I don't think I've announced this publicly yet… but… my dad recently purchased a MacBook for me and I've now converted to a Mac user. No kidding. Maybe that's why I still can't get my head over that Gates/Seinfeld commercial… because, you know, Apple's own Mac vs. PC ads are actually funny, whereas that "New Family" fiasco left me feeling weirded out and personally embarrassed for Gates and Seinfeld. It didn't even have anything to do with computers…
I'm sick and tired. I hate food, I hate food…
And I mean I hate the food itself… rice, tofu, vegetables… these days I find myself despising whatever I put in my mouth… even that Nesquik strawberry milk, to a certain extent…
I watched The Fifth Element last night just for the thrill of it, even though it was 3:00 am and I was supposed to be doing homework. I remember seeing snippets of it when I was younger. A very visually striking film. It was, anyway, surprisingly good considering it's an older science-fiction film. My favorite part was the Diva's operatic performance… the sudden shift from classical to operatic pop as the concert became background music for the battle between Leeloo and those nasty aliens… lovely. Bruce Willis was an excellent futuristic cab driver turned government agent, and Milla Jovovich — I didn't even know she was in this movie — was quite different from what I remember in Ultraviolet. Did you know she's multilingual? Yes, she speaks English, French, Russian, and Serbian… all fluently. It makes me want to rush out and rent all of her other films to deposit on my shrine, and simultaneously kick myself in the face. Multilingual! I — need — to — learn — more — languages. Goddammit America is such a foreign language-phobe. I need to leave this place. Goddammit.
In TV Land: Season premiere of House tomorrow. The new episode of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles left more questions than answers today. It's a little dismaying to see new characters being introduced all of a sudden… I was quite happy with the "original" gang. Man, Derek Reese… is such a cool guy. I love the way he looks… and his suspicion and aversion to "machines"… ha ha.
- Listening to: "Grace" by Within Temptation
Preparing for my final exams might have been a good idea. But I guess merely flipping through the PDM textbook this morning wouldn't have helped me anyway. I'm such a slow thinker. I'm such a slow person. I eat slowly, I chew slowly, I take tests slowly…
I draw pictures slowly, I sculpt slowly, I paint slowly, I deliberate slowly, I generally work with my hands slowly, I study slowly, I write slowly, I navigate through drop-down menus and word processing and general productivity applications slowly (although I have to commend myself here for my exemplary typography, even if I stubbornly work without keyboard shortcuts).
My noncomputer runs slowly, my Java compiler compiles slowly, my personal Internet connection (when I subscribed to dial-up in the past) was SO FUCKING SLOW. I'm even typing more slowly now as tears spring to my eyes, blurring the monitor before me as I become aware of my life's lethargy…
BLAHBLAHBLAHBLAHBLAH—
I'm waiting for this stupid "five-minute download restriction" to pass.
Final exams this week. I didn't want to study last weekend, so I inveigled my dad to take me to see Prince Caspian. It was pretty good, actually. Much better than the first. Even though it's such a distastefully Christian story. More on that later, though.
It's sort of silly, but some images just won't leave me…
This entry should have ended two paragraphs ago.
I took a three-hour nap right after school today. That in itself isn't very unusual (I usually average three to four nowadays). However, for the first time in memory, my nap exceeded the length of time I spent sleeping last night… which was two hours.
Nap > sleepy time = not good.
We had an annoying English assignment where we had to develop a character in a two-page piece of fiction. My friends, like the n00bs that they deny they are, spent the entire day asking one another in a tone of atrocious presumption, "So what did you write about in your short story?" And then waited for a response like someone waiting for a butler to serve them breakfast. Which was infinitely irritating. So I rejoined with varying hedges, alternating between the likes of "A hamster that ate a mutation-inducing marshmallow" and "A magical watermelon which endows the bearer with powers of flight." My story really isn't so horrible as to warrant concealment, but to tell the truth, there are a small number of little "problems" I keep finding in the manuscript… like factual inaccuracies, clichéd descriptions, oversimplistic characterizations. I almost want to cover my draft with little snide comments. Like, in the masterfully produced sci-fi action film Ultraviolet (this is relevant… just wait and see), the protagonist lives in a country controlled by a totalitarian government, and in the beginning when she's infiltrating some government facility, she addresses some guy (whose ass she later kicks) as "Comrade Doctor." Even though, as I privately ruminated later, the government is not communist. So when writing that piece of dreamlike shit, I tried to emulate a different, otherworldly setting by having everyone address each other as "Comrade." But the location was based on stuff I've seen in our suburban town in our oh-so-capitalistic nation, so I'm not so sure whether my depiction was valid…
This is the first post I've written since my WordPress 2.5 upgrade, by the way. I really like what they did with the admin interface.
Musical update: We now bid adieu to the aristocratic Versailles and welcome a lesser-known indie band, a visual kei anomaly consisting entirely of females. Say hello to exist†trace and their most recent mini-album, Annunciation -the heretic elegy- (accessible through the "Currently Playing" link above).
Unfortunately, there aren't many high-resolution promotional photos of exist†trace, and the group shot I obtained for this rotation is unpleasantly grainy… although I did my best to touch it up with despeckle filters.
- Currently reading: Ada or Ardor: A Family Chronicle by Vladimir Nabokov
Look at what I have!
The Golden Compass movie official Web site is currently offering these beautiful wallpapers as free downloads, as well as some other goodies. Also note the gold "12-7-07″ caption in each corner; the film is coming to U.S. theaters in less than two weeks!
To be continued later…
[Edit] Take a look at the fan reviews for the film. I was amused when I first saw it — nearly all of the reviews fall into the two extremes on the rating scale. Of course, all of the "Oh No!" reviews were authored by ignorant and intolerant Christians who maintain that the film is "anti-God" and "God-hating." Have you ever seen anything like it? [/Edit]
- Listening to: "CONTROL 控制" by Silver Ash
I heard a rumor last year that Philip Pullman's children's novel, The Golden Compass, also known outside of the U.S. as Northern Lights, would soon be made into a film. Today, I found the official Web site and trailer.
Apparently, the film stars Dakota Blue Richards as Lyra, Nicole Kidman as Mrs. Coulter, and Daniel Craig (you know him from Casino Royale) as Lord Asriel. Somehow I thought Mrs. Coulter had brown hair… but oh well! The production stills look reaaaally cool.
Must-see links:
December 2007… I can't wait.
