sailorstkwrning

Special Note: This week's entry is early; next week will either be early (Thursday) or late (the following Tuesday) depending on how my travel schedule shakes out.

Administratrivia: Both Spencer AND Ryan's lists now have items with warnings appended. Ryan's for, well, nature (spiders) and Spencer's for possibly triggery images of food. (I can't look at that website, particularly the background image, for longer than about a minute without feeling panicky. The boys sharing pictures of their dinners doesn't bother me at all, though, my usual reaction is MMMM, delicious, gimme that sushi!) I'm going to continue to include warnings as necessary. If there's anything (past, present or future) that NEEDS a warning and I fail/have failed to include it, please advise and I will fix it ASAP.

This week:

Ryan spent a lot of time with Alex Greenwald and various of his/their famous friends (and got chased by paparazzi for his trouble), visited with some seals, shared a picture of tremendously adorable puppy, got trolled by his friend with pictures of a t-shirt that may not actually exist (but should) and a massive spider (the source website is amazing, but, um, be REALLY CAREFUL if you have any kind of bug phobias). He also started (and ended) a minor fan kerfluffle on Twitter. Musically there was only the one Bonnie Raitt song, plus a quote from Nas. There were another couple of quotes that were Greenwald, and some that could be Ryan quoting a movie, or could be Ryan repeating conversations going on around him, I wasn't quite sure.

Brendon, as we all know, was very busy being a tanned hotsauce at Comic Con and helpfully clarifying his lyrics for us. (Extra amusing as I had actually come up with a non-dirty meaning for "go down on me", but oh well.) He's also been listening to the Imogean Heap song Spencer mentioned last week (:DDD!), Lou Reed, and, ah, Huey Lewis and the News. (Some of that was related to promo stuff for Jennifer's Body; there's a link in patd to his "soundtrack" for the film, which has some intriguing selections.) The mysterious quote about the still not-pregnant Constitution was from Gore Vidal. Literally the first place it turned up was in the .sig file of a regular commentator on a 2nd Amendment website (thehighroad.us), which, I don't think Brendon is that concerned about our right to bear arms, and I'm guessing he must have some kind of Quote-A-Day calendar.

Spencer was also busy being a tanned hotsauce at Comic Con (I ♥ Spencer in all of his shapes and sizes, and I am so, so happy to have pictures in which he doesn't look exhausted and sad and/or dead-eyed; clearly, all that surfing is agreeing with him!). He shared some pictures of Brendon being a hotsauce, teased us with the possibility of Olan Mills-style photoshoots, expressed a desire to go to Awesomecon, metioned that he was excited for Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland and shared the link to That Website Which Gives Me The Howling Fantods, and took note of the 40th anniversary of the moon landing. Plus there were bonus references to the X-Files and the Berlin Wall.

In stark contrast, Jon was quiet, and when not sharing pictures of his adorable cat, or an stunning shot of himself and Ryan in the studio -- clearly someone has finally brought in a Real Camera -- he he seemed to once again be wearing his Cranky Pants. There are a lot of songs on the subject of living a lie, but only the Laura Branigan really matched what he posted. (And even that was a tenuous connection; she had the right words and configuration but not the trifold repetition.) Also he has changed his icon again, to a non-distorted picture of his face. He looks sort of unimpressed and I think I see a hint of moustache. Finally, I'm hoping the Dylan reference on the studio shot is a harbinger of things to come, stylistically.

Ed note: I'm calling Ryan & Jon's Musical Adventure "not-Panic" until they provide the actual name.

Ryan was mostly back to being his usual chatty self this week, especially with MTV. He also seemed to be busy dodging really large spiders and possibly also hornets, attempting to play the dozens with Alex Greenwald (please note the "attempting" in that sentence; I don't think he quite got ahold of the idea) and recording music. He shared pictures of microphones and instruments to prove it! He did also ask the internet for suggestions for band names, but as of this writing has not yet announced any results. There were only two songs, one by George Harrison, and one by the Beach Boys.

Brendon was also chatty, and shared a lot of music. There was some from the 1990s (Sugar Ray! Hi there! Amy Grant, fancy meeting you here! R. Kelly, you are still a little too weird for my taste.), some classical, one musical, and one new group that I don't know how to categorize - pop/hip-hop/girl group? - who anyway have very lovely voices and a really cute song. The minor puzzle this week was the self-help phrase that may have been generic and may have been a reference to a specific column in an on-line LDS magazine. Generic is, I suspect, far more likely, but I included the LDS magazine as a point of reference and/or comparison. Also he discussed Amadeus with Pete, and he, Spencer and Zack seemed to be playing cee-lo via Twitter. Finally Zack's mom bought him (Brendon) a present, though they haven't yet said what it might be.

The major puzzle this week was Spencer, who on one day was going to "ride the red dragon all the way home." I searched several variations, and came up with bike races, horse races, a pod-cast of a detective novel, a song by the Time Beings, something about Westerners studying in Asia, various D&D-reminiscent books involving red dragons, and of course various things related to Wales. I still have no idea what that means. Urban Dictionary was similarly unhelpful. All I can think of is that it is somehow D&D related and I'm not geeky enough to get it.

In other areas, however, he was quite clear, especially with his literary allusions. There was the Hunter S. Thompson and the Oscar Wilde, but the most biting was the self-help article. In lighter news, he also shared a picture of a really adorably hideous dog (♥ Chinese Crested puppy!), started a game of Circles (I read the rules, it's tremendously complicated, but we all looked in the circle, so I think we all lose this round and/or get bopped in the arm; also, nnnnnnnargh big drummer hands, *ahem*, sorry, where was I?) and shared some early PATD canon.

Jon took a lot of pictures, mostly of Ryan (or "Brian") though there was one of road and one of a meal. (Mmmm, Indian food. It looked delicious.) He also seemed to be looking forward to the new Harry Potter movie. (I'll be interested in his reaction.) He also made a comment about "10 days", though it wasn't clear if that was meant to be counting up from the implosion or counting down to a new event. Musically, it was a bizarrely Beatles-free week, featuring only some Dylan and an echo of a nursery rhyme.