I haven't posted in forever...
Sorry for my recent LJ absence ^^; There's just been so much going on. I've still got a ton to do in terms of applying for jobs and stuff. Blegh.
In any case, I'm a graduate and done with school now :D Which means the boring part of my life has officially begun.
But what I actually want to do right now is squee XD
Movies:
Star Trek
My mother is a remarkably rational human being in fact the incredibly nerdy might call her the Spock to my father’s Kirk. She's almost always pretty calm and doesn't often get excited about stuff, with a few notable exceptions.
Star Trek is one of them. Bruce Springsteen, as I’ve only learned this year, is another, but that’s not important right now.
Every time a new Star Trek movie comes out my mother turns into a flailing mass of fangirl goo. She watched the original series in its first run when she was a kid, she bought a ton of gum back in the day to get the collectible Trek trading cards that came with it (which she still has somewhere, she claims), she even went to a con once. I remember when I was little and couldn’t sleep I would come downstairs and she would be glued to the TV watching Next Generation. She dragged me off to the theater to see First Contact when I was in middle school even though I’d never seen an episode of Trek in my life at that point (still loved the movie though XD Go rent it! Riker is awesome. Also, DATA! ♥♥ ;__; ). Also I’ve noticed recently that whenever Mom makes a casual reference in conversation like “There was this show I used to watch where X happened” or “There was a character like X on a show I watched when I was a kid”, that show is always old Star Trek.
So you see? I have nerdiness in my blood! I can’t help it!
My sister's also a fan of old Trek, so you can imagine there was a fair amount of flailing in my house about the recent movie. I’m pretty familiar with the canon, but I’ve never been as big a fan as Mom or Allie until recently. And you know, it's weird, Trek fans generally seem to fall into one of two categories; either Kirk fans or Spock fans. Mom is a total Kirk fangirl, and Allie loves Spock. But you know what?
My favorite has always been Chekov! '^' ♥
I don’t know why, there's just something so adorable about him XD;; I loved him flailing about the Enterprise in the movie (“Ey can do zat! Ey can do zat! Moof! Moof! Ey can do zat!” lol XD ) McCoy is a close second favorite, due to my ongoing love affair with cranky, snarky, and/or curmudgeonly characters.
To sum up: ohmigod, go see this movie right now if you haven't. It's so good. The acting was amazing, the plot was fun, and the effects were spectacular. There were plenty of in-jokes thrown in for old fans, but I think it would also be perfectly accessible and enjoyable to people who’d never seen an episode of Trek in their lives.
I've been flailing about it since I saw it a few weeks ago. And just in case anyone else is flailing as much as me:
There's a tie-in novel! And the audiobook version is read by none other than Zachary Quinto 8DDDDD ♥♥
Hulu has the whole Original Series up to watch. Some of them are great and some are really terrible for instance pretty much the entire third season, so Wikipedia lists some of the best episodes as voted on by various people. Also in my personal opinion it should be a crime to call yourself a geek in this country without having seen "The Trouble with Tribbles". (WATCH IT NOW, THERE ARE EPIC LOLZ TO BE HAD.)
The Japanese website for the movie 8D The sad thing is that almost all the Japanese coverage seems to be really Kirk-centric, which sucks because really the movie is pretty much equally about Kirk and Spock, their different backgrounds and their personality clashes and eventually how they grow to work well together and become friends and also everything that made them the first slash pairing ever. In some parts it even seems like it’s Spock’s movie more than Kirk’s but this is probably because Zachary Quinto steals every scene he’s in omg *_* ♥♥.
So yeah, anyway, the movie has started me on a big Trek kick recently ^^; I’ve seen it twice so far, and I’d really like to see it at least once more in IMAX. XD
Night at the Museum 2: Battle of the Smithsonian
Okay, I admit, I never saw the first “Night at the Museum”, and the only reason I went out and saw the second one is because I like watching movies that take place in DC. Mostly so I can yell things like "Those two things are nowhere near each other!" or "That's not what that looks like!" Also I'm a huge fan of the Smithsonian, so it was cool seeing it in a movie, even though sadly my beloved Natural History Museum didn't make the cut ;___; Mostly they focused on stuff from the American History and Air & Space museums.
There’s this one part of the movie where Our Hero and Heroine run from the Smithsonian Castle to the Lincoln Memorial to hide from the bad guys. So just for the hell of it, since I was downtown by myself a few days ago, I walked from the Washington Monument (about halfway between Lincoln and the Castle) to the Castle, and it took like ten minutes. So to walk (not run, mind you) from the Lincoln to the Castle would probably take about twenty minutes. Not the five seconds it took in the movie. Also if you were looking for a hiding place around there the Department of Agriculture building (which takes up like two whole city blocks for some reason and has about fifty big trees/bushes in front) would be a much better place. Just sayin’.
Also the Castle does not look like that at all on the inside (it’s just offices, this little cafe, and a gorgeous little garden out back). ((EDIT: Apparently not, actually XD;; I stand corrected, lol)) And the National Art Gallery? It may be on the Mall, but it’s actually not part of the Smithsonian. Like at all. 全く関係ないだ。 And the Reflecting Pool between the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument is the greenest, nastiest water I’ve ever seen except for maybe that nasty-ass fountain in Dupont Circle, and you do not want to be jumping in there. Plus it’s only like a foot deep at most, anyway.
On the other hand, it’s pretty good advertising for the museums, which I’m all for X3 When I went the other day they had these little maps showing where you could see things that were featured in the movie (sadly the Smithsonian doesn’t actually have Darth Vader. They do have C3PO, though :D )
And lastly, we have some photos I’ve been meaning to post for like a month now ^^;
BEHOLD MY CREATIONS!
From left to right, we have Quetzalcoatl, Sylar, Tako-kun (who you’ve met already), Maru and Haru, Tako-chan, and Kame-kun known to his friends as Kazuya. All of them except Tako-kun (who is from here) are from a book Shaina got me for Christmas. For weeks Marianna had been telling me that she wanted to kidnap them and take photos of them around campus with her Big Fancy Camera. So one day I wake up from a mid-afternoon nap (college life is hard, yo :P ) to find Kame-kun sitting on my keyboard, and a brand new folder of photos on my computer called:
Turtlenapped!
Kame-kun bonds with his big brother Testudo.
Kame-kun pays a visit to everyone’s favorite Maryland alum.
Invading the chocolate bar section of the co-op :D
With the juice Marianna bought for me :D ♥♥
She took a ton of photos, this is only a fraction of them.
A few days later we decided that Kame-kun shouldn’t have all the fun, so we grabbed the other six for some more photo shooting XD Also Marianna loves any excuse to bust out her Big Fancy Camera.
Epically surveying his domain.
Maru and Haru go on a bike ride together.
Watching the fountain.
ハルは春が大好き！
In the garden by the chapel.
Again, we took a lot more photos than just these XD
And let me introduce you to the newest member of the clan, who was only completed a week or two ago:
Walter! He has the dubious distinction of being the first amigurumi whose pattern I have entirely pulled out of my ass made up as I went along designed myself. I’ve noticed there is an upsetting lack of dinosaur amigurumi patterns on the internet, so someday I might have to write up the pattern for him to share as soon as I remember what the hell I did.
So anyway that’s what I’ve been up to 8D
EDIT: One more quick link, because I love schadefreude and T.O. is a grade-A douchebag.
In any case, I'm a graduate and done with school now :D Which means the boring part of my life has officially begun.
But what I actually want to do right now is squee XD
Movies:
Star Trek
My mother is a remarkably rational human being in fact the incredibly nerdy might call her the Spock to my father’s Kirk. She's almost always pretty calm and doesn't often get excited about stuff, with a few notable exceptions.
Star Trek is one of them. Bruce Springsteen, as I’ve only learned this year, is another, but that’s not important right now.
Every time a new Star Trek movie comes out my mother turns into a flailing mass of fangirl goo. She watched the original series in its first run when she was a kid, she bought a ton of gum back in the day to get the collectible Trek trading cards that came with it (which she still has somewhere, she claims), she even went to a con once. I remember when I was little and couldn’t sleep I would come downstairs and she would be glued to the TV watching Next Generation. She dragged me off to the theater to see First Contact when I was in middle school even though I’d never seen an episode of Trek in my life at that point (still loved the movie though XD Go rent it! Riker is awesome. Also, DATA! ♥♥ ;__; ). Also I’ve noticed recently that whenever Mom makes a casual reference in conversation like “There was this show I used to watch where X happened” or “There was a character like X on a show I watched when I was a kid”, that show is always old Star Trek.
So you see? I have nerdiness in my blood! I can’t help it!
My sister's also a fan of old Trek, so you can imagine there was a fair amount of flailing in my house about the recent movie. I’m pretty familiar with the canon, but I’ve never been as big a fan as Mom or Allie until recently. And you know, it's weird, Trek fans generally seem to fall into one of two categories; either Kirk fans or Spock fans. Mom is a total Kirk fangirl, and Allie loves Spock. But you know what?
My favorite has always been Chekov! '^' ♥
I don’t know why, there's just something so adorable about him XD;; I loved him flailing about the Enterprise in the movie (“Ey can do zat! Ey can do zat! Moof! Moof! Ey can do zat!” lol XD ) McCoy is a close second favorite, due to my ongoing love affair with cranky, snarky, and/or curmudgeonly characters.
To sum up: ohmigod, go see this movie right now if you haven't. It's so good. The acting was amazing, the plot was fun, and the effects were spectacular. There were plenty of in-jokes thrown in for old fans, but I think it would also be perfectly accessible and enjoyable to people who’d never seen an episode of Trek in their lives.
I've been flailing about it since I saw it a few weeks ago. And just in case anyone else is flailing as much as me:
There's a tie-in novel! And the audiobook version is read by none other than Zachary Quinto 8DDDDD ♥♥
Hulu has the whole Original Series up to watch. Some of them are great and some are really terrible for instance pretty much the entire third season, so Wikipedia lists some of the best episodes as voted on by various people. Also in my personal opinion it should be a crime to call yourself a geek in this country without having seen "The Trouble with Tribbles". (WATCH IT NOW, THERE ARE EPIC LOLZ TO BE HAD.)
The Japanese website for the movie 8D The sad thing is that almost all the Japanese coverage seems to be really Kirk-centric, which sucks because really the movie is pretty much equally about Kirk and Spock, their different backgrounds and their personality clashes and eventually how they grow to work well together and become friends and also everything that made them the first slash pairing ever. In some parts it even seems like it’s Spock’s movie more than Kirk’s but this is probably because Zachary Quinto steals every scene he’s in omg *_* ♥♥.
So yeah, anyway, the movie has started me on a big Trek kick recently ^^; I’ve seen it twice so far, and I’d really like to see it at least once more in IMAX. XD
Night at the Museum 2: Battle of the Smithsonian
Okay, I admit, I never saw the first “Night at the Museum”, and the only reason I went out and saw the second one is because I like watching movies that take place in DC. Mostly so I can yell things like "Those two things are nowhere near each other!" or "That's not what that looks like!" Also I'm a huge fan of the Smithsonian, so it was cool seeing it in a movie, even though sadly my beloved Natural History Museum didn't make the cut ;___; Mostly they focused on stuff from the American History and Air & Space museums.
There’s this one part of the movie where Our Hero and Heroine run from the Smithsonian Castle to the Lincoln Memorial to hide from the bad guys. So just for the hell of it, since I was downtown by myself a few days ago, I walked from the Washington Monument (about halfway between Lincoln and the Castle) to the Castle, and it took like ten minutes. So to walk (not run, mind you) from the Lincoln to the Castle would probably take about twenty minutes. Not the five seconds it took in the movie. Also if you were looking for a hiding place around there the Department of Agriculture building (which takes up like two whole city blocks for some reason and has about fifty big trees/bushes in front) would be a much better place. Just sayin’.
Also the Castle does not look like that at all on the inside (it’s just offices, this little cafe, and a gorgeous little garden out back). ((EDIT: Apparently not, actually XD;; I stand corrected, lol)) And the National Art Gallery? It may be on the Mall, but it’s actually not part of the Smithsonian. Like at all. 全く関係ないだ。 And the Reflecting Pool between the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument is the greenest, nastiest water I’ve ever seen except for maybe that nasty-ass fountain in Dupont Circle, and you do not want to be jumping in there. Plus it’s only like a foot deep at most, anyway.
On the other hand, it’s pretty good advertising for the museums, which I’m all for X3 When I went the other day they had these little maps showing where you could see things that were featured in the movie (sadly the Smithsonian doesn’t actually have Darth Vader. They do have C3PO, though :D )
And lastly, we have some photos I’ve been meaning to post for like a month now ^^;
BEHOLD MY CREATIONS!
From left to right, we have Quetzalcoatl, Sylar, Tako-kun (who you’ve met already), Maru and Haru, Tako-chan, and Kame-kun known to his friends as Kazuya. All of them except Tako-kun (who is from here) are from a book Shaina got me for Christmas. For weeks Marianna had been telling me that she wanted to kidnap them and take photos of them around campus with her Big Fancy Camera. So one day I wake up from a mid-afternoon nap (college life is hard, yo :P ) to find Kame-kun sitting on my keyboard, and a brand new folder of photos on my computer called:
Turtlenapped!
Kame-kun bonds with his big brother Testudo.
Kame-kun pays a visit to everyone’s favorite Maryland alum.
Invading the chocolate bar section of the co-op :D
With the juice Marianna bought for me :D ♥♥
She took a ton of photos, this is only a fraction of them.
A few days later we decided that Kame-kun shouldn’t have all the fun, so we grabbed the other six for some more photo shooting XD Also Marianna loves any excuse to bust out her Big Fancy Camera.
Epically surveying his domain.
Maru and Haru go on a bike ride together.
Watching the fountain.
ハルは春が大好き！
In the garden by the chapel.
Again, we took a lot more photos than just these XD
And let me introduce you to the newest member of the clan, who was only completed a week or two ago:
Walter! He has the dubious distinction of being the first amigurumi whose pattern I have entirely pulled out of my ass made up as I went along designed myself. I’ve noticed there is an upsetting lack of dinosaur amigurumi patterns on the internet, so someday I might have to write up the pattern for him to share as soon as I remember what the hell I did.
So anyway that’s what I’ve been up to 8D
EDIT: One more quick link, because I love schadefreude and T.O. is a grade-A douchebag.