this morning i was lazy and stayed in much longer than i would have had i known that this would be the day that i would get to go to namm for the first time in my life. (a dream come true!) namm is a musician's wet dream. i get a stiffy just thinking about it. i know i can't play. i am not a musician. i am a music lover. but walking around the booths is very humbling for anyone into music. but back to how i even got to go. well, i must protect the innocent (read stupid) so pseudonyms will be used. yesterday dr. evil and mini me were able to attend namm. mini me is part of the group doctors with borders. the group were set to perform at namm and were mistakenly sent extra passes. dr. evil and mini me used the extra passes to get into namm. today, dr. evil and i used the same passes to get into namm. in case i was questioned, i created a whole backstory for my character that i was playing today. when i left namm, it was sad to leave the character even though i never played the role at all.

we got there way too late to meet some of those we were interested in. part of it was that the parking lots for the anaheim convention center (next door to disneyland) were completely full and the surrounding area is residential parking by permit only. (we also had to drive 50 miles to first get the passes and then get to the convention center.) we had to park far away and walk it. advised by dr. evil, i wore my docs. my docs pain my feet. i was going to leave them in new zealand along with my calvin klein (fat) jeans but i ended up bringing them all back because others thought it was wasteful to dump those items. even though i wore hiking socks to prevent blisters, i got blisters. bad. we hardly even walked half a day at namm. i also had a pain with my left hip. very painful. never had such an intense hip pain before. it was probably due to walking awkwardly due to my uncomfortable shoe situation. i was also dehydrating quickly because the place was quite warm with all the bodies shuffling. towards the end of our day, i took a rest and sat for a few minutes but then i couldn't stand straight up. my back started to give. i was a freakin' old lady! it was terrible. that was it, i can't walk around this place any longer. time to stretch and walk back towards the car. i grinned and bared the shoe situation, knowing that i had developed blisters, but i just couldn't make it all the way back to the car. about 1.5 blocks away from the car, i turned kiwi and walked barefoot. i'm sure my fellow americans were staring at me for crossing a major street barefoot but if i didn't take off my boots i wouldn't have made it another step. was it worth it? yes, in a way, i mean, i got to go to freakin' namm!

walking into a giant effect pedals at the boss booth

dr. evil was *this* close to meeting a lifelong idol (dave mustaine of megadeth) but they cut off the line right at us. the asshole salesman in front of us was able to meet and do his sales pitch but we the fans got cut off. dave stayed around and was taking pictures with all the workers and other hangers on but those that were still in line were left to gawk and wonder why they couldn't have squeezed the remaining 10 people or so. that sucked but dave did quickly sign stuff and the passed it out to those of us who got cut off. (i would like to point out a similar instance about 13 years ago when i went to mtv's rock and jock baseball game and the players would walk by the stands, autographing items, but dave mustaine was a prick about it and shafted this guy next to me who was a huge megadeth fan.) but other than the mustaine incident, i can't complain. free entry and free parking. i paid for it with blisters but fuck, it's freakin' namm!

me and the lizardman, hey i had to take my picture with somebody

afterwards we went home by street and i was shocked to realize how close i live by street to disneyland. i knew that it's more direct to go to knott's berry farm by street than freeway but i never realized how close disneyland is to knott's berry farm and that you could just keep on going down the street and it's much easier than taking the damn freeways. i had to go home to get some sandals as our next stop was to go to dinner with a friend and catch a movie. we went to a vegetarian restaurant we have only been to a couple of times and not since we got back form new zealand. it was ok. we need to order more dishes to know what's good and what's not. then we were off to watch "the chronicles of narnia".

i never read the narnia books. sure classmates read "the lion, the witch, and the wardrobe" and i might have seen a snippet of a cartoon version but it never held my interest at all. in fact, i was going to pass up the movie just as i was happy to pass up "the lord of the rings" when it came out if it weren't for movie passes that i had and ended up watching lotr. i thought i should watch the narnia film and then read the books because i should just be in the know. the story was, er, not as scary as i thought it would be. i just thought the two main forces in narnia would be much more powerful characters, much scarier.

the white witch did come across as a powerful bitch who's got her minions in place (the key part being the right actress was cast), but somehow aslan the lion is not an equally intimidating force as the witch (the voice casting just didn't work for me at all). perhaps his goodness and wisdom downplays his power. a little too christ-like for me. the epic battle also seemed anti-climatic. not a bad movie, just not a great movie. (but the mr. beaver and mrs. beaver jokes will last for several days.) i don't know, i guess i just need to read the books. funny though that lewis and tolkien tried to see who could write the better children's book (from my understanding of it) and both have recently turned into movies filmed in new zealand. that really was what pushing me inside to watch it since while traveling in new zealand we kept hearing about narnia being filmed there. another coincidence (or perhaps not since there's not too much to do in new zealand) is that the guy who wrote the lotr film locations guidebook is also doing the narnia film locations guidebook.