Which Royalty Are You? Find out! By Nishi.


Whatevah.

This is not a very good quiz.

You know, digging through my wallet, I'm finding ticket stubs so old that they're actually interesting. There's a ticket stub from the World Trade Center Observation Deck (Hell if I know which tower), dating from 1998, and I have my Syntagma Square Metro ticket (interesting- the Greeks do call it a Metro instead of a subway. Like us.) and I have a pair of Final Fantasy stubs from Hong Kong last year.

Went to dinner with my mom's friend and her daughter Marie, which is why I had to excuse myself from watching a third movie. I was actually a bit grateful, because there weren't that many good movies to pick from in the first place and after two (movies, not necessarily good), it was like, oh ugh. It's sort of depressing that Marie and her mom are going to Hong Kong for two weeks- Marie speaks very bad Chinese, so that she speaks half in Chinese and half in English, which I found annoying me slightly even though I knew she couldn't help it. I mean, she could've just spoken all in English since we all understood it anyways. When she's going to Hong Kong she's going to be living in a hotel. This is what depresses me about the whole affair- with her horrid Chinglish and her living in a hotel and her mother having to consult a map to get to even the most obvious landmarks (this was what the dinner mainly was; my mom showing her mom places on a map), everyone's going to treat her like a foreigner. She's going to go to Hong Kong and (in my imagination, because what else would you do in Hong Kong?) visit the giant bronze Buddha statue on Lantau Island, Ocean Park with its shiny new roller coaster, Victoria Peak, Hong Kong Park, Central with its pinnacles of modern architecture, and the Jumbo floating restaurant, and when she gets home she's going to talk all about how pretty Hong Kong and Victoria Harbour is at night, just like a tourist. And in general, just have a wonderful time, which is all good for her.

I'm not any less American than she is, but somehow when I get to Hong Kong, because I can speak Chinese fluently, suddenly I ought to be a genius on the proper greeting of your ancient grandparents and strange distantly related cousins by blood or marriage, and when I go to church I ought to be able to make pleasant and witty conversation with my cousins' fellowship despite the fact that I've never met most of them and I haven't even been in the same hemisphere for the last year, let alone belong to the same religion or read the same language or watch the same tv shows. You know why I suck at foreign languages? It's because I hate sounding like such a retard all the time- I'm native level in Chinese, and I still can't get the words to say what I want them to say.

Saw K19 with Jen at the Regal. I didn't enjoy it- one doesn't "enjoy" nuclear-submarines-gone-wrong flicks, but I thought it was a good movie, unlike Stephen Hunter from the Washington Post, who always disagrees with me. It was very nervewracking. In a dramatic way. Also, besides wanting to strangle Harrison Ford for his silly Russian accent and his character's complete moronity (SEND OUT THE LIFEBOATS YOU FOOL!), though this wasn't because the acting was bad, but because I wanted the other characters to live so badly. Newspaper reviews aren't as good as I expect them, though the general consensus is that it's a good movie. I've read up on newspaper reviews later that Ford and Qui-Gonn's (quiet you) characters were total rip-offs of two characters from "Mutiny of the Bounty," which I have not read. Newspaper reviews also say that the movie was a total rip of Das Boot. Which I also have not seen. I think reviewers should "shut their pastry-hole."

Had lunch at Potbelly's afterwards with Jen and met up (accidentally) with Polomma (sp?), who was there waiting for Veronica (Not the Bivalve) to see two movies. So Jen left cuz her mom came to pick her up and I watched "Master of Disguise" with Paloma and Veronica. I think it's impressive that it got unanimously bad reviews, which is even worse than Battlefield Earth. And yes, it was bad, basically basing itself on.. let's see... offensive jokes about Italian accents, farts, and hideously big butts. Seriously. The farts were so predictable that after a while we were like.. 3..2...1...FART! And we would get it exactly on cue. I was like... why did I pay $6 for this??? Why??? But the credits/ stuff after the credits was hilarious, aside from the actual movie being bad.

"I am Gluteus Maximus! Are you not entertained???"

Have been discovering the joys of Final Fantasy 7 again, but have completely forgotten the storyline. This is the thing with RPGs.. by the time I'm halfway (or just a quarter of the way through), the story has become so convoluted that it just doesn't matter anymore. Same with anime serieses. The thing is, I can remember the areas and the characters quite well, just not the storyline.



Go and read 8-Bit Theater. It's a really good online comic based on FF1. And the art is surprisingly good.

"The difference, in short, between offending Christians and offending atheists is this: Many times, when you offend a Christian, it's because he sees chocolate ice cream on the ice cream shop menu and he hates chocolate, or his children love chocolate but he hates their chocolate. Common sense would dictate the offended Christian to not order chocolate next time or not let his kids eat it. When you offend an Atheist, it's because the shop only serves chocolate and MAKES HIM EAT IT. "

I've been having blog errors, so that even though I published, nothing would show up on the site. Fine now, but still annoying... it basically means that no one's gotten a chance to slog through a week or so of my ranting.

By the way, Alex&Nick... Powerpuff Girls is not showing at the Regal, severely screwing up my plans. I checked with Fandango- there are only two theaters within a 40 mile radius of Rockville that're showing it, so it seems too much like a pain in the ass to see it on the big screen. Maybe when it's on DVD. Are you people interested in seeing Reign of Fire at the Regal though? It's got the The Two Towers trailer showing in front of it. People say it's bad (Reign of Fire, not the trailer) but it looks interesting in any case.

Or I could just scrap movie plans and people could go to a Gundam Wing watching marathon at my house.. hmm?

I'm being quite healthy and stuff. Lots of DDRing. Saturday.. walked with my mom through Rock Creek Park to Lake Needwood, which I think we'll start making a weekly habit. I saw two deer in the woods that looked extremely frail and skinny. I really haven't seen deer that close up before. And when we left, there was a dappled deer that crossed the road and by the road, was suckling three fawns. And in Lake Needwood I saw a watersnake that drew back into the water when I came closer. I considered poking it with a stick, but that's the type of thing that wins you Darwin Awards. Oh yeah, that's wildlife viewing for me.

And then there was Alex's party. Lost overwhelmingly to Alex in Apples to Apples.

Andrew is sickeningly good at DDR, but complained about being too big for the pads.

Sunday. Went swimming at the Montgomery County Aquatic Center, which I hadn't been to in a few years. The kiddie pool isn't as exciting as I remember it being. And yes, apparently I still have my phobia of deep water. I refuse to swim in water deeper than 8 feet or so because it freaks me out. The water there got as deep as 18 feet (at the diving section) and it was so unnerving for me to see how dark a shade of blue it was. I honestly don't think that the type of phobia therapy where you're exposed to what you fear really works for me, because I used to learn swimming in water 12 and half feet deep, diving in it and things, I'm still as freaked out by it was I was then. Only now I'm taller, so 'neck height' is higher for me.