inquiry and bloodlust

If you're in the Reno/Sparks area, go see Spring Awakening at TMCC. Why? Well, besides the fact that it's Spring Awakening, there's this:

That would be my dorky baby brother. He's playing Ernst. Go cheer him on, please!

carolinecrane owns my soul. She wrote the best fic in the history of ever. Seriously. "Like a Chord on a Harp". And then jengeorge did a sequel, "Your Time Here is Fleeting", which is also great, so I guess she owns a bit of my soul as well. I gotta get more soul to give. They deserve it.

Other awesome things I've encountered lately:
- Nick and Jess tapping
- The Disney Princess Designer Collection
- The most badass drum solo you've ever seen
- Crocheted minions!

My mom brought that last item to my attention and requested some, so I'm planning on tackling those after I finish the crafts I currently have underway. Namely, a [ITEM REDACTED SO MY MOM WON'T KNOW HER XMAS GIFT] and a felt plush version of my Dimetrodon.

For now? Gold rush research to do for fic. Then sleep. Maybe. Maybe.

intermission at sytycd. no marko. :( but! just saw jess and nick tap. SO HAPPY.

Hope everyone had a good day yesterday, celebrating Christmas or no. I, for one, am a huge fan of secular Christmas - forget the Jesus stuff, let's all give each other gifts and eat like pigs and make merry! In that spirit, here're some neat things I've stumbled across on the web recently.

- I'm not a big fanvid person; mostly I enjoy (warning: P4 spoilers in these three) weird Japanese AMVs and genre-altering trailers and I stay away from anything too shippy. Well, I had to make an exception - this Puck/Kurt fake trailer. It's so well done. Want.
- CROCHET FAIR ISLE. Seriously. I need to start doing this.
- Penny Arcade got into the seasonal spirit in the most logical of ways.
- Tom and Lorenzo reposted their fantastic White Christmas Musical Monday. Go rejoice in the ambiguously oriented glory of old musicals.
- If anyone's interested, here are some recipes we used. Granted, we changed pretty much all of them, but they're all good starting places nonetheless. Season's eatings!

Is anyone else getting an error message instead of the Voice Post Settings page? I want to do that pronunciation meme everyone's posting, but I can't remember my pin number and I can't seem to find a place I can reset it that will actually load.

Anyway, I had kind of an amazing Friday night. I'm usually the homebody type - I went to exactly one party through all of high school (where we watched the Final Fantasy anime, played Silent Hill, and had nothing stronger than Mountain Dew to drink) and two during my undergrad. I really wanted to see Black Swan, though, so I did the manly thing and asked Jaime out on a date. And then invited Kiri and Kaisa along. And then Jaime suggested Olive Garden, and Kiri suggested Kaisa and I split some wine, and somehow this ended up being a whole magnum of red house wine shared between Kaisa, Jaime, and me. I had 3.5 glasses - my second drunkest night ever! Go me? Also, for about a week I'd been meaning to insist that Jaime take me to Breadstix on our next date. Turns out I didn't have to ask after all. I may have pointed this out about halfway through dinner and giggled. Anyway, the wine was enough to make us all smiley and pleasantly warm, and after a long and leisurely dinner, we walked to the movie theater just in time for the 10:45 showing.

It was awesome. I definitely liked it better than Requiem for a Dream. On its own merits, it's a very evocative, beautifully staged movie with lots of inventive aesthetic touches. Jaime wasn't sure about the up-and-down pacing, but I thought it was a nice reflection of the main character Nina's mental state. I don't think it's much of a spoiler to say that the movie's about a ballerina with psychological problems. It felt very true to me; all the little details (the box of rosin she steps into before dancing, the mirrors everywhere, the practice outfits complete with shrugs over leotards) pinged me just right. It all made for a really engaging experience. Of course, being a past dancer with psychological problems, you might want to take my praise with a grain of salt - it's a movie that was probably a lot easier for me to connect to than most. Granted, my life's never had that level of physical distress or sexual intrigue, but still...

Oh, and by the way, from IMDB's trivia page: "Nina's name in the original screenplay was Alexandria." Shudder.

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!

Project Runway is dead to me now.

Moving on.

I don't really like Lady Gaga (her beats are boring at best) and I don't really like Glee (more on that later), but for some reason, this is pretty much the greatest thing I've ever seen. I can't stop watching it. It's just... perfect.

I mainlined all of season one of Glee this past weekend and I'm still not entirely sure what I think of it. My family seems convinced that I should love it, having a strong musical theatre background myself, but I just... don't. Here's the thing - I love most of the cast, most of the musical numbers, and most of the humor. I can't stand the serious parts, though, and the few characters I dislike? Are the main ones. Namely Will, Rachel, and Finn. Quinn and Puck get added to their hated ranks whenever baby drama crops up, but are mostly loved. Kurt, Mercedes, Tina, Artie, Santana, Brittany, and Emma are all cool with me pretty much always (with the exception of Kurt when he was staring forlornly in the window of Finn's house while Burt and Finn watched a game. I love Kurt and all - seriously, love him - but c'mon.), which of course means that they don't get as much screentime as the golden couple and the best-teacher-in-the-world-who-never-actually-seems-to-be-an-awesome-teacher. I'm still watching it, so I guess that means something. I dunno. It's kind of addictive, even if it does make me groan and literally bang the back of my head against the couch at least once an episode.

Oh, and of course, Sue Sylvester is hilarious. She needs to lay off the hair jokes, though. Shit's getting old.

And I totally ship Puck/Kurt. I know, it makes no sense. I don't get it either. But I ship it hard.

In other music news, Jimmy Eat World. Is. Coming. To. Orlando. Four days before Jaime and my's anniversary, no less. We were planning on taking a weekend at Disney in celebration then anyway. It works out perfectly. Already bought my tickets and everything. Eeeee.

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 was inspired by a particularly lovely piece of choreography last night on SYTYCD (and by trying to not cry over tonight's show, nooooo) to reminisce about my favorite numbers from previous seasons. I'm a big fan of Mia Michaels's work, so I decided to post my favorite number by her from each of the seasons I've seen (I missed the first one, so I'm no help there. Sorry.) - and here we go!

Season 2: Travis & Heidi
Season 3: Danny & Neil
Season 4: Katee & Joshua
Season 5: Kayla & Kupono
Bonus! The number from last night that inspired me to start thinking about this stuff - performed by Jason & Jeanine, choreographed by Travis Wall.

Oof. I so want to be back in dance. So much love.

My stupid family made me watch stupid American Idol while I was in Reno. Which is also stupid. And now I'm stupidly fond of it. Argh. I didn't watch last week, but I caved this time. I'm definitely an Adam fan. If he doesn't take it, there's no justice in this world... and I totally want the coat he was wearing during Mad World. Badass.

I stuck around to watch the preview of Glee afterwards, and I'm not sure how I feel about it. Conceptually, the idea is great, and I do love my entertainment to have a dose of musical wonder, but there are some issues that really grated on me. It was just so tropey! I mean, I know that's the idea they're playing off of, but they didn't DO anything with it - it was just tropes played straight! The glee geeks are the only characters who didn't come off as completely evil without any semblance of morals. I was a theater geek for a long time - I know very well the weird way people treat you. Their level of black and white, good vs. evil is so far off base it's embarrassing. People aren't bad just because they play sports or cheerlead or whatever. The romance subplots bugged me, too. Of course the conventionally pretty white girl is the leading lady. Of course the jock boy is the main man. Of course they're going to fall for each other. God forbid he like the chubby black girl or she foster a crush on the wheelchair-bound boy. And of course, of course, OF COURSE the guy teacher's wife doesn't care about his love for glee like the quirky-but-cute lady teacher does. I wanted to like it a lot more than I did, and really, the preview of the rest of the season just made my gut sink even more. As much as it pains me to say it, I don't think I've found a new show to love here. I wish I had, but no. Just... no.

On a completely unrelated note, I finally get my painful wisdom teeth removed, and now I think my weak molars have finally given up and developed cavities. Owwwww.