Viva Forever

Here’s a long post of Things That Have Happened Recently.

Movies
Watched Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer a few days ago. UTTER SHIT, basically due to Jessica Alba’s portrayal of Sue Storm. As I said in a forum, Sue Storm from the comics is supposed to be a top-notch scientist (with four science doctorates under her belt) and is a very capable leader. Sue Storm from the movie was a whingy, pathetic woman who was constantly complaining about not getting to have a perfect wedding and a normal family. WTF. It was nausea-inducing to see her UPSET about Reed Richards working on his scientific projects TO SAVE THE WORLD. It didn’t help when there was a sudden, unexplained redemption of this at the end of the movie.

On the other hand, I saw Transformers yesterday and that was pretty awesome! I myself am not much into the Transformers franchise but I thoroughly enjoyed the movie. It was action-packed and suspenseful almost all the way through, however I got a splitting headache at the end (though probably unrelated, methinks I am developing a cold). They did great work on the transforming sequences though it’s unrealistic how the robots look so much bigger than the vehicles they transform from.

Games: WoW
EB Games is having their store-wide sales and Tim and I saw the 14-day trials of World of Warcraft DVDs on sale for 97 cent each. We’ve been resisting the hype for a long time and seeing it almost given away for free, we bought two copies on impulse. We have heard horror stories of people becoming absolutely addicted to the game and we were quite apprehensive about it but we figured that we’ll see how it goes for 14 days. I was a little appalled that it required so much space; installation from the DVD took about 50 minutes and the patching process took an extra 1.5GB of downloads!

Anyway all I can say is, wow I’m so incredibly disappointed in the game. I’ve played MMORPGs before and I’ve enjoyed them to varying extents. I’ve played Maple Story, Silkroad and Fly For Fun, as well as dabbling for a tiny bit in Ragnarok. All of these games, except the latter, were free and fairly enjoyable.

World of Warcraft seems to be almost exactly the same (in playability) as the above games but costs money per month. Sure it’s pretty, has little features like talking monsters and the dialogue between you and the NPC does not contain evident spelling mistakes (unlike Silkroad and Fly For Fun). But… it’s really not all that different from other FREE games it seems. You select a class, kill x number of monsters for experience and/or money/equipment or deliver things. Sure it’s fun to lose a bit of time in when bored… but I’m certainly not buying into the hype of it. I’m glad I guess, that’s one less thing to potentially get addicted to.

Craft: Scarves
I finished my first silver scarf. Pictures tomorrow.

Currently working on my Gryffindor scarf. I figured out how to do circular knitting, now it’s just about churning out a good 66,800 stitches before I’m done. I realise that not only would I most realistically not have the scarf done by when the movie is out, but that I might not live to see the day where I’ve completed this mammoth of a project. Oh well, I’m going to keep going with it.

Meme
Got tagged by Danielle. You have to post these rules: one, each player starts with eight random facts/habits about themselves. Two, people who are tagged need to write their own blog entry about their eight things and post these rules. Three, at the end of your entry, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names/pseudonyms/blogs. Four, don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog. Ready? Here goes!

1. I have both duvet AND a woolly blanket to keep me warm at night, even though in Winter our house has central heating. No love for cold.
2. I have four posters in my room; Two of characters from X/1999, one of Fruits Basket and a little one of Sephiroth from FFVII.
3. I have a habit of starting games but don’t often finish them. It’s usually not the fault of the game, I guess I just get distracted easily.
4. I can’t stand sexism, either to men or women.
5. Having said that, I do watch America’s (and Australia’s) Next Top Model, but out of morbid curiosity. I find it so mind-boggling that judges of photo-shoots of the girls would say things like “in this photo your eyes are too dull, you don’t have fire in your eyes.” What the hell? “Fire” comes from reflecting light; it’s the photographer’s fault for not catching her in the right lighting. Also, how easy is it to put a bit of glow to her eyes using Photoshop? It’s not like they aren’t ridiculously airbrushed as it is. Watching these kinds of shows is like watching the circus; surreal and comical in an almost sad way.
6. I’ve never been to the circus.
7. I haven’t cleaned my desk or room at all after my exams. *is so lazy*
8. I’ve done too many of these memes, can’t remember what “random facts” I’ve stated previously or not.

Random Pet Peeve
Someone else has brought it up on their blog/forum post a long while ago and it really stuck with me. It really annoys me when people dismiss anger from women as being “oh they’re just PMSing”. Maybe, JUST MAYBE, they’re actually, I dunno, ANGRY AND/OR FRUSTRATED? Females ARE capable of such emotions! Sure, some women get bad PMS but I venture to say that generally speaking, anger/frustration is more common than PMS that is severe enough to manifest as uncontrollable emotional reactions. Next time a woman is angry at you, if you’re tempted to think “oh she’s just PMSing” maybe think to yourself that your dismissive way of thinking is probably the very reason that she thinks you’re a douchebag, no matter what time of the month it is.

Two assignments down, one more to go (due Friday). Ran about 50 steps today to get my essay in under high stress conditions, couldn’t run any more, heart absolutely burned like nothing before. Note to self: exercise plzkthx.

Finished watching Heroes as celebration tonight. GREAT SHOW OR GREATEST SHOW?! (Hint: it’s the latter)

Received volume two and three of “Spider-man Loves Mary Jane” from amazon.com. Speedy service, excellent packaging but it stings that shipping from the US costs more than the two comics combined. Ouch. Won’t be able to read till Friday though.

Lulz from this tempts me to try the Legacy Challenge. Also would have to wait till after Friday.

Too much l33t speak in this entry.

Exhausted!

Tim bought me Sims 2 Holiday Edition *and* an expansion pack bundle which includes Nightlife, University, Family Stuff and Open For Business for my birthday. Needless to say, I’m absolutely OVER THE MOON about it. There might be less of me online as I indulge in tinkling around with the game. Woot! Mods and hacks, here I come! :D

Anyway, I received an email from ReviewMe today informing me that someone actually requested for me to review them, for pay. I had forgotten that I had signed up for it. My first thought was to ignore it because, well, I don’t like reading forced blog posts about fake interest in this or that product and I assume others wouldn’t want to read it on mine either. However, out of curiosity I checked out the request anyway, and apparently it was for a cosplay costume site.

I was actually typing out a review for the site but deleted because I can’t get it to flow naturally with what I wanted to say. So I cancelled the review! No US$30 for me. :P But I just want to mention that I do love cosplay. I don’t have the magical sewing skills that some people have (nor the magical coffers of gold that is required to buy custom costumes) however, in my spare time I like look at what some people have come up with.

Some people are just mind-blowingly good with their costumes. For example, take this cosplay of Belle from Beauty and the Beast. OMFG. Not only does it show how ridiculous some costumes in cartoons look in real life, but also how awesomely some people pull it off. Said cosplayer also does an incredibly convincing Aeris from Final Fantasy VII (love the hair). Can’t mention FFVII without throwing in the ever popular Sepiroth impersonators. Man, the hair is so hard to do well. I note that this is just scraping the top of the icebergs, the internet is full of jaw-droppingly amazing costumers, many of them from Japan and China. I’ve seen many in my days but I don’t have links on me at the moment.

What’s also fun, for different reasons, are the really bad costumes. Here’s a nice archive (NOTE YOU WOULDN’T WANT TO BE LOOKING AT THESE LINKS AT WORK. Potentially eye-gouging) and here’s what looks to be an ongoing collection. While I do really admire these cosplayers (and any cosplayers really) for having the courage to go out in public wearing very outlandish garb… for those that have quite terrible costumes, I really wonder what they were thinking?

I started using my Flickr account yesterday, photos of crafty things goes there. ADD MEH! :P I received my Pokemon Diamond in the mail today! As well as my incredibly adorable Japanese craft book which I hope to somehow decipher soonish (pictures in flickr :P). I’d like to get started on my craft site as soon as I have my scarf finished.

Beh. I’m in an odd mood right now. Not sad… but more whimsical and exhausted? I communicated with two people whom I haven’t communicated to in ages today, one that lives a mere few suburbs away and another that lives on another continent. Difficult to put into words what feelings that evokes… maybe a bit of sadness, maybe a bit of “wow time sure passes”.

Isn’t it odd how some people, at face value, seems to have taken pains to avoid you, to quite expressly pretend your existence means nothing to them (anymore) and yet one finds evidence of them actually keeping a close tab on you surreptitiously? Sometimes I wonder if it means there are things left unsaid, positive things, yet maybe because of pride or insecurity they had chosen not to speak out. Or maybe, to think more cynically, they’re only merely interested in your affairs to remind themselves why they have ruled you out in the first place.

Well… on impulse I preordered Pokemon Diamond for Nintendo DS as well as bought another Japanese crochet book from Yes Asia. If all goes to plan they should all arrive by May 10th, just in time for my birthday! :P

Man… shopping for myself always makes me feel so guilty. Maybe because I don’t have a full time job yet? I was planning to save up for a work shirt+pants and now I’ve gone and thrown it all at Nintendo and Japanese people. I used to think that I was thrifty with money but apparently the “exception” extend passed hoarding books and now involves games too. GAMES ARE SO EXPENSIVE!! I don’t understand how some people love shopping… sure, being able to have new things is great but what about the pain of parting with money!? My Asian parents taught me too well… I must endure angst and guilt every time I splurge money on myself.

But still… YAY POKEMON! :3