Talking Soup

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.

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 )

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.

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 )

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 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.

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.

Finished. Best anime ever, after Darker than BLACK.

*cries again*

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 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.

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.