Saturday, December 20, 2003
Things Not to Do At Return of the King
(Stolen from The Two Towers MUD discussion boards, courtesy Langor, whoever the hell he is.)
For those of you planning on seeing the third LOTR movie at the theatre here are some survival tips.
1. Stand up halfway through the movie and yell loudly, "Wait... where the hell is Harry Potter?"
2. Block the entrance to the theatre while screaming: "YOU SHALL NOT PASS!". After the movie, say "Lucas could have done it better."
3. At some point during the movie, stand up and shout: "I must go! Middle Earth needs me!" and run and try to jump into the screen.
After bouncing off, return quietly to your seat.
4. Play a drinking game where you have to take a sip every time someone says: "The Ring."
5. Point and laugh whenever someone dies.
6. Ask the nearest ring-nut if he thinks Gandalf went to Hogwarts.
7. Finish off every one of Elrond's lines with "Mr. Anderson."
8. When Aragorn is crowned king, stand up and at the top of your lungs sing, "And I did it.... MY way...!"
9. At the end, complain that Gollum was offensive to Ethiopians.
10. Talk like Gollum all through the movie. At the end, bite off someone's finger and fall down the stairs.
11. When Shelob appears, pinch the guy in front of you on the back of the neck.
12. Dress up as old ladies and re-enact "The Battle of Helms Deep" Monty Python style.
13. When Denethor lights the fire, shout "Barbecue!"
14. Ask people around you who they think is the next "Terminator" sent from the Middle Earth of the future to assassinate Frodo Baggins.
15. In TTT when the Ents decide to march to war, stand up and shout "RUN FOREST, RUN!"
16. Every time someone kills an Orc, yell: "That's what I'm Tolkien about!" See how long it takes before you get kicked out of the theatre.
17. During a wide shot of a battle, inquire, "Where's Wally?"
18. Talk loudly about how you heard that there is a single frame of a nude Elf hidden somewhere in the movie.
19. Start an Orc sing-a-long.
20. Come to the premiere dressed as Frankenfurter and wander around looking terribly confused.
(Stolen from The Two Towers MUD discussion boards, courtesy Langor, whoever the hell he is.)
For those of you planning on seeing the third LOTR movie at the theatre here are some survival tips.
1. Stand up halfway through the movie and yell loudly, "Wait... where the hell is Harry Potter?"
2. Block the entrance to the theatre while screaming: "YOU SHALL NOT PASS!". After the movie, say "Lucas could have done it better."
3. At some point during the movie, stand up and shout: "I must go! Middle Earth needs me!" and run and try to jump into the screen.
After bouncing off, return quietly to your seat.
4. Play a drinking game where you have to take a sip every time someone says: "The Ring."
5. Point and laugh whenever someone dies.
6. Ask the nearest ring-nut if he thinks Gandalf went to Hogwarts.
7. Finish off every one of Elrond's lines with "Mr. Anderson."
8. When Aragorn is crowned king, stand up and at the top of your lungs sing, "And I did it.... MY way...!"
9. At the end, complain that Gollum was offensive to Ethiopians.
10. Talk like Gollum all through the movie. At the end, bite off someone's finger and fall down the stairs.
11. When Shelob appears, pinch the guy in front of you on the back of the neck.
12. Dress up as old ladies and re-enact "The Battle of Helms Deep" Monty Python style.
13. When Denethor lights the fire, shout "Barbecue!"
14. Ask people around you who they think is the next "Terminator" sent from the Middle Earth of the future to assassinate Frodo Baggins.
15. In TTT when the Ents decide to march to war, stand up and shout "RUN FOREST, RUN!"
16. Every time someone kills an Orc, yell: "That's what I'm Tolkien about!" See how long it takes before you get kicked out of the theatre.
17. During a wide shot of a battle, inquire, "Where's Wally?"
18. Talk loudly about how you heard that there is a single frame of a nude Elf hidden somewhere in the movie.
19. Start an Orc sing-a-long.
20. Come to the premiere dressed as Frankenfurter and wander around looking terribly confused.
Thursday, December 18, 2003
Dear Jeremy,
My love for you is as immovable as a fat kid on a seesaw. It burns like the eye of Sauron at Barad-Dur*, a magnesium strip exposed to a friction force, and vampire blood in World of Darkness, all at once. It is undying like a Shambling Mound with a Shocker Lizard familiar*. The world is just you and I (in Otiluke's Resilient Sphere). I fail my will save. I love you.
*Except if a wizard cast levitate to ten feet above the shambling mound, cast shape change, turned into a 250 by 250 foot platinum cube, and fell.
*As in, the tower in Mordor, not Andrew D's dorm, y'all.
My love for you is as immovable as a fat kid on a seesaw. It burns like the eye of Sauron at Barad-Dur*, a magnesium strip exposed to a friction force, and vampire blood in World of Darkness, all at once. It is undying like a Shambling Mound with a Shocker Lizard familiar*. The world is just you and I (in Otiluke's Resilient Sphere). I fail my will save. I love you.
*Except if a wizard cast levitate to ten feet above the shambling mound, cast shape change, turned into a 250 by 250 foot platinum cube, and fell.
*As in, the tower in Mordor, not Andrew D's dorm, y'all.
Winter Break (Holy Shit, It's A Month Long!)
And what's really funny is that Jeremy looks different in every single picture I have of him. If they're going to be bad pictures they ought to be consistently bad, but each of them is bad in a different way. It's bewildering; I think cameras hate him.
I'm at home right now and I miss my Pie. I have the sole picture of him that doesn't contain a family member of some sort (the dachsund doesn't count) framed in my bedroom. It's the one in which he looks like a chubby vampire, with a dog. All these pictures are embarrassingly shitty.
I had a dream where Jeremy was madly doing his coding project, an electronic copy of which is due by 12am Friday, and being cranky. This is probably more or less what he's actually doing, which confirms my psychic powers. He's stuck in my head, like flashbacks in a bad movie.
In the meantime, after dinner on Wednesday at a hole-in-the-wall restaurant with really good seafood, my mom has been yelling at me.
"You should've stowed your things out of sight in your room so that nobody steals them!"
(My room is locked. The whole dorm is locked from now until the 25th of January)
"Why did you stay up watching Lord of the Rings the night before a final?"
"Why is your GPA so low? You won't be able to use it as a buffer in case you do badly in your upperclassman years!"
"Why are you taking such useless classes next semester?"
"I'm so happy to have someone to yell at now!"
Evidently.
I feel like a little kid again.
And what's really funny is that Jeremy looks different in every single picture I have of him. If they're going to be bad pictures they ought to be consistently bad, but each of them is bad in a different way. It's bewildering; I think cameras hate him.
I'm at home right now and I miss my Pie. I have the sole picture of him that doesn't contain a family member of some sort (the dachsund doesn't count) framed in my bedroom. It's the one in which he looks like a chubby vampire, with a dog. All these pictures are embarrassingly shitty.
I had a dream where Jeremy was madly doing his coding project, an electronic copy of which is due by 12am Friday, and being cranky. This is probably more or less what he's actually doing, which confirms my psychic powers. He's stuck in my head, like flashbacks in a bad movie.
In the meantime, after dinner on Wednesday at a hole-in-the-wall restaurant with really good seafood, my mom has been yelling at me.
"You should've stowed your things out of sight in your room so that nobody steals them!"
(My room is locked. The whole dorm is locked from now until the 25th of January)
"Why did you stay up watching Lord of the Rings the night before a final?"
"Why is your GPA so low? You won't be able to use it as a buffer in case you do badly in your upperclassman years!"
"Why are you taking such useless classes next semester?"
"I'm so happy to have someone to yell at now!"
Evidently.
I feel like a little kid again.
Wednesday, December 17, 2003
It was hailing earlier as I helped Jeremy move out. His (our) room was all empty by the end. It was kind of depressing. His family was there, so it circumvented any kind of meaningful goodbye. Towards the end the hail had stopped and turned into snow.
After he left I realized that I hadn't gotten his phone number, address, or e-mail.
I have photos of him, but in them he looks like a totally different person, which makes me wonder if it wouldn't have been better to not have any photos at all.
After he left I realized that I hadn't gotten his phone number, address, or e-mail.
I have photos of him, but in them he looks like a totally different person, which makes me wonder if it wouldn't have been better to not have any photos at all.
So I went to the midnight showing of Return of the King with Jeremy and Jose. I was going to go with Sasha but she was a studious girl and didn't want to spend a night out from like 10:30 til 4 because of our Archaeology final. Haha. Study? I don't need no stinkin' study! Sleep??
Ha!
I didn't survive the IB program for nothin', punks!
We'll watch it again at Olney 6 or something.
There were some people who dressed up, but in not very spectacular manner. Mostly girls in generic medieval garb trying to pass for elves I guess, and one guy who was Gimli in a plastic Viking helmet and tartans of some sort. And a Nazgul. We had a Nazgul.
But the movie! The movie was cool! What was the most jaw-dropping was that it was The Two Towers MUD come to life, in a way moreso even than the Two Towers movie. Of all of you who read this, only Azoriel will know what I'm talking about. Anyone who's spent any significant amount of time in the lower levels of Minas Tirith trying to put out fires, running around during the Gate Password quest, comically bumping his nose into Mount Mindolluin, bandaging NPCs at the Houses of Healing, and surviving the text-based siege along the walls will know what I'm talking about. And as an Eorling I remember my newbie days killing evil-aligned Dunlendings for gold, exp and equipment, and yelling, "FORTH EORLINGAS!" (in capital letters of course). Okay, so only Azoriel. But maybe the rest of you who roleplay understand my nostalgia.
Anyway, RotK is the best one. I liked Fellowship, especially after watching the DVD over and over, and loved the themes of home and friendship, but it wasn't spectacular, simply by nature of being well... Fellowship. It was my least favorite book too. Two Towers I thought was ill-paced; boring in the beginning, action in the end, and too many changes from the book. Of course Helm's Deep rocked..
But RotK is.. perfect.
I'll have to see it again of course. We were interrupted once when the lights started coming back on and the movie stopped all of a sudden. People went out, to use the restroom, and possibly to complain, and the movie started again. It was interrupted again.
Near the end, a woman stood up and called, "Someone call 911!" Her son had had a seizure. So a bunch of people crowded around him and called 911 and I suppose there were a few doctors in the audience too who said things like, "Has he ever had a seizure before?" Aside from that I don't think anyone else in the theater particularly cared after we were assured everything was under control. ("An ambulance is on the way." "He's breathing just fine.") I would make some comment about the callousness of crowds, but this is the second time I've seen someone with a medical emergency in public. I'm beginning to suspect that it is a social phenomenon that when stuff like this happens a few people stop to help and everybody else goes about their business without getting in the way, and it ceases to feel particularly insensitive anymore.
Ha!
I didn't survive the IB program for nothin', punks!
We'll watch it again at Olney 6 or something.
There were some people who dressed up, but in not very spectacular manner. Mostly girls in generic medieval garb trying to pass for elves I guess, and one guy who was Gimli in a plastic Viking helmet and tartans of some sort. And a Nazgul. We had a Nazgul.
But the movie! The movie was cool! What was the most jaw-dropping was that it was The Two Towers MUD come to life, in a way moreso even than the Two Towers movie. Of all of you who read this, only Azoriel will know what I'm talking about. Anyone who's spent any significant amount of time in the lower levels of Minas Tirith trying to put out fires, running around during the Gate Password quest, comically bumping his nose into Mount Mindolluin, bandaging NPCs at the Houses of Healing, and surviving the text-based siege along the walls will know what I'm talking about. And as an Eorling I remember my newbie days killing evil-aligned Dunlendings for gold, exp and equipment, and yelling, "FORTH EORLINGAS!" (in capital letters of course). Okay, so only Azoriel. But maybe the rest of you who roleplay understand my nostalgia.
Anyway, RotK is the best one. I liked Fellowship, especially after watching the DVD over and over, and loved the themes of home and friendship, but it wasn't spectacular, simply by nature of being well... Fellowship. It was my least favorite book too. Two Towers I thought was ill-paced; boring in the beginning, action in the end, and too many changes from the book. Of course Helm's Deep rocked..
But RotK is.. perfect.
I'll have to see it again of course. We were interrupted once when the lights started coming back on and the movie stopped all of a sudden. People went out, to use the restroom, and possibly to complain, and the movie started again. It was interrupted again.
Near the end, a woman stood up and called, "Someone call 911!" Her son had had a seizure. So a bunch of people crowded around him and called 911 and I suppose there were a few doctors in the audience too who said things like, "Has he ever had a seizure before?" Aside from that I don't think anyone else in the theater particularly cared after we were assured everything was under control. ("An ambulance is on the way." "He's breathing just fine.") I would make some comment about the callousness of crowds, but this is the second time I've seen someone with a medical emergency in public. I'm beginning to suspect that it is a social phenomenon that when stuff like this happens a few people stop to help and everybody else goes about their business without getting in the way, and it ceases to feel particularly insensitive anymore.
Monday, December 15, 2003
Sunday, December 14, 2003
What am I doing? I am reading Soul Calibur fanfiction. Why? Because Siegfried Schtauffen is my Bishonnen of the Hour.
Jose says that I just like boys with swords. I concede that this certainly helps (as does martial ability of any kind). However, his point is disproven by the fact that he has a sword, and I don't like him.
Jose says that I just like boys with swords. I concede that this certainly helps (as does martial ability of any kind). However, his point is disproven by the fact that he has a sword, and I don't like him.
Tom Cruise Would Make a Horrible Bishonnen
Kay: To the _____ ! Jeremy, this is your least favorite book!
Jeremy: Lighthouse!
-Jeremy and Kay, while playing Taboo on Friday
On Saturday, I went with Jeremy to watch the Last Samurai. Went, beforehand, to something that wasn't exactly a real restaurant (it was in a mall), but we had calamari and (he had, and I stole sips out of) a glass of chianti so I felt posh.
The actual movie was kind of blah. Note: Tom Cruise, for however old he is (he must be at least forty by now), is remarkably well preserved. It's really creepy how pretty he is. He's pretty like an anime character but since the thought of Tom Cruise as an anime character scares me, let's think of something else.
Moving on.
(God, isn't he pretty? If Tom Cruise were an anime character his hair would have sparkly sparklies! And he would be in yaoi with Brad Pitt.)
Moving on.
There always is a danger of reviewing a movie by measuring it up to the standards of the movie you felt should have been made, instead of measuring it as the movie that it is. I apologize deeply for that bias, but here we go. It was a good movie except that I felt it was entirely too politically correct, probably a symptom of white liberal guilt again. It was too clearly one-sided and too simplistic a romanticization of the samurai. Japan good, capitalism bad, etc. Honor, dignity, etc. aside, it must be remembered that as a feudal class the samurai reinforced strict social immobility, and that their romanticization had been extensively used as propaganda during World War II.
I don't mean to be insulting, I just think that we should view Samurai with the same skepticism that we view our knights. While the Honorable Warrior image is appealing, we're still comfortable with things like Monty Python. It would seem, however, that we're too squeamish to make similar comments about someone else's culture. I honestly think a Japanese director would have treated the subject matter better. Which of course brings me back to the point that I may be unfairly castigating the movie for not being how I would have made it. In any case, I felt it would've been an improvement if the motivations of the railroad baron, the cavalry captain, and other industrial interests had been developed in a more sophisticated manner than just, "We're greedy, we like whoring Japan."
("Yay, whoring! Bring me a geisha!")
What a ridiculously apologist ending. ("Japan must be a mix of the modern, but we shall remember our past! Which is why I now refuse to sign this treaty with the West!" .. wha??)
Also, side note: What's up with Taka? Her character didn't irritate me, but I just felt her character could've been developed beyond the typical Aesthetically Tragic Asian Woman (what is this, the Joy Luck Club?), you know, who palely haunts rice paper screens, looking up with pained, about-to-cry eyes every once in a while from the Weight of her Sacrifice for the sake of Duty, and conveniently somehow is always in the middle of gracefully, sorrowfully, tying up her kimono whenever Tom Cruise walks in. It makes you wonder if she does it on purpose.
("He's about to walk in.. right.. about... NOW!")
PS: I want a hot Japanese chick to undress me.
PSS: I mean, if I were a straight guy who was into hot Japanese chicks, I'd want a hot Japanese chick to undress me.*
*("Oh, yeah, baby! Who's your otosan?!")
Kay: To the _____ ! Jeremy, this is your least favorite book!
Jeremy: Lighthouse!
-Jeremy and Kay, while playing Taboo on Friday
On Saturday, I went with Jeremy to watch the Last Samurai. Went, beforehand, to something that wasn't exactly a real restaurant (it was in a mall), but we had calamari and (he had, and I stole sips out of) a glass of chianti so I felt posh.
The actual movie was kind of blah. Note: Tom Cruise, for however old he is (he must be at least forty by now), is remarkably well preserved. It's really creepy how pretty he is. He's pretty like an anime character but since the thought of Tom Cruise as an anime character scares me, let's think of something else.
Moving on.
(God, isn't he pretty? If Tom Cruise were an anime character his hair would have sparkly sparklies! And he would be in yaoi with Brad Pitt.)
Moving on.
There always is a danger of reviewing a movie by measuring it up to the standards of the movie you felt should have been made, instead of measuring it as the movie that it is. I apologize deeply for that bias, but here we go. It was a good movie except that I felt it was entirely too politically correct, probably a symptom of white liberal guilt again. It was too clearly one-sided and too simplistic a romanticization of the samurai. Japan good, capitalism bad, etc. Honor, dignity, etc. aside, it must be remembered that as a feudal class the samurai reinforced strict social immobility, and that their romanticization had been extensively used as propaganda during World War II.
I don't mean to be insulting, I just think that we should view Samurai with the same skepticism that we view our knights. While the Honorable Warrior image is appealing, we're still comfortable with things like Monty Python. It would seem, however, that we're too squeamish to make similar comments about someone else's culture. I honestly think a Japanese director would have treated the subject matter better. Which of course brings me back to the point that I may be unfairly castigating the movie for not being how I would have made it. In any case, I felt it would've been an improvement if the motivations of the railroad baron, the cavalry captain, and other industrial interests had been developed in a more sophisticated manner than just, "We're greedy, we like whoring Japan."
("Yay, whoring! Bring me a geisha!")
What a ridiculously apologist ending. ("Japan must be a mix of the modern, but we shall remember our past! Which is why I now refuse to sign this treaty with the West!" .. wha??)
Also, side note: What's up with Taka? Her character didn't irritate me, but I just felt her character could've been developed beyond the typical Aesthetically Tragic Asian Woman (what is this, the Joy Luck Club?), you know, who palely haunts rice paper screens, looking up with pained, about-to-cry eyes every once in a while from the Weight of her Sacrifice for the sake of Duty, and conveniently somehow is always in the middle of gracefully, sorrowfully, tying up her kimono whenever Tom Cruise walks in. It makes you wonder if she does it on purpose.
("He's about to walk in.. right.. about... NOW!")
PS: I want a hot Japanese chick to undress me.
PSS: I mean, if I were a straight guy who was into hot Japanese chicks, I'd want a hot Japanese chick to undress me.*
*("Oh, yeah, baby! Who's your otosan?!")
You're used to people telling you that you're cute because you simply are!
Your love for beauty and all things social makes you a positive force amongst any group of people.
Although you may seem delicate and fanciful on the outside, you're a lot stronger than people
think you are. Purity, inner strength, and a sense of aesthetics is what makes you Xianghua.
Which Soul Calibur character are you?
this quiz was made by david park
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)