic (at least the 4th course of antibiotic I've had this year) he said I ought to go see an ENT about getting this scar tissue cleaned out.

Luckily, one of my bridesmaids is an ENT (Ear, Nose, Throat doctor) in Houston. I'm going in to see her on Friday morning. Her husband is also in practice with her as an ENT...

I realized that this eyebrow had been a problem for years when I got tea at Eastside Cafe the other day. I had a strong urge to do what I do at home, which is to hold the hot cup up to the eyebrow. Alas, you can't really do that in public.

The good news about this being sick is that after the allergist told me I was allergic to dust and dust mites, I've spent a lot of time dusting and washing things. I even washed my feather pillow that I've had since I was briefly at NYU in the early 90's--I never checked the label that said it was washable...The bloomingdale's tag is in this very 80's font, which makes me realize exactly how old I am!

Paul and I even went out and bought a spiffy new German vacuum cleaner with a hepa filter. Paul researched it, picked it out, and has promised to use it. I think their website must have convinced him it is a spiffy new tool, with German engineering and all that.

If Angela does the surgery, then I'm getting that left eyebrow pierced to celebrate my freedom from being sick. Seems fitting, eh?

I had ouchy allergy tests this week, which had a rather surprising result. Turns out I'm not allergic to ragweed. Quite curious, since I was aching all over during ragweed season--i.e. most of the time since I've been back from Europe. The ear doctor I saw in Sept. said that the reason I was hurting all over --including my ear-- was the ragweed.

That nasty cold I had back in late Aug was likely not a cold at all. If you remember, Paul brought it home from school, where both his student worker and that dude's roommate were struck down by this cold. Jarrett got it, Nan was bedridden for two weeks with it, etc. It was brutal on everyone.

The allergist said that the reason I was still hurting was that I'd likely had a virus that was closely related to mono. (I had mono in college, and it was horrible for me.) Nan also had mono in college,in the 60's, and it had been really bad for her as well.

So what the allergist said makes sense. They did a whole panel of bloodwork on me, including the panel for autoimmune problems, which I was totally expecting to turn up something, after I spent all that time in my crib watching the smoke come off the chemical plants. It all said that I was healthy, which is good.

The good news is that she said I should be feeling totally better in a week or two! Yea!

Paul and my dad spent much of yesterday doing plumbing projects. So we now have a working utility sink in the garage, and the hot water heater is now no longer leaking down the driveway.

The best part? Our bulky item collection starts on MONDAY, so Paul just kicked that old,rusty,leaking hot water heater to the curb, where the city will haul it away. YEA!

Of course, while they were doing this, I got the joy of taking my mom to the ER to deal with something she ought to have dealt with a month ago. Not fun. And my dad ought to have been the one who forced her to go see a doctor, not me. (I was just going to take her down the street to see my regular doctor, but they were closed for Black Friday.)

My dad is now in charge of making sure she takes her antibiotic and goes for the followup.

Ask me for details. I bet I can beat your family-drama thanksgiving story, hands down.

I had a CT skan of my head this morning, which actually wasn't so bad. It didn't hurt, and it didn't take very long!

Feeling a bit sorry for myself, until I came home and got a message from my friend in Estonia who is still in the hospital...and is bored and in pain.

Home with earache....so I've been catching up on people's myspace, checking the contents of my flickr mail, etc.
Did you even know you could ge messages via Flickr?

http://my.nowpublic.com/tech-biz/dr-pepper-make-good-chinese-democracy-stunt?import_id=4900cad7d694e6.88970287

Wacky, my pic of Barton Springs on Flickr was picked to illustrate an iphone app...



http://www.schmap.com/?m=iphone#uid=austin&sid=sights_zilkerpark&p=58476&i=58476_23

http://www.schmap.com/austin/sights_zilkerpark/#r=none&mapview=Map&tab=Places&topleft=30.28846,-97.78351&bottomright=30.2531,-97.75939&i=58476_23.jpg


Whoda thunk?

Please share this and the other links with anyone you like! We need paying guests for our three run nights this Wednesday!


http://forums.furcadia.com/index.php?showtopic=52891&furcadia_session_id=12251-ghxy-xgf&

Edwin and Jarrett on TV with the gore cannon:


http://www.myfoxaustin.com/myfox/pages/News/Detail?contentId=7689029&version=2&locale=EN-US&layoutCode=VSTY&pageId=3.1.1

Statesman photo gallery:

http://www.austin360.com/calendar/mediahub/media/slideshow/index.jsp?tId=125919



http://www.muellercommunity.com/index.php?module=Forums&op=posts&ForumID=6&TopicID=1209&page=1#Post5599

Read a totally biased review of Scare from my pal Barbara!

http://beeswing70.livejournal.com/3942.html

Wow, it's great when someone gets what we are trying to do!

http://austinlivetheatre.blogspot.com/2008/10/world-of-horrorcraft-scare-for-cure-at.html

October 27 is Chili's Charity Night, when eating Chili's Brodie
Oaks location can help raise funds for SCARE. Just download and
print the flyer from our web site
<http://www.scareforacure.org/downloads/chilis_charity_night.doc>
and take it with you to the Chili's Brodie Oaks on October 27 (4
p.m. - close). Chili's will donate 10% of your check to SCARE For
A Cure.

Share this with your friends!

Okay, I stole this from my friend Edwin, because I was too tired from painting his damm stone walls to make up something myself.



Three days until we do Dress&Press (dress rehearsal and press night, first run for the haunt).

Paying customers in Four.

If you ever wanted to work on a fascinating, creative, and ambitious theater event, especially doing behind the scenes creative stuff (like the TEN MILLION SQUARE FEET OF STONE WALL Edwin somehow proposed we make)... COME NOW. Really. Please. I beg of you. Enough people, we make it. Not enough?


www.scareforacure.org
700 Dawson St.
Elks Lodge 201

10:00am to midnight, any day of the week, now on forward.

http://austinist.com/2008/10/16/is_it_latviaor_acl.php

Trust me...you'd rather read this than my thesis about the Baltic States!
But if you want to read my thesis, let me know!

Trying not to whine here, but I really, really hate the ragweed.

Every fall, just as soon as it gets halfway not awful outside...I really can't go outside so much.

Blech.

I even got to go to a new ear doctor on Friday, and got a cortisone shot for my inflamed eustachian tube. Okay, maybe I shouldn't have gone to ACL after that, but I would've been way more miserable staying home.

The good news is that my ear has mostly stopped the occasional throbbing that I've had since I flew to Latvia with the remains of an ear infection.

My parents got power back on Friday, making them very happy.