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Ramblings
Thursday, August 14, 2003. 11:12 a.m.Booyah! I was only two minutes late for my driving lesson today. That's got to be a record. When I got in, I was greeted with a cheery, "Good morning!" by the driving instructor. I figure he had either a brain transplant or surgery to remove his cyst from his ass. As it turned out, the explanation was simpler: the instructor was an entirely different man. The new instructor was a humorous man, who gave wordy instructions, passed off my mistakes with a laugh and complimented me whenever I did anything well. In short, he was the first guy's antithesis. He'll be my instructor tomorrow too, for which I'm duly thankful. Manang hasn't managed to stop her mild backseat driving (she's added "tsk" to her collection of disapproving and contemptuous noises), but at least my glass is half-full. And may I add, I didn't perform too badly today. I actually managed to do some things right without the instructor's prompting. Yay, me. You Can Meet Some of the World's Greatest Assholes While You're Driving ...and they're not all drivers and pedestrians. As I've discovered these past three days, oftentimes the world's biggest asshole is sitting right next to you, taking down notes on his stupid clipboard or, failing that, sitting in the backseat, sniggering when you make the tiniest mistake (and not even making a decent effort to pass it off as a cough). Yeah, I'm feeling very touchy. Sue me and let me get on with nursing my misery. I've been taking driving lessons for the past three days. The instructor (the selfsame jackass who sits on the passenger seat with his little clipboard) rubbed me (and my mom) the wrong way right from the off. I'm not used to people being disrespectful (people that aren't me, at any rate), but this guy had it going on in spades. It was all I could do not to tell him to go fuck himself in one of those public tin sheet toilets with the words "MM" plastered all over. The second offender is Manang, the housemaid that Mama suggested I take along on my lessons. Whenever I ask a question to which the answer is obvious to everyone but my dense self, she laughs and says my name like it means, "How stupid are you?" Like it's easy to drive through heavy traffic and deal with notoriously inconsiderate Filipino drivers when you're extremely high strung. *grumbles* I don't dislike Manang, but I sure as hell don't like taking flack from her. I'd ask Ma if I could go on my lessons alone, but that would mean there'd be no one else to help deal with the instructor (whose name I don't know). So it's pretty much rock-me-hard place. Blech. Fortunately I only have two more days to go. Four more hours. That's not so bad. Then I'll never have to see the instructor again and Manang can go back to being her surly, usually non-critical self. And all things will be right again with the world. Oooh-urgh It's a sure indication that I'm bummed, exhausted and overwhelmed when the only title I can come up with for a rambling is a semblance of a grunt / sigh. Actually, I'm not so much bummed as I am slightly frustrated. If I'd have known that work was actually work, I would have begged my mom to become a dependent all my life. And here's the worst part: I can't leave my thoughts of work behind like I did with school, oh, no. It's my money and my ass on the line, so work worries me constantly until I finally drop off at twelve-ish in the morning. I'm taking driving lessons (yes, again) next week, so I can drive to work on my own. Nervous breakdown, here I come. Did I mention that I am not the most confident driver? In fact, if memory serves, Kate Katayama, my driving buddy in high school, spent the better part of our lessons bracing herself for a crash and shrieking whenever I let go of the steering wheel. And you know, I can't really blame her. Fortunately, I'm learning on an automatic this time around (that's going to earn me some ridicule from my manual driving cousins, but what the hell), so maybe this time I won't fuck up so badly. Did I mention that I blew out part of the driving school's car when I tried that hanging (or whatever) thing? Btw, I'm also getting a TIN.  That's freaky shit, man. Did I mention that whenever I'm under stress I tend to curse more than usual? Anyway... I'm going to be a bona fide taxpayer. Rats.
Here's the rotten part of my job: as a precedent to selling books in California, we're going to have to acquire a learning curve, which means that for the next two months I will be selling Adarna books personally. Ugh! No offense to people who are in sales (my mom especially), but their work involves groveling and I do not grovel well. I also don't take rejection very well. Fortunately, it's only for two months. Eleven weeks. Seventy-odd days. Somehow, that's not as comforting as it ought to be. But at least I'm learning. The best part of my job? Flexible hours! Yeah, baby! That and my desk is right in front of the air conditioner and near the window. Prime spot, that. But I've gone on too long. My mom wants the computer now and since we now come home at the same time, I have to share my preciousss more often than usual. And to all a good night! A Frame by Frame Analysis of the New The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King Clip Frame 1: Blackness. Frame 2: Blackness fades to reveal a closeup of a pair of hands holding the One Ring. There's mud on the palm, so I'm guessing this is part of the flashback to when Sméagol's cousin Déagol finds the ring in the river where it slipped from Isildur's finger. (Sméagol kills him and steals the ring, by the way). Fade to black. Frame 3: Blackness fades to reveal Frodo and Sam following Gollum through the briar. Sam looks back over his shoulder. My good, sweet, wary Sam. Pippin (voice-over): Is there any hope, Gandalf? For Frodo and Sam? Fade to black. Frame 4: Blackness fades, revealing Pippin standing by the wall of Minas Tirith. Gandalf (voice-over): There never was much hope. Pippin looks up at Gandalf. Frame 5: Cut to Gandalf, looking down at Pippin. Gandalf: Just a fool's hope. Fade to black. Frame 6: Blackness fades, revealing a close up of a very grimy looking Frodo struggling to climb up a sheer wall of rock. Frame 7: Fade to Merry speaking to Pippin. You can only see Pippin's cloak. He's mounted on Shadowfax. Merry: We shall see the Shire again. Frame 8: Cut to Pippin looking tearful and nodding at Merry's words. Poor little Took, separated from his best friend! Frame 9: Fade to a shot of a forest. Gandalf, Pippin and Shadowfax are riding hastily to Minas Tirith. Fade to black. Frame 10: A white flash, then a close up of the Eye of Sauron. Frame 11: Another white flash, which fades to a close up shot of Mordor Orcs marching to make war on Minas Tirith. Frame 12: Fade to Faramir (yippee!) standing in Denethor's hall. There are two attendants off to one side. Behind him is a column with the White Tree carved on it. Eeeeh! Minas Tirith, at last! Faramir: My lord, Osgiliath is overrun. On a fangirl-ish note, David Wenham's voice is beautiful. *swoons* Frame 13: Fade to a shot of Gondorian soldiers with torches running through the city. It's nighttime, obviously. Frame 14: Fade to a shot of Éowyn looking sad and watching as the Eorlingas go to war or the Grey Company rides to the Paths of the Dead. Maybe both, if they leave together in the movie. Théoden (voice-over): I would have you smile again, not grieve for those whose time has come. How very foreshadow-y. The voice-over lasts until Frame 16. Frame 15: Fade to Théoden speaking to Éowyn in what looks like a hall in Helm's Deep. Frame 16: Fade to a battlefield showing Pippin in Gondorian armor holding Merry, who's in Rohirric armor. Merry is screaming in pain. This reminds me of the shot when Merry is holding and comforting Pippin after Gandalf falls in Moria. Anyway, Gandalf's behind them, fighting. I guess they've placed Pippin in the Battle at the Pelennor Fields, which is kind of cool. Hobbits in action! As Merry has been wounded or fallen, I'm guessing this is after he and Éowyn fought the Witch King. Frame 17: Fade to a close up of Aragorn, looking depressed and forlorn, as he falls to his knees. Legolas is just behind him. If the publicity photos are to be trusted, this is just after the Grey Company comes from the Paths of the Dead. Fade to black. Frame 18: Blackness fades, revealing Gandalf in Minas Tirith. Gandalf: The board is set. Frame 19: Fade to a large group of soldiers raising their bows. Some of them look like Orcs, but others look like men. It could be the Orc lookalikes are only men wearing dark armor and helmets. Most likely, though, the men with them are Easterling bowmen, or another race of Men that serve Sauron (they sure don't look like Southrons, at any rate). Frame 20: Fade to a shot of Gondorian soldiers raising their bows in answer. Frame 21: Fade to a shot of a huge Orc army on the march. Gandalf (voice-over): The pieces are moving. Fade to black. Frame 22: Blackness fades, revealing an army riding out from Minas Tirith (which looks incredible). Since there aren't any live Orcs or enemies around, this might be Aragorn (you can see him at the head of the company) leading his men to the Morannon to (heh) face Sauron. As usual, you can pick Legolas right off the crowd of soldiers by the color of his hair. 
Gandalf (voice-over): We come to it at last. The voice-over lasts until the next frame. Frame 23: Fade to a shot of Aragorn Elessar riding toward Mordor. He's in full Gondorian armor (squeeeee!) and he looks bathed and brushed. It's about time, too. Legolas is behind him. Fade to black. Frame 24: Blackness fades, revealing Gandalf, presumably taking command of the city, riding Shadowfax up a staircase along the walls of Minas Tirith. Soldiers are lined up on the walls. The camera moves forward so you can see that they're looking out at Sauron's ginormous army. It's bigger than Saruman's at Helm's Deep. Very chilling. Gandalf (voice-over): The great battle of our time. Fade to black. Frame 25: Blackness fades, showing a profile shot of a big group of horses charging across the Pelennor fields. Frame 26: Cut to a profile shot of the men riding the horses. It's Faramir leading a group of Gondorian knights! *shrieks in delight* You can hardly see his face, because of the decorative wings / cheekguards of his helmet, but I'm almost positive it's Faramir. He yells at his men to charge and brandishes his sword. Frame 27: Cut to an aerial shot of Orcs hitting the gate of Minas Tirith with a battering ram. I doubt it's Grond, though, because it's kind of small. Frame 28: Cut to a shot of what looks like an Orc siege tower dropping onto the wall and smashing it. Frame 29: Cut to a nighttime shot of Orcs and Gondorians converging within the city. Minas Tirith is on fire. Frame 30: Cut to a shot of one of the Nazgûl in his winged steed. He descends on a trebuchet and the steed breaks it in half with his talons. Yikes! The camera follows one of the men that gets flung down from the tower. The men cry out. Fantastic! Frame 31: Cut to a shot of Sam from a point of view over Frodo's shoulder. Sam: You don't see it, do you? Frame 32: Cut to a shot of Frodo from a point of view over Sam's shoulder. Frame 33: Cut to a shot of Gollum's reflection in the water. The real Gollum is only partially seen. Gollum: Precious, you will be ours... Frame 34: Cut to a shot of an Orc in front of a catapult. He swings his torch as a signal. Frame 35: Cut to a shot of an Orc catapult throwing burning things into the city. Could this be the severed heads? No? Not PG-13 enough? Frame 36: The frame follows two flaming projectiles (that, unfortunately, do not look like severed heads) as they soar from outside the walls and land within the city. Frame 37: Cut to the projectiles causing some sort of explosion. Frame 38: Cut to a shot of Frodo in Shelob's lair. He looks frightened and he's looking around, as if sensing something. Sam (voice-over): He's leading us into a trap! Frame 39: Cut to Frodo running along the tunnels of Shelob's lair. The camera follows behind him, giving us Shelob's point of view. It reminds me of when the basilisk was chasing Harry in Chamber of Secrets, but it's a little creepier. Gollum (voice-over): Once... Frame 40: Cut back to the shot of Gollum looking at himself in the water. Gollum: ...the hobbitses are dead. He drops a stone into the water. Frame 41: Fade to an unseen someone holding Andúril. A carving in the background looks Elvish, so this is probably in Rivendell. It may be the forge where Narsil was remade. Frame 42: Fade to a shot of Andúril being held aloft alongside a torch. Aragorn moves into the shot from the side, Legolas from the back. They're in the Paths of the Dead. *cue the music from the Twilight Zone* Blackout. Frame 43: Blackness fades, revealing King Théoden riding into battle with his host. Éomer (voice-over): Ride now! Frame 44: Cut to Legolas, surrounded by Rohirrim soldiers, swinging his nocked bow from left to right. The camera zooms up into his face. Éomer (voice-over): Ride for ruin and the world's ending! Woah. Éomer's voice gives me goosebumps. At least, I'm assuming it's Éomer. It didn't sound like Théoden, though it could be Aragorn, if they gave book Éomer's line to him (heck, they did it with book Faramir and movie Boromir). The voice-over lasts until Frame 48. Frame 45: Cut to a group of foot soldiers (I can't tell what culture) rushing towards a line of Orcs. Radical. Frame 46: Cut to a shot of Aragorn fighting. He looks enormously pissed. Frame 47: Cut to a profile shot of the Rohirrim charging on their horses. Man, they look so cool! Frame 48: Cut to a frontal shot of the Rohirrim still charging. Fade to black. Frame 49: Blackness fades. Gandalf the White rides out of the shadows of Minas Tirith (with Pippin behind him ;)). He meets a Nazgûl in its winged (and roaring) steed. It sounds like a dinosaur. Shadowfax rears as the steed comes towards them. Scary! Fade to black. Frame 50: Black screen that reads: The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. The title fades backward and the words, "December 2003" appear. The date fades backward. Blackout. Yowza! I want, I want, I want! Everything looks great. It's a little battle-centric and there are a couple of missing characters (Gimli, Denethor, Saruman, Wormtongue and Éomer), but I have no complaints. I can't wait to see this movie, especially the exciting spoiler-y parts they left out of the trailer. I bid all now a fond good-bye and ask them to wish me luck tomorrow. Squeeeee! I've been making indistinct noises for the past ten minutes. A short trailer of Return of the King has surfaced online. God bless the Internet. It was removed from TheOneRing.Net at the request of New Line before I was able to download it, but I got a copy from Lights Out Entertainment. Thank God for mirror sites, too. I don't know how long it's going to be there, though. Odds are, New Line will ask them to remove the trailer too. Anyway, to celebrate my last day of freedom (I start work tomorrow), I'll be posting a frame by frame analysis of the RoTK clip later. I doubt I'll ever be able to waste my time like this once I start my new job, so I'm going out with a bang. Return of the King, baby, yeah, yeah, yeah! Plus, Faramir has a line! *throws imaginary confetti into the air* In one of the Two Towers trailers, he just stood there and looked out into the horizon. In the other trailer, he wasn't there at all! At any rate, watch for my analysis! It may take a bit of time, because it's sometimes hard to understand the dialogue. Gollum is the worst offender. Joining the Workforce I've been holding off announcing this until it was official (and now I'm thinking I should hold off announcing it until I find out if I can make a success of it or not). But here it is at last: I am not going back to college. Not in the immediate future, anyway. Instead, I'm skipping right ahead to working. (Heh. This is every semi-slacker's dream, to go right to work without the bother of going to school.) I'm glad both God and my mom nudged me into opening a bank account when I was eight years old. I'll have to remember to do that if I ever have kids of my own. At any rate, I've got eleven years of allowance saved (plus a ginormous interest). Since I'm kind of a penny pincher (I only spend other people's money, never my own  ), that adds up to a pretty tidy sum (but I'm not showing off. Really.) I've invested 20,000 pesos of that money in a company my mom and her siblings are starting. My uncle's pretty much in charge, but I've landed a vice-presidential position. Don't laugh. I'm so not kidding. Starting August 1st, I will be training under Tito Joy to be... heck, I'm not sure yet. But I know it has something to do with communications and people (ugh!) and organizing... stuff. I'm glad Tito Joy's a successful businessman, because I am in desperate need of his mentorship. Anyway, I'll be learning the bookselling business from him. I'd go into more detail, but I can't recall any more without getting it all muddled. I'm sure things will be made clear within the next few weeks. The bottom line is that there's a market for Filipino-themed books (Filipino legends, history, children's stories, all in the English language) in Filipino communities in the East and West Coasts and our company is going to corner it. It's business for a good cause, so Filipinos in the States can pass on their cultural heritage to their children. How many companies can claim to have that?
The scary thing is, the success of this venture depends more or less on how well I can make a go of it. So if I fail miserably, I will have the satisfaction of knowing that it's no one's fault but my own. Damn it. On the other hand, if the company does well, I'll have the satisfaction of knowing that I had some part in it. And so it's all done (or all about to start, depending on your point of view). I've signed a whole bunch of documents, gotten my cedula and will be soon getting my TIN, which means that a criminally hefty portion of my income will be going straight into the pockets of corrupt government officials. I am officially an adult. Where the Wrathful and the Gloomy Dwell The Dante's Inferno Test has banished you to The Fifth Level of Hell! Here is how you matched up against all the levels:
Take the Dante's Inferno Hell Test. I'm going to burn in hell. This irrefutable online quiz says so. Suckersville, Part Duex, or Oh, the Money Woes of a Comic Geek So I rearranged my comic checklist for the next three months and guess what? Number-wise, there isn't much of a difference. I still have to wait for the current arcs in X-Treme and Ultimate X-Men to play out before I can drop 'em. Plus, I've added 1602 and X-Statix to the list. Even without Uncanny X-Men and the five issues of Daredevil I'm not picking up (David Mack is guest-writing in place of Brian Michael Bendis), I still stand to spend a lot of money over the next three months. August is the worst, because the X-Statix TPB I'm picking up costs a pretty penny. Now the trick I'm going to have to perform in midair is to convince my mom that spending an extra 800 pesos next month won't be that bad because I'll be knocking 400 pesos or so off the total price of my comics in the months after that. Which is true, which would be no problem, except that she'll probably respond with a suggestion to drop comics altogether. It wouldn't be an unreasonable request either. Heh. Suckersville I'm considering dropping most of the comics that I usually get. (My mom, who foots my comic bills, is doing the happy Snoopy dance as I speak.) Why? Several reasons, most of which have only recently sprung up. I'm feeling organized today (we've just had our semiyearly housecleaning), so I'll list my reasons by title.
), but he's turned the title into a goddamn soap opera! Not just any soap opera, oh, no, but a bad soap opera. Bad enough to make you want to tear your eyes out but not bad enough so that it's actually good in its badness. Nope, it's just out-and-out bad. The Alex-Lorna-Annie-Carter story? Talk about a romance being stuffed down your throat. I pity all Polaris fans, and send them all the sympathy that I can squeeze out of my little black heart. The only halfway redeemable character Chuck had was Northstar, and he shot all that to shit by having him fall for Bobby. Ugh! What in God's name could Jean-Paul possibly see in him? Don't get me wrong, Bobby's one of my favorites (or was, until he turned into a whiny little bitch), but Jean-Paul crushing on him just doesn't fly. None of Chuck's romances do. Bobby still not over Lorna? Warren and Paige? Is that even legal? Urrrgh! What I'd really like to do is strangle the genius whose idea it was to pull Joe Casey off the title (if it was Joe Casey himself, more's the pity). A lot of people didn't like his run, but I did. I didn't even mind that Kurt was all broody, and not his normally jocular self. Hey, we all have our little phases. Casey had taken a different approach to the X-Men's mission --- taking the war to corporate America, for one. I liked that. Hell, I even liked Stacy X, the mutant hooker who had a lot of X-Men fans screaming for her blood. The send-off Chuck gave her is too damn annoying to repeat to any human being. So, yeah, I'll get the Uncanny issues I reserved and then it's Auf Wiedersehen, Kurt. See you in the movies in 2005.
The ironic thing about all this, though, is that even if I do drop at least four of these titles, I'll probably pick up four more that I couldn't afford before but still really, really want. X-Statix, for example, is a comic I've wanted to get into for some time now (I've only read a couple of issues). I might even pick up the trade paperbacks. I'll also probably try out the new miniseries Marvel is coming out with, 1602. None of my favorite characters are there, but the concept is interesting (Marvel's universe as it would have been in the last years of Elizabeth I's reign). Plus, you can never go wrong with Neil Gaiman. And Brian K. Vaughn's Y - The Last Man is supposed to be good, too. This is the bitch of being a comic book fan. Even if you drop all the titles you're into, there are always more to choose from and tempt you back into blowing all your money on a weekly basis. I'd quit cold turkey if I could, but the thought of what my withdrawal symptoms might be (stand back, people, she's gonna eat!) is just too scary to contemplate. The People vs. Erika Santiago I've never read Don Quixote, but I have seen the movie musical starring Peter O'Toole and Sophia Loren. There was a line in it that struck me, the way little phrases from books and movies and articles somehow stick to your mind and refuse to come off, even years later. At the beginning of the movie, Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (the selfsame author of the two-part story of the valorous fruitcake Alonso Quejana) has been arrested by the government for putting on his anti-authoritarian plays. He is subsequently thrown in a unisex slammer to be later judged. Before that moment comes, he is tried by the inmates of the prison themselves. The charge is being an idealist and a bad poet (both true, after a fashion). In his (rather lengthy) defense, he states, "I have never been brave enough to believe in nothing." Now it may sound like I'm digressing, but bear with me. As I'm wont to do when I'm bored out of my mind, I trolled around the IMDb message boards and chanced upon (hah!) a discussion of whether or not Tolkien's books were pro or anti-war. Needless to say, the discussion progressed immediately to a debate over the world's war policies, in particular that of one Baby Bush. I've read many discussions like it, though I don't know why I bother. They're always the same: pacifists and war hawks go at each other's throats while trying to maintain a semblance of civility and intelligence (mostly, it's the hawks that begin to flounder first ), and those of a more neutral position are promptly ignored (Switzerland who? what? where?). The end result is almost always name-calling and insults in the vein of, "So's your Momma." Nevertheless, these dialogues always hold a perverse attraction for me, in much the same way that mindless, tasteless reality shows like The Bachelor and Joe Millionaire attract boring, scandal-loving but nevertheless fairly intelligent people. At the surface of it, my attraction may simply be one of a person seeking to amuse herself; these message threads are often worth a laugh and a half. But as I read over the back-and-forth posts of the hawks and the pacifists, I discovered that my attraction is really based on nothing less than envy. The people who post messages in these kinds of threads, no matter how stubborn or close-minded or misled (or ungrammatical) they are, believe very strongly in something. And I envy them because I have no political convictions to speak of, and very few moral ones. I don't believe in anything much anymore. Any debate I might have joined to defend Christianity, pacifism, women's rights or any of that stuff, I've joined out of denial and desperation to hang on to something that makes me a little more human and a lot more alive. I am Don Quixote's antithesis. I and my kind are what makes this world futile, stagnant, ineffective. If I were to be tried, I'd be convicted --- of being indifferent, mistrusting and above all, lost. And I don't like it one bit.
Edit (3 days later): Oh, God, I'm such a drama queen. Boohoohoo and cry me a fucking river. I must have been PMS-ing. Apologies to those who have had the misfortune to read this crap. Run away while you still can, my pretties! *cackles madly* If self-loathing were an art, Picasso would have nothing on me. Switching Allegiances I've switched sides. That's right. I've finally admitted the painful truth: the writers of X-Men will never reunite Forge and Storm. A certain comic scribe (I use the term loosely) who shall remain nameless has damaged their relationship beyond repair. Who now do I wish for Storm to fall in love with? Doop. None other than Doop, International Spud of Mystery. Doop who? Now you may cry out in indignation. You may chuckle 'til your sides are sore. And I don't really give a damn. All I know is this: Doop is a fantastic character. So what if he looks like the love child of a pickle and a potato? He's mysterious (in that nobody knows just who or what he is, if he's an alien or a mutant), he speaks a foreign language (doopspeak), he's a filmmaker of sorts (being X-Statix's videographer), he's a great travel companion (he can ingest your luggage and expel it later for you to use) and, given the right motivations, he will kill. He's dangerous. He's androgynous. He's Doop. Work it, Doop! And now I must pack, leave town and change my name, for as surely as the moon revolves around the earth, most self-respecting Storm fans will be after me, to tear me limb from limb. Too-da-loo! Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix So I got it yesterday, after lunch, and proceeded to blow out a dangerous amount of my brain cells reading it for fourteen hours straight, after which I was shaky, unable to focus my eyes and extremely lightheaded, not to mention drowning in the throes of despair. Oh, Ms. Rowling, how could you do this to me? To your fans?! *throws self down on floor and beats fists* Waaaaaaaaah! I won't say who it was who died, and I certainly won't blurt out any of the revelations found in the book, but... waaaaaaaah! I think Shakespeare said it best: O woe! O woeful, woeful, woeful day! Most lamentable day, most woeful day, That ever, ever, I did yet behold! O day! O day! O day! O hateful day! Never was seen so black a day as this: O woeful day, O woeful day! I mean, sure that verse was referring to Juliet's "death," to the death of a daughter and a lover and a friend, but it applies here. Sort of. Man, I need to get a life. I'm actually (half) mourning the loss of a fictional character. What's more, I saw it coming a mile away and still refused to believed it, even as I was staring at the paragraph, even as it was spelled out for me: dead, dead, dead. Not coming back. Ever. *bawls and shakes fist at J.K. Rowling* I'm Ready For My Closeup, Mr. DeMille Boy howdy. I just got back from an arduous day of shooting a film for Ranina's sound class. If I ever entertained any fantasies of being in show business, this killed it. Don't get me wrong, I had a blast, but it was tiring work (also, I came to the shocking realization that I have absolutely no acting talent). And the end result was a three-minute long film. Three minutes for four hours' work. Hardly seems like a fitting payoff. I'm just glad I'm not a film student. Or an actor. Or a producer, or a set designer or any of that stuff. When it comes to movies, I'll be satisfied being a spectator all my life. I don't know how Ranina manages it. On the plus side, I did fairly well in the few hands of pusoy dos we had in between takes. I guess the day wasn't a total waste. :p Eeek! Yet Another Personality Test Result ![[i'm firenze!]](http://atypically.net/hp/images/firenze.jpg) ...and which lesser Harry Potter character are you? You're so different from most humans that you're an entirely different species. Still, your beliefs are unusual even for beings of your sort - although concerned with the future and the stars, you're willing to defy standard practices for the common good. Radical. So just how deep is prohibitively deep? ;-) The Lizard That Lived Beneath the Sofa Late last night, an hour or so after we finished watching Frasier, my mom conveniently informed me that there was a lizard underneath the sofa cushions --- yes, the sofa I was lying down on. Gadzooks! That's not the worst of it. She saw the lizard while we were watching Frasier, which meant that it had been there for over an hour. My mom the traitor. Ah, well, she meant well. She didn't want me to freak out because we were busy laughing our behinds off as Niles Crane engaged his wife's fencing instructor Gunnar in a swordfight, so she put off telling me until later. Strangely enough, I wasn't that scared. I did leap off the sofa onto the living room table, but that's just reflex. Perchance I've gotten over my immobilizing phobia of house reptiles? I can only wish... Boo Hoo Hoo! Bad news from TheOneRing.Net: "She (Miranda Otto, who plays Éowyn) also mentioned not holding out too much hope that much of the Houses Of Healing would appear. Apparently the romance between Éowyn and Faramir, although definitely present, has been downplayed somewhat. She seemed disappointed but said, 'Well something has to make way - there's a lot of story to cover in the last film.'" B-b-but why? Isn't it bad enough that they ruined my poor, gentle Captain Faramir, who does not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the warrior for his glory, but only that which they defend? Now they're taking his biggest chance at redemption away from him? 
O villain, villain, smiling, damned villain! ... That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain: At least I'm sure it may be so in New Line. Ugh! They make us suffer through endless kissy Arwen / Aragorn scenes and don't even reward us with the Houses of Healing? There's no justice in the world!  A Lament for Harry Potter Fandom I remember some years ago in high school that I was the only person I knew who read the Harry Potter books. I think I preferred it that way, for two reasons. 1) In a selfish way, I wanted to keep Harry to myself. 2) If Harry Potter had stayed relatively obscure, then I wouldn't be faced with his absolutely irritating fandom. *shakes fist at whatever malady caused Harry Potter to become a worldwide phenomenon* At any rate, HP fandom can be broken down into these categories:  ) suddenly fall in love and will do anything to save each other (though we're never given a reason why). Or, Harry and Draco fuck shamelessly in Filch's closet. (This at least I can appreciate. There's no pretense at writing a story, it's just out-and-out smut.) Or, after Hermione's death, Ron meets a mysterious girl who helps him love again (ah, God bless Mary Sues). Or, Ginny and Draco get together but must somehow keep it a secret from their families. There are about a thousand stories in the same vein and they all drive me up the wall. I don't think I would mind so much, if they had passable dialogue and solid characterizations. God knows I'm a prude when it comes to sex, but I do appreciate well-written sex and slash fiction (I appreciate well-written anything). However, a lot of HP sex fics are either crude or maudlin, and it's painfully obvious that the people who are writing them have no idea what they're talking about. I won't link to any of these fics (you'll just have to find them on your own), as I'll probably drive myself crazy trying to pick the worst one. I will, however, link to a well-written Lord of the Rings slash fic. I swear I'm not being biased, there are plenty of bad LoTR fan fic too, most of them comprising girls who get thrown into Middle-earth from the real world and chase after Legolas. Anyway, here it is: How I Spent My Summer Vacation, by Elladan son of Elrond. Intelligent, slashy and it'll have you rolling on the floor with laughter. If any potential slash / sex fic writer is reading my rambling right now, I beg you, read this story and use it as a model for good fan fiction. Please. You'll be doing the world a favor.
And the last, though certainly not the worst: Having ranted my little heart out, I will now proceed to lie down and take deep, calming breaths. I might be getting my period soon. Climb the Cross and Nail Yourself to It Fan fiction update. Brrr. I haven't written anything in quite a while, never mind anything in the genre of fan fic. I think I may be on the road to recovery, though. I've written a third chapter to I Was A Teenage Freak, and I think it's far better than the first two. But then, that may be because the story is starting to pick up pace. Anyway, here's the link to the chapter. Send me feedback, why don't you? If you aren't registered at FanFic.Net, you can email me here. Fixing Fetish Last night until early in the morning I got into this fixing craze. It's kind of like the munchies without the food, consisting instead of rearranging things that were perfectly arranged before (or so I thought, you can evidently improve on perfection --- yes, I was the one who arranged all these things before). I started on my poor dog, fixing his ID tag and reattaching it to his collar, then deciding I wanted to change his frayed and bitten old collar for an older collar that he's never used. I'm kind of starting to think I've pissed him off waking him up in the middle of the night several times. I bet the affection he's showing me now is all feigned. *sniffles pathetically* That ingrate! I washed his bowls and everything!
Then I rearranged our DVDs, Friends videos and (broken) VCRs, the dresser in my room and my Archie digests. You think I'd stop there, but, oh, no. I got up at seven in the morning *everyone who knows me faints to the floor in a dead faint* to feed and walk the dog, only to find out that he had already eaten and, erm, defecated. As it was raining outside (almost consistently since I got back from Batangas), I couldn't take him for a stroll. Result? I just let him bum around the house, which he's still doing right now. Now what, you may ask, has possessed me these past hours? It's not the restlessness of being cooped up in the house too long. I love being cooped up in the house when it's raining! I think it's trying to avoid the one real problem / question I've had for a very long time: school or no school? In all fairness, I think it's about time I go back. It's the only thing my mom has ever really asked of me --- to finish my education. I know what the right thing to do is. I just don't know if I'm up to it yet. It seems in the past few years I've lost a lot of my grit and determination. Bummer. So what now? Finding Avalon I'm home! I had the most fun three days with my friends at Punta Fuego, and now I'm back, still tired from last night's rainy trip home, back and arm muscles sore from a rigorous (and embarassing) kayakking incident, and face dry and nose peeling from being exposed to salt water too long. Blick. Ah, well. Sacrifices have to be made to the gods of good times. Anyway, as we were driving back home, I looked out to the sea and saw an island covered in mists. Only the shadows of the base and the peak of its mountain were visible. Somehow it reminded me of Avalon, the Isle of the Lady of the Lake, where King Arthur was borne across the Summer Sea. I haven't the eloquence to describe it well (also, I'm really drained, emotionally and physically), but it was very beautiful --- beautiful enough to make me understand a little of the things that inspire the great artists and authors of the world. I only wish I had as much skill as they did for translating the things they see onto canvas or page. And now, I'm feeling lightheaded. It must be an overdose of sleep. I bid all and sundry a fond adieu and remind them to be good to each other. |
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