talkingsoup: (umbrella unnecessary)
I don't know how bad it is, but they wouldn't tell me anyway, so there's no point in asking. I'll just assume that it ain't good and act accordingly.

/cryptic


My Methods class is officially back in CNS now that the ceilings are repaired (I didn't see any damage). It's kind of a shame, even though Smiddy is grungy and far away. I no longer get to walk past Steve Zissou's head on my way to class (people have been doing those spray paint stencil faces all over campus. There's a Mr. Rogers near Park).

Also, I know I haven't mentioned this before, but Julie, Amanda and I are going with Tammy et. al. to Boskone, which'll go from Friday to Monday...ish. In any case, I'll be off campus for those four days. I'm quite excited because, well, it's a con, and Amanda is pretty much flipping out that she gets to travel with Tamora Pierce. Unfortunately I think this means that we'll end up missing ASIC this Thursday, since we'll have left by then. Guess I'll just have to download, muah-ha.

Oh, Boston.

I was up till 6 AM Saturday night and then about 4 AM last night writing for Motley Crew and XOMFG I think I'm ACTUALLY GOING TO FINISH IT. And, like, soon. Dear god, what am I going to do then?

My plan for now is to shift my focus back to the Pentagram rewrite since it's the one I want to step into the world of professional writing with. But I think I'm also going to start work on North, as well as the next installment of Motley Crew, since it's the only thing right now that I have solid ideas for.

The Mot I have right now was originally supposed to be only one book--the first in a trilogy--but you've heard me bitch and moan these past months about how massive the whole thing has become. Pretty much now we're looking at an EPIC serial. This book is probably going to be divided into two, if not three. I'm going to try and show restraint for the "next two books," though I'll probably fail as epiclly as I have this time around in that regard. In reality there isn't as much planned for the next two. The trilogy (remember it's now a series) was supposed to go kind of like this--book one presents a problem, book two elaborates on it, and book three resolves it. Kind of like a really, really, really big story arc.

The elaboration and resolution shouldn't take as much time (or space) simply because it pretty much consists of "everyone goes off and gets shit done, then there's a huge fucking fight scene."

Every epic should end (or almost end) with a huge fucking fight scene, methinks.

Well, we'll see how it goes. Much as I love my boys and girls of Mot, North and her buds have been calling out to me for the past year, and after taking that year to polish the world and certain parts of the plot to sparkling, I think it's high time I started work on it. But editing of Pentagram comes first. I don't intend to even start edits for Mot until this summer. My general policy after finishing something is to give it a thorough once-over and pick at it a little, but that will be it.

In other news, Julie and I are going to look at off-campus apartments today like REAL ADULTS. Oh god. The plan is to stay in Ithaca over the summer and find a place in town to live. I've got my sights set on a job on the Commons. Living off campus is apparently cheaper than living here, and also we get to have kitties.

After twenty-one years of wanting a cat, I can finally have one. No way I'm letting this opportunity pass by.
talkingsoup: (fantastic!)
...but I did end up seeing "Time Crash" which is the best fucking episode of Doctor Who ever, even if it is 8 minutes long.

...celery.

Just got back from the Trio's where we spent the past few hours playing Telephone Pictonary. I think I actually lost weight from laughing so much.
talkingsoup: (naruto)
I've fallen in love with a strange indie band known as MGMT. Y'all should check them out. Retro and awesome, and I feel like I've heard them somewhere before.

Also...

Minor spoilers for those who haven't seen all three seasons of Doctor Who )

And a substantially bigger Naruto-shaped spoiler )

Behold!

Feb. 8th, 2008 11:27 am
talkingsoup: (axel- too hot to handle)
My two favorite YouTube videos right now.





400 BABIES!!
talkingsoup: (the doctor will see you now)
Tales of the Abyss has pretty much slayed Julie and I. It started out as this campy and kind of whatev game. Then it started getting all political and the storyline got a shitload more complex. And now it's become this emotionally-charged, super-complicated game full of questionable ethics and moral dilemmas and oh-my-God-awesomeness. I never expected it to get so intense. And I like the main character a lot more now.

The RP has likewise gotten crazy-intense and awesome.

Also, finally managed to read Tammy's "Terrier," since we had it for ARF (my independent study, in which we read sci-fi/fantasy all. the. time). It's definitely my favorite of Tammy's books (though I think I still like the Emelan world better). Beka is awesome. The language is awesome (I still find myself thinking in the slang). It was somewhat trying since I ended up staying up till 4:30 to finish it. But it was so worth it. Brilliant on all accounts.

CNS has apparently been repaired, maybe? ASIC is back there, though there's been no word about my classes.

Also, Mot is going swimmingly.

More TotA now, kthxbye.
talkingsoup: (far reach - you were saying?)
So I've been having my first ever classes in Smiddy Hall lately, Smiddy being the most damn-fuck furthest building from Gardens as you could like, except for Cerrache. And who knew Smiddy was the business school? I'd never been in there before. Why am I in there now? Well, because the ceilings above at least two classrooms in CNS--one of them being my classroom--collapsed. No one knows why. Even ASIC got kicked out of the building, though now we have the freaking conference hall in Williams. So it's a win-win, I suppose.

Tales of the Abyss proves to be awesome. At first it was just kind of fun times and equally fun to make fun of, particularly because Luke is such an ass, but now it's full of political stuff and awesome cut-scenes and mindfuck, all of which add up to equal much win and awesome.

Unfortunately I'm also bogged down with Phoenix Wright (finally have all 3 of them), FFXII or whatever the hell it is (Revenant Wings), and I just bought Zelda: Phantom Hourglass because I'm insane. Plus I've never really played a Zelda game, at least not all the way through (I seem to recall fucking around with, um, one of the earlier ones and Twilight Princess, but that's it. We never had any Nintendo stations). Not that I mind it, though it cuts in on the homework time and it's already looking like I'm screwed this semester. *sigh*

The RP continues to be brilliant. It's definitely making me hate crossovers less.

Went to Tammy's house this weekend, got no homework done but had a brilliant time. Saw "Mirrormask", which is a combination of Wizard of Oz, Alice in Wonderland, Monkeybone, and Tommy. Beautiful, but I had no idea what was going on. The main actress was really good though.

Motley Crew is, at long last, rolling toward its final end. It's all downhill skiing from here, I should think, unless I run into unexpected roadblocks. At the very least, it's going to be fun. Epic battles and all.

WHUT

Jan. 29th, 2008 08:35 pm
talkingsoup: (the doctor will see you now)
Finished the third season. Now trying to get a hold of "Voyage of the Damned" and "Time Crash," since apparently we must see them.

So, uh, SPOILERZ )
talkingsoup: (: ])
Ahahahaha I just made my first major post to the RP and who the fuck knows whether I'm really channeling Hei or not, but it's been fun. I was insanely nervous at first, but it's gotten easier and a lot of awesome.

But oh man, what the hell am I getting myself into?
talkingsoup: (awakening)
So, this semester is already killing me because I have an ENORMOUS amount of reading for every class, not to mention our independent study with Jules, Amanda, and the lot of them which consists of reading about a book a week. Which is all good and fine, I just wish the rest of my classes weren't pretty much doing the same thing. Hard stuff, too.

Went to the Neko Case concert last night--abso-fucking-lutely brilliant. Like, literally, she sings so well that you could be listening to a CD, except more awesome. She's also really casual and confident--there were some idiots in the audience, but she totally just rolled with it. There was even a dog on stage! She's really cute and funny, too. You could tell she and the band were having a good time just playing music.

She played all the songs I wanted to hear, too! All the best, plus some brand new ones. God I can't wait for her next CD. It's so unfortunate that she's not very well known--but then I suppose that keeps her off the corporate radar.

Cara Coville, Tammy and Julie's friend came with us too since she's a big fan, and afterwards we went driving around looking for open liquor stores (none. Hate you, NY alcohol laws). We ended up just going to Wegmans and I bought my first thing of alcohol, some fruity German thing, while Julie got that flavored Smirinoff stuff. Felt really good to flash my card for the first time. Then spent the rest of the night showing Cara various anime, including Darker than BLACK and Ouran. She enjoyed it all.

Unfortunately now it turns out that Kate has a serious aversion to alcohol--we're talking phobic here--so we're going to have to rethink our in-house policies on alcohol, but I don't really mind. We can either keep it hidden in our room, or I'm sure Amanda et. al. would be happy to hold onto it for us. I'm pretty sure we also agreed with Kate back in Sophomore year that we wouldn't actually keep alcohol in the apartment. Anyway, no one wants to drink alone, right? We usually only drink when we're with the girls anyway.

Made it up to the "Blink" episode on Doctor Who, which, yes, is the fucking best one ever. But I'm kind of disappointed that they're only giving three episodes to the Master. This is the guy who was the Doctor's singlemost nemesis for, like, the entire series, and they only give him 3 episodes? Especially now that I know his backstory, to some degree--it's just wrong, man.

Not much else of note has happened, except I've decided to go ahead with the RP--as if I don't have enough going on this semester--as Hei from Darker than BLACK. You can look me up at [livejournal.com profile] contract_star if you want. And anyone who's interested should check out the RP itself, because Sephiroth just arrived, and seeing him interact with the Master, and of course with Cloud, is quite entertaining.

Right, my schedule:

Poetics: 11-12, MWF

Research Methods: 1-2, MWF

World Civ II: 10:50-12:05, TR

Global Sociology: 2:35-3:50, TR

Simulating Social Processes: 4-6:40, T

Alternative Reality Fiction--ARF for short: 12:10-1, T (this is our independent study).


Should be fun, but hectic.
talkingsoup: (fantastic!)
So yesterday was Julie's birthday, which conveniently fell on the same day that Cloverfield came out, so of course we went to see it.

It waaaaaaas pretty much the most intense movie I've ever seen.

Roar! Overture. SPOILERS INCLUDED )

We wandered around the mall after that. I went to Best Buy and bought Amelie, Hairspray and Little Miss Sunshine with my gift card, then Kate, Molly and I went to dinner at a Japanese place, while Julie went off with Michelle. Back at the apartment Sharona came over, Michelle brought cake and we all watched Ratatouille, which is adorable and brilliant, and probably one of the best Pixar movies, up there with Finding Nemo.

I actually woke up that morning really early because I couldn't sleep the night before, so I spent the better part of the morning watching Cardcaptor Sakura. Yes, that's right. I've never seen it before, and from what I have seen I can say it's adorable and actually really kind of nice. I've pretty much avoided CLAMP, except for the movie X which didn't exactly give me a good opinion of them--but Cardcaptor Sakura isn't too bad. It's cute without being disgustingly sugary. At the same time I'm hoping that something serious happens at some point or another, to give it a bit more...importance, I guess.

Anyway, today I managed to sleep well so I got up at a more reasonable hour (read: 3). Kate and Molly cooked dinner, Julie went off to "do stuff" (lol) and I hung out. Pat came around to give me the first two Phoenix Wrights and Sweeney Todd in concert. Kate made an awesome cake. Michelle and Sharona came over again for dinner and then we all watched Return of the King and made fun of Legolas and his "I burned the brownies!" face.

No drinking involved, but that's all good.

So anyway, I'm 21. Doesn't feel much different. *shrug*

Very happy though. I got Tales of the Abyss and a Scrabble set :D
talkingsoup: (homecoming)
It's about 4:30 and I have a plane to catch in about 4 hours, which means I need to wake up in about one so we can leave in two. Whhhyyy did I stay up this late?

Yes, I'm heading back to Ithaca about a week early, mostly because I want the time away from my family to write. Something I've done ALMOST NONE OF for this entire break, and for someone who was talking about finishing Motley Crew by the end of the year, that's simply unacceptable. Of course this always happens--as soon as I have some free time, I get writer's block, or get sick, or have real-life shit to deal with.

I did do some writing tonight, mostly world-building stuff. I decided that all the stuff for North has been kicking around in my head for long enough, and deserved to finally be on paper where I can sort through it all.

Did I mention that another new idea has sprouted? No? Let's just say it's based in a country that's like a cross between 1800's Japan and present-day Haiti (in terms of culture, mostly), involves gods, and involves a guy who works as the muscle at a brothel (he throws the johns out when they get drunk and start making a fuss). As well as a female samurai-type and poor old Naioh, my blind character who has officially made about ten moves from project to project. :3

I'm going to write it entirely in fangirl Japanese.

No, I'm kidding. I think Crow (main character, brothel guy) wouldn't know what to do if anyone screamed "KAWAII-DESU~!!!1!11!one!" at him.

Though I must admit that he certainly is kawaii-desu~ *is shot*

Still considering that RP. It's an absolute blast to watch, particularly when seeing The Master being called a poof by another character who has no clue who he's talking to. Lol, I might not have met him yet, but I at least get the sense that The Master would eat you for talking that way to him.

Now I really do have to go get in that hour of sleep before leaving. Agh. At least I'll be seeing Julie half way. We wrangled it so that the both of us will be on the same plane out of Detroit.

See you all back in Ithaca.
talkingsoup: (a circle of children)
First of all, PAT THANK YOU for surfthechannel because it's a lifesaver, even if a lot of the links are down right now. I'm actually kinda sorta starting to get caught up on Bleach because I was bored out of my mind the other day. At least now I know who the hell Grimmjow and Ulquiorra are (though skipping ahead through the filler arc has left me going "who the fuck is this" every time one of those other guys shows up. Seriously, who the hell are they, and what are the "Bount" they keep mentioning? Why are they keeping filler characters around anyway??)

Also, after half a year of waiting for it to come out on DVD so I could finally watch it, I managed to see "The Lives of Others," which is a damn-fuck brilliant movie. Definitely a keeper. I think I need to buy it.

It's won some awards, and deservedly so. It's a love story. It's about East Germany in the 80's, a few years before the wall fell, when no one was allowed to lead private lives and the Stasi--the secret police--had files on everyone. When a government official sets his sight on a beautiful actress, who happens to be going out with a pro-Socialist writer, the official orders the Stasi to wiretap and bug the writer's home and find some dirt on him, to get him out of the way. The man in charge of watching the writer Georg and the actress Christa is a cold-iron Stasi type who always does his job perfectly--until he starts to watch Georg and Christa's story unfold.

It's not your average love story, since it's not about a man and a woman (or man and man, woman and woman, what have you) falling in love with each other. It's about a man falling in love with the lives of two complete strangers. The movie is simply expert. The subtlety. The beauty. The acting, the setting, the way the plot unfolds. The ending. It's all absolutely incredible. Makes me wish I knew more German. Makes me appreciate more the fact that I was allowed to walk around in former East Germany at all, and how life was lived there only a few years before I was born.

Absolutely 100% wonderful.

Score: 10 out of 10 (!)

Also, I'm thinking of joining an online LJ RP. Only I've never been in an RP before. I have no idea what it really entails. Plus it's another big commitment along with my writing and along with school. I mean, it would take up a relatively substantial part of my day, and for what? For fun? Can I really do something like that, in the midst of the more important, Real Life things I've got going on? And can I do it, I mean, channel a character like that?

I just don't know. But I'm thinking about it. I'd play either Haraken from Dennou Coil or Hei from Darker than BLACK (leaning toward Hei right now).

It's a really interesting concept, the RP, and it's fun if only to watch the interactions between characters unfolding right now. It only opened a few days ago. It's [livejournal.com profile] realityshifted and it's open to everyone and all characters right now. And I do mean all characters, if I go by what the mods have told me. They have people from Doctor Who, Life on Mars, D. Gray-Man, Air Gear, Dennou Coil and so on over there already, but the taken list is pretty short at this point. So...if anyone else is interested, go check it out (like I said, it's worth it if only to watch).

And someone either talk me into this, or out of it ^_^

A Shift In Reality )
talkingsoup: (another place another time)
Finished. Best anime ever, after Darker than BLACK.

*cries again*
talkingsoup: (gaara)
Sooooo Dennou Coil is probably one of the best and creepiest animes I've ever seen. For such a cute show, it's creepy as hell. I think because they handle the tension incredibly well...better than I've ever seen it handled in an anime. It's a very slow and methodical build-up, to the point that here I am, about six episodes from the end, and I literally would have finished it this morning (I was up till 6) if I'd had them all downloaded.

Absolutely brilliant. If you can get past the "holy hell what's going on?" of the first episode, it's totally wonderful, and slowly goes from cute, funny, and slice-of-lifey, to cute, funny and really quite terrifying. Like all other animes of its type, it throws you into its alternate world without letting you get your toes wet first. Nothing is ever really explained in terms of why the world is the way it is, but you come to understand it all anyway.

And y'all need to see it if only for episode 12. I think I lost weight from laughing so much.
talkingsoup: (shigure likes his caffeine)
Well firstoff, I managed to recover my iPod. The stuff that had disappeared before...well, there's nothing I can do about that, though I did figure out that a lot of it was anime music. The rest I guess I'll just have to make do without. What can you do?

In other news, I have a bunch of reviews. Movies and anime.

I finally got around to watching Ergo Proxy, and now I'm sorry I put it off. I liked it so much I ended up watching the whole show in about three days. I remember we watched the first two episodes of this...I dunno, a year or two ago in ASIC. I liked it enough then that I downloaded the whole show, but didn't find the time to watch it--till now.

Anyway, it's sort of like...Eva, Paranoia Agent and Ghost in the Shell all mixed together. It's dark, psychological, mysterious and awesome. I'm still not entirely sure what the hell all happened in that show. There are several episodes that seem completely out of line with the rest of the show until you get to the end of the episode and realize how significant it was.

The show is a future post-apocalyptic show about a domed city, in which police officer-type Real Mayar and her android (called an Autorave) partner are investigating an infection among Autoraves that seems to give them emotions. It's called the Cogito virus. Along the way she encounters a monster that is neither human nor Autorave, and in the course of her investigation she meets an immigrant named Vincent Law who seems to be connected to the monster. The mystery of the monster, called a Proxy, draws Real, Vincent, and a childlike infected Autorave called Pino outside the domed city into the post-apocalyptic wasteland beyond.

For one thing, the animation is quite brilliant, and the character designs are unique and awesome. The characters themselves are pretty cool--Vincent is adorable and genuinely nice, Real is a selfish bitch who kicks ass and turns out to be awesome too, and Pino is just plain cute--and not in the annoying way that the typical child sidekick is. Also the storyline is pretty unique, and provides an interesting new spin on the post-apocalyptic genre.

The show is brilliant if only for all the allusions. Every episode has some sort of cultural reference in it--everything from art to philosophy to mythology to linguistics. Even the title is an allusion, in more ways than one. "Ergo" means "therefore" in Latin, and a proxy is a representative or emissary of something else. So, Ergo Proxy="therefore emissary." Which doesn't make much sense until the end of the show. But also, if you think of the title in conjunction with the virus infecting the Autoraves, Cogito, then you get "Cogito ergo sum," the famous saying by Descartes meaning "I think, therefore I am."

Heh, it all makes sense eventually.

It's confusing as hell, like I said, which only gets minorly annoying, but then I suppose that depends on your comfort level with that type of thing. It's definitely not the kind of anime you can just jump into in the middle, and it probably needs to be watched twice. But overall it's really, really good, and I'm a bit confused as to why it's not talked about much in the places you'd expect it to be.

The other night I decided to go see Juno, and when that was over I decided to be bad--Sweeney Todd was playing two theaters down, so I managed to slip in just as it was starting. Lol, I figure my eleven bucks for a movie might as well go all the way.

Anyway, Juno turns out to be as wonderful as everyone is saying it is. Juno herself is probably the most believable teenager to ever grace the big screen--ever--and I've fallen completely in love with the actress, Ellen Page. The other people in the movie were just as awesome, especially the couple that Juno is going to give her baby to, Mark and Vanessa. Every character in the movie is completely human and three dimensional, and your opinion of each character changes a little over the course of the movie. It reminded me a lot of Garden State--quirky suburban people caught up in the odd sort of real situations that crop up in real life. Plus a totally weird and awesome soundtrack.

I was also really impressed with the way they handled the issue of teenage pregnancy. It can get so damn melodramatic or boring or preachy or gimmicky or lame. But they did it absolutely perfectly. Juno doesn't freak out when she finds out she's pregnant, nor does she act like she's going to be one of those people who will leave her baby in a dumpster. But at the same time, it's not treated like this is just a plot point--you can tell through body language and through brilliant acting that this is a big deal, but that Juno's just not the kind of girl who will freak out about it. The movie isn't preachy or melodramatic in the least. They handle the issue exactly as the issue should be handled--honestly and realistically.

I love the parents reaction, too. Wonderful. And the movie itself is hilarious with lines like, "You should've gone to China, you know, 'cause I hear they give away babies like free iPods. You know, they pretty much just put them in those t-shirt guns and shoot them out at sporting events." And the one about the fountain and the Kraken, though I can't find that one.

Loved it. Deserves Oscars. Will buy it.

Score: 9.5 out of 10

The Sweeney Todd I snuck into turned out to be for the hearing impaired which kind of put a damper on the whole thing, but it was worth the $0 I spent on it. I did like it a lot--I was a bit worried because people have been screaming and yelling about this movie and not usually in a good way, plus I haven't read the book or seen the play. Though I intend to see the play next chance I get. I guess people are saying that it wasn't at all like the play and that the play was better, which is usually the case when you have plays get adapted for the big screen. But, oh well. I suppose that left me free to judge it as a movie and not to compare it to anything.

Anyway, it was hilarious. Probably the best dark comedy I've seen in, well, forever. Absolutely pitch black humor, as can be expected of Tim Burton, and of the original material (I have seen clips of the plays so I have a sense). The only reason I didn't laugh more is because there were two other people in the theater and I felt like a bit of a freak for laughing every time someone had their throat slit. Not that it's something to laugh at, but they seriously went out of their way to make the blood look totally fake. Hooray for red corn syrup! The song "A Little Priest" almost made me wet myself, especially the line about poets.

The movie had Tim Burton's classic "foggy dark overcast death doom destruction" feel to it, which I always like, and the characters were pretty brilliant, as was the acting. Johnny can actually sing, though as Molly pointed out, he's certainly not a baritone. I loved Mrs. Lovett's cavalier attitude with things like murder, cannibalism, and child abuse.

And Alan Rickman? Oh my god. You could not have found a more perfect actor. He was the most pervy, creepy guy I've seen on screen in awhile who wasn't in a super-serious role. Absolutely brilliant. "You gandered at my ward, did you not?" Fuck yeah.

The only real problem I had with the movie was that Johnny Depp seems to think that all Londoners sound like Jack Sparrow. Though fortunately he managed to keep the Sparrow voice to a minimum, but still. Come on now. There are more accents in Britain than just the London one, and even London has multiple accents (though don't ask me to try and differentiate).

A totally awesome, hilarious and campy dark comedy, and brilliant as the movie itself, though I couldn't say how it rates next to the play. Still, taken on its own, I thought it was great and loved it.

Nice to not pay for it, too.

Score: 8 out of 10

Last but not least, I finally managed to see Hot Fuzz. I never did see Shaun of the Dead so I can't compare it, but I loved it. The editing was abso-fucking-lutely perfect. Not in that awesome way you see in the really wonderful movies, but the editing was perfect for the movie it was for, which was a parody. The editing consisted entirely of quick cuts and dramatic shots which is pretty much the equivalent of shooting you in the face with "I am an action movie!"

Have I ever mentioned that I love British humor? And this movie was no exception. It was hilarious. The gore was totally over-the-top, as were the fight scenes (though funnily enough the acting wasn't, lol). You can tell the actors had fun with this. Especially with the gay subtext they had going on, hahaha.

The climax is too awesome for words. Nicholas Angel (main character) comes riding through the village with more weapons than it is humanly possible to character...riding a white horse. Yes. Too brilliant.

Not much else to say, really, except to reiterate that I loved it. To bits.

Score: 8 out of 10

Denno Coil--that anime I mentioned the other day--continues to be awesome. Also, I downloaded the first two episodes of Gundam 00 to find out what the fangirls are barking about, and I still can't figure it out. It's exactly the same as all the other Gundam shows. I wanted to laugh when one of the characters is watching one of the Gundams attack and looks at it through binoculars to find the name "Gundam" on it and is like "Gundam? What's that?" I'm pretty sure I yelled "haven't you ever watched anime?" at my computer. Puh-leeze. Anyway, my patience with the show was already thin at the end of the first episode, but when they revealed pretty much the exact same plot as the first series in this one, I was just bored. And I totally lost my patience when the Gundam boys went into "former Sri-Lanka" to stop the Tamil-Sinhalese ethnic war that had been "going on there for hundreds of years." As someone who actually knows a little bit about the struggle, seeing the anime treat the conflict like nothing more than a plot point was bad enough, but when they sent in the Gundams and had them slaughter both sides in one of the skirmishes, I lost my patience with the show (the whole point of the Gundams this time is to "end war." With more war. So you know that before long the characters are gonna be all "this is wrong!", end up thinking for themselves, leave the fray, find true love, yadda yadda).

Also, the fangirls are all melting over the characters, but I frankly don't see the appeal. They're completely lame and generic. You have the "angsty guy with the tortured past" the "maverick gunslinger" the "true-believer" and the "nerves-of-steel, silent killer." CLEE-SHAY. The women are completely superfluous, never mind that I find it hard to believe that one of those guys (the nerves of steel one) is male. There's simply no way. And they're really not that hot either.

In other news, Cloverfield is coming out soon, and a lot more info has cropped up. Y'alls need to check this out liek woah. Five videos of fake news footage about a oil rig belonging to a company called Tagruato, which is connected with Slusho!, being sucked under the water. All the evidence at this point is pointing to an underwater monster. Check it--it's badass:

French news

Spanish news

Italian news

German news

English news

The "on-site footage" used is the same for each, but each newscast gives a few tidbits of info that the others don't. And the footage is awesome enough. If you want to see some of the translations, check [livejournal.com profile] 011808. They have some extra info too.

My writing has come to a standstill, which usually happens during breaks, but what can you do? *sigh*

Nothing else to report, really.

...

Jan. 6th, 2008 12:45 am
talkingsoup: (i hate everyone)
Reason #436 why Steve Jobs and his Apple products should DIE IN A FIRE:

I was under the impression that selecting "sync only checked music" meant that...you know...it would upload the songs you want and leave the ones already on the iPod alone.

That's what I remember learning.

Nope.

I haven't been plugging in my iPod because my iTunes library got corrupted a month ago and lost a hundred or so songs--I don't know which, and until I fixed it I was going to leave the iPod alone. Since the iPod syncs as soon as you plug it in. But I figured that syncing only checked meant that I could upload this one...stupid...song...and the rest of the iPod would be intact.

Nope.

So I currently have...one...song on my iPod.

It took about 30 seconds to delete every single one without a trace.

And now it's going to take about 6 hours to upload the ones on my iTunes library.

Minus those hundred that are missing.

So pretty much, thanks to a really stupid move on my part, and the idiocy of the Apple people, I have been forced to do the exact thing I didn't want to do.

Excuse me while I go throw up.

Psst

Jan. 5th, 2008 01:21 am
talkingsoup: (mouse deer)
Hey. Anyone know if there's uber-speshul stuff I can do with programs or my computer to make it more difficult for government-types to know I'm downloading stuff? I've heard of Peerguardian, but they don't support Vista yet (I'm waiting on it). Anyone? I'm still a little paranoid after that e-mail from November.
talkingsoup: (fantastic!)
So we got a new dog. She's a German shepherd mix, 3 years old, very big and very loving. Her name is Shasta.

It's nice having a dog in the house again. She has her own crate in my parents room and there are dog toys strewn across the floor once again, as well as muddy pawprints on the hardwood. She has a lot to learn, and so do we, of course. She's a lot bigger than Shadow and a lot younger. Less boisterous than he was at her age, but his nose didn't reach the edge of our counters. She's also had some trouble with the whole "peeing outside" thing. But she's sweet and adorable and her ears are really soft so it's all okay. We're actually going to train her this time, unlike we did with Shadow.

She looks a lot like a German shepherd--same coloring and shape--but her head is boxier than a shepherd's and her ears do this curl-over thing that's really quite adorable. I almost wonder if she's got some pitbull in her, but who knows.

Ahh. She's a great dog so far. We've only had her a day.

In other news, California is drowning. It rained all day today, to the point that we needed sandbags because water was coming in the garage. Our yard is a lake, and out back where the broken sump pump is there's a veritable pond. It's supposed to continue like this for the next two days, I hear. The water's up to the edges of our house in some places. It's never gotten like this that I can remember, at least not while I was here. Now if only we had something like this during the fires. Maybe this is Nature's way of making up for it.

I've been relaxing for the most part. Chillaxing. Going to the gym. Making cookies. After a semester like the last one I think I deserve a few days to just hang. Gonna start work as soon as Blockbuster gets back to me (I'm going to call them tomorrow and find out what's going on). Watching Shasta is going to take work too. In the meantime I've been catching up on all my manga and have used up my Border's giftcard.

A new character has been introduced in Monster--Wolfgang Grimmer--and I think I love him. He's pretty damn awesome. It's such a shame that the anime sucks so much. It really could have been awesome. True, Monster doesn't have a lot of action in it, but they pulled it off with Death Note...there aren't enough awesome mystery animes out there. The Monster manga doesn't even compare to the anime; it's without a doubt my favorite manga right now. Even though Naruto is awesome. To tell the truth, Monster is the only manga I read that still really, really catches my interest. I've kind of fallen out of D. Gray Man and Fullmetal Alchemist, Fruits Basket, Bleach, Mushishi and Re:Play take way too long to come out, Black Cat I'm shaky with, and Naruto is brilliant but I've read it all before.

I love Monster. And Grimmer is seriously the shit. Probably my favorite Monster character, even though I still love Tenma (he's so cute now with his long hair and kicked-dog expression). And Johan remains one of the most frightening manga villains ever.

I finally found the Shippuuden OST and HAVE IT. XOMG. The music is SEX. Sex for the ears. Musicgasm.

Also, I've caught wind of an anime called Dennou Coil. I've seen the first episode and it looks pretty promising so far. It has a similar look to Haibane Renmei...I haven't researched enough to find out if it's the same people. It's similarly confusing too, but I'm hoping things might be explained. It's a cyberpunk sort of show--a world that seems to coexist with cyberspace, where there are pets and other things made out of data and people who wear special glasses that enable them to see those things.

The things I learn on [livejournal.com profile] fandomsecrets, lol. It's like my favorite internet place ever right now. It's so wanky and amazing and fun. It's also a great source to find out what shows/mangas/movies people in the fandom world are talking about. Certainly some of the fans are completely insane or slash-happy or shipwarriors, but usually if people are buzzing about something it's worth listening to. The community is how I found out about Gurren Lagann, Baccano!, Nodame Cantabile, Dennou Coil, Tales of the Abyss. Heh, it also taught me which things to avoid.

Check it out. It's pretty hilarious most of the time.

Also, apparently I'm one of the moderators over at [livejournal.com profile] ya_fsf_con. This one you definitely should check out. This is Julie and Tammy's brainchild--the idea is to establish a con that caters to YA fantasy, since there isn't one and since YA is sadly lacking at other literary cons. Also, while fantasy writers get looked down on by "literateur" writers, YA fantasy writers get looked down on by other fantasy writers who consider themselves "legit." What better than to have a place where we feel welcome, happy and safe to talk about the stuff we like? I'm doing what I can to help them make this happen, but so far I've had trouble putting on my mod-hat. I'm in charge of leading the search for grants, since this little adventure is going to take a lot of money. Right now, federal grants aren't looking to good, but I'll keep searching--but I think we're going to have to look at foundational grants, which is good since they tend to award money more often.

There are a lot of people out there with more skill than me, though. I probably won't end up writing the grant or even doing most of the fund-hunting. It looks like there's already a lot of people who know what they're doing more than me. *shrug* I guess I just feel overshadowed, but I can't let that get to me. I am a moderator, after all, plus I'm part of this.

I'm going back to Ithaca on the 15th--not on a red-eye this time, thank God! Lol, I'm also going to end up with Julie on the flight from Detroit into Syracuse. My dad and his travel-finaggling abilities.
talkingsoup: (leonidas wants you...to dine in hell)
The anime "Karas" is the most pulse-pounding, intense anime I've ever seen. No other anime has so literally had me on the edge of my seat. I'm amazed more people don't know about it or haven't seen it, because it's brilliant. Maybe not for the storyline--don't get me wrong, it's an awesome and complex storyline, but it's nothing particularly new--but definitely for the action, the animation, the characters and the music.

Like, literally? They animate every possible second of the fight scenes. Sure, some of it is CGI and I know some people have an issue with that (I don't as long as it looks like it belongs in the show--if it's glaringly obvious that it's CGI then I don't bother), but it's just so damn beautiful. They spent a fortune on this thing. None of this "long pause for the opponents to stare at each other and the wind to blow." Once the fight starts, you see every second of it, and there are no pauses until it's over.

Think Lee vs. Gaara + Naruto vs. Sasuke + Kenshin vs. Saito + Ishida vs. Mayuri + Ed vs. Greed + Asuka vs. all the pseudo-Evas + Tetsuo vs. Kaneda (and I can't think of anymore right now) then times by animation and divide by cookie and you get the fight scenes (all of them) in Karas.

I also finally managed to see the second half. The first half is good and fine, though the ending was so abrupt it felt like it had ended in the middle (and it did). The second half, "The Revelation" reveals backstory for everyone and answers a lot of the questions raised in the first half. The first half bears watching twice since the storyline is so complex and hard to understand. The second half is explanation, but not in the "as you know, Bob" kind of way, but in the badass "I reveal my past by killing a bunch of people without speaking" kind of way. It's also extraordinarily bloody (they pull no punches) and violent and the entire thing is one fight to another. Otoha and Nue continue to be awesome.

Oh, and I love Amefuriko. The little snail guy.

The only issue I have with the show (OVA?) is that they don't give you the names for almost half the people. When names are mentioned, it's so rare that it's easy to forget who's who, but then it doesn't matter since everyone is so recognizable. I imagine it would be difficult to talk about in conversation is the problem--"That Karas was so cool." "Wait, which one?"

Absolutely brilliant. I'm so glad I bought it.

Also, the most recent Naruto episode? Made me realize just how terrifying and destructive the Kyuubi really is.
talkingsoup: (sasuke lost)
...

...

I don't think he really did it. It's too easy.

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