My friends list is so slow these days that a lot of the time it just doesn't even occur to me to check it except every few days. :/

Anyway, this is really awesome...

This woman is fucking hilarious. I guess she does a lot of make-up tutorial vids (maybe I should watch some, I don't know shit about putting on make-up, lol) and in this one she randomly decided to bitch about Edward sucking.




In other news, it's the Goddamn Wolf Pack.

The Twilight Saga: New Moon Wolf Pack Featurette

Trailer Park | MySpace Video

I'm now trying to imagine if Catherine "I don't know how to say 'cut' or 'let's do another take'" Hardwicke had still directed this one and her trying to handle a movie with this much action and special effects and I just think .....HAHAHAHA.

The guy who's playing Paul is really damn yummy. Just sayin.

Everyday for the next week post the following things:
day one. a song.
day two. a picture.
day three. a book/ebook/fanfic
day four. a site
day five. a youtube clip
day six. a quote
day seven. whatever tickles your fancy

Around 3:30 a.m. a guy with a knife in his eye came in, led by Georgie.
"I hope you didn't do that to him," Nurse said.
"My wife did it," the man said. The blade was buried to the hilt in the outside corner of his left eye. It was a hunting knife kind of thing.
"Who brought you in?" Nurse said.
"Nobody. I just walked down. It's only three blocks," the man said.
Nurse peered at him. "We better get you lying down."
"Okay, I'm certainly ready for something like that," the man said.

jesus' son by denis johnson

Jesus' Son is a collection of short stories about an unnamed narrator everyone just calls Fuckhead. It's surreal and sometimes hilarious and the crazy imagery in it alone is enough to make it an entertaining read.

There's a decent indie movie adaptation with Billy Crudup (and Jack Black being incredibly funny in a small role), which works surprisingly well considering how little they change from a book that has so much of its strength in the narrative voice that you'd think it wouldn't translate well to film.

1. My freaking pets I tell you. They form evil plans together. The cat is smart enough to figure out how to open doors sometimes, so she ends up letting the dog into rooms where she's not supposed to be, like where I'm sleeping and don't particularly want her excitedly jumping all over me. And today was the second time I left my iPod somewhere I thought was safe and out of the dog's reach, and then Smokey knocked it off the table onto the floor and Casey completely chewed up the leather case. This time she actually did some damage to the iPod because I had to pry open the thingy where you hook up the chord a little so that I could still get it to connect to docks and stuff. At least my nano is the last model so you can now find cases for them for really cheap online. I was about to freak out when I thought she might have ruined the iPod, though.

2. Wow, Battlestar Galactica: The Plan is out, isn't it? ...I'm remarkably not on top of this considering it's me...

3. So Terminex came a few days ago to look over the house, and oh boy is it going to be fun getting rid of bedbugs. Among other things, this is going to involve storing all our clothes in tightly sealed bags in the garage for eighteen months. I have all this old stuff stored under my bed like notebooks with Star Wars stories in them that Layla and I wrote when we were kids, and they're saying anything that's been sitting in a place like that I'd be better off just throwing away. We don't even want to think about Dad's guitars which he takes all over the house. And it only further complicates things that Layla is always traveling to and from Wesleyan, which might be where one of us picked them up in the first place for all we know. It could cost almost $2,000 altogether to get this taken care of.

Sorry, I know this is disgusting to talk about, but seriously. Don't get them. Look over hotel rooms before you stay in them. These things are evil demons of hell. :(

4. Wow, I picked a hell of a time to get behind on Mad Men for a couple weeks. I finally watched the last two and now I'm like... O_O This shit got real.

I always watch the "Inside Mad Men" documentaries following each episode on the AMC site, and I was kind of confused that they didn't cover the great Peggy and Kinsey story in "The Color Blue" in the video at all. Usually they include some blurb of an interview about everything. Those scenes got so hilarious it's kind of strange to remember they happened in the same episode as some pretty intense stuff.

Okay, I'm not even going to pretend I'll be getting through this daily...

Everyday for the next week post the following things:
day one. a song.
day two. a picture.
day three. a book/ebook/fanfic
day four. a site
day five. a youtube clip
day six. a quote
day seven. whatever tickles your fancy





A cave of glow worms, which I forget sometimes actually exist. Sometimes insects aren't just disgusting.

Let's see if I can actually remember to do this all week...

Everyday for the next week post the following things:
day one. a song.
day two. a picture.
day three. a book/ebook/fanfic
day four. a site
day five. a youtube clip
day six. a quote
day seven. whatever tickles your fancy



Is there anything in the entire universe more lovely than Debussy's music?


Claude Debussy - Pagodes from Estampes

1. My God, the New Moon soundtrack is freaking fantastic. It's kind of surprising that they convinced artists like Death Cab For Cutie, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Grizzly Bear, Bon Iver, and Thom Yorke to do original songs for it, but HELL YEAH. A lot of these bands somehow seem just perfect for the tone of the book that's so different from Twilight. And it's kind of interesting that there's hardly any female vocalists on this one. :/ Nothing says "Jacob Black" like a song with some melancholy howling harmonica by a band with the word "motorcycle" in their name, haha...



The one track from the score by Alexandre Desplat I wasn't notably impressed with, though. I've been listening to some of Carter Burwell's score for Twilight and had forgotten how pretty it is. The cinematography in the first movie along with his music gave it a superficial but nonetheless captivating beauty, and I've been hoping Desplat will be able to do something for NM that is somehow cohesive with what Burwell was doing while still utilizing his own strengths. Since before the second movie was even underway, I've actually had a track from The Curious Case of Benjamin Button on my playlist of stuff I find fitting to listen to while writing Twilight fic, and I was excited to find out Desplat is doing this score. I just hope he'll pull out something more than a bunch of his typical piano themes like this track, because I'm kind of bored with him always doing the same thing by now.

2. And on that subject, no, I still haven't come to my senses and gotten over these books. LOL. Or this book in particular at least. I find I'm still very defensive of New Moon as the only one in the series that actually reaches a very poignant level of writing and shows some honest-to-God talent of Stephenie Meyer's that she was never able to access again when it really counted (though I've heard she did hit a lot of the right notes again while writing The Host).

It really leads me to think that the entire shallow premise of the series might be kind of below her more intelligent writing instincts, because there's probably just no way to write a story about a vampire and human living happily ever after just because in a way that is honest and resonant rather than just cheaply satisfying, but still there are parts in the series where it seems kind of conflicted about what kind of story it's actually supposed to be. The simple but deep friendship between Bella and Jacob that is the focus during a good half of New Moon feels ten times more romantic to me than her relationship with Edward despite how comparatively normal and unremarkable it is. Meyer doesn't make it a secret that she started writing these books as her own personal escapism, and it's too bad considering what she could possibly accomplish with any ambition to actually write about life. Which, by the way, you can do even in books about vampires and werewolves. Sigh.

Yeah, I know, let's beat the dead horse some more. But hey, it turns out SCOTTY WOULD AGREE WITH ME:



3. My mom is actually asking me to make something for her to serve at a reception after some recital she has tomorrow or something because she doesn't have any time to do it, LOL. So I guess I'll have my evening filled up today making some of these chocolate cream cheese ball things I like to do around Christmas. I need to come up with something better to call them.

4. I found my wig! Under a big pile of Layla's crap in our room. Good. Now I'm crossing my fingers that when my costume gets here it'll actually fit, because it was listed as "small" but then I read part of the description that claims it fits "size 4-10" so I'm like What the actual fuck and hoping I didn't get gypped into buying a one-size-really-doesn't-fit-all.

5. Sometimes it's really funny to me when writers/companies/networks show they're really in touch with the fanbases of their works. For example, when I hear the writers of Avatar: The Last Airbender not only talking in some episode commentaries about their awareness of the prevalence of Zuko/Katara shippers but even knowing to refer to them as "Zutarians" like they call themselves.

And as I've been poking around the official Skins website which has all kinds of awesome extra goodies like blogs and video diaries by the characters, I've been pretty amused to see their news blog say "Enter the Naomily vid contest." They're actually having an official contest for Naomi/Emily fanvids because they've found how popular videos like these are in fandom. The grand prize is a day of paid work in the Series 4 editing room getting to learn how they put episodes together. Maybe I'm wrong, but I'm not sure that all the kinds of people who make videos to music as their fannish hobby, even the ones who have an exceptionally good feel for it, are necessarily interested in the editing profession. It seems like lots of people may end up entering more because they're excited just by the idea of seeing some of the fourth season before any other fans. Maybe they're not that in touch with fans, heh.

6. I need to retract something I said to Shep the other night about how True Blood is just as bad as Twilight. Though I did admit he had a point when he argued at least TB doesn't take itself too seriously. Right after we had this conversation while I was at his house with Layla and Kitty we ended up watching some for the lulz. Then I came home and started going on to watching the next episodes for more lulz. And you know what, it actually gets quite good, in ways I never could have expected from something that starts out really entertaining but hard to take seriously. It's this weird and remarkable blend of campy, brilliant, awesomely trashy, and anti-pretentiously allegorical. There are both hilarious and sad moments dealing with hatred of vampires, racism, homophobia, or any combination out of the three at once. ("Mama, he's so white." "No, honey, we're white. He's dead.")



Bill Compton is not nearly as boring or as badly acted a character as I initially thought, though the actor who plays him is still obviously a moron. Anna Paquin just seems like one of those actors who can be very good but only when doing an isolated variety of things. She somehow showed the most potential when she was a child actor, just like I've always said about Kirsten Dunst. LOL. Watching this show only makes me more indecisive about whether I like her (now) or not.

It helped narrow down my options for what to be for Halloween this year when I figured I should find a second use for the black wig I got for the girls' drag party.

So I'm probably getting this to wear. I kind of have the perfect body type for 1920's clothes, LOL, so I don't know why I haven't gone as a flapper before. It usually seems like a boring idea because most flapper costumes all look the same even though they look really fun to wear, but I like how this one is kind of more...idk...authentic?

...Then I realized today I have no idea where that wig actually is now. Guess I'm finally doing some thorough cleaning in my room today. Heh.

1. Fuuuuck. We're pretty sure we have bedbugs in me and Layla's room. I've been reading the Wiki article about them and it sounds like to get rid of them I'll basically have to light my bed on fire five times and then not sleep in it again for at least a year. I think I'm going to have scars from scratching at bites so much. Gross. Fuck.

2. I had a pretty great time hanging out at Nerd's with Kitty and Chris on Thursday. We watched Pink Panther and Droopy cartoons and played Apples To Apples while drinking pineapple juice with vodka. Yummy.



Chris was making me feel sort of bad saying really sweet things like that if I were a dog I'd have to be a golden retriever because I'm a loyal friend. I guess it lets you know how much he's been fucked over if he thinks I'm especially dependable even though we don't see each other nearly enough. LOL. He somewhat recently broke up with his last girlfriend and I know that's why he wants to start spending a lot more time with me now. As my friend Chris is probably the closest thing to a soul mate I've ever known even though we've never been very close in any typical sense, but even though I did like him for a really long time once I can't seem to feel excited about it now. Through all the time we were always kind of drawn to each other but the time was just never really right for anything to happen, I always believed that eventually things would have to work out and we'd be together, but maybe it's weird how I never even asked myself then whether it was less important to me to always have him as a friend than to be with him. I hope the former can be enough for him because I really want to start hanging out with him a lot more too, like we've kept saying we should do for the last three years or something, but just not for the same reasons.

3. A few days ago we had a power outage that left our internet not working for some reason, and while I haven't been able to work on the Heroes essay I commited to have done for ship_manifesto weeks ago because of this I’ve been spending time watching the Skins episodes Chike burned for me. I only realized lately that he’s responsible for getting me into a whole lot of television I like, including Doctor Who and Mad Men, and with this added to the mix I think I’m officially indebted to him forever, haha. He was insistent about starting me on Series 3 (they bring in new characters for a mostly new cast after every two seasons so you can easily jump in at that point). Now that I’ve also seen the first two seasons I have to agree with him that they're also very good but the series really finds its feet by the time of the version 2.0 cast. The show’s whole “each episode following and exploring a different character” formula seems to accomodate the overall story better in Series 3 than before. Though the first two seasons are really rewarding to get through, they're a little slower and harder to get into, and I might never have been interested enough to get through the whole show if I'd started with it from the beginning.



Before I finished the first couple episodes of 3 I honestly found it a little shallow and almost obnoxious at first, even if it made me laugh a lot and had good music and a nice look to it and all. I couldn’t see much of a meaningful plot yet beyond “They’re crazy teenagers who dress hip” to balance out the somewhat over-the-top absurdity and really exaggerating portrayal of teenagers and their shocking activities that are way too filthy to see on something like Dawson’s Creek. But it soon becomes more than just funny and moves toward more poignant material with both style and substance. As another big difference from the closest thing to an American equivalent we have, the actors are all the actual ages that their characters are supposed to be, and yet they’re unbelievably good compared to probably most older actors I’ve seen playing high school kids in our teen dramas.

There are some hilarious situations involving the Johnny White character played by Mackenzie Crook from Pirates of the Caribbean, a crime boss who wants the money he's owed in time to catch Desperate Housewives in two days or else. Another highlight is the story of the growing relationship between closeted lesbians Naomi and Emily, not so much because of the romance itself (though they have some absolutely lovely scenes together) but for the interesting ways it affects Emily's relationship with her twin sister Katie, who acts extremely homophobic but more importantly feels threatened by her sister establishing any kind of individuality. I am not so proud to admit that in my relationship with my own twin sister I have been both Emily and Katie at different points and it wasn't pretty, LOL. Besides a certain tragedy in Series 2 that had me just about bawling, some moments of the "Katie and Emily" episode were the ones out of the entire show that somewhat surprisingly had the deepest effect on me. ( Read more... )

4. The job hunt is not going too well, unsurprisingly. Yay for the economy. I've been going to interviews only to find out places are only hiring for part-time positions. Not that I've even gotten any offers for part-time jobs yet, though at this point I'd probably take whatever I can get for now even though I'd hate to end up having to work two jobs. Bleh.

5. Shit, I need to figure out what I'm going to do for Halloween. There might be two different parties I'll be going to. I had a pretty brill idea last year to be Harley Quinn in her Arkham Asylum inmate outfit before I ran out of time to make such a thing, and I'm definitely feeling too lazy this year for something like that. My hair is so long I'm not even sure it can do her pigtails anyway, LOL.

Okay, so I finally caught a rerun of this at 3:30 AM today and clearly I was a loser for waiting on an episode this epic because WHAT THE FUCK I MEAN I CAN'T EVEN. WHAT.






I thought I was going to wake up the whole house laughing so hard, and then quickly lapsed into some unexpected squeeing at the subtle little Pete/Peggy moment when I didn't even know that ship could provoke such a reaction in me because I only recently even started to see the appeal (yeah, now that they're over). LOL.

Two creatures with long snouts and big bat-like ears clinging the same something-or-other like they're both eating from it on opposite sides.

1. This past month has officially been a fucking terrible time for my friends. God. :(

2. Today is a special day because the Battlestar Galactica season 4 soundtrack is now in my life. I haven't even bought the DVD set which also came out today yet, I just needed the soundtrack immediately, haha.

Even though it's a 2-disc set I was sure there would be something left out that I would want to make the cut, but I'm pretty surprised how perfect a representation of all the music from the last season it is. I'm especially glad that every piano composition from "Someone To Watch Over Me" made the cut (holy frak, they're incredible), plus Cally's theme from "The Ties That Bind" which I had completely forgotten about and quite enough of the awesome action music from "The Oath"/"Blood On the Scales" to satisfy my love for Bear's use of Asian instruments. I can think of some things I wish had been included, but of course there's always the set of additional material from the whole series which is still supposed to be released.

3. I've spent the last week or so doing absolutely nothing but job applications and reading and writing shit and I'm ready to get out of the damn house, LOL. I may or may not be working on a fic for st_xi_kink (*shifty eyes*...whatever, I'll probably de-anon when I post the last part anyway) and of course it was supposed to be something short and easy...Yeah right. A week later I'm still somewhat struggling with it and taking it way too seriously.

4. A couple days ago I hung out with Chike and we watched some Mad Men as well as the first episode of Ten Things I Hate About You just because he had it downloaded and I was too curious. Of course it was like watching a car wreck. I honestly expected it might actually be a little better than this, but oh lord. And it's all too obvious that they're trying really hard to turn Patrick into Edward Cullen ("I follow you everywhere because I find you ~interesting~ just like I'm so ~interesting~ and mysterious oooooh") and that's a goddamn abomination. Yes, I'm being a purist about a cheesy chick flick. That's the movie of my dumbass youth, yo. And Heath Ledger touched it so therefore it's kind of holy.

5. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince was pretty good. Nothing to write a long and emotionally charged blog essay about, but good. HBP is possibly my least favorite of the books and I thought some parts of the story were actually improved on a little. It's weird to realize how long ago the last book came out and it was nice to return to Harry again for a while.

Awwwwwwwnfdnfdjknfjkdsnfkdjksdgfgmrm.



BTW, I love how I still haven't watched much of Torchwood but have had pretty much everything that just happened spoiled for me by people's "spoiler free" reactions. It's not that hard to catch onto things when all of the big slash shippers on my friends list are collectively pissed off. If I had any shame about my fandom involvement I would be questioning now whether I want to ever be associated with the same kind of fans who have apparently been sending Russel T. Davis death threats. But alas, I'm actually even more interested in the show now that I know it can get really dark and sad.

Holy crap, now I'm excited. O_O

1. I'm getting so lazy about staying caught up with LJ, but now it seems whenever I finally go through my f-list on this journal it's been really slow anyway. It's like a whole bunch of people have suddenly de-friended me without me noticing/gone on a spirit walk/dropped off the face of the earth. :/

2. Chike and I had planned to go see the new Transformers together, which to be honest I was mostly looking forward to because I wanted to see the Last Airbender trailer, hehe. But after hearing how God-awful it is we decided to do Up instead. Probably one of the best decisions of my life. I didn't quite cry like I heard practically everyone did, but I got pretty close. And speaking of Avatar, between that and Pixar movies it's starting to seem like a lot of the best creative minds out there are being used for children's/family entertainment these days.

3. Ever since I finished watching all of Heroes lately, I have never felt so indecisively torn between fandoms before in my life. I want to write epic Kirk & Spock buddy fic. I also want to write pseudo-darkfic about Peter, Claire, and Sylar all living to be like six hundred years old and being some of the only ones still alive after the apocalypse. Usually when I'm into something I get so into it I don't really have the attention to spare for anything else for the time being, but I'm totally confused right now. LOL.

I'm also busy reading through all the nominations for the sortofbeautiful Jacob/Bella fic awards to properly and fairly familiarize myself with everything before voting (though I'm not going to vote in the "Best Jacob Characterization" category since I'm nominated in it :P), and it's making me remember Oh yeah, there's also those five or so works-in-progress in this fandom I haven't worked on in forever... FML.

4. Besides embarking on my epic mission of cleaning/re-organizating/decorating my room, I'm having a properly uneventful and unoccupied summer. Nerd and Jordon have been hanging out at his parents' really big and nice house while they're in Hawaii, and Kitty and Layla and I have been going over to swim. The other day we ate watermelon in the pool and then made cookies and enjoyed them with girly Smirnoff drinks while watching Miyazaki anime with a classic rock radio station as the soundtrack because we couldn't figure out how to make the audio from the DVD player work. And at other times I've been mixing myself Shirley Temples and sitting out in my back yard reading Star Trek novels. Unemployment and uselessness FTW!

5. Seeing this old commercial just made me kind of sad for some reason. Everybody still alive and being so cute.

Also, this is a very good catch: