loki_niflheim

Terminator Salvation was not as bad as I thought it would be. The preview they show when we watched Star Trek was barren and unexciting that many of our gang decided not to watch but I needed to kill time on Friday nights, so I went.

It was probably because I watched after working from 6am (woke up at 4am), stayed at work after work and watched it from 7pm to 9pm. My brain has by then switched off and I was happy I didn't fall asleep.

( Imminent Spoilers )

And vote for Survival of the Hottest 'Ship!

After a month of having two ten-day weeks, sleep-ins feels like heaven. Also managed to slip in a movie marathon before going back into end-of-financial-year madness at work, providing data for audits left and right on top of the job I'm hired for. Moving right along...

I'm back to watching movies lately, started from watching Star Trek, X-Men: Origins, Angels and Demons then the movies I missed: The Day The Earth Stood Still, He's Just Not Into You, Bride Wars, Marley & Me, Sunshine, The Curse of The Golden Flower, Bedtime Stories and P.S. I Love You.

Yeah, I've been watching more chick flicks than usual. The verdicts:

• He's Just Not Into You makes me think I really don't know anything about men and women because they're absolutely clinically insane.
• Bride Wars is heart-warming, funny and Anne Hathaway always makes me swoon. However the theme and plot was nothing new.
• Marley & Me made me cry, it's a story about building a family and about the things you do for family and I can relate to that.
• I fast-forward most of The Curse of The Golden Flower, the story gives me a headache.
• I liked The Day The Earth Stood Still, I think it's the shiny ball. The whole "US got whumped for treating the unknowns with 'shoot now ask questions later'" makes me feel strangely happy. Keanu's acting in this movie is really worrying me for his role in 'Cowboy Bebop'.
• Sunshine was really better than I thought, it's a bit (really, a smidgeon) trippy, but it feels real. I don't know why a lot of people gave it bad reviews. Oh, someone should really slash Mace and Capa. My brain was running its own 'production' all through the movie.
• Bedtime Stories is a typical Adam Sandler 'diamond in a rough character finally shines' comedy. Loved Russel Brand in this one.
• P.S. I Love You is a lovely love story. Hard to understand at first why Gerry seems to make it hard for Holly to let go, but I can understand how you treat a deep wound by curing it over time for it to heal completely than quickly and leaving a scar. My biggest surprise was seeing Jeffrey Dean Morgan (John Winchester, Supernatural) speaking in sexy Irish accent in this movie, so I finally looked up his filmography in IMDB. Wow, the dude is in Grey's Anatomy these days. Crap >.< I don't want to watch that show!
• Star Trek, love the meaningful looks between Spock and Kirk. Ah, budding love.
• X-Men: Origins suffers from either bad editing or directing. What with the different directors for different locations anyway? The scenes doesn't quite work so the messages they're trying to imply about Wolverine's character (yes, I feel that they were trying to imply Wolverine's character through the scenes they picked. Stop laughing.) feels weak.
• I haven't read the book, so I found Angels and Demon pretty good though I spotted the supposed 'twist' coming, I think they intended to though because Ewan's line, "It's him! Look, he has a gun!" is very revealing. Also, it was worth it to watch Ewan McGregor in priest collar.

I'm aiming to watch all the movies in The Movie Guide to Surviving The Apocalypse and Your Favorite Movie Badass. I find your lack of faith disturbing...

( Back Cover blurb )

( spoilers )

Related links:
Terry Pratchett's Website
A Hat Full of Sky in Wikipedia

( Back Cover blurb )

( spoilers )

Terry is probably one of few authors you can depend on to weave a good yarn on pretty much anything, this book has a similar tone to Wintersmith, the urgency to save herself and his brother from the Fairy Queen and her enchanting land, all rolled together with the antics from our Wee Free Men.

Related links:
Terry Pratchett's Website

( Back Cover Blurb )

I worship this writer, she writes tomes of volumes worth every dollar I spent on it. If you want pirate smex... well, you probably won't get it from this book, the book explores less about gay sex than love crossing gender and more into finding that other soul that forms a feedback loop with you.

( spoiler )

Great second book :)

( Back Cover Blurb )

It took me a while reading this book, it's definitely different and darkly funny, but it's really hard to root for a hero who blames everything on other people and quietly self-serving. It's darkly funny because everyone self-serving either wins or in that space where you neither win nor lose and everyone seemingly selfless or idealistic pretty much gets trampled. Also in this book, if something bad can happen, it will happen.

I am slightly reluctant to recommend this book. It's quite and interesting read, different, and well-written for sure, but I find it hard to get into it. Still trying to get through the second book, "The Woad to Wuin" which I should interest me since most of it is parody of 'Lord of the Rings'.

However, if you like plotlines like Fables: The Mean Seasons, you'll like this.

Related links:
Peter David's Website (You can read his Potato Moon 'gang-fang' on his site).

( Back Cover Blurb )

This was my first Terry Pratchett book and I didn't realize at that time—since I was buying by the back cover blurb—that it was the third in Tiffany Aching series, started from The Wee Free Men.

I've heard Terry Pratchett's name, watched Hogfather and The Colour of Magic (I like this one between the two), but that was the extent of it. This book made me realize just how one-of-a-kind author he is.

( spoilers )

Related links:
Terry Pratchett's website

Let me start off by outlining the shows I watch by priority and here is what will happen with the list next season:
1. Better Off Ted
2. Chuck
3. Eureka
4. Kyle XY
5. Psych
6. Fringe
7. Eleventh Hour
8. Pushing Daisies
9. Supernatural
10. Dollhouse
11. Dexter
12. NCIS
13. Life
14. Kings*
15. Knight Rider
16. Legend of The Seeker
17. Reaper
18. CSI NY
19. Lie To Me
20. Heroes

Italics 50% or less likely chance of a next season
Strike Officially cancelled
*Shifted to next season

I'm losing half of the shows I watch religiously and most of them in my Top 10. (Updated 19/05: They renewed Better Off Ted, Chuck and Dollhouse)

Kings, the only serious 'political' drama show that I watch because it's SO BRILLIANT, is moved to start again in June before they decide to keep it or axe it. Granted it's only on #14 because I have to build my guts to watch David despair/rejoice in his fight against all odds. It's one show that you're never quite sure the protagonist will come out the winner in the end and the twists always comes unexpectedly.

Stupid NBC and ABC. And why is TV.com showing 'Lost' as Top 10 Australian Show?

Reaction to: Which shows are coming back for ABC? and Downturn in economy could save faltering shows

Amused by The Presidential Election is third in top ten TV series, says Time.

Related links:
Veridian Dynamics ads (Fictional company in Better Off Ted)
Captain Awesome's Tips (Captain Awesome is a character in Chuck)
Brave New World (Various medical articles on topics covered in Eleventh Hour)
Create Your Own Dollhouse (Random Dollhouse DIY creative art?)
Billy's Blog (Billy is a character from Knight Rider)
Build Your Conspiracy Theory (...behind the plot in Life)

Sometimes you get a whack-up-call from life reminding you that you might be more than slightly off mainstream. Some people at work found out I read slash and they have this 'leer' when they caught me reading slash between work and I really can't figure out why. When I think about it though, I think I get it: Most people deem slash is pr0n. That, and I suppose I really shouldn't read slash at work.

filogrrl asked me once why I like slash and I really can't explain it. It's not the porn, I can read hetero porn or same sex (both gender) porn just the same, but I prefer gay romance and out of all gay romances, I like sci-fi ones. However, it doesn't explain why, so maybe I should explain it from why I don't like most hetero romances: the female half of the pair is generally a clingy, whiny, weak and spoiled girl. A good example is Fushigi Yuugi, which was a series I enjoyed in the first season and abhorred in the second season. Miaka was a capable priestess in the first season. She's a klutz, but she's trying hard. In the second season, whenever she's in trouble, she does the least that she could do: Scream "Tamahome!!"

Argh! Go and die already!

A lot of slash are also quite funny and smart, the likes of indybaggins's But I’m A Lieutenant Colonel (Just the summary is enough to crack you up) while others, can't be explained or put into words. When I read sheafrotherdon's Compass Points and its accompanying vid for example. I don't know about you, in the space of time when I read that fic, I smiled, my nose burned and my eyes tear up a bit, I laughed and in the end, there's this slow burn under my ribcage that could just be heartburn, except it wasn't there before.

After a week of this, I would go and read a fast-paced thriller or a totally off-the-wall humourous book, but that's another story...

Which I suppose a long time coming since I started watching the series almost a year ago, but I just can't really get into Torchwood since I'm not used to watching Sci-Fi with so much emo and so many stupid people doing stupid things and blaming the consequences on someone else, then turn around like nothing ever happened. Felt like watching Smallville, really.

Oh and I can't take all the sex scenes either, although this time I'm smart enough to just fast forward through them. I think Torchwood has a cool concept and great lineup of actors, but the plot is making me cringe so it took time to slog through it, each episode me thinking, "Oh my God, you're not seriously that stupid."

( Spoilers )

Now on to season two. *sigh* I'll think of Spike getting snogged to motivate me. I'll search for some Ianto/Jack slash along the way.

Oh my God! I left my credit card at home! They've started the pre-sale for Avenue Q tickets already! *bash head to wall*

Somebody do something!

I also just found out there's a Supernatural Convention in Sydney in April. All the good tickets are gone, except for the day tickets (a whoopping $150). *sigh* I'm not going, but... wow. Don't have $1400 lying around though even if they still have the Platinum tickets, which they don't.

First game I finished on a Wii, and I'm going to replay some of the cases again when I get around to it (After I finished Okami, I hope). Gil model is not very good, in fact amongst all I think his is kind of buggy, but when I leave the 'current CSI I've been assigned to' too long on the screen, they start to glance around at Gil which I thought was kind of cute.

Oh, the things I do to avoid CSI withdrawal. There are the last seasons DVDs too, of course. There aren't too many good CSI fanfics out there, though. I don't want to think what I'll do if they ever decide not to run another season of CSI. As it is I'm crushed they're not renewing SGA for another season.

T_T

Dammnit! Why?! Ok, I know why, but still... WHY?!

I wouldn't. The hype nowadays about FF XIII is the fact that it's going to go multi-platform. Whereas FF titles has always been a Sony-exclusive, starting from FFXIII it will also be available on Xbox 360.

I bought my PS3 not because of FF XIII because I couldn't care less about FF titles. They're full of nice graphics, but I never finished an FF game because I always ended up bored midway while wondering around fighting numerous enemies I didn't know were there. Walking past a plain from one end to the next become a total pain in the @$$.

Which is why I love Chrono Cross, if they ever release another like Chrono Cross, that's a title I'd buy PS3 for.

( The meme will come to you... if you click this )

And in the middle of researching people for question #10, I found out John Barrowman is actually gay, and not just in a 'Hahahaha, he's so gay!'-manner. It surprised me, but I thought it was kind of cool, that he is so 'out' and been together with his partner for so long.

...and Wiki taught me the word, pansexual which has very little relation with pants. Looks like there's another word for filogrrl's use of 'man-whore' to describe Jack Harkness :P

Coz I'm an Atlantis freak and I need to feel better for missing out on floor seating to Foo Fighters concert...

Which Stargate Atlantis character are you most like? Your Result: Col. John Sheppard   Spunky, witty, brave, and surprisingly intelligent--these are all adjectives that describe John Sheppard. By being simmilar in personality to him, it means that you can do pretty much anything you set your mind to. You love adventure, na dyou know how to make people laugh.
Dr. Radek Zelenka
Dr. Elizabeth Weir
Dr. Carson Beckett
Teyla Emmagen
Dr. Rodney McKay
Ronan Dex
Which Stargate Atlantis character are you most like? Take More Quizzes

Though really, it's not my fault!

I'm talking about NCIS season 5 episode 7: Requiem. How are you supposed to help it when DiNozzo said, "Don't make me kiss you, boss!" A few minutes (which probably really only ten seconds or so) before he said that I was just staring at the screen, wide-eyed and if I had a sheet nearby I'd probably clutching that tightly too, biting my lower lip anticipating DiNozzo doing CPR on Gibbs.

Then he said that and I started screaming, "Yes, damn you! Kiss him! Kiss hiiimmm!! Yes, go!" and then he did—the CPR, that is, covered from plain sight with his hand but you ignore that tiny detail for the time being—and I exploded and went, "Aaaaa!! Oh my God, oh my God, wow, etc." At this stage I was relieved I wasn't clutching a sheet or it would've ripped in two.

Then he gave CPR to the girl without the hand cover -.-; and I found myself screaming, "Hey! Not fair!" pretty... loudly. Luckily no one was home then.

But it was good... a few days later I had an NCIS dream which I had to wake up from, but that's another story. Will try and get a screencap up later (not that millions others hasn't done one already).

In the end though, I had stray thought that maybe I should kiss someone now so that if I have to help someone with CPR... I'm not going to get tunnel-vision and think, "My... first... *beep*".

Tagged by i_am_chi and mystic_plum, God I feel special :P

Rules
1. Post 10 things that recently made you happy!
2. Then tag 10 people and force them to post this meme on their LJs. Everyone needs a little happiness once in a while.

1. Got tagged! :P
2. Caught up with most of my favorite TV shows.
3. Shook hands with Joe Flanigan.
4. Made friends with a fellow fan who made me more confident about my priorities.
5. Still have a job.
6. Watched Transformers @ IMAX with friends.
7. Chuck Season 1 episode 3 Captain Awesome x Chuck tango lesson.
8. Survived a cocktail party.
9. Weaned mom off coffee after years of her insisting that it was not an addiction *rolls eyes*. Dad next.
10. Got to know my work colleagues better.

Me taggy druscilloskayne, dyxl, firelle, friezaess, grungypoo, gurumi_sunday, lcz128, nezuji, pfcblogshere and reedoo.

So it didn't went that bad, but it wasn't a big success either. I tried as much as I can, but long chats just aren't my thing. I've lived on my own since I was nine, in my own house, so pretty much I'm not used to say so much because there just aren't anyone to chat with.

I clicked with one of the girls there and that was pretty much it. Spoke briefly with Billy West, said 'hi' to Alan Tudyk (popular guy, he was practically surrounded by girls XD), and a couple of other guests (I forgot their names). There were a lot of Sydneysiders and dare I say most of them are kind of snobbish. Most of them came to get a glimpse of Joe, no surprise there. I'm kind of relieved he isn't there though I thought it would be amusing to see it, as it was pretty... I don't know... clichéd? to see Alan surrounded by the girls at the party. For me, it still feels kind of wrong fangirling Joe, but the heart and the brain are like a Mac and an IBM.

Cocktail parties are just not something I'd like to do often, celebs or no celebs. I would've preferred to stay at home and catch up on the DVDs I've yet to watch or bake some pie/cake/bread or figuring out what card design I am going to go for this year's Christmas and New Year. Anyhow, that was done, work tomorrow :) and I might try to trick my mom into coming to Armageddon :P

Two hours before the 'cocktail party', I Googled 'cocktail party' and found... I need to change my attire *shlump*.

I'm considering bailing out, but half of me was going, "Weren't you doing this thing, where you try to do things that scares the hell out of you but you should do it anyway because you think that fear should be conquered or you'll never grow as a person? Think of it a learning experience, 'what doesn't kill you makes you stronger'-thing."

Damn it, I hate that half right now!

1st half: Hey, hey, maybe I can just rock up, see what it looks like and leave! Yeah, yeah, I can do that.
2nd half: Not. The. Point. You're not supposed to be scared of it in the first place! Think of it... a 'social experiment'.
1st half: Whose experiment?
2nd half: Look, there's nothing to worry about. You'll meet new people, introduce yourself, have a short chat, it'll be like starting a new job or something! Except, you don't have to see them the next day if you really screw up.
1st half: ...operation 'This will most likely end badly' is a go.

I mean, I like John Sheppard (Stargate Atlantis), but I don't know much about Joe Flanigan except that:
- He's the type of person that won't be in my circle of friends IRL.
- He's married and has three sons who he loves very much.
- His hair is naturally that way.

so there shouldn't be any reason why I should be so excited/nervous/freaked out/hyperventilating about being in the same venue/room with him (and hundreds or thousands of other people). Then I gushed on the prospect of Michael Rosenbaum doing voice in Dragonlance.

This reminded me of the 10 Sexy Men list I compiled earlier this year. I think I will definitely freak if I meet any of the guys listed here (yes, including Rove), although not so much on Tom Welling or Matt Dallas (I don't generally freak out on guys younger than me). I think I'm going to edit that list again and add Lee Pace to it, 'coz GAAAH!! He's so cute clean-shaven with the James Dean hairdo!

In the end, I don't really get why I am so freaked out, it's probably something psychological *shrug* but I know what trips the trigger.

I really need to get Wonderfalls.

EDIT: Apparently my freaking out is a normal reaction for someone who is in the same room with a celebrity that they often see on TV. It is a psychological thing.