starving for truth
First, two talented artists I know managed to portray the election best of anyone I’ve heard from so far. The iniminable croaky immortailized the descision-making process, first in black and white, then in color. Of course this is optimistically implying that the American people put deep and rational thought into their political decision-making, but we all need a dream. Anyway, then azusachan depicted the results, and also the unfortunate passage of Proposition 8 in California, over here.
As I am currently a teacher, I am giving America (well, specifically California) the following Election report card:
SUBJECTS
Presidential Election: PASS (and all it took was the destruction of the country!)
Proposition 8: FAIL (way to give me hope and then yank it away again! Thanks for nothing, California. AURGH.)
But despite that we shall concentrate on the upsurge of hope, since it's been eight years since I've had any at all from a political perspective (aside from Rumsfield resigning, and that was short-lived). So in Barack Obama-related news, here's a link to a candid interview the P-E gave on his religious views. Yes, the P-E can speak intelligently about his beliefs. More amazingly, I never once felt like beating my head against a brick wall while he was doing so. UNPRECEDENTED.
Exerted Quote from the P-E: "I find it hard to believe that my God would consign four-fifths of the world to hell."
THANK YOU, SIR. As long as you maintain the separation between church and state, A+ on religion to you.
I found the liberal conspiracy many hardcore Republicans have told me is out there. Well, actually TIME magazine found it. Blasted liberal media, outing liberal conspiracies. Next thing you know they'll be knocking on your door demanding a serving of your Thanksgiving turkey. Would you like a little Lame Duck with that?
And what's the story today? The Obama family drops by a food bank for some spontaneous good PR. I know that politicians are not to be trusted, and that the cynic in me must be kept alive and well. That I must maintain my perspective and suspicion towards anyone in the public spotlight. But I read stories like this, and the Obama family seems so damn genuine and . . . ye gods, good, that my cockle-encrusted heart warms just a bit under its protective barrier of Arctic ice.
Must be global warming.
I started a photo album over on Flickr. The reason for it was a professional one-I was submitting an application to National Geographic Glimpse's correspondent contest-but if you’re interested in seeing some of my Japan photos, go ahead and take a look.
For no reason at all, go here and learn how to fold an origami unicorn.
Last night I went and saw Red Cliff part 1 for the first time, at long last. I say "for the first time" because, well, am I going again? HELLS YEAH!!!
::pauses to try to contain a bout of fangirl::
Which is to say, I had huge expectations going in, and I LOVED THE MOVIE. Serious love. Am I online right now buying the two-disc Hong Kong DVD? Yes, yes I am. I am not at the point where I can talk about this coherently yet. I recognize that it is not a perfect movie, and possibly not as good as I currently think it is, but I don't care.
Significantly, I'm generally not a person who falls for celebrities. I won't go see a movie just because so-and-so is in it. There has been a small exception to this in the case of Johnny Depp, but that's for two primary reasons: first, whenever he's in a role all I see is the role, never him; and second, he generally chooses to act in interesting movies that I'd probably want to see anyway. But, well. After seeing Red Cliff part 1, if you asked me to pay money just to stare at Takeshi Kaneshiro for two and a half hours, my reply would probably be "show me where to stand in line."
Didn't hurt that his character in the movie was MADE OF AWESOME, of course. Happily, there were plenty of opportunities for staring.
There was also a whole lot of lovely polearm fighting, which made me a very happy camper indeed. Swordsmen are a dime a dozen in movies, but how often does one get to see truly inspired spear work? How about someone fighting with a guan dao? Another aspect of the fight scenes that I loved was the way the fighters stole other people's weapons. The enemy soldiers are all "ha ha, you don't have a weapon, I stab you!" and the fighter in question is all "oh, no, I totally do have a weapon, you just happen to be holding it right now. Here, let me take that and STAB YOU WITH IT."
~<3
So yeah. I'm 100% gone for Zhuge Liang in this movie, but when it came to the fighting, it was Zhao Yun and Guan Yu all the way. Even if Zhou Yu did have that awesome trick with the arrow that left me practically dead with glee in my chair. Zhou Yu was fun in his own way, of course, but what I liked most about him was how he would hilariously leave his fan-scepter-thingie on his chair and disappear. The fan-scepter-thingie was great.
There is also room for Sun Quan to shape up and be awesome in part two, we'll have to see if he matures from his current rating of "callow." For part 1 I awarded most of his fun points solely for him being second in overall prettiness to Zhuge Liang. Oh, and for having an awesome sister, Sun Shangxiang, who could drop a man (or a horse) with a single punch. GODS THAT WAS HILARIOUS. Both times.
Okay, I completely failed at containing my horrible fangirl. Love me anyway by A N O N _ M E M E-ing me.
And by the way, I'll be Stateside and Jersey-side for Yule, as usual. Might make a field trip out to ye olde college Happy Valley, too. Anyone else?