Thursday, October 29, 2009

Glee-ful

I won't even try to explain my absence. So let's just move on...

I hope you're all watching Glee on Fox. It is such a great show, and totally takes me back to my days in show choir. Now, I realize that high school was many years ago, or maybe my school just wasn't as modern as some others, but our "glee club" wasn't nearly as fun as the one on this show. We didn't get to sing contemporary songs or wear normal-ish costumes. (I would post a photo of our red/black, spandex, flame-design dresses, but it's just too embarassing!) And I have to give major props to Tim Davis, because the vocal arrangements are just incredible! What's more impressive is that most of the actors are singing their own parts. And even if you're not into the music like I am, the writing is very funny and well, anything that Jane Lynch does is alright in my book. Anyway, all this is to say that if you're not watching, you should be. Wednesday nights at 9PM on Fox.

Thursday, July 30, 2009

Technology Overload

I have long wished that the hackers and virus-makers of the world would find something more productive and positive to do with their time, so that I wouldn't be expected to remember endless usernames and passwords just to access the many websites that I frequent. And while we're on that subject, why does every site require a login? And why do they all have different requirements? It makes my head hurt just thinking about it, and even though I have written a book (literally, albeit a small one--ok, it was more like a large brochure) on identity theft and safeguarding your personal information, it makes me angry to have to follow the rules about memorizing everything and making passwords hard to guess. Because guess what? If they're hard for someone else to guess, they're hard for me to remember!!!

But I digress.

For the past three years, I have found it increasingly difficult to come up with interesting things to post on my blog. I thought maybe I had run out of material worthy of being shared, or maybe I had lost my creative edge, or maybe my life was simply not that interesting anymore. But then I realized... technology overload is to blame.

With all the mediums we use today to stay connected with friends and family--multiple email accounts, text messaging, IM, Facebook, Twitter, a blog and a professional website (and those are just the ones I use; some people also use MySpace, eHarmony, et al)--there simply isn't enough time in a given day (or even week) to update them all. Well, unless you make that your full-time job. But who would be willing to pay me to sit at my computer all day and update everyone with the inane details of my life? And it's rather narcissistic, really, that we all seem to believe we are important enough that anyone would even care about what we are doing or what we have to say.

I wish I had a solution to this growing problem. But it seems that as life gets busier, it only becomes more difficult to find time to keep up the updates. So I am open to any suggestions from blogland on this topic. Discuss amongst yourselves.

Friday, February 13, 2009

My New Website

After singing for six years, I finally got around to creating my own website. Everyone has one these days, so why shouldn't I? And hopefully it will bring in some new work! So go to nicole-kelley.com to view my schedule, read my bio, hear my demo, and see photos of me performing!

Monday, January 12, 2009

Confessions of a Former Blog-aholic

Bless me, gods of the Blogosphere, for I have sinned. I have strayed from my once-upon-a-time addiction of informing my faithful readers of the minutia of my daily life. And by now I have surely lost favor with those now-faithless readers.

The holidays were crazy. The dog ate my laptop. I was abducted by aliens for research.

But really, I've just been busy. And/or maybe somewhat uninspired.

But it's a new year. And so, in the spirit of new year's resolutions, I ask your forgiveness for my past transgressions. And I resolve to try harder to entertain you this year. I am determined to find the will to get back on the wagon. To get back into a regular habit of entertaining the blog-reading public. To try to fill my schedule with things interesting enough to write about. To try to find humor or life lessons in the seemingly insignificant happenings. To try to redeem myself to those readers (if there are any left) who have painstakingly endured my absence.

I have a new website. Which will hopefully (despite the economy) produce more singing work. Which will hopefully set the stage for some interesting stories to tell you.

I have a new-ish job. In the past, the workplace has served me well for material.

I plan to take a (real) vacation this year. That should at least produce some good photos, and hopefully some good stories to go with them.

We're trying to have a baby. Which, if successful, will undoubtedly produce (both in the resulting nine months of pregnancy, as well as the 18-ish years of parenthood that typically follow) enough fodder for more frequent posts.

Happy new year!

Twilight

OK. I know I'm probably the last person on the planet to discover the Twilight saga. But no matter. I still love it. And I'm still going to tell you about it.

I've always enjoyed reading. I'm not a particularly fast reader. But I enjoy books, even if it takes me a ridiculous amount of time to finish reading them. I had heard of these Twilight books, but they were for young adults. So I didn't bother. However, my husband having been a film/TV major back in college, we had to see the movie shortly after it came out around Thanksgiving.

Now I know what you're going to say. And now that I've read all four books (and seen the movie again after reading the first book, to see if it really IS better to read before watching), I agree with all you purists that the books are better and you should read them first. How could they not be, really? It's nearly impossible to pack 500+ pages of detail into a 90- to 120-minute film. Especially when so much of the book is the thoughts of the narrator/main character. But that's not to say I didn't enjoy the movie. In fact, that's what got me hooked.

I found myself spending my lunch hour the following Monday driving all over town to four different bookstores to obtain a complete set of hardbacks. And the next day I started reading. Every lunch hour. Every night before bed. Every day off. In record time (for me, at least) of three days, I had finished the first 500-page book. I thought it was just because I already knew the story that I was able to fly through the pages, but I found as I embarked on the 560-page journey of book two that I was reading even faster, sometimes staying up until 3AM, unable to put the book down. And book three (longer, at 630 pages) also flew by. Now (after a brief hiatus from reading because of the holidays) I'm 150 pages from the end of book four (a whopper, at 750+ pages), and I finally find myself slowing down. Not because I believe, as some others do, that book four isn't as good. But rather, because I'm sad to see the story end. I'm totally invested in these characters and this story, and so I'm dragging it out.
And as an added bonus, I've discovered some great new music from both the movie soundtrack and the bands thanked in the author's acknowledgements.

Anyway, if there is anyone left on Earth who HASN'T read it, you simply must. It's thrillingly intense, sexy, romantic, intelligent, and yet mostly age-appropriate. Don't let the 2500-page commitment deter you. It's easy reading, and so captivating that you'll fly through the chapters quicker than you ever thought possible.