inquiry and bloodlust

I'm slightly tipsy and I just sent this e-mail to my mom, you guys. I might be stupid.

( IN DEFENSE OF PUCK/KURT, or WHY THE JERKASS AND THE GAY KID NEED TO BE MAKEY OUTY LIKE RIGHT NOW )

We were discussing Glee and she approved of two of my three ships (Finn/Rachel and Santana/Brittany), but the Puck/Kurt? Mass confusion. I said I'd compose an e-mail outlining my views. I probably should have done it before I drank, though. Oops.

Ah well. My points still stand, I say!

Alright, I absolutely have to rec this fic: The Best Lines are Online by aggybird. It's porny, but it's also sweet and believable and not melodramatic (which is harder to avoid in this fandom than you'd think).

There. My less-than-logical OTP is completely exposed. Enjoy the fic.

First off, a very happy birthday to my kind-of-brother-in-law ultimademon! Here's hoping the monk life is treating him well.

Picked up another month's worth of sertraline. It's kind of alarming to me how happy I am to have a fresh bottle in hand. I'm pretty much dependent on this stuff for my sanity - without it, my anxiety can get pretty ridiculous, and even worse, when the level in my blood shifts (like, say, going onto it initially or after I forget a dose), my general anxiety shoots through the roof. Sure, the panic attacks come less frequently than they do without any medication, but I find myself sitting and shaking or frantically trying to watch my back a lot more. So, knowing that I have my pills, that my levels will stay nice and constant for another month... it's almost as soothing as the medication itself.

I'm completely caught up on Glee now, and I have a few thoughts. Normally I wouldn't read too much into the "messages" a show sends (for example, it drives me crazy when people complain about Dexter doing something that they don't want to root for - protagonist != "good guy"), but seeing as Glee tends to get all up-its-own-ass preachy (much like South Park), I think I'm justified in inspecting the actual messages it sends. In general, Jaime hates how often the apparent moral is "Being different is good; just don't be too visible about it." I have to agree with him. For every episode where we get told to let our freak flags fly, we get two that append "but not too high!" After you've noticed it once, it's hard to not see it all over.

My other issue? Atheism, my dears: ( Spoilers for 2x03 )

So now that I've praised Glee for something, let me counter that with a quick criticism: BRAD DOES NOT SING IN TIME WARP. It makes no sense plot-wise and it makes no sense fairness-wise. Finn gets far more solos than his mediocre voice deserves anyway; don't steal parts from Kurt to give him even more, damnit!

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Because people are stupid.

On that note, this blog post makes me sad too. Not as much as the comments infuriate me, though. Fucking conspiracy theorists and pseudoscientists. They are the WORST sort of people.

Anyway! Operation VayCay is a go - pretty much everything's been taken care of:
- Got time off work
- Set up boarding for the Benny
- Booked hotel
- Ordered swimsuit and board shorts
- Purchased tickets (annual passes, OMG, life is great)

So when I'm incommunicado week after next? Don't worry about me - I'll be Disneying it up a notch.

And possibly swimming with sharks. Eeeee.

Side note: There was a wee jumping spider on my desk at work today. I think he was an Anasaitis canosa. D'aww.

The past week has been quite the amalgam of good and bad. I'll sum the bad up as such: I really want this shirt. Yeah.

Moving on!

Friday night turned into movie night at home, which was a ton of fun. Honestly, I've spent so much time being sick or unbalanced or both that when I am capable of walking I want to go OUT, so I was skeptical about the idea, but it turned out awesome beyond compare. We swung by Target on the way home from work so I could get proper attire and Publix for subs, sushi, and ice cream cake, then continued on home to our pup, our giant TV, our lovely PS3's upsampling abilities, and the following features: Moon, the newest Futurama episode, the newest P&T: Bullshit! episode, and Troll 2. All were satisfying.

Moon, in particular, is an amazingly good movie. I had no clue what it was going into it, and I'm glad I didn't. Watching the story unfold, picking through the nuances and guessing what each turn would uncover, was an experience on par with some of my favorite films. It has an eery 2001 vibe to it at times, which toys with you in fun ways - is this going down the same path? Will they really use the same tricks here, or is something else at play, and if so, what? Sam Rockwell deserves a key to the moon for his performances throughout the film. Plus, one of the glimpsed side characters was Matt Berry. I saw his name during the opening credits; I was jawing on about how I didn't recognize any of the actors' names when his popped up. I laughed and said, "Well, I know THAT one, but I really doubt it's the same guy." IT WAS. Too weird.

Futurama and Bullshit were both good, as was expected, and Troll 2 was even more unintentionally uproarious and deliciously cheesy than I remembered it being. Jaime actually enjoyed it this time around, too, which was a pleasant bonus. Good times were had.

The next day, we rounded up Kiri and went to see Inception. I liked it, but it wasn't at all the movie I was expecting. Everyone talks about how confusing it is, how mind-blowing. I didn't get that from it at all. It's thought-provoking, yes, and lead to some enjoyable philosophical theorizing while staring at the living room ceiling that evening, but it's not hard to follow at all. At its core, Inception has a simple plot rooted in a basic yet interesting idea that has deep implications. It's also an action movie, which I was not prepared for at all. I knew there would be some action and the first few sequences had me spellbound, but by the time we hit the (to keep this spoiler-free) "white" sequence, I was bored to the point of yawning. Actually, if I'm honest, I was bored to the point of my attention breaking, which leads to my awareness of being in a crowded theater in the dark, which leads to fight-or-flight energy, which... is actually not that bad, at this point, thanks to all the therapy, but still. If a movie lets me get to that point, it's not doing its job. Overall, it was a good film with a much better soul than most. Not the second coming of celluloid Christ, but good.

I'm kind of wearing out now (on top of everything else, I think I've caught the hint of a cold from my coworkers) and I gotta be up and in the lab early tomorrow, so I'll leave you with this.

Comic Con 2010 Announcement:
New movie about the Haunted Mansion... D:
... by Guillermo del Toro... :o
... about the Hatbox Ghost. :D
Hoping so hard this lives up to its potential.

Also, Jackass 3D. Yes. Please. NOW.

I now present to you two true, oddly similar tales of knives, ER visits, and blood. ( Warning: I'm not joking about the blood. You've been waaaaarned. )

And that is how Jaime came to have five stitches in his hand and a soon-to-be-scar that matches my mom's. Oh, life. So full of mystery and wonder. You saucy minx.

Since I'm here anyway, I'll throw out a couple things I've been meaning to link to but didn't feel like writing an entire post about:

I'm actually into an RPS ship. I know, I know! I'm not sure how it happened either. Anyway, it's... ahem... Kris/Adam, and I need, I say, need to throw a couple recs out there:

More Myself with You - the oddly plausible epic that made me upgrade from "toying with the idea" to "full-fledged shipper"
The Devilstone Registry - the steampunk-y AU that you really don't need to know the fandom to enjoy
If It Kills Me - the non-AU fic that unexpectedly leapt into one of my favorite genres (spoiler: survival, omg YES)

As a complete 180 from all that, I also need to rec Marble Hornets for being well-made and esoteric and creepy as fuck. Go to the wiki's list of the entries and scroll down immediately to the suggested viewing order. Don't read any summaries or anything - just watch the videos in that order. It will destroy you. Fair warning: I am not joking about the creepy as fuck part. It is NOT for the meek. Don't blame me for any resulting nightmares or paranoia.

On that note, I think I'll go read fluff and try to get some sleep before my (AUGH) meeting tomorrow morning. Wish me luck, folks.

Jaime's in limbo for scans, and we all know what that means. Time for me to ruminate on the latest installments of things I like and why they suck now!

... Okay, that's a bit harsh. Not all of them suck now.

Anyway, Smashing Pumpkins! This whole "reunion" is kind of bullshit no matter what, and Zeitgeist isn't anywhere near as good as the original stuff (this coming from a girl who thinks "Adore" is their best CD, no less). I have to say, though, that the American Gothic EP was a pleasant surprise. It's good. It's really good. The Rose March in particular is epic, but the whole thing is 17 packed minutes of great music. That combined with Song for a Son really got my hopes up. I was skeptical about this whole Teargarden idea, but... yeah... the first track is excellent. Like, on par with some of their older stuff for me. Then came Widow Wake My Mind.

Ugh. Back to Earth. It's not that it's a bad song, because it's not. It's just that it's... not... good. Specifically, the song structure is too repetitive, the vocals are just annoying, and the drumming, while proficient, is boring. Jimmy's gone, and even if I hadn't known that beforehand, I would've been able to tell. It's that dull. I'm sure the new kid is a fantastic drummer on his own, and he's no slouch within the Pumpkins (if you can even still call the band that when it's more like "Billy Corgan and the Ego Trips"), but there's no there there. It's like he's stymied by his own accomplishment - like being recruited into the band has robbed him of the balls to insert any personality into his drumming. He drums rhythms, and that's about it. Of course, this is only one song. It's highly possible that the next one will blow everything out of the water, and my faith will be restored. I'm not counting on it, but it's a possibility. We'll see.

On the plus side, Rock Band and SP forums lead to Jaime's and my discovery of Silversun Pickups a while ago, and I'm obsessed. Now that is some fantastic music. All of it's good, but I'd especially recommend the acoustic set that's floating around. Rusted Wheel acoustic is fucking amazing.

Mighty Boosh! It's hard to be my favorite show - there's a lot of love, but a lot of expectations. The Future Sailors tour did not live up. Much like with Widow Wake My Mind above, it's not that it's bad. I liked it a lot when I first saw it, actually. It's that it's so much less than it should be; it's so far below par that it's, well, not funny. Rewatching it, I noticed just how little of a story there is. Compare that to the first show, where there were plenty of humorous asides and fake theater mishaps, but they almost all occurred within the framework of the plot. Future Sailors, on the other hand, only has a plot for half of the second act. That's it. That's the best part of the show, actually. Vince is still too mean to Howard for my tastes, but at least it's funny. Before Sunflash shows up, it's downright hilarious. Sunflash is also pretty funny, for that matter. I can approve of his addition. What I'm more bothered by is how the first act pretty much consists of milking laughs from the audience based purely on character recognition.

I hate it when entertainment becomes self-aware. It's like when the Project Runway designers applauded Tim Gunn saying "Make it work!" at the start of... the fifth season, I think. Jaime and I winced. The charm is in observing characters you love doing the things they do, not in said characters feeding you what you want to see with a wink and a nudge. Yes, Tony Harrison always declared things an outrage, but it was never a non-sequitur exclamation. When he's saying it because he knows it'll make you laugh, it's not funny anymore. Bob Fossil teaching the audience dance moves was amusing, but was it amusing because he was teaching the audience or because we were watching him dance? How much funnier could it have been if there'd been a reason he was dancing outside of "because that's what Fossil does"? This is where creativity comes in. I know they're capable of crafting amusing plots - the series and the previous live show prove it. This iteration was just lazy, and frankly? I expected better. I'm a little concerned that, based on the lack of activity and the lack of creativity when active lately, the Boosh is dead. I hope I'm wrong. I don't think I am, but I hope.

No More Heroes! First off, NMH2 does not suck. It's not the incredible-improvement-in-virtually-every-aspect sequel that many media outlets seem to think it is, but it is a fantastic game. No lj-cut - I'm going to keep this mostly spoiler-free.

The first big difference you notice is the graphics. Stylistically, they're close to the previous game, but they're both more detailed and cleaner. The palette in this game is breath-taking - lots of deep, heavy tones without feeling too shadowy or muddy. The battle graphics in particular are just about perfect. When fighting, the enemies get thrown around and slashed with glowing streaks in alarmingly pleasant ways. It's a violent visual feast. No complaints there. The cast is pretty strong, too. A lot of familiar faces show up, including a couple that really caught me off guard and a couple others that are playable, and the new assassins as a whole are just as appealing and uniquely psychotic as their predecessors. My only real complaint about the cast is that I would've liked to have seen a couple of them reappear at multiple points in the game instead of the standalone instances they showed up. Not a big problem, really. Just a nitpick.

Nah, the big problem is actually the thing that all the reviewers seem to love - the lack of an overworld. Gone are the long sessions of biking or hoofing about town, trying to find just where your job/mission is while kicking dumpsters and collecting Lovikov balls on the way. Lots of people seem to consider the previous world map nothing more than a time-consuming nuisance and find the new system of simply selecting where you'd like to go and appearing there stream-lined to perfection. I don't. I think the new system is just not fun. Having to drive to a job every time you'd like to try it was annoying, true, but a big chunk of the first game's charm was tooling around on your ridiculous motorcycle and exploring Santa Destroy. We liked randomly hitting pedestrians and stumbling across new shirts. Was it necessary? Nah, but it was fun! I can't really complain about adding the ability to teleport straight to missions, but couldn't they have given the option to ride around town if you want to? It doesn't have to be a requirement, and in fact the game is probably better without it being one, but I maintain that having it as an option would've been nice.

And no matter how fun the new mini-games are, I will never forgive them for subjecting my perfectionist mind to the Strength Training. Talk about a challenge. I kept at it until I beat them all, and in retrospect, it really didn't take me too many tries, but in the moment? So frustrating! Fat Jeane is nothing but love, though. Kitty exercising! :D

Persona 4! Okay, so there's nothing new there. I just wish there was. In the spirit of P3P and all the new features they added to that, I'd like to present "What I want to see in a P4 remake":
- Picking the gender of the MC. Natch.
- Dating both genders. It's been too long since Tatsuya and Jun. That level of freedom needs to return.
- Matchmaking. I know plenty of people wanted to see Kanji and Naoto hook up, and I personally would like to nudge Chie and Yukiko towards a different sort of close relationship. Didn't you ever play matchmaker for your friends in high school? It just makes sense.
- Changeable battle outfits. Surely Yosuke could hide some stuff in a breakroom for you guys to grab before heading into the TV. I want maid costumes for the girls and the boys!
- More missions! Am I the only person who adores those things? They're just too few and far between.
- Variable main plot conversations. It would be great if there were little changes here and there to reflect your social link status with people. Think the random conversations in empty dungeon rooms, but scattered throughout main plot scenes.
- Hmmm... I'm blanking... well, if I think of more later, I'll throw 'em on.

Still twenty minutes until I can expect Jaime back, and then he has to start drinking contrast and we wait until his next scan at 2:30. Sigh. Distractions, distractions...

Dream at Tempo 119 is like the most bitchin' song ever. <3

It's just flaily time, I guess.

The school issue is still goin' strong, by cracky. Ugh. On the plus side, I'm finished with midterms, and quantum dots are cool. *shrug* You take what you can get.

There's an awesome contest going on at Lush right now, and I have a brilliant idea for it. Only problem is, it requires a bubble bar. I used my last bit of one yesterday. Not. Fair.

Project Runway this week made me literally shout at the TV. ( Cut for spoilers. )

Moving on, after a bit of pestering from a school friend of mine and some online research, I dragged Jaime out to the movies last night for a midnight showing of Paranormal Activity. Long story short, I thought it was good, though not the masterpiece of ultimate fright that everyone led me to believe, and Jaime loathed it. It all boils down to your tolerance for slow pacing. What I found suspenseful, Jaime just found boring, and the moments that I pegged as being creepy (though not scary, despite the screaming in the theater suggesting otherwise), Jaime felt were too little, too late. One thing we did agree on, though, was the ending. It sucked. I hear this one was suggested by Spielberg, and my god, should they have ignored him. When it comes to subtlety, the man's a hack. We watched the original theatrical ending for comparison. Jaime actually liked it and said it made the movie decent, but still forgettable. I loved it. For me, it pushes the film from a creepy little flick to something a tad artistic. If you do go see it, which I'd only recommend if, like me, you're a fan of being in a crowd of the noisy terrified (haunted houses are great fun, y/y?), do yourself a favor and look up the original ending afterwards. Otherwise, hold out for a DVD that includes that ending and just skip the Hollywood one entirely. The original's immeasurably better. Trust me.

Oh, and my mom should never see that movie. She'll be freaked out. Doesn't help that the house in the movie bears some resemblance to the home in Reno. Gives it juuuuust that extra bit of impact that I know would make her shriek.

In other news, I think I may put together a make-up tutorial/suggestion guide of sorts based on the little bits I've managed to collect cheaply that get the job done. Why not cut out the trial-and-error I went through and just spread the knowledge, yeah? Would anyone be interested in that sort of thing?

I'm going to make a revised Christmas list for the hell of it and go all out this time. Apple gadgets, Tokidoki swag, Pullip dolls, the works. Online window shopping is fuuuuun. Anyone else enjoy doing that?

... 13 to 10. Against Mississippi State. Jesus Hernando Christo. Step it up, Gators.

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Oh ho ho. Logically, I don't really believe in the idea of soulmates, but... yeah, okay, you got me. One can't always be logical, eh? Yes, I tend to believe that certain people are just made for each other, and yes, I think I've found mine. I usually call him the other half of my soul - it just feels that way.

Somehow, it seems unlikely that someone who "got away" from you was really your soulmate. I suppose there could be exceptions, but generally speaking...

Anyway, last Sunday was my birthday, and I spent it entirely at home. Not for lack of choice, though; it just worked out that way. I got most of my out-and-about fun earlier in the week, what with the Decemberists concert on Wednesday and on Saturday, Jaime and I went and played pool. I did pretty well for the first two racks before all of the ability got sucked out of the room during the third. I might be getting better. More consistent, at least. Just a smidge. Really, though, it's just a lot of fun, so I keep on trying. On Sunday itself, Jaime ran out and got me a few gifties - some bath sponge capsules (vehicles, sea animals, and farm animals, yay! This was apparently my fifth birthday) and Rhythm Heaven, which is awesome. I've been playing it every spare moment I get, and I've almost beat it already. Two more levels to go. Of course, then there's the matter of gathering up the few medals I've missed along the way, not to mention all the Perfects I have yet to claim... Seriously, if you're a fan of rhythm games, you must pick it up. It's too fun to adequately describe here. And the love lizards! So cute! <3

What else have I been doing? Um... reading papers? A lot of papers? Blood flow phantoms and CTCs and melanoma, oh my! Ah, who am I kidding? I love being a science geek.

Class in half an hour, then it's off to the health center for me to get blood drawn. On the plus side, the doctor said it's been long enough that I can knock my panels back to every year instead of every six months, and even though I've picked up a new medication recently, my grad health insurance is better (!!!) for prescriptions than what I had before, so the overall increase in expenses per month is only $10 or so. If only it applied to dental work, too. Sigh.

You bored too? Scour the archives of The Anticraft. The more recent issues haven't been quite as good as the old ones (and they have an error in this article that hasn't been fixed yet Whoo, fixed! :D), but much of the archive is great. Or, if you still haven't seen Keith Olbermann's health care special comment, watch some clips. As for me, I'm off to check Craft and NewScientist before Physiology starts. Aaaaand... go!

So when I haven't been giving presentations, reading hours and hours of textbooks and research papers, and sitting in either a psychologist's or a dentist's office, this is what I've been doing:

( Muse - The Resistance )
( UP )
( Decemberists @ Hard Rock Live )

Jaime's been listening to Hazards of Love pretty much non-stop today. Good stuff.