Why yes Alfred, I do have a "clever bat-gadget" for shoveling the driveway. It's called a BUTLER.
So this weekend contained many exciting adventures with media. Let me tell you of them.
First off, I'm all caught up with Misfits. I can't really talk about that because, um, spoilers. But it was AWESOME and I need MORE asdfjkl;lkjghfds.
Young Justice finally resumed with a new episode on Friday. I'm liking it enough that I'm definitely going to be keeping up with this show as it goes along. It's really interesting to see Red Tornado play such an important role in a series. M'gann is ADORABLE. Robin is pretty much the dorkiest dorkface that ever dorked, at least since the prior dorking of his Teen Titans doppelganger. He seems to have made a thing out of ironically misappropriating the English language; first it was "whelmed", now it's "turbed". DORKFACE. And that creepy echoey laugh seems to be a thing with him, too... not sure what to think about it. I dunno, it still seems so Jason to me. I'm really not sure what to think about Superboy's characterization. He's all RARGH RAGE I'M GOING TO YELL AT THINGS AND BE ANGRY, RAAAWWRR!!! Which... okay, I can kind of get that he has anger issues, what with his test tube clone-slave-weapon upbringing, and the way Superman handled the "Oh hay I have a Sekrit Clone Son" situation by being a ROYAL DICK, but... Koooooooooonnnnn!! Kon is supposed to be all happy teenage doofus, "Hello ladies~, I am Superboy, I'm awesome, oh and by the way I'm awesome, and I have awesome TTK, and have I mentioned that I'm awesome? Bla bla bla TTK, bla bla pizza bla bla Hawaii bla bla TTK bla bla ladies~ bla bla idk my bff Rob bla bla TTK bla bla bla AWESOME!" THIS IS WHY WE LOVE HIM. BECAUSE HE'S AWESOME. I am hoping against hope that, through character development, Superboy will become awesome, but I am deathly afraid that he will remain merely highly attractive angry and full of anger.
On Saturday I hung out with shichahn for some vicarious falconry and awesome movie-watching. Incidentally, Napoleon (new nickname: Poly, as in Roly Poly) did very well! He didn't catch anything, but he gave a couple of the birds that we flushed a really good chase! It's probably just as well he didn't catch them, as they were native and killing them technically would've been illegal. He also made a very nice attempt at a mouse from his perch in a tree, although again, it's kind of a good thing he failed, since he was self-hunting and we try to discourage that.
Anyway, we went to see True Grit. One of the trailers was for a film called Water For Elephants. It is about a circus. You will be disappointed, as I was, on two counts; a) this film is not about Dick Grayson, and furthermore, b) the film stars Robert Pattinson. Rub salt in the wound. However, Christoph Waltz is in it. ...Anyway, True Grit: OMG, SUCH AN EXCELLENT MOVIE! Like, really really really really good. Although, what else does one expect from the Coen brothers? The cinematography was gorgeous, the script was sharp and clever and witty, and the actors presented it with dry Old West stoicism and practicality and their characters with touching honesty... it really was fantastic, an excellent way to start off the year in movies. shichahn and I want to do a Coen brothers marathon now. We also want to see the iconic John Wayne original, although word on the street is that this one is actually better.
shichahn and I retired to her home, where we watched the 1943 Batman's Batman serial of Batman in its entirety. It was excellent and lolarious. You will be relieved to know, I am sure, that- SPOILER!- Batman triumphed over the evil machinations of the "shifty-eyed Japs". VICTORY FOR AMERICA!
We also did some poking around on the internet. She showed me the nerdiest nerd videos that ever did nerd: these two videos of the one-to-one scale model of the motherfucking USS Enterprise-D under construction in Minecraft, and this one of a gigantic but functional 16-bit computer being built in the same game.
I showed her The God Damn Batman's Twitter where I made an EXCITING DISCOVERY. Forgive me if you knew this already, but somehow I completely missed the part where, as of last Wednesday, NOLAN'S BATMAN VILLAINS HAVE BEEN CONFIRMED!! We have Tom Hardy as Bane, and Anne Hathaway as Selina Kyle. So that's... interesting. My immediate reaction on both casting choices is, "Um... whaaaaaaaaaat?" I had to remind myself that I had the same initial reaction to Heath Ledger as the Joker, but after rethinking it deciding it could be good. And then it was THE MOST AMAZING THING TO EVER HAVE HAPPENED. ...So I'm gonna trust Nolan on this. Re: Anne as Selina... I must remember that Anne's grown since The Princess Diaries. I seem to remember she did well in Brokeback Mountain (and wow, does Nolan like to steal his actors from there or what?). There's been absolutely no mention of Catwoman, which is also very interesting. And Nolan, can we please please please have the prostitute backstory, omg plzkthx? Re: Tom as Bane... allow me to reiterate, "Whaaaaaaaaaat?" But maybe that's just my Batman: The Animated Series upbringing talking there; I just can't shake the South American accent and luchador mask. Even so... Tom Hardy? Large? Hulking? (Caribbean?) On the other hand, this casting decision makes it pretty damn likely that Nolan will be paying due respect to the fierce intelligence of the original character, which makes me SO DELIRIOUSLY HAPPY, OMG. Bane is one of the more impressively smart Batman villains in the comics, but this aspect has been downplayed in other media, worst of all in Batman and Robin, where he was demoted to a mindless and inarticulate minion of Poison Ivy. (Even if there weren't a million atrocious reasons to hate that movie, the rape of Bane would be it. /angry rant) So, Nolan, if this is going where I think it's going, I could freaking kiss you. And and AND! Bane being the main villain has veeeerrrry interesting connotations, based on Nolan's pattern of borrowing heavily from comics storylines... as some of us might be aware, Bane is most famous for breaking Batman's spine. So, um... yay? ...Cue Angela slowly devolving into a drooling wreck as she wastes away in the vast abyss of time between now and the movie's release date. CAN I HAVE SOME TRAILERS PLEASE? I WANT TRAILERS!
*deep breath* ...So then on Sunday a few of us went to see Megamind in the cheap theater (and by "cheap theater" I mean "McMenamin's Kennedy School Theater", so... watching the movie with high-quality cafe/pub food and drinks, seated on the comfiest of comfy couches). ...THIS MOVIE IS AWESOME. Gut-splitting funny, and clever, and touching, and fantastic animation. Rife with superhero genre references, and other pop culture references (giant Obama-style NO YOU CAN'T banners!). Kids these days are so spoiled, they have no idea, omg. Highly recommend this movie for a good time.
Finally, shichahn pointed me to this: the Wat Rong Khun Buddhist temple in Chiang Rai, Thailand. The outside is this gorgeous, pure white, incredibly ornate but otherwise fairly traditional-looking building (although that sea of hands holding skulls under the entry bridge is pretty wacky... also one of the creepiest and most awesome things I've ever seen). The inside walls, however, are painted with intricate murals featuring contemporary images such as Superman, Batman, Spiderman, the Predator, Neo, characters from Avatar, and so on. There are also images of rocketships and stuff... like, that is definitely a podracer I see there. With... Bumblebee standing on it? ...So, yeah, this is, like, my favorite example of religious architecture after the Sagrada Familia. Sorry, Notre Dame, you're dropping in the ranks.
...So, that was my weekend. In other news, I have to keep the door to my bedroom closed during the day now. Because the cat appears to have developed the habit of coming into my room while I'm gone and PEEING ON MY BELONGINGS, FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF
First off, I'm all caught up with Misfits. I can't really talk about that because, um, spoilers. But it was AWESOME and I need MORE asdfjkl;lkjghfds.
Young Justice finally resumed with a new episode on Friday. I'm liking it enough that I'm definitely going to be keeping up with this show as it goes along. It's really interesting to see Red Tornado play such an important role in a series. M'gann is ADORABLE. Robin is pretty much the dorkiest dorkface that ever dorked, at least since the prior dorking of his Teen Titans doppelganger. He seems to have made a thing out of ironically misappropriating the English language; first it was "whelmed", now it's "turbed". DORKFACE. And that creepy echoey laugh seems to be a thing with him, too... not sure what to think about it. I dunno, it still seems so Jason to me. I'm really not sure what to think about Superboy's characterization. He's all RARGH RAGE I'M GOING TO YELL AT THINGS AND BE ANGRY, RAAAWWRR!!! Which... okay, I can kind of get that he has anger issues, what with his test tube clone-slave-weapon upbringing, and the way Superman handled the "Oh hay I have a Sekrit Clone Son" situation by being a ROYAL DICK, but... Koooooooooonnnnn!! Kon is supposed to be all happy teenage doofus, "Hello ladies~, I am Superboy, I'm awesome, oh and by the way I'm awesome, and I have awesome TTK, and have I mentioned that I'm awesome? Bla bla bla TTK, bla bla pizza bla bla Hawaii bla bla TTK bla bla ladies~ bla bla idk my bff Rob bla bla TTK bla bla bla AWESOME!" THIS IS WHY WE LOVE HIM. BECAUSE HE'S AWESOME. I am hoping against hope that, through character development, Superboy will become awesome, but I am deathly afraid that he will remain merely highly attractive angry and full of anger.
On Saturday I hung out with shichahn for some vicarious falconry and awesome movie-watching. Incidentally, Napoleon (new nickname: Poly, as in Roly Poly) did very well! He didn't catch anything, but he gave a couple of the birds that we flushed a really good chase! It's probably just as well he didn't catch them, as they were native and killing them technically would've been illegal. He also made a very nice attempt at a mouse from his perch in a tree, although again, it's kind of a good thing he failed, since he was self-hunting and we try to discourage that.
Anyway, we went to see True Grit. One of the trailers was for a film called Water For Elephants. It is about a circus. You will be disappointed, as I was, on two counts; a) this film is not about Dick Grayson, and furthermore, b) the film stars Robert Pattinson. Rub salt in the wound. However, Christoph Waltz is in it. ...Anyway, True Grit: OMG, SUCH AN EXCELLENT MOVIE! Like, really really really really good. Although, what else does one expect from the Coen brothers? The cinematography was gorgeous, the script was sharp and clever and witty, and the actors presented it with dry Old West stoicism and practicality and their characters with touching honesty... it really was fantastic, an excellent way to start off the year in movies. shichahn and I want to do a Coen brothers marathon now. We also want to see the iconic John Wayne original, although word on the street is that this one is actually better.
shichahn and I retired to her home, where we watched the 1943 Batman's Batman serial of Batman in its entirety. It was excellent and lolarious. You will be relieved to know, I am sure, that- SPOILER!- Batman triumphed over the evil machinations of the "shifty-eyed Japs". VICTORY FOR AMERICA!
We also did some poking around on the internet. She showed me the nerdiest nerd videos that ever did nerd: these two videos of the one-to-one scale model of the motherfucking USS Enterprise-D under construction in Minecraft, and this one of a gigantic but functional 16-bit computer being built in the same game.
I showed her The God Damn Batman's Twitter where I made an EXCITING DISCOVERY. Forgive me if you knew this already, but somehow I completely missed the part where, as of last Wednesday, NOLAN'S BATMAN VILLAINS HAVE BEEN CONFIRMED!! We have Tom Hardy as Bane, and Anne Hathaway as Selina Kyle. So that's... interesting. My immediate reaction on both casting choices is, "Um... whaaaaaaaaaat?" I had to remind myself that I had the same initial reaction to Heath Ledger as the Joker, but after rethinking it deciding it could be good. And then it was THE MOST AMAZING THING TO EVER HAVE HAPPENED. ...So I'm gonna trust Nolan on this. Re: Anne as Selina... I must remember that Anne's grown since The Princess Diaries. I seem to remember she did well in Brokeback Mountain (and wow, does Nolan like to steal his actors from there or what?). There's been absolutely no mention of Catwoman, which is also very interesting. And Nolan, can we please please please have the prostitute backstory, omg plzkthx? Re: Tom as Bane... allow me to reiterate, "Whaaaaaaaaaat?" But maybe that's just my Batman: The Animated Series upbringing talking there; I just can't shake the South American accent and luchador mask. Even so... Tom Hardy? Large? Hulking? (Caribbean?) On the other hand, this casting decision makes it pretty damn likely that Nolan will be paying due respect to the fierce intelligence of the original character, which makes me SO DELIRIOUSLY HAPPY, OMG. Bane is one of the more impressively smart Batman villains in the comics, but this aspect has been downplayed in other media, worst of all in Batman and Robin, where he was demoted to a mindless and inarticulate minion of Poison Ivy. (Even if there weren't a million atrocious reasons to hate that movie, the rape of Bane would be it. /angry rant) So, Nolan, if this is going where I think it's going, I could freaking kiss you. And and AND! Bane being the main villain has veeeerrrry interesting connotations, based on Nolan's pattern of borrowing heavily from comics storylines... as some of us might be aware, Bane is most famous for breaking Batman's spine. So, um... yay? ...Cue Angela slowly devolving into a drooling wreck as she wastes away in the vast abyss of time between now and the movie's release date. CAN I HAVE SOME TRAILERS PLEASE? I WANT TRAILERS!
*deep breath* ...So then on Sunday a few of us went to see Megamind in the cheap theater (and by "cheap theater" I mean "McMenamin's Kennedy School Theater", so... watching the movie with high-quality cafe/pub food and drinks, seated on the comfiest of comfy couches). ...THIS MOVIE IS AWESOME. Gut-splitting funny, and clever, and touching, and fantastic animation. Rife with superhero genre references, and other pop culture references (giant Obama-style NO YOU CAN'T banners!). Kids these days are so spoiled, they have no idea, omg. Highly recommend this movie for a good time.
Finally, shichahn pointed me to this: the Wat Rong Khun Buddhist temple in Chiang Rai, Thailand. The outside is this gorgeous, pure white, incredibly ornate but otherwise fairly traditional-looking building (although that sea of hands holding skulls under the entry bridge is pretty wacky... also one of the creepiest and most awesome things I've ever seen). The inside walls, however, are painted with intricate murals featuring contemporary images such as Superman, Batman, Spiderman, the Predator, Neo, characters from Avatar, and so on. There are also images of rocketships and stuff... like, that is definitely a podracer I see there. With... Bumblebee standing on it? ...So, yeah, this is, like, my favorite example of religious architecture after the Sagrada Familia. Sorry, Notre Dame, you're dropping in the ranks.
...So, that was my weekend. In other news, I have to keep the door to my bedroom closed during the day now. Because the cat appears to have developed the habit of coming into my room while I'm gone and PEEING ON MY BELONGINGS, FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF