wonderful

plasticpepper @ 2011-06-27T23:24:00

2011-06-28T03:24:33Z

ngl, I giggled when I looked at the trending topics on Twitter and saw this:

BONNAROOOO!

2011-06-25T01:38:17Z

I suppose I should write a Bonnaroo entry, eh?

So, Bonnaroo was pretty awesome as always. Ed and I drove down on Wednesday (the 8th) which was great because I love road trips. We met up with Christine and her group in Georgia and drove in together so we could all camp together. We ended up setting up our EZ-Up right up next to Christine's so we could make one giant campsite, so we were with Christine, her brother Nick, sister Katie, and a friend of Katie's named Jamie. And then we had four other people camped nearby but in separate campsites. So it was really cool getting to camp with Christine and having such a big happy campsite. And we had a totally AWESOME campsite too. We were camped in Dr. Peter Venkman, out in Pod 9, which I know doesn't mean anything to anyone who might read this, but whatever, I wanted to note that for my own purposes. Basically that's pretty far away, but could totally have been farther. So not bad.

It barely rained at all this year, so the heat and the dust were pretty rough. I guess the dust wasn't quite as bad as 2007, but if anything I think it might have bothered me more than it did then. And the heat I guess wasn't even as bad as last year, but I think the heat bothered me more too. I don't know, it was kinda weird. There were multiple occasions where we had to leave or skip a certain show because there wasn't anywhere we could get out of the sun and I just could not stand in the sun any longer.

I'm not sure how well I can list all the shows that we saw, but I'll give it my best shot. Definitely only saw parts of some of these though. Let's see...on Thursday, we caught part of either Wavves or Freelance Whales or both, I honestly don't remember, and then some of Karen Elson. Then a little bit of Best Coast, I believe, and then we headed over to try to get tickets to see Henry Rollins in the comedy tent because Ed was really interested in that. We did manage to get in, which was awesome, and it was actually a very enjoyable show. And by then we were so exhausted from being up for over 36 hours that we just went to bed.

On Friday, I don't think we managed to catch anything up until the Decemberists, which is kinda sad because they weren't on till 5:30. But we didn't manage to get into Centeroo in time for Bela Fleck, and I wanted a good spot for the Decemberists so by the time we did get in we decided to just go stake out a spot then. After that we caught some of Florence + the Machine, although we were sitting in the shade rather far away so we didn't have the best sound. And then we went over to My Morning Jacket, followed by Arcade Fire. And then we BRIEFLY stopped in at Big Boi latenight before heading back to camp.

Saturday I believe we caught a LITTLE of Old Crow Medicine Show, and a little bit of the Rolling Stone battle thing between Lelia Broussard and the Sheepdogs, followed by !!! on the Sonic Stage, but after that I'm not quite sure. We may have been at Portugal. The Man briefly. Not sure. Anyway, after that it was time for Mumford and Sons, followed by the latter part of !!!'s main show. Then Buffalo Springfield, although we went back to camp inbetween so I could get my tutu and glowsticks and fiberoptic barrettes and LED finger-lights and all that jazz, so we missed some of Buffalo Springfield. After that it was time for Eminem. And then late night...we checked out both Scissor Sisters and String Cheese Incident briefly, and then headed over to Gogol Bordello, which was kind of a bust. I'd been really looking forward to seeing them, but we were so exhausted that I just did not have the energy to really get in the middle of the crowd. And from way in back where we were...eh. Wasn't really doing anything for us, so we left, probably well before it ended.

And then on Sunday, I know we caught all of Neon Trees, not sure if we saw anything before that. Caught some of Iron and Wine and some of Cold War Kids. A little of the Strokes and then the tail end of Robert Plant. And then Widespread Panic.

Overall, as far as the music goes, I was a little disappointed that we didn't get to see more shows and then so many of the ones we DID check out we either were only at briefly or were so far away that we couldn't see and could barely hear, etc. But I didn't miss anything that I REALLY wanted to see, and for the most part the stuff that we did miss was because of the heat and not anything I could have controlled.

The Decemberists were of course my favorite show. !!! and Neon Trees were also both REALLY good. And we were up really close for all of those shows, which was awesome. Mumford and Sons were great too. I had really intended to familiarize myself more with their music beforehand and never got around to doing that, which I regret, but it was still a good show. For their last song they brought out a ton of guests (including Old Crow Medicine Show) and sang "Amazing Grace." AWESOME.

After My Morning Jacket, while we were waiting for Arcade Fire, a handful of hang-gliders swooped over the main stage trailing blinking LEDs on little plastic whirlybird things. It was pretty much the most awesome thing EVER, the whole sky was just glittering. SO PRETTY. And Ed managed to snag one of the blinkies for me!

Inforoo brunch was much fun, and I survived the embarrassment of having to perform a Happy Dance. Ed danced with me and did a much better job than I did. We got a huge goodie bag of additional prizes, including two Camelbaks, which was awesome. And it was great to see everyone. A couple different people remarked to me how excited they were when it was announced that I had won the contest, or how much they thought I deserved it, or things along those lines, which was really really sweet.

We ate a TON of awesome food over the weekend. I fully went into the weekend planning to eat as much delicious food as we could manage and not worry at all about the money since so much of the trip was covered for us. And oh man did we succeed at eating awesome foods. We got a few samosas, of course. Ed had gator on three different occasions. I had jalapeno hush puppies which were FANTASTIC. And Ed got a jalapeno corn dog, also really good. Ribbon chips. Ed got a couple burgers which were actually super tasty. We managed to try a lot of the food truck foods - tacos from the Taco Bus, pineapple water which I think was also from there, dirty chips and an arepa from Gastropod, hibiscus lemonade which I think was from there, chili and chips from Petro's, meatballs from Eat Box. All of the food truck foods were SUPER TASTY. The hibiscus lemonade was sooo good. The tacos were delicious. The Petro's chili and chips were fantastic. And the meatballs - OH MAN. We chose meatloaf meat balls topped with hash browns, bacon, and bacon sauce. SO FREAKING GOOD. And let's see, what else? Ed got a breakfast burrito that he seemed quite happy with. He also got a pork chop on a stick which was was very happy with. He got a funnel cake on Sunday night and I got a cone of Cherry Garcia from Ben and Jerry's. Nom. And perhaps the best thing I ate all weekend (with the probable exception of samosas) - an Imayamadilla. A quesadilla stuffed with roasted sweet potatoes, mango salsa, black beans, and cheddar cheese. HOLY. WOW. SO. GOOD. I am determined to try to cook one myself at some point, or something similar. It was incredible.

Favorite Roo quotes are mostly from Ed: "I'm not eating another one of those unless I start hallucinating!" in regards to a Sheetz energy strip he tried. "I look like a gay bandit!" when he saw what he looked like in his pink and yellow bandanas. "Those guys weren't very good actors" - his opinion of Eminem's show. We were also amused when we were bouncing around on the spongy ground and a few other people stopped to bounce with us, and then after a few moments of bouncing, one guy suddenly stopped and went "Wait, what the fuck?" And I was quite amused by the conversation I had with Julie in the midst of our kazoo parade:
Julie: Whose idea was this, anyway?
Me: I don't know...you mean it wasn't yours?
Julie: No, I thought it was yours!

But don't get me wrong, I had SO MUCH FUN leading that kazoo parade. Hahaha. We got so many weird looks. I feel like we must have had about 30 people in our parade, too. I think we may have actually had between 150-200 at brunch, which is ridiculous.

What else should I mention? The drive back home was fairly awful. We were tired and Ed caught a bad case of the Bonnaflu which was starting to manifest at that point, so he was feeling crappy and even more tired than he would have been. It basically took about 24 hours for what should have been a 15 hour drive, because we had to stop for naps a few times. Poor Ed was just too tired to keep driving without sleep, and I was way too sleepy to be able to take over for him. But oh well, we got home eventually.

All in all, a very fun time as always! I can't think of anything else I want to mention, so I'll wrap this up here and just mention other things later if I think of them.

plasticpepper @ 2011-05-13T16:32:00

2011-05-13T20:33:01Z

I GOT A JOB YAY

plasticpepper @ 2010-10-15T01:21:00

2010-10-15T05:21:15Z

I just decided I wanted to do one of those itunes meme things, so I stole one from myself.

1. What do you think of me, iTunes?
"Travelin' Prayer" - Billy Joel
Interpretation: Uh...iTunes...thinks I like to travel?

2. What do my friends really think of me?
"Pressure" - Billy Joel
Interpretation: Aw. My friends think I can't handle pressure? That sucks, but they are entirely correct.

3. How can I make people like me more?
"Love and Some Verses" - Iron & Wine
Interpretation: People would like me more if I wrote love songs. Apparently.

4. What does my crush truly think of me?
"That's What You Gotta Do" - the Touch
Interpretation: Come on iTunes, you could do so much better than that. Uhhh my crush...wants to do me. There.

5. Do people secretly lust after me?
"Atlas" - Battles
Interpretation: lololololol

6. How can I maximize my pleasure during sex?
"What I Have Left" - Mike Bones
Interpretation: lol bones.

7. Will I ever have children?
"Dani California" - Red Hot Chili Peppers
Interpretation: Dani California will be my child.

8. Do you know where your children are?
"The Luckiest" - Ben Folds
Interpretation: Apparently I do not know where they are, but I am lucky to have them. My hypothetical children.

9. What should I do with my life?
"Amazing Journey" - the Who
Interpretation: Well that sounds AWESOME.

10. Will I have a happy life?
"Million Faces" - Paolo Nutini
Interpretation: Aw, I like that. I will do so many awesome things in my life that I will encounter a million faces.

11. Why must life be so full of pain?
"City of Angels" - Ozomatli
Interpretation: Dammit LA, it's all your fault.

12. What do you think happiness is?
"Keep On Dreaming" - the Touch
Interpretation: Aw, I like that one too. As long as you keep dreaming, you will be happy!

13. How can I make myself happy?
"Late Nineties Bedroom Rock For The Missionaries" - Broken Social Scene
Interpretation: Haha why yes, iTunes, nineties music DOES make me happy.

14. Will I die happy?
"Across The Universe" - from the ATU soundtrack
Interpretation: Aw. That sounds like a yes.

15. Can you give me some good advice?
"Yellow Submarine" - the Beatles
Interpretation: Hee. I think "Every one of us has all we need" could maybe qualify.

16. What is the nature of the Universe?
"A Girl In Port" - Okkervil River
Interpretation: Deep. Or something.

plasticpepper @ 2010-08-11T21:21:00

2010-08-12T01:21:05Z

I now have fewer than six tabs open in Firefox for the first time in...probably like a year.

Anon, I will sort of miss you.

plasticpepper @ 2010-04-06T20:03:00

2010-04-07T00:03:50Z

Okay, I realize I haven't updated lately, and I'll try to do a personal entry later, but for now I decided I wanted to talk a bit about Lost before tonight's episode.

I don't think I've really said much of anything about Lost in here all season, so it's a bit overdue. For starters - dammit, show, you've done it again. I didn't think it would happen, but I got back into the show majorly. I mean, I never completely gave up. I got way behind at times and had to catch up, but that was always the plan - I was always going to catch up, always going to see this through. But mostly in a "well, I've come this far" sense.

But now, I'm hooked again in a big way, and honestly I'm really regretting ever getting out of it, because Lost is and has always been one of those things that benefits from the fandom. There's a whole lot going on in the world of theory and speculation and clue-solving, so being a Lost fan is, in a way, a lot easier and a lot more rewarding if you've got some company. I've still been reading TWoP, and since TLo started blogging Lost over at ProjectRungay I've been reading their posts, but trying to get back into the forums and everything seemed too hard so I haven't done that. But damn, I WANT to! I LIKE the complexity and the clue-solving and the screen-capping and all that stuff, and I hate that I'm not in the middle (or even on the fringes) of it anymore. It's like the ride's about to end and I'm not even sure if I'm still on board. Blah.

ANYWAY, I used to write a lot about Lost in here and I'm not sure if I've said two sentences about this season, but hey, now's as good a time as any to start, I suppose.

And for some reason I'm quite...curious...about tonight's episode. I'd say excited but I'm not sure if that's quite right. I don't know if I have a GOOD feeling about this episode, I just definitely have a feeling, haha.

First: dear show, I DO NOT CARE about Sun and Jin and their looming reunion anymore. To be honest, I've never cared - and I mean that as much as I possibly can; from the first season I never really cared abut Sun and Jin. They've just never been very compelling or accessible or sympathetic or whatever for me. But beyond that...it's gone on too long. They've been teasing this reunion FOREVER now and apparently the writers think it's a source of tension, but they've stretched it out too far and nobody CARES anymore. By now it isn't even a "they'd better get it over with tonight" thing because I honestly don't even care if they do or not. It's NOT a source of tension, at least not for me, and I don't care if it doesn't happen tonight, but I'M JUST SICK OF HEARING ABOUT IT. So if they don't reunite them tonight, they'd damn well better not TALK about it at all.

Second: Um, something needs to HAPPEN tonight. Like serious happenings, not the "Desmond was the package" type of revelation that they string along for way too long so by the time they finally get to it it's not a revelation because everybody already figured it out. It just feels like for a while now we've just been jogging in place. And it isn't that they're not working on the plot, it's sort of just a side effect of having this 5000 piece puzzle with only 10 more pieces to put in. In a lot of cases, we can see exactly where the piece goes by now, so even things that are revelations don't feel like it anymore because they're not surprising. And I think they're also trying too hard to make sure everyone stays with them. Again, it's those 5000 puzzle pieces. SO MUCH STUFF has happened over the course of this show, and so much of it is small stuff or stuff that was handled subtly or almost easter-eggy stuff. So now everything they try to do, it's like they're reiterating too much stuff before hand to make sure we get it. Some of that is certainly necessary because there IS a lot that you could potentially miss, but I think they're worrying too much. Cindy at TWoP made a good point - there's what, six episodes left now? Nobody is going to bail right now. Pretty much for the first time in the show's history, you can stop worrying about keeping everyone on the ride and just FULL SPEED AHEAD DOWN THE FINAL DROP. Come on, the final rush should be FUN, right? Since I'm already too far into this rollercoastery metaphor: it's like they're at the top of the final hill but they've got the brakes on and we're sliiiiding down slowly but it's too slow and the brakes are screeeching and irritating the hell out of everyone and YEAH it's going to be fast and crazy and we'll probably all throw up when we get off but WE DON'T CARE ANYMORE IT'LL STILL BE FUN AND WE JUST WANT TO GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.

Third: This season sort of feels really forced. And as much as that sounds like a complaint, it's not totally, because it's understandable. Trying to bring this whole mess to some sort of resolution...yeah, it's not easy, and it makes sense that the last season (or at least the latter part of the season) would seem a little forced. But what I'm noticing is that they seem to just be alternating between the plot/exposition/explanation/revelation parts and the comic relief/character/sentimental/relationship/fanservice parts. Didn't Lost used to handle that balance better? Didn't they used to keep it balanced by stacking their stones in the middle of the scale, rather than putting them all the way to one end or the other and just alternating ends? Now we just have certain scenes where Locke explains things, or Jacob talks, or whatever, and other scenes that are just there for character purposes or for fun. And those scenes all fall into a few categories now: there's the "omg who does Kate love" show, the "Sawyer talks funny" hour, the "lolz Hurley is fat "game, the "dear god can there please be a spin-off involving Miles" hour, and of course the ever-present "Sawyer takes his clothes off" hour. It's just that even a lot of the lighthearted bits feel tired by now.

Anyway, that's sort of all my complaints, and that probably turned into a total rant but in general I'm enjoying this season, I just really want to get moving. I'm excited to see how it pans out.

There's a few little threads that I'm really intrigued by. I guess foremost is the obvious question of how the sideways reality relates to the island reality. I suppose I favor the theory that detonating Jughead split the two realities - the sideways reality would be the one in which it worked and the island got destroyed (or rather, sunk) and Oceanic 815 never crashed, and the island reality is the one in which the bomb WAS the Incident.

BUT - what I really love is the connection between the two and the blurring of the lines. We've seen a few characters have some memory issues and get sort of confused in the sideways reality, and they either seem to remember stuff from the island, or they seem unable to remember stuff from the sideways reality. We've seen odd connections in the sideways reality, like Desmond showing up on the plane, Jack inexplicably bleeding, Sawyer letting Kate go in the airport, Claire thinking of the name Aaron without knowing how, Kate seeming to recognize the name somehow, Sawyer's safe word with the cops being LaFleur, etc. And then - and this is maybe the most curious for me - there was Juliet seeming to slide sideways into that reality just before she died on the island. I like the idea that maybe something similar happened to Sun when she got knocked unconscious, and her inability to speak English was related to her different life in the sideways reality.

I was super interested in the possibility of Richard being a slave on the Black Rock, so I'm glad that theory turned out to be correct. Makes me happy.

Hmm, what else? OH, how freaking creepy is Sayid now?! I love it, Naveen Andrews is just handling it spectacularly.

Anyway, I'm running out of steam so I'll call it quits, at least for now. I might try to write more about Lost until the end, and I'm sure I'll write after the finale.

plasticpepper @ 2009-11-18T03:23:00

2009-11-18T08:23:44Z

omg I am up so much later than I meant to be up, but I finally hit the 20000 mark for nanowrimo! That was my goal for today, I'm so proud of myself. That was around 3500 words tonight, in like...2 hours or so. Maybe 3 hours. idk, anyway, I finally hit it!

plasticpepper @ 2009-09-10T19:46:00

2009-09-11T00:27:37Z

Alrighty here we go! Gonna get this out of the way before the new episode tonight. Remember, this episode was the surfwear/avant-garde challenge. If you need your memory refreshed, go here for the pics.

Firstly, I lol at the combination of surfwear and avant-garde. Secondly, I lol at the designers' interpretations of surfwear. Thirdly, I lol at their interpretations of avant-garde. Fourthly, I lol some more at their interpretations of surfwear, because, um, what? Have you ever even SEEN a surfer? Did you listen at ALL to the surfer girls you met at the beginning of the episode? What is going on?

Okay, now on to the clothes.

Shirin and Carol Hannah: Team Adorable! Their surf look was one of my favorites. Nice print, cute shape, cute bathing suit, and I love the way the bathing suit top forms the top of the dress. When you just see the dress it totally goes together and you have no idea it's anything other than just a dress and then BAM! Hey, the top of that dress was a bathing suit! And it sort of resembles surfwear, so woohoo. Avant-garde look...sort of missed the mark. I really like their idea of playing with the imagery of ocean waves, but I don't think the dress really evokes waves. The color isn't very oceany and the shape is just too overworked or something - it's not freeflowing enough. Nice touch with the braiding to tie it into the surf look though.

Althea and Louise: Team...um...something. Surf look was cute but pretty boring. The bathing suit top looked really good so it's too bad you can't SEE IT AT ALL, and the bodice of the dress has these bizarrely tiny cups that somehow keep happening this season. Again - I'D be falling out of this! The black and white stripes go really well with the color of the dress, though. The avant-garde look was actually pretty cool. I don't know if I'd call it avant-garde, but I really like the looks of it just as some sort of costume or something. The bodice is really nice. I didn't realize until like today that those were zippers, which kinda makes me blahhh because it's been done, but whatever, it still looks cool.

Logan and Christopher: Team Be Still My Heart! The surf look is pretty good, I think. It's not my style, but at least it's like VAGUELY REMINISCENT OF SURFWEAR which is more than I can say for most of this stuff. The pants look really well-done. And damn, Logan, you made a hat? You are awesome. And their avant-garde look was probably my favorite in that category. You can see both of them represented in it, it looks really well done, and the skirt is so interesting. And there's enough contrast between the top and the bottom that the contrast creates a point of interest, but not so much that it looks weird and you don't understand how the two halves go together. Well done, hot boys.

Epperson and Qristyl: Team...um...Black People? Surf look is....um...not horrible. I like the fabric and it could have been a cute dress, but the ballooning skirt is weird and not flattering. And the bust is suffering from the same too-small-cups disease that's affecting so many dresses this season. So weird. And at it's best it would just be a sundress, not really surfwear. Avant-garde look is just laughable. The bathing suit thing is boring and unflattering, I don't know what the green fabric is supposed to be, and I really don't understand why anybody would think bathing suit + random piece of fabric = avant-garde.

Nicolas and Gordana: Team Russians! The surf look is pretty good. Again, it actually has SOME vague connection to surfing, so that's awesome. I really like the macrame bathing suit idea, and the fabric it was creating looks awesome, but WHYYYY would you think it's a good idea to put a triangular cutout (or any cutout really) on her tummy? That would make an Olsen twin look flabby. The wrap pants are nice, I'm not crazy about the shape created on top by the wrap but apart from that they're good. The avant-garde look...um...DEAR GOD WHAT WERE YOU THINKING? That is all I can say about that.

Ra'mon and Mitchell: Team Uh-oh! The surf look is decent. Although I'm not sure "dead seaweed" is really the color story you want to go with (did I just say "color story?" Ugh, I hate when people say that). But at least it's evocative of the ocean, even if it's laughably far from surfwear. As for the avant-garde look: LMAO LMAO LMAO OMG. That is seriously one of the ugliest things that has ever appeared on PR and I would like to know what the hell kind of crack the judges were smoking. Also, I haven't really been saying anything about anything but the clothes, but I need to right now: what the hell, Mitchell? I've never been so baffled by a designer's behavior. Did you honestly just say you wanted a partner who would CARRY YOU? Did you honestly just sit there and do nothing? Did you honestly just admit freely, even eagerly, to the judges that you did next to nothing? WHAT IS GOING ON.

Irina and Johnny: Team Unexpected Pairing! The surf look? GORGEOUS. Ah, someone should have won for that, probably. The bit of the macrame bathing suit you can see looks soooo cute, the slouchy sheer t-shirt is possibly the closest anything on that runway got to surfwear, the skirt is cute and simple, and the whole thing just comes together really well and looks very cute, relaxed, and stylish. Great colors, too. But the avant-garde look? Oh, right, I remember why they didn't win. Awful. The color is horrible, it's all frumpy and weird, the woven fabric bodice should have been nice and just ended up looking messy, and the shoulder-piece thing has just become completely boring now so that gives you no points towards it being avant-garde.

Alright, done! That was pretty painless! Team challenges are so much easier to review, haha. I'm so looking forward to tonight's episode, this should be good! I love when they design stuff for actual people, even if it is just the models. It's a little weird since the models sort of have a stake in it, I'm wondering if they would actually come out and say they hated something when it was going to increase their changes of getting eliminated. But this should definitely be a good episode.

plasticpepper @ 2009-09-09T23:32:00

2009-09-10T04:14:58Z

And now,

Since it's been so long, let me remind you that this is the maternity episode we're talking about. Remember that bit of...um....fun? Well, I shouldn't be too cruel, there was definitely some good stuff up there. I thought it was way too obvious that pretty much none of the designers have been pregnant, though. They all just added extra fabric for the belly and an awful lot of them didn't think about the other major factors: excess boobage, comfort, modesty, etc.

Now, one by one...and I'm too lazy to post pictures so if you need a refresher just go to Lifetime's site to see the pics. Alright, here we go...

Althea: Boring, but nice looking at least. The bust would be a nice design, but omg I would be popping out of those cups and I'm basically an ironing board. Those are NOT made for pregnant boobs. The back of the dress would be gorgeous if it wasn't horribly executed. And I'm really perplexed as to why it should be so horribly executed - overall the dress is really simple and safe, so there's no excuse for hurrying through part of it or whatever happened to make the back so messy. The bust and the back are the only remotely interesting parts of the dress, they should have been better!

Carol Hannah: Hmm. The dress itself is really, really cute. I'm a bit undecided about the belly-swoosh, but other than that it's a great shape. But that little jacket thing over it - awful! What IS that? It's like a shrug and a vest and...some sort of shark...mated. The shape of it is just ridiculous, the treatment of the fabric is bizarre, I don't know who on earth would want to wear a sleeveless jacket thing over a sleeveless dress, it doesn't go with the dress AT ALL, it makes the model look really flat-chested and oddly shaped, it hits at a weird area on the dress making that whole area look frumpy, and it covers up some of the interesting details on the dress. I just don't get it at ALL.

Christopher: Definitely cute! Great color, and a very cute shape. Some execution issues, but nothing TOO horrible. The only thing I'm not sure about is the whole top + tights/leggings look for a pregnant woman. I don't know if you'd really want to be flashing your ass clad only in leggings to the world while you're pregnant, and the top's not long enough to really cover you. I don't like that look in general, but I don't think anyone would like it if they were pregnant. And how do maternity leggings work anyway? I'm just envisioning the fabric being too tight and constricting against your belly, idk.

Epperson: Um, WHAT? Okay, the jumpsuit thing itself is not too awful. Not anything I would wear in a million years, but not awful. The back is actually kind of nice. It's not fit very well, though, the baby bump is pulling at the fabric so much it looks like it isn't maternity clothing at all. But even that pales in comparison to...THAT THING HE PUT OVER IT. It's so ugly! It's so ugly and looks like she's stapled a tablecloth around herself. And it's so, so, so wrong for a pregnant girl, it's making her belly look ten times huger than she is! I don't think any pregnant woman would ever like that look.

Gordana: Pretty cute! Again with the whole top + leggings thing, though. And the top is sort of...wonky. The whole straps/bust area just looks a little off to me. It's just not very interesting either. But that little cardi - so cute! I would wear that right this instant, I love it!

Irina: Cute, albeit simple. The blue-on-blue works really well, and I'm not even a fan of blue. Love the contrast between the shiny and the matte too. And the little belt thingie makes the back really cute. The random THING that's stuck on the front is awful, though. I can't see the bust working for a pregnant girl, but on the other hand if it did it probably wouldn't fit the model at all, so I'm not sure what the best thing to do there is. The other issue: the baby bump takes up so much fabric that the dress is wayyy shorter in the front. It's like, indecently short. No pregnant girl would want to wear that. And even if it wasn't SO short, it's still weird to have it be so mismatched. I know it's hard to have more fabric in the front and get the hem to look right and all that, but, um, that's why you're the fashion designer and I'm not.

Johnny: Um, I love Johnny, but this is awful. Those white seams are ugly, and they're poorly done too. They're also the only real "thing" the dress has - beyond them, it's just boring and weirdly shaped. I guess he was pressed for time since he scrapped the first dress he was working on, but this is just no good.

Logan: Really cute! See, this is the RIGHT way to do the top + leggings look for maternity wear. I'm still not convinced leggings would be comfortable, but at least he made the top long enough to cover her ass. And it's cute cute cute. Not crazy about the gold collar, but whatever. I'm also not sure about the seam that kinda frames her belly. That seems kinda weird.

Louise: I like it! It's a bit busy, though - I think she should have ditched the lace layer underneath at the bottom and the thing on the shoulder. But the color and shape are really cute. And I just LOVE her for thinking about stuff like the adjustable hem and the pleating at the bust so you've got room to grow. LOVE. Too short, though. It's weird, with the adjustable hem she clearly thought about the issue, but the dress is still way way too short.

Malvin: Oh god, what was he thinking? I don't even have anything to say.

Mitchell: Um. I actually think the design itself was really, really cute, his execution was just awwwful. If he had the skills to actually do it well, it would have been great. Not much to say beyond that.

Nicolas: Hmm. I don't know whether I'm just getting tired of doing this or what, but I really don't have much to say about this either. It's nice, I guess. Not my style, but it looks good and it's pretty well executed. The shoulders look really nice. Is that a pencil skirt, though? Who thinks pregnancy and pencil skirts go together???

Qristyl: Boring boring boring! Looks like she just wrapped the fabric around the model, pinned, and sent her down the runway. It's pretty awful. And that color does NOT go with the black under-layer at ALL omg.

Ra'mon: Haha, well, it's a really really nice design, just...not for a maternity dress. I mean, if he was TRYING to design a bowling ball bag it would have been gorgeous! The colors work well together and he created some really nice looking shapes. They're just not the shapes you want on your pregnant belly. I will say this, though, the back of the dress is fantastic!

Shirin: Ohhh, girl SO deserved the win! The draping at the neckline is great, the deep V in the back is gorgeous, especially considering your back is something that's not going to look too different during pregnancy so it's a really good area to show off. The way the skirt falls is fantastic. And the little smocking framing the belly looks great! She added a detail framing the belly the same way Logan did, except that Shirin did it RIGHT. It's a bit more subtle and a LOT more elegant and looks great. The color of the dress looks great too. And the coat? GORGEOUS. The style is great, it looks well made, and the lining is amazing - such a cute fabric AND it matches the dress so well! I love it. And I'm really impressed that she was able to make a cute dress and a cute coat in the allotted time AND make them both WELL. You go, girl!

Whew, done! I was sorta losing steam towards the end there but I made it! Hopefully my entry on episode 3 will come at some point tomorrow; I want to get it out of the way before the next episode airs!

plasticpepper @ 2009-09-09T23:14:00

2009-09-10T03:31:13Z

OH MY GOD INTERNET

BEATLES ROCK BAND IS EVERYTHING I DREAMED IT WOULD BE

I'm so happy it's finally here! This morning I woke up, remembered that OMG ITS BEATLES DAY, threw off my covers, and got in the shower right away. I drove to Gamestop, playing Beatles music on the way, bought my copy, literally sprinted back to my car, and drove home. On the way home my ipod played "Twist and Shout" and I full-out did the twist while I was driving. And of course I sang at the top of my lungs. And drummed on my steering wheel. It was rather dangerous, actually, considering when I was doing the twist I did not have my hands on the wheel. TEN AND TWO, TEN AND TWO. (Bonus points to Keavy if she gets the reference!)

So I got home, danced my way to my door, tore open the plastic, ran downstairs, put the disc in, and grabbed my guitar. And...MY OWN WORKING WIIMOTE WOULDN'T WORK. I just SOBBED. DID NOT KNOW WHAT TO DO. I was seriously going to go out and buy a new one if it didn't start working. But eventually I got it...I refused to believe that BOTH of my wiimotes were broken, so I tried some different batteries. The other ones said they were half-charged but the new ones worked, so whatever. The other ones are charging now, we'll see if they manage to hold a charge.

So anyway, IT'S AMAZING. The absolute best part is all the animations. OMG SO GORGEOUS. I want to crawl into that world and live there forever. And doing graphic design for Apple Corps has long been one of my favorite daydreams and those animations are like the EPITOME of what I wish I could do with my life, so it's like OMG SOMEBODY OUT THERE HAS MY DREAM JOB. Ahhh. I seriously think I'm going to have to redo my LJ layout in honor of how AWESOME EVERYTHING LOOKS.

I really like the way the gameplay is organized, too. You earn photos for doing things - if you get 3 stars on a song you get a photo, another one for 5 stars, one for completing all songs in a certain set, and then that unlocks a challenge for that set and you get another photo for completing that. So then you can look through your photo album - the photos are of the boys, of course, and then each photo has a little anecdote to go with it. Nothing groundbreaking, basically all stuff creepy people like me already know, but it's still awesome. And then when you get a certain number of photos, you get a prize, which I guess is some sort of recording or video or whatever. I got one prize so far and it was the 1963 Christmas messages! Yayyy! I don't think I will ever not laugh at George going "I'M GEORGE HARRISON!" But anyway, I really like the whole incentive system, it's nice to have ways to set goals other than just beating all of the songs.

So, in addition to that, Glee premiered tonight! And it was SO good. Better than the pilot, IMO - I loved the pilot, but it seems like they really used it as an opportunity to get feedback and figure out what direction to take the show in. And I'm still drooling over Matthew Morrison. Oh my.

Okay, and now I SWEAR I AM GOING TO DO THAT PROJECT RUNWAY UPDATE RIGHT NOW. Stay tuned. If you care.

plasticpepper @ 2009-09-03T17:57:00

2009-09-03T23:54:58Z

Hello lovelies. Long time no see, I think, but this will be the first of at least two posts from me today so you can rejoice about that. Or something.

NYC was very fun! Prepare to be TOLD ABOUT MY DAY YEAH.

We got in to Grand Central at like...11:20 or something like that. We were gonna walk from there to the Bryant Park station, and I THINK that one is supposed to have another entrance one block over but we didn't see it so we just kept on walking to Bryant Park. Then I got mildly confused about what train we needed...when I looked at the map earlier it looked like the stop for the museum was local only but I guess it turned out not to be...anyway, we didn't get on the first train that came and had to wait for the next one, but it wasn't too bad.

So then we got up to the Museum of Natural History. The museum was...nice, but honestly a bit boring. I just feel like they did not do a remotely good job of making the displays engaging in a lot of cases. There would be a rock or something, and we'd be all "uh, what's so great about this rock?" so we'd read the little sign and OMG those signs were so boring. The descriptions were just really dry, they weren't written in a way that would catch and/or hold your interest at all, and half the time they didn't seem to explain the stuff I wanted to figure out anyway. There'd be some cool-looking rock with a weird pattern so I want to find out how it formed and what caused that pattern, but...no, apparently the sign isn't about that.

But the museum was incredibly huge, there was a lot to see and a lot of it was pretty interesting, so we definitely had fun. I was disappointed that there was hardly anything Egyptian, though! We stopped for lunch in the food court at one point, which was quite disappointing. There was a ton of stuff that looked good so we really made some poor decisions. We got burgers and fries and a giant cupcake from Crumbs, and the burgers turned out to be pretty awful. The fries were good though, haha. And the cupcake was good, but it wasn't horribly exciting and it was wayyy bigger than we needed/wanted. We really should have gone with the salad bar or the pulled pork sandwiches instead. Oh well.

We ended up skipping some parts of the museum - we spent way longer than we'd planned on there and we didn't want to be there TOO late, plus we were getting a bit tired of the whole museum thing, so we moved on. We went into the park and were there for like an hour or so. We spent some time sitting by the lake watching the rowboats, then we went in search of a snack. I thought we were just a little bit above Strawberry Fields, and I figured there would be vendors at that entrance so we tried to head there. Turns out I was wrong and we were farther up than I thought, so we had to just leave the park and walk down along the street until we got to Strawberry Fields. Which meant we had to walk right past the Dakota, which...really wasn't something I wanted to do. At least the entrance to the Dakota is on 72nd and not on Central Park West, so I didn't have to feel like I was walking RIGHT THERE. But it's not like I could ignore it so I was definitely staring at the steps as we walked by and urggh I didn't really need that, y'know?

Anyway, we got to Strawberry Fields and figured we'd hang out there for a little bit. Apparently the guy who normally handles the flowers and everything wasn't there that day so he asked another guy to fill in, and I guess that guy hadn't brought as many flowers because he just had them in a really small, simple peace sign. And it must have been relatively soon after one of the times they cleared stuff away because there was nothing but the flowers, and last time I was there there was a ton of stuff. We were just sitting hanging out for a little while, and then a guy showed up with a guitar and started to play Imagine. <3<3<3!! I sang along with him, but not many other people did. I half expected it to turn into a singalong, but he was singing pretty quietly so I think if you were on the other side of the circle and/or didn't know the song perfectly it would have been pretty difficult to sing with him. But it was really, really nice and I'm so glad he played it. We moved on after that, walked back up to the 81st street stop, and got some ice cream on the way.

And then it was Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Annex time! The Annex was SO GREAT omg. First you go into this room that has little plaques around the wall for each person in the Hall of Fame. There's music playing and the plaques light up to show you who's playing. The songs start switching faster and faster and louder and louder and it builds and builds and builds to the point where it's just this immense NOISE and then it stops and you go into the little theater thing. The introductory movie was AWESOME. Besides the main screen there was also stuff playing to each side of the main screen and then on the two side walls. It basically just went through a ton of different musicians, and beyond showing them performing it would show posters from the shows, quotes from other people about them, stuff like that. There was some great footage of the Beatles' Shea Stadium show, you saw the boys playing in the middle and then video of the screaming girls on the sides, and of course your ears are just filled with the screams and it was awesome. There was a cute shot of David Bowie mouthing "who, me?!" when the fans went crazy for him. And possibly my favorite part - video of two girls somehow managing to get on stage with Bruce Springsteen. One girl just completely threw herself at him and kissed him, she actually had him down on the floor and the kiss went on for quite a while before security managed to tear her off of him, and Bruce was just SO loving it - he was 100% kissing her back and then after they pulled her off he was totally grinning and when he got back on his feet and back to the mic he just went "WOOOOO!" Hahaha.

So then after the movie thingie they give you headphones and let you into the main area. There are sensors at various places so basically your headphones will play music to match whatever case you're standing in front of. They had a lot of awesome stuff - the usual tons of guitars and clothes and handwritten lyrics and all that stuff. One of Elvis's sequined jumpsuits, a dress of Janis Joplin's, some jacket type thing of Michael Jackson's, tons of other stuff. They had one of Ringo's actual drumheads, with the Beatles logo on it, which was just incredible. They had some letters written from various people to fans which was really cute. Some from the Beatles and from the Stones. Somehow the letters from the Stones were just adorable - I always knew the Beatles wrote to their fans, but I was surprised the Stones did too. And they were so cute - there was one, I think it was actually from Keith, that was all "it was very sweet of you to send me a birthday present!" And another one, I forget who from, said something along the lines of "Yes, I can always use aftershave." Hahaha. A lot of them said something along the lines of "sorry it took me so long to write back" which is just so cute. And they all thanked fans for coming to concerts, hoped they'd enjoy the next album, etc. There was also a letter from Paul Simon to "Artie" Garfunkel, which seemed to be written while Paul was at summer camp. I think they were 16 or so at the time. So cute! In the letter he said something like "Say hi to Bridget and any other pretty girls" (I'm totally making up the name Bridget, I don't remember what it was).

And then came the John Lennon exhibit which was just SO SO SO SO good. It's curated by Yoko and if you know anything about Yoko that would be obvious as soon as you walked in because it's very much her style. Lots of white, everything very clean and stark. Among the highlights: John's "New York City" tee shirt (omgomgomg), a pair of the wire-rimmed glasses (ahhhh), his green card, a Grammy, lots of handwritten lyrics and stuff. Some other clothes, including the army jacket, the hat with the feathers and stuff, and the jacket he usually wore with that hat. A couple guitars and a piano...somehow I think the piano struck me more than the guitars! Maybe just because I've seen plenty of guitars belonging to various musicians in my life but a piano is a bit less common. Maybe it's just the fact of looking at the piano bench and going OMG JOHN SAT THERE. They had video screens playing various things, interviews, home movies with little Sean, some of the art films he did with Yoko, etc. And there was a big huge sheet of paper where you could sign your name in support of stricter gun laws. There was a telephone with a sign saying that when it rang you should pick it up and talk to Yoko, but she didn't call during the time I was there.

At one point I was walking towards one display case and then I got close enough to realize what it was - the paper bag sent home from the hospital containing the clothes John was wearing. As soon as I realized it I basically veered away asap and went to look at something else instead. Uhhh, I really don't need to see that. They also had a poster up with a huge picture of the glasses he had on, y'know the famous picture that Yoko took......again, things I really don't need, y'know? But I'm just thankful Yoko didn't send the actual glasses to the museum! If she even kept them. I'm weirded out enough by the fact that she even took them home and photographed them.

One thing I didn't really like about the exhibit was that I don't remember seeing Julian's name even once. Sean was all over it, of course, but I'm pretty sure you could have walked through the whole thing and never realize Julian existed. I'm not terribly surprised, especially considering who curated the exhibit, but ugh it makes me so sad.

Anyway, we finished up and went to the shop briefly...they had a lot of cool stuff, including a Beatles tee that I really wanted, but they didn't have it in my size. I ended up just getting two new buttons for my collection. Then we headed to Times Square...we were thinking of eating there but we were kinda short on time, it was much later than we'd planned on being there and we could either hurry for one train or wait an hour for the next one, so we went with plan A. Grabbed burritos from Chipotle and ate 'em in GCT and then took the train home. Still a late night!

Overall, MUCHOS FUN!

plasticpepper @ 2009-08-24T22:35:00

2009-08-25T03:04:37Z

I was just thinking...I feel like we sort of have a new medium developing in the TV marathon. In recent years there have been a ton of shows that are just made to marathon...very serial things like Lost and Heroes. Not only do they need to be watched in order with the major plot points being remembered throughout in order for them to make any sense, most people seem to find that they get way better if you marathon them. The more you treat the entire series (or a season of it) as one unit, the more addictive and compelling it is.

TV shows never used to be that way - up until relatively recently, each episode basically stood alone. There would be some plotlines that carried through, but for the most part it wouldn't really matter if you missed an episode. Or if you stumbled across one while channel flipping it would be entertaining even out of order. Sitcoms and other shows still work like that, an episode of Friends or Scrubs is always going to be enjoyable. But a single episode of Lost? Not quite as enticing, and it probably won't be much fun at all if you're not an expert on Lost so you can immediately place it into a mental timeline.

So I really feel like these sort of TV shows are a completely different medium. In an episode of a sitcom or a similar "casual" show, you tell a story in half an hour or an hour. In a movie, you tell a story in a couple hours. With these sorts of TV shows, you might be telling a story in 24 hours or longer! Obviously it's a bunch of interrelated smaller stories, but they go together and a lot of times they sort of add up to one big story.

I imagine that these things will become something you'd rewatch the same way we watch movies we've already seen or reread books. Years and years from now you'll decide to rewatch Lost or Heroes or True Blood or whatever and spend a couple months running through it all.

plasticpepper @ 2009-08-21T00:36:00

2009-08-21T05:32:25Z

OMG THEY ARE ALL SO CUTE!

I always find the first few episodes frustrating - there's so many people that they basically spend very little time with each person. And if something interesting is happening - like Johnny's meltdown or Mitchell's total-lack-of-dress catastrophe - then even more time gets taken away from the others. Did we even get a single look at what Logan or Epperson was making until they hit the runway?

But anyway, my overall impression of this group is that I like a LOT of them! So I'm gonna go through all of them here.

Christopher - aw how cute is he?! I admit that when he didn't know what smocking was I was thinking "oh this is NOT going to end well" but honestly? His dress was probably the best thing up there, he totally rocked it and if he can consistently do interesting stuff like that on such a short timeframe, who the hell cares if he knows what smocking is?! And he seems so nice and sweet, I love him.

Johnny - MAN, I was really not expecting to love him so much! Based on what Tim has said it sounded like Johnny was going to be this season's asshole bad boy, but if he is he certainly hasn't shown it yet. He came off as so sweet and lovable, which just wasn't what I expected from his picture and stuff. I felt so bad for him when he was freaking out. On some people that could come off as just obnoxious, like "suck it up and deal with it!" but it seemed really genuine and he just looked like a lost little puppy dog. And you could tell the other designers thought so too from the way they were all trying to comfort him and encourage him! Plus, HOW CUTE WAS IT when Tim was comforting him and talking him through it and then he gave him a hug and a kiss on the cheek?! AWWWWWW. I thought his dress was kinda weird honestly, but I'm glad the judges liked it.

Louise - I thought I was really going to like her but I'm not really there yet. Partially just because she didn't get much screen time, I guess. Jury's still out on this one, basically. And I can't remember her dress at all, which is unfortunately going to be true for quite a few people. With 16 dresses up there I can't remember them all and I don't think Lifetime has pictures up yet - I'm not used to their site yet so I could be wrong, but I can't find 'em.

Irina - Hmmm. I suspect I'm going to end up disliking her - she feels like she'll be the Victorya of this group in a way. She didn't do anything wrong yet, she just gives off that "I'm here to win, not to make friends" vibe and usually people who say stuff like that mean "I'm here to win and for some reason I think insulting people will help."

Ari - well. I'm a little sad to see her go because at least she was interesting and she could have been fun to have around. But I can't pretend her outfit wasn't ridiculous, especially given the red carpet theme of the challenge.

Nicolas - I can't decide about him! When I first saw his picture and heard what Tim had to said I thought sure he was going to be obnoxious, but in his casting video he came off as really sweet, actually. We didn't see a TON of him in this episode but he still seems pretty sweet, he certainly didn't do anything wrong yet.

Mitchell - He seems nice enough but I don't really have much sympathy for what happened to him. He encounters some sort of setback and he basically can't do ANYTHING? Sends a model down the runway in completely sheer and unstyled fabric? It seemed like he had plenty of time after the fitting to make changes. Okay, maybe he didn't have time to completely resmock it, but I don't understand why from the fitting to the time the models came back to dress for the runway he apparently didn't do anything. When his model came back, he basically pinned some fabric around her right then. What the hell? I don't see why he couldn't just rework what he had. Let it out some, add some contrasting panels on the sides, or just add flat panels of the same fabric, whatever! I just can't figure it out. If he can't deal with anything unexpected better than this, he is NOT going to last long on this show!

Shirin - She was sort of my favorite beforehand, and I think she might still be. She's adorable and sweet and perky, and she's talented - after last season I'm thinking of it as the Leanne combination! But to be honest I don't remember much about her from this episode - I can't recall what her dress looked like, I just know that she still seemed sweet and cheerful like she did in her audition tape and casting video.

Gordana - Hmm, I really don't have much of any thought about her yet. Was she the one with the two-toned dress who was afraid it seemed too washed-out under the runway lights? I think maybe she was, and whoever it was I kinda liked that. A lot of times the designers can't really do that - watch something come down the runway and think "some aspect of what I was trying to communicate isn't coming across as well as I would have liked." Or rather, they can't think it without getting whiny or defensive or something. She wasn't complaining about it looking different or trying to make excuses, it just sounded like she was wishing she'd chosen more contrasty fabrics - and maybe that she would be keeping the different lighting in mind in the future.

Carol Hannah - Again, I don't have much to say. She's cute, nice, and she seems talented.

Ra'mon - Um, it annoys me that his name is apparently pronounced Ra-mahn and not Ra-mone. Beyond that, I don't have much to say. This would be so much easier if I had pictures of the dresses to jog my memory.

Logan - Love him! Beforehand I expected to love Shirin and Louise and possibly Logan and Ari. Seems like I was right about Logan and not about Ari. Not that I disliked Ari, she was just a little too kooky to be a favorite. But Logan, he seems like he's going to be a favorite of mine for sure! He seems nice and it doesn't hurt that he's totally cute! I'll be fawning all over him just like the models. And of course he would be named Logan! ;)

Malvin - Can't decide, can't decide. Sometimes I think he's a little too out-there, other times I think he's kind of a sweetie. We didn't see too much of him this episode so time will tell here too.

Qristyl - Um. That is an unacceptable way to spell Crystal, okay? She seems very blahhh to me. I was not at all impressed with her dress. And I find it weird that her whole "thing" is designing for plus-size gals - or "plus sexy" - when there are clearly no plus size girls on Project Runway. It's nice to see someone who does design for plus size girls, especially since in the modelling world "plus size" sometimes seems like it means "three dimensional", it just doesn't work with PR. So, uh...now what? It feels like designing for plus size girls is her entire shtick and without it she's completely devoid of anything memorable.

Epperson - Epperson disappoints me. Between the dreads and the insistence on being called solely by his last name, doesn't he feel like he should be a character? And yet he's not - he's so low-key it seems like everyone constantly forgets he's there - and so do I. Bah!

Althea - Once again, I have nothing to say. She might be the least memorable of all so far, she's like a non-entity. Jury's still out here too!

In other news, I'm so glad Daniel won the all star challenge! What a cutie pie. I was so excited for the all star challenge just for the chance to see him again! Gah, he's so freaking adorable. But did anyone else notice that Santino disappeared? When the other designers came out to congratulate Daniel I was waiting to see Santino's congrats - since they were from the same season I was waiting for an adorable hug or something and....wait, where's Santino? I'm pretty sure he wasn't there at all. When they kinda showed a more zoomed-out shot it was pretty easy to tell since he towers above everyone else. Did he get pissy that he lost and leave or something? That doesn't really seem like him - yeah, he's a cocky asshole, but he's like a NICE cocky asshole, y'know? He's mostly just a clown and then when it's time to be serious and polite he does it. Well, most of the time.

I enjoyed the models of the runway thing too - it's nice to see the model elimination now rather than not seeing it until next week! And some of the behind the scenes stuff is cute too. I thought it was really sweet how all of the girls were applauding and congratulating Chris and they seemed genuinely happy for him. Probably as time goes on and they form relationships with "their" designers they won't be QUITE so happy for the competition, but it was nice to see. And they mostly seem like nice girls so I'm sure they'll still be applauding the winners throughout the season - just maybe not quite so genuinely!

THEY DON'T EVEN FIT

2009-08-20T22:07:17Z

LET ME TELL YOU INTERNETS I AM VERY DISPLEASED

I already tweeted about this but I'm so freaking pissed that I have to vent here too.

Disney is planning to a 3D animation remake of Yellow Submarine.

FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WOULD YOU DO SUCH A THING. IT WAS A A PERFECTLY FANTASTICALLY FABULOUS MOVIE YOU DO NOT NEED TO REMAKE IT. AND IT IS SO ABSOLUTELY ICONIC OF THE 60S AND POP ART AND PETER MAX'S STYLE AND ALL THAT STUFF. TO REMAKE SOMETHING THAT IS THE EPITOME OF A CERTAIN STYLE IN A DIFFERENT STYLE IS JUST DISRESPECTFUL AND TRAGIC. AND FOR THE LOVE OF GOD GIVE IT A REST WITH THE 3D ANIMATION EVERYBODY IS SICK OF IT AND NOBODY WANTS TO SEE IT ANYMORE. AND WHY WOULD YOU MAKE AN ANIMATED MOVIE OF SOMETHING THAT IS ALREADY AN ANIMATED MOVIE ANYWAY IT DOESN'T MAKE SENSE.

DAMMIT DISNEY WHY ARE YOU SO COMPLETELY CLUELESS ABOUT EVERYTHING? ARE YOU SO ENGROSSED IN YOUR OWN LITTLE BUBBLE DOWN THERE THAT YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT ANYBODY WANTS TO SEE OR WHAT ANYBODY IS SAYING ABOUT YOU? I AM SO FREAKING SICK OF THIS.

Oh, and the kicker: it's being directed by Robert Zemeckis, the guy who did Polar Express and the upcoming remake of A Christmas Carol, using the same performance capture technique used in those two. HEY, NEWSFLASH. NOBODY LIKES YOUR PERFORMANCE CAPTURE STUFF, WE FIND IT VERY VERY CREEPY AND NOWHERE NEAR AS COOL AS YOU SEEM TO THINK IT IS.

Here's the link:
http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/20/all-aboard-yellow-submarine-remake-in-the-works/

While I'm ranting about Disney's utter cluelessness, let me rant more about The Princess and the Frog in case I haven't ranted enough in here about it. Okay, I'm glad they're finally going back to traditional 2D hand-drawn animation. I'm glad they're going back to fairy tales. I'm glad they're finally making a movie with a black princess. But why, oh why, do they have to be so BAD at it? Firstly, some of the character designs are just awful, they're bland and uninspired and so unoriginal. The frogs, especially. They look like every other cartoon frog ever! But beyond that...

They finally have a black princess. Okay, great. But then...they named her Tiana, she's a waitress in New Orleans. Um, Disney? This is starting to be a little awkwardly stereotypical. Did they really have to give her a "black girl" name?? But oh, it gets SO MUCH WORSE because they couldn't just stick with the traditional story of the frog prince, oh no, of course not, they had to TURN TIANA INTO A FROG TOO. DISNEY, ARE YOU KIDDING ME? ARE YOU COMPLETELY UNAWARE OF WHAT YOU'RE DOING? YOU JUST TURNED YOUR FIRST BLACK PRINCESS INTO AN ANIMAL FOR THE MAJORITY OF THE MOVIE. God, where should we even start? Do we start with the fact that it feels like they didn't actually WANT a black princess so they found a way to not actually have to put the black girl on screen for most of the movie? Do we even want to go NEAR the horribly awkward implications of turning your first black lead into an ANIMAL?

I don't want this to sound worse than it is because I don't for a second think they're doing this stuff on purpose. I'm sure Disney doesn't have any racist agenda or anything. They just don't THINK!

I was reading an article about the movie and it had quotes from some Disney people. One guy said something like "We maybe didn't realize the impact of that. But we made every effort to be as sensitive as possible." (That's probably not the exact quote because I'm doing this from memory, so don't quote me on that.) Um, really? You didn't realize the IMPACT of it? HOW LONG have people been complaining about the lack of a black princess? It's hardly gone unnoticed, it seems to me it's been a pretty big deal. And when they announced this movie, everybody got so excited that they finally WOULD have one. So they just make themselves look stupid by saying they didn't realize it was a big deal. And...they made every effort to be as sensitive as possible? Oh, PLEASE.

In the same article, another guy from Disney said something along the lines of "There was a feeling that people didn't want to see 2D animation anymore." (Again, not an exact quote I'm sure.) And again...WHAT?! People have been pleading for years for a return to 2D animation, to everything that initially made us fall in love with Disney movies. NOBODY could understand WHY ON EARTH they kept churning out 3D things when we were all begging them to go back to 2D! So how oblivious do you have to be to say that you thought people didn't want to see 2D anymore?!

IT'S JUST SO FREAKING FRUSTRATING!

plasticpepper @ 2009-08-17T17:20:00

2009-08-17T21:36:47Z

AUGH I cannot decide what to do with my hat and a half that I crocheted.

The one that's finished is pretty lumpy because I didn't use a pattern. The one that's not finished also didn't use a pattern so I'm not sure whether it'll come out right or not. It's also crocheted a little more tightly than the first one, so it's not as soft, and I really like the softness better. And I ran out of yarn. I want to make one that uses both this color yarn and the creamy color of the same thing, so I need to buy the creamy color, but if I don't undo something I'll have to buy more of the raspberry color too. But the yarn is like $6.50 a skein or something like that so I don't want to have to buy two when I've already bought one if I'm basically going to end up with one hat that I'm going to actually wear. And the hook that I'm using is a K which is 6.5 mm and for this yarn it should really be like a 9 or 10 mm one, so I should really buy that too.

SO these are my choices:

Undo the finished hat so I can use the yarn to finish off the hat that's half done.
Undo the finished hat, start over using that yarn and the correct hook and a pattern and just leave the half done one for now and potentially do something with it in the future.
Buy more yarn so I can finish the half done one without having to take anything apart.

Ugh. I'm thinking I should probably take apart the finished one and start over with that yarn. I'm probably not too likely to wear it, especially not after I have a better one that will be sort of similar. I don't wear a ton of hats anyway. But I hate to take it apart, especially since it was my first crochet project!

plasticpepper @ 2009-08-16T02:07:00

2009-08-16T06:11:07Z

Today I discovered Ubiquity and OMG I love it soooo much. It makes me feel like I'm living in the future! If you haven't heard of it, you should go here and watch the demo video. SO AWESOME.

In other news, we have a toad living in the little flower bed in front of our house, so today I decided to name him Hercules. Technically, Hercules P. Toad. The P stands for Ptolemy.

plasticpepper @ 2009-08-14T23:05:00

2009-08-15T03:22:18Z

I don't know if I've mentioned Ralph in here, but Ralph is a (presumably) stray cat who's been hanging around our house for a long time now. Probably like almost a year, I don't know. At first we just saw him once in a while and he's been around more and more to the point where now he's practically here more often than he's not. We put out food for him but he's a big scaredy cat and won't let anybody near him.

Anyway, today I noticed that Ralph has somehow acquired a swarm of mosquitoes. They're flying all around him, biting and getting in his eyes and all over his face and everything. And he can't seem to get rid of them or kill them or anything, all he can do is kinda twitch them off when they land on his face. I feel so bad for him and I don't know what to do - how can I kill mosquitoes who are hanging around a cat if the cat won't let me near him? I don't know why he has a swarm of mosquitoes anyway. Poor guy.

In other news, I think I have successfully lost a little bit of weight. It's hard to tell because it fluctuates anyway plus I'm not consistent about what time of day I weigh myself, what clothes I'm wearing, etc. But I think I've dropped a couple pounds already. And now that I have running shoes I can actually go running and hopefully that will also help me lose some more pounds and inches.

I've been really trying to eat healthy. I'm eating a small salad for lunch most days. Sometimes I might have a few potato chips or cheetos or something with it but a lot of the time I either just have the salad or I have some fruit with it. And I'm trying to not drink soda with lunches, at least not during the week. I still drink soda with dinner, and sometimes with lunch on the weekend since everyone else is drinking soda, but on weekdays with lunch I either have water or Vitamin Water or like lemonaid or Koolaid or something. Obviously Koolaid or Vitamin Water or whatever is not a whole lot better than soda but I figure it's at least slightly better. And I'm trying to keep myself from snacking on too much unhealthy stuff. I'm basically trying to limit myself to at MOST two "unhealthy" snacks a day - cookies, candy, ice cream, whatever. And for the most part I'm keeping it to one or none of those. Usually all I have is something at night. As much as possible I'm eating healthier snacks if I feel like snacking - fruit, cheese and crackers, stuff like that.

I need to come up with some more ideas for healthy snacks. My sleep schedule is so screwed up that I'm basically eating lunch when I wake up and then I'm up for like 8 hours after dinner, so I definitely get hungry later and it's definitely in my best interest, health-wise, to eat something later, but I'm pretty bad at healthy snacking. And the stupid part is that I really don't have a sweet tooth - if I get hungry late at night, I never actually WANT cookies or candy or whatever, I want real FOOD, but the unhealthy stuff is so much easier. Part of the problem is that I feel weird about eating late at night, especially eating "real food" because it's never been something my family does. So I want stuff that requires little to no preparation because I don't want to make a lot of noise and potentially wake people up, nor do I want to dirty a bunch of dishes that will have to be washed the next day. So fruit works really well, crackers with or without cheese is easy, but beyond that I'm kinda stumped. So if anyone has any ideas for easy yummy snacky things, let me know!

cakes of the crochet and edible varieties

2009-08-14T02:46:26Z

I finished that crochet cupcake a few days back and I never uploaded a picture, so here you go!

It's a little lumpy but I'm still happy with it!

Also, it occurred to me that when I posted those pictures of the cake I made they were friends only so I'm going to post them again just because I hardly ever post anything interesting that isn't f-locked.

(the words around the side say "you gotta do the cookin' by the book!" which will not make sense if you have not seen a certain viral video)

Inside it was two layers of chocolate and a middle layer of funfetti. Yum!

plasticpepper @ 2009-07-28T02:16:00

2009-07-28T06:49:53Z

So I had a creepy dream last night. It appeared to be based on the book Peeps and it featured everybody's favorite Keavy.

So in this dream, there was some disease destroying society, basically. It may or may not have been parasitic in nature, I'm not sure. If you got the full-blown disease it was a definite death sentence, and it wouldn't take very long to kill you either. But it was also possible to be a carrier - you'd be infected with the disease but it wouldn't kill you. Carriers would become crazed and violent, although some were better at hiding it than others. Some of them could seem pretty normal, but once they got you close enough they'd bite you or something. Parasitic mind control sort of thing - the parasite makes people violent so they'll spread it. The disease was really easy to transmit - a bite or a kiss would do it, but it could be even less contact than that. There was medication for it that would completely control it, you wouldn't be at all violent, but you had to act VERY quickly for the medication to work.

I think there was something about it being transmitted by slugs. And there was also some reason why it was "supposed" to happen. In the book Peeps, which this is clearly based on because it's very similar, the carriers are sort of super human and they're needed to fight these monsters that would otherwise probably destroy humanity. I think it may have been something similar in my dream but I don't really know.

For some reason, there was a colony of slugs being raised in my basement. This was supposed to be happening, and it had something to do with a controlled spread of the disease. The slugs were behind screens, and we sort of just had one crop of slugs after another down there. And then one day I went down to check on them and somehow everything had gotten out of control. A lot of them were WAY too big - the largest slugs were about 7 inches long and 2 inches across. And a lot of them were OUTSIDE of the screens. Most were just clinging to the outside of the screens but a few were starting to ooze away. Something was clearly very wrong and it was obvious that the spread of the disease was going to be out of control. But I had no idea what to do and I was so freaked out and disgusted by the giant slugs invading my house that I just panicked and ran upstairs. I told somebody (possible Keavy) that something was wrong, and whoever it was went downstairs to check and basically had the same reaction I did. She agreed that something was very, very wrong but neither of us knew what to do and I think we sort of just decided to ignore it because we just couldn't deal with it.

I decided to go for a walk...I think I was initially intending to catch the bus to school, because apparently I was still in high school. I started walking down the street and I think the bus came before I got to the corner and I ran but didn't make it. So I kept walking and a car drove past and slowed way down and the driver rolled down the window. He asked if I wanted a ride anywhere but I said no. I was so creeped out by this - he was acting so normal but I was pretty sure he was actually a carrier and was trying to lure me closer so he could attack.

Farther down the street I saw a woman who seemed pretty nice and normal. I don't remember if I was actually talking to her or not, but we had at least acknowledged each other. Then I saw the bus coming - I don't know if it turned around and came back or if I saw it on the next street or what, but I said "OH, my school bus!" and started to head towards it. And then it swerved back and forth across the street and crashed into a house or something and I realized that whoever was driving must have been a carrier who'd gone crazy. I sort of said "...maybe I shouldn't go to school" and the woman agreed.

At this point I was getting really panicked because it was obvious that everything was falling apart and basically society as a whole was going to hell all around me. I started running back up the street. When I got to my house, there was a little girl sort of wandering around between the next house and mine. This girl was the younger sister of someone I went to high school with. She lived in the neighborhood but not in that house, but I'm not sure if maybe she did live there in the dream because I wasn't TOO weirded out by the fact that she was there. She was sort of wandering around looking lost so I knew something was up, but I guess I felt bad for her since she was so young and I foolishly approached her. I said something like "It's Emily, right? Emily, you should go home." I don't know what she said after that, but whatever it was made me go a little closer...and then she attacked. She launched herself and managed to land what was basically a bizarre sort of kiss. Her mouth only barely touched me and really briefly but I had a feeling it was enough.

I ran inside, panicking beyond belief. I found Keavy (who apparently lived with me) and somehow communicated to her that I thought I might have been infected - I'm sure I can't have been very coherant. Keavy held on to me and tried to calm me down and told me that I needed to pay attention to any problems I might have with my vision, because that would be the first symptom. I think she started getting some medication ready then (I'm pretty sure Keavy was like a doctor or something in the dream so I was really lucky).

Almost immediately everything went suddenly black. I started screaming and panicking so hard, it was seriously lucky that Keavy even understood what had happened because I was NOT calm enough to really communicate anything. My vision went black, then came back and was all sort of wavy and blurry I think, and then went black again. Keavy came over and tried to calm me down again and said that I needed to keep my eyes moving or else they'd like...harden...and I'd lose my sight permanently. I think I misunderstood at first because I was so panicked and thought that I should try to move my eyeballs with my hands, because I remember rubbing my eyes really hard. Then I realized what she meant and started rolling my eyes all over and looking in every direction like a crazy person. With everything black this felt so creepy and I couldn't even tell for sure that I was moving my eyes, but I think Keavy said I was doing it well.

She gave me some kind of medication - I don't remember if it was an injection or something I swallowed or what. It seemed like things started to clear up right away - I'm pretty sure my vision came back, and I think the crazy hysterical panic also lifted a bit. I'm not sure if that was just because my vision came back and I realized that I must be a carrier and not actually going to die from it, or if the hysteria itself was in part a symptom of the disease too.

Anyway, Keavy totally saved my life and was the best dream-Keavy ever. SUCH a creepy dream. And the weird part was, it wasn't a nightmare - as in, it didn't wake me up in that awful panicky state like nightmares do. But now looking back on it it's SO creepy. And the period of time right after I went blind when I knew for sure I was infected and didn't know if I would just be a carrier or if I was about to die a horrible death in the next few minutes...yeah, that was terrifying.

plasticpepper @ 2009-07-27T19:53:00

2009-07-28T00:13:05Z

So after the news about Lee, I got all distracted for a while searching for pics and news of all the Beatle kids. It's been SO LONG since I looked for recent pics so there were a lot of good ones that I hadn't seen. So I thought I'd do a little Beatle kid picspam, I know at least one person will want to see these! Some are kinda old, from as far back as 2006, so there are probably some you've seen before, but whatever.

I mostly focused on Lee, Jules, and James. But I think pretty much everyone is in here somewhere. Some of the others are way more visible anyway, it's never hard to find pics of Sean or Dhan so I didn't bother with too many of them. And I just stole all of these from Getty Images.

This one makes me lol SO HARD. Also, Sharna seriously looks about 15 in this pic.

This is Lee's boyfriend Jay (also known as the father of the triplets).

LOL LEE ARE YOU WEARING A HOT PINK THONG? Lee, I could not possibly love you more.

AWWW lookit these two! I want to be like "HAI YOU GUYS SHOULD GO MAKE A TRASHY DRESS OUT OF A TSHIRT."

Miss Lee and Lily Allen. CUTE.

Lee and Jas! Awwww. I love that he's still rocking the ponytail.

Haha look at that smile!

HAHAHAHA this makes me laugh SO HARD. And Zak looks sooo young.

lol this is like Myspace Lee or something.

SO CUTE.

This is most definitely my Leebee. WHAT A CUTIE PIE.

...and so is this. HAHAHAHA.

AWWWW. If you can't tell that necklace is a white feather - as in, the symbol of John's love for Jules. SO CUTE SO CUTE SO CUTE.

HAPPY JULES! Aww.

AWWWWWWWWW.

lol.

Hahahahaha. CUTIES.

Happy Jules again!

This one is clearly really old and I'm pretty sure I've seen it before, but it's Jules and Dhan so I had to grab it.

You can just tell that Stella is the one who's always like "LET'S DO CUTE POSES. HEY GUYS LET'S DO A JUMPING ONE. JAMES YOU DIDN'T JUMP."

hahahahahahaha

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Awwww!

I'm not posting too many of Dhani but I just had to post these two. I can't believe how smiley he is in all of the recent pics! So cute.

IS THAT NOT THE CUTEST THING YOU'VE EVER SEEN?

There are tons more pics beyond what I posted so go search if you want to see more!

plasticpepper @ 2009-07-23T19:11:00

2009-07-23T23:23:41Z

So I just watched Dating in the Dark on a whim because it seemed interesting.

OMG NGL I TOTALLY LOVED IT.

I'm going to try to be relatively vague - it's not really the kind of thing where spoilers would be a HUGE deal, but just in case, if you might want to watch it at some point, feel free to keep reading because I'm trying not to give anything major away.

If you haven't heard of it, it's a dating show where people meet and get to know each other in total darkness so they don't know what the others look like. They end up choosing one person that they want to get to know and continue "dating" in the dark room, and then they reveal what each person looks like. The reveal is done with the other person still in the dark - so first they reveal the guy and he can't see the girl's reaction, then vice versa. They can't talk or anything at that time. And at the end, they get the chance to finally meet up, each person can either go to this meeting or just walk away then.

My favorite girl ended up with my favorite guy! Favorite girl seemed SO MUCH like me, and favorite guy.....oh DROOL.

I was surprised at the end because I didn't realize they had it set up so they could see the other people leaving. I thought it would just be like you wait for a while and if the other person doesn't show you eventually give up, but to have to actually watch them walk away...oh man my heart was breaking for someone who had to go through that.

I found it interesting watching how they prepared for the reveal. They showed the girls doing their makeup and fidgeting with their hair and they were clearly trying to pick cute outfits, but their conversation mostly focused on wondering what the guys looked like. Whereas the guys were occasionally wondering what the girls looked like or hoping they were hot, but it seemed like the guys were more concerned with hoping they were attractive enough for the girls and worrying what the girls would think.

I thought it was kinda weird that they never discussed physical appearance; I think they must have been instructed not to. They did the whole face-feeling thing, and there was a fair amount of physical contact, so you're going to know the basics - hair style, height, stuff like that. And they had them describe the other person to a sketch artist who would draw a picture based on what they described so they could "see" them that way. But the stuff you can't feel, like hair color, surprised a lot of people. If you were meeting someone in the dark, wouldn't that naturally be something you'd ask, wanting to form a mental picture? So I think they must have told them not to actually SAY anything about their looks and just let it be based on feeling the person. Haha that sounds creepy.

I enjoyed that because the personality and looks aspects were so distinct, it really forced people to confront their own shallowness. I knew going into it that it would highlight everyone's shallow tendencies but it hadn't occur to me how much people would have to deal with their OWN shallowness. If you have a great connection with someone and then see what they look like and decide to walk away....well, you are now FULLY AWARE that you're being shallow about it.

I also liked when (favorite girl) said that if she hadn't gotten to know (favorite guy) before seeing him, she never would have gotten to know him at all. I assumed a show like this would be about "inner beauty" and that you'd see people falling for people who, um...weren't necessarily stunningly attractive, but I hadn't thought about the opposite - he was actually TOO HOT and she just would have assumed she had no chance. Really interesting. And he was SUCH a cutie pie!

plasticpepper @ 2009-07-23T16:38:00

2009-07-23T20:47:35Z

hai LJ halp me plz!

When you send out a resume, do you change the objective to reflect the specific job you're sending it for, or do you just have one standard resume with a more generic objective that you send to everything?

And more specifically...my resume is available on my website. My website URL is also on my resume and I would generally mention the URL in the cover letter as well. My resume which is on my website is obviously going to have a more generic objective - right now it says "An entry level position in the field of graphic design" although I think I might change it to "An entry level position in a field relating to graphic design or web design" or something like that (does that sound good?). So if I did have to change the objective to reflect each specific job, then the resume I send won't match the one that's on my website.

I'm thinking I'll probably just go with one standard resume that I'll send everywhere, but I figured I'd see what you guys think.

I also need to change my resume a little bit...it seems like I'm looking at more web design stuff than I expected to, so where I list relevant coursework I think I might add stuff like HCI, Web Science, Interface Design, maybe Writing for the WWW so that I can show both sides in my resume better.

Augghh. I got an email about a job that might be good - it's a web developer position, which makes me a little nervous, but idk. In the part about what the job entails they mentioned FrontPage and Drupal (and I think maybe a couple other things I'm not familiar with) but in the qualifications bit they basically just said like HTML, CSS, Dreamweaver. So I'm like...well I know that stuff, but not the other stuff you mentioned that I'd be doing, so idk. I guess it can't hurt to apply, I'm just worried I'd end up in one of those situations where they somehow expect me to do things that I don't know how to do.

HP:HBP thoughtses

2009-07-17T02:54:15Z

Alright, time to write a bit about Half Blood Prince!

I went with Max to catch the midnight showing and then just went again this afternoon with my mom. I'm not at all surprised that the midnight release was record-breaking - it was WAY crazier than the other releases have been! There were 8 sold-out showings at each of the two major movie theaters in the area (like within 15 minutes of my house) so that's 16 showings before you even get to the smaller, crappier, and/or farther theaters. We had been told the line would start forming at 9 but when we got there at like 9:04 or something there was already almost a full theater's worth of people in line ahead of us so it was obvious they'd let the line start forming way earlier than that. They started letting people into the theaters at about 10:30. We ended up in the first theater, and it was mostly full by the time we got in but we managed to find two decent seats so we didn't have to sit way too close or anything. At around 11:30 or so Max went out to get us a soda and when he came back he explained how long the line was and I'd guess it was still about 2 theaters worth of people at that point. And it was moving, of course - they had two people taking tickets so they can file people into the theaters pretty quickly but still not as fast as people were joining the line so the line was still super long. Ridiculous!

Overall, I was very happy with the movie. I think this one was definitely one of the best if not THE best of the movies. The only thing that MAJORLY annoys me is the random scene they just ADDED IN in which they SET FIRE TO THE BURROW OMG. I really, really don't understand it. And going along with that, I don't like that they skipped the major fight scene at the end. It doesn't make sense; I don't see what the reasoning was for adding an extra scene instead of that one.

Beyond that, there are of course a lot of things that get left out that I'm always kinda "awww" about but I can deal. I can always understand when things have to get left out, it's only when they change things for no apparent reason that I get pissed.

I was sort of surprised that they pulled all of the plotlines involving Bill and Fleur, Bill getting attacked by Greyback, and therefore the stuff about Tonks and Lupin. I'm not TOO upset to see that stuff go (partially because the casting of Fleur was SO awful that I'm glad to not have her around, haha) but it seems weird to me to not have Bill attacked. I kinda missed seeing Lupin's and Tonks's relationship develop because when I first read the book it was really neat to see all the signs of that and figure out what was happening, but again, it's very understandable that that was something that would have to get cut.

There are a few things that I really wish were in the movie because of how they affect the storyline of the next book/movie. One I'm really worried about is Dobby - they seem to cut the house-elf scenes a LOT because they're somewhat expendable and also take a lot of CG to put together, so they're one of the first things to go out the window. So Dobby doesn't show up in this movie at all, and he's also been missing in some of the other movies he would have been in. But...he really SHOULD be in one of the movies for DH, and now I'm worried that either they'll skip that part (which I'd be REALLY pissed about) or even if they do it, it will be hard for them to make it as touching as it should be because in the movies we haven't seen enough of Dobby and haven't seen how loyal to Harry he's always been.

Along the same lines...Neville and Luna. I always loved the part of the book where they're the only two who respond when Hermione signals the D.A. because they're the only two who were still checking the coins regularly because it meant so much to them. With the major fight scene missing from the movie, we miss out on that bit of cuteness, but we also miss out on some set up for the next movies. They should have been fighting alongside the others this time because they'll be fighting alongside them next time, and I think it's important to see how loyal to Harry they've been as well. And especially Neville - after everything he does in DH and all the huge changes we see in him from the kid who kept losing his toad and forgetting the passwords but still stood up to his friends when he felt it was right? I freaking LOVE watching Neville grow up and so in DH when he comes striding up and we get to see what he's been up to since Harry's been gone - oh man I just want to do little dances of Neville-awesomeness. And the fact that the D.A. means so much to him and all that really sets up that storyline, so I'm kinda sorry that was missing.

There's some other small stuff that I wish hadn't been left out, but nothing awful. I would have liked to see some of the touching scenes with Harry and Dumbledore - the whole "Dumbledore's man through and through" bit and then the part at the beginning when Dumbledore tells Harry he'll be safe because "you are with me" and then at the end he says he isn't worried because "I am with you." SO SWEET and really significant, so I'm sorry it got cut.

I wish the Quidditch didn't get sacrificed as usual - just like the house-elves, it's somewhat expendable and it's expensive because it's CG-heavy, but I hate that it ALWAYS gets sacrificed, movie after movie. And I don't understand why the Order was like...nonexistent in this movie. Hardly got mentioned, and a lot of the scenes where the Order came into play got changed - like Luna finding Harry on the train instead of Tonks. However, that specific scene I kinda liked - I always love the parts where Luna turns out to be right - she knows what's up with the thestrals, she had the right idea about Voldemort being back even when hardly anyone believed it, and after all she's in Ravenclaw so it's obvious that the Sorting Hat (and presumably therefore Dumbledore) know she's not just a kook. And in this scene she got to be right about the Wrackspurts - at least to some degree - which was cute.

I really LOVED the scenes with Ron and the love potion and Harry and the Felix. Rupert nailed the love potion scene out of the part - his love-struck facial expressions were perfect, and then everything else too. Ron cramming his way onto the narrow bed while Harry backs away awkwardly, toppling backwards off Slughorn's couch, and of course "These girls...they're gonna kill me!" And Harry on Felix was hilarious as well - I love "HI!" and "SIRRR!" and "Well then by all means come along!" and of course his impression of spider-pincers.

I loved all the scenes with Luna, of course - "It was like being with a friend!" and her dress for the Christmas party and the fact that she wears shoes to bed because she sleepwalks. Evanna is, as usual, so incredibly PERFECT as Luna. And at one point I said "I love her!" referring to Luna and Max goes "You ARE her!" Hahaha.

I thought Lavender was very good and all of the scenes involving her were well done. I especially liked the elaborate heart she drew on the window in the train, mostly because of Harry's awkward fidgeting with the armrest and then "...lovely!" And Cormac was good as well, although honestly I think Freddie would have made a better Cedric and Rob would have made a better Cormac!

The relationships were handled pretty well in my opinion. I wish the Quidditch scenes had been there so Ginny and Harry's kiss could have happened the way it was supposed to, but apart from that they were good. The scene where Harry is comforting Hermione and they're both being pretty open about their respective crushes was sort of weird. It was sweet, but it's pretty out of character. But it didn't bother me TOO much - J.K. Rowling is so bad at writing relationships that I don't mind if the movie strays from the book a bit in that area!

I really liked the way Fred and George's shop was depicted - I thought it looked exactly as it should and I'm really glad they didn't cut that scene. As always, I love the twins - "How much for this?" "Five Galleons." "Yeah, but how much for me?" "...five Galleons." "But I'm your brother!" "...ten Galleons!" (And Arnold was cute!)

Dumbledore's death was well done also. I thought it was kinda weird that everybody just hung back and didn't go near him until Harry showed up. Like apparently all the teachers just stood around like "Should we do something?" "Nah, let's wait for some kid to show up and do something." But the scene where everyone held up their wands in tribute was touching. And I'm glad they included a scene with Fawkes flying away from the castle. And of course the entire thing was so sad - I was literally SHAKING with sobs and I could hear other people sniffling and when we walked out of the theater everyone was wiping their eyes. Max was just laughing at me - he was like "you doing okay over there?" and I laughed and said "ha, clearly" or something like that and he jokingly goes "I thought you knew! Snape kills Dumbledore!" and I was still laughing but just said "Shut up!" as I mopped my face off with my sleeves and got eyeliner all over me in the process. Hahaha.

Hmm, what else? Tom Felton did really well. After five years of Draco being such a one-dimensional character it takes some seriously good acting to not only show another side of him and make it believable, but to actually make you feel SORRY for him. I really liked the way they portrayed Greyback - I think it makes sense to have him a little less human than Lupin. I loved Ron's Quidditch helmet and the tryout scene where McLaggen is making all these flashy saves - smack one away with his hand, kick one away, etc. - and Ron is stopping them all as well but it's the opposite of flashy - get bopped in the head with one, take another directly to the gut, etc.

I could probably go on much longer naming bits that I liked (and I'm sure there's other stuff I didn't like that I didn't mention) but I'm getting tired of writing so I'll end it here. Overall, I was very happy with it!

plasticpepper @ 2009-07-16T01:23:00

2009-07-16T05:28:01Z

My randoms from shirt.woot came today!

Love Machine

I Just Can't Reach You

Defrost

I like "I Just Can't Reach You," that one was among the ones I would have been happy to get. But I've never been crazy about "Defrost" and I was really hoping I wouldn't get "Love Machine." I was really, really hoping for "Roots Rock" but no such luck. I'm wearing "I Just Can't Reach You" right now, and I'll probably end up keeping "Defrost" as well. I would trade "Love Machine" if I could but I doubt there would be anyone who wanted it. There's nobody looking for one on Teetrade now. So I'll probably end up keeping that one too and it can just be a shirt for sleeping in and wearing around the house.

Oddly enough, "I Just Can't Reach You" is almost exactly the color of my hair, which ends up looking sort of odd. Ah well.

plasticpepper @ 2009-07-08T22:49:00

2009-07-09T03:06:26Z

Tiny Things I Hate: The Way Spin Magazine Describes Songs They Think You Should Listen To

In every issue, Spin includes a list of 10 songs that they recommend with a very quick description. One would assume that if you were recommending a song, you would describe it in such a way that the reader might be able to tell if it would be something they'd like. You'd try to place it in a genre or a combination of genres, you'd describe the sound stylistically, you'd name similar bands and artists, something like that.

Well, here are two descriptions that I grabbed randomly out of the issue I was reading when I decided to make this a TTIH:

Josh Reichmann Oracle Band - "Shivering Black" - "A stomping, sparkling sci-fi popscape that hits like a kiss from a starman you suspect is full of shit but still dig for his dance moves."

...um, what? What exactly is a popscape? Is a starman an astronaut? What is it like being kissed by an astronaut, and what does it SOUND like? What the hell does a starman sound like when he's full of shit? Is it different if I only SUSPECT he's full of shit?

And then...Florence and the Machine - "Dog Days Are Over" - "Florence Welch's clear, tuff-dart vocals are the killer constant as bedsit folk gives way to girl-group bomp, dissolves into ethereal Kate Bushisms, and ends on a romping rave-up."

Again, WHAT? Tuff-dart? Bedsit folk? Rave-up? I mean, maybe these things are words, but why do they have to be so pretentious about it? It's really off-putting and definitely not going to entice anybody to listen to the song. If you're trying to describe a song people don't know, you need to describe it as it relates to things people DO know. The "stomping, sparkling" bit from the first one is okay, it's a little purple but I think most people would get the general idea of what that means in regards to a song. And girl-group bomp, that works, people can figure that out. But half the time these things read like there's some sort of contest at Spin headquarters to see who can cram the most metaphors into a 30 word description, and you get bonus points for every obscure music reference you make. Not that I'm calling Kate Bush obscure, but other descriptions make a lot of weird references. If you want to compare to another band/artist, compare to Bowie or Dylan or the Stones, not Godspeed You! Black Emperor.