Happy Halloween!

Rambling Thought Regarding Harry Potter

Today, at the cafeteria, they were playing Harry Potter because I guess it's to get us in the holiday mood? Anyway, it reminded me of something I've thought since I read the first book. (I haven't read the rest. No insult on the series, I just got distracted. But if later book events make this train of thought completely non-applicable, well, oops. :-) Sometimes that happens.)

Ok, so the kids are sorted via the hat into Houses based on particular traits. They do everything in these Houses, and solidarity and competition is encouraged.

But they take the traits MOST likely to result in evil wizardry (ambition and cunning) and shove ALL of those people together into one House. Doesn't that seem like a recipe for disaster?

I mean, you've already got a House with a fairly disproportionate amount of evil-leaning wizards. And while not ALL ambitious people are likely to be evil, that does leave them pretty vulnerable TO the evil-leaning wizards running amock. And ambition is one of those traits that tends to make it easy to get in over your head.

It's like...prison really. In which some poor kid gets thrown in for drug possession or something and comes out with all this knowledge and ability to commit much bigger crimes. Only, you know. The wizard equivalent. You go in a little brat, and come out a Nazi.

And really, isolating most of the really ambitious people together in a system that promotes solidarity-in-ones-group and competition-with-others over anything else, just makes for another mess. If all the kids were dispersed instead of isolated, then they'd be more likely to focus their ambition on a wider area rather than just their own House.

It's like Hogwarts pretty much bred up the next generation of Voldemort's army FOR him. Yeesh.

A thought

Is it wrong that a part of me totally wants Rachel Grey (or Summers, whatever she's calling herself these days) and Wolverine's annoying son to get together?

I mean, I know he's annoying and evil, and bizarre electra tendencies aside, Rachel's not that bad and deserves better. But it would make me laugh. Mostly for Scott and Logan as in-laws.

Failing that, maybe they can age up the speedster one of Wanda's twins. The one that digs girls.

I totally 'ship characters based on how much more convoluted it will make their family tree. I'm like that.

This bodes well...

Hmm. When is it too soon to call a joke as going to be run into the ground?

I specifically mean the Deadpool Corps.

Granted, I'm not a big Deadpool fan in general, but there is the potential for this to be pretty funny. On the other hand, Marvel Zombies was pretty funny when it started too. And then it. Never. Stopped.

I admit to being curious about Lady Deadpool and the Deadpool Kid.

A Horrifying Confession

I have actually never seen any of the Ghostbuster movies.

Feel free to commence mocking.

I have comics!

Ah, there's nothing better than ACTUALLY getting to the comic book shop! Except maybe when the used book store has an anniversary 40% off sale.

So yeah, catching up on comics. You know, I was kind of annoyed at yet another Return of Magneto in Uncanny X-Men (Is it just me or has that guy been resurrected more times than Jean Grey) but the whole "I come not to bury Caesar, but to praise him" was awesome.

I don't doubt it'll all backfire, and Professor Xavier, bastard that he is, will turn out to be right after all. But just once it's nice to see someone give Cyclops the recognition he deserves, damnit. He DID pretty much unite (what's left of) the mutant race. Something which Xavier might have been able to do years ago, if he hadn't been so busy raising secret child armies. Granted, the fact that there are much fewer mutants helps, but having an open and public sanctuary, that ISN'T at war with humanity, is a pretty big deal. If Xavier had done that first, before the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, before the Sentinels, when he was still busy giving five scared kids extreme combat training and simultaneously militant and goofy uniforms, maybe things would have gone a lot differently.

It's possible that I like Magneto right now because he says what I think. Which given his usual tendencies might be a disturbing reflection on me. Oh well.

Really, Smallville? Really?

Okay, I've given up on trying to understand Smallville folks. They're bringing in the JSA now?!

And Michael Shanks as Hawkman?! Really?! I mean, yeah, sure, it was kind of funny on Stargate when you had a clearly athletic fellow playing a supposedly spindly geek, but there's a difference between athletic and...well...Hawkman.

Daniel Jackson DID die a lot, to be fair.

Can he pull off the harness and mace look? That's what *I* really want to know.

(Sheesh, though, if you're gonna do the JSA...what about Alan and Jay?! Carter's entertaining, but we all know who the core members are!)

Also, no Sand. This does not surprise me, but I'm still sad. My poor overlooked favorite. *crying face*

Oooo!

Okay, if this rumor is true, I'm kind of excited.

Though, I've always imagined Sinestro to be a bit more elegant than the characters Jackie Earle Haley's played so far, that doesn't necessarily mean he can't bring that out. And he does have that wiry badass thing going on.

Really, this movie keeps looking better and better.

I'm still hoping for a Guy Gardner cameo. :-)

Solicits!

Yay! Solicits are up!

I'm mostly excited for Red Lantern Guy Gardner, of course. It's particularly interesting to me as a development, because I've always considered Guy as the Earth Lantern most prone toward forgiveness. (I mean, let's face it, he forgave Hal before anyone ever thought Parallax was more than a bad hair day and a temper tantrum. AFTER the guy ripped out his eye.) So I'm really, really curious to see what they'll do with this development.

I'm sad because despite the fact that there are now TWO JSA books, or will be, I still see no sign of my favorite character. :-( But I do like both authors at least. Kind of over Magog though. He was more interesting when he was just Lance Corporal Reid to me. Also, I'm annoyed in general principle that Geo-Force has a mention in Outsiders. He's the much less appealing geomancer, damnit.

Been enjoying the Shield though. So that's a plus. :-)

Still though, GEO-FORCE?! Hmph.

I saw Zombieland.

So Zombieland was actually kind of awesome. Mostly for Woody Harrelson. I was a bit confused by the amount of eyeliner that the main girl character wore, since, well, apocalypse and all. But it was still pretty funny.

Of course my friends kept laughing at me jumping at random moments, on account of me being chickenshit. Seriously. I'm the sort that won't read bad retellings of urban legends on forums if I think I'm going to be sleeping any time soon. Total chickenshit.

But it was a very amusing movie. Even better than Shaun of the Dead (I liked Hot Fuzz better anyway).

Truth be told though, I'd be like the first to die in a zombie apocalypse. Oh well.

No post here.

You know what would make an awesome kids cartoon protagonist? A robot kangaroo.

Because what's awesomer than kangaroos? Robots.

And also, pouches are neat and kind of scary.

Yep. It'd be great.

OMG!!!

Superfriends will be on DVD!!!

Superfriends! First season. Wendy-and-Marvin (not being eaten by their dog!)

On DVD!

The godawful nonsensical plots, annoying sidekicks, wretched voice acting. Soon it will be MINE!!!

A bit too late for Christmas but just in time for my birthday! Awesome!!!

...I really do have horrible taste, don't I? <3

My inner child just cheered

God. I wish I were an action figure kinda gal.

Look!

Boodika! And the Star Sapphire in that ridiculous get up. And all those details! A part of me totally wants them all!

The rest of me is sanely going "Where the hell would I put them?!"

Damn they look cool though. :-)

I am a knife. Or money.

I usually don't do these things, but this one amused me:

kalinara
n. 1. a knife. 2. money.
"Check out Sally's kalinara!"

Taken from the randomly generated Infinite Teen Slang Dictionary.
Look up another word:-

With cameo by Sally apparently. :-P

Personal Update

It's probably a sign that I'm still impaired that I'm vastly amused by the time stamp on this entry. I JUST missed Monday. Oops. I've become such a slacker blogger.

On the plus side, I've mostly recovered (after a coughing jag last night that had my poor suitemate asking through the bathroom door if I needed any of her medicine or water or something in her achingly sincere, not-yet-jaded sweet undergrad way. I was fine really, I just tend to cough like my body is trying to expel my lungs. It's pretty gross, but not a sign of impending death or anything). I can breathe sans Nyquil, and my voice is only an octave lower than my usual speaking register.

I've officially moved from baritone to tenor range, I think. Awesome. Maybe tomorrow I'll actually sound like someone with two x-chromosomes.

I'd blog about comics, but let's be honest, I've been spending far too much time moaning, feeling sorry for myself, and infecting my best friends (poor Matt. Such a nice guy. Now plague victim.) to hit the comic shop.

I did however get me some French Silk pie from the cafeteria before it closed, so well. I'm happy. Also, enjoying your recs. Thanks guys!

I have determined that I do not understand the show: Tosh.0. I think I'm getting too old for insomnia, late night tv doesn't make sense to me anymore. Too bad.

Nyquil hangovers kind of suck.

Recommend me something to cheer me up? Can be anything, really. Just something you like with a reason why. Book, movie, tv, music, hallucinogenic drug, anything. :-)

Babbling

Ech. I hate early October. Always get sick in early October. On the plus side, I got myself a new keyboard (cheap too!) and Nyquil. Amusingly, the self-scan decided I should be carded for buying the crap. (Is Nyquil the drug of choice for kids these days?) Depressingly, the checkout girl just waved me through rather than look at my ID.

Crap. No more carding. I officially look old. Oh well.

On the plus side, I got to watch a terrible Vin Diesel movie, (Babylon A.D., if you're curious) that even my friend who is a big Vin Diesel buff hated. Oddly, I kind of liked it. But then I was playing Ultima IV at the time and was busy trying to find the NPC in Yew that could tell me where to find the stone of justice during the boring parts. (I already know where the stone is, having played it before, but I'm trying to play organically. Really though, it's kind of obvious, so I'm thinking about just "intuiting" it once I learn about the others.)

Anyway, I wasn't expecting it to make sense at the end. Sadly my friends were. They were disappointed, I was all "Well, explosions?"

Then we watched Get Smart for a bit, and that was more fun. Maxwell Smart is actually a lot more competent, in his own way, then I remembered him being. It's a weird but oddly compelling balance of idiocy and competence. Don Adams looked so young back then too!

Now though, I intend to drug myself happily with Nyquil and sleep until I can freakin' breathe again. Yay!

Crap

Note to self. Getting in internet debates with a broken keyboard and a just-started-up cold is a very bad idea.

On the plus side, I've learned that comic fans are not the craziest fanbase around. I always kind of guessed that but now I have first hand experience! Score!

Disheartened and Disjointed Rambling About the Stepfather

I'm going to do something relatively rare for me and blog about something that ticked me off in my school's newspaper, fortunately this is the modern age and everything's on the Internet so I don't have to feel guilty about possibly misrepresenting the thing that annoyed me.

So, here is an interview with the guy who is, I guess, the lead in the new Stepfather remake.

If you can't tell already, the part that ticks me off is when the guy starts talking about how they switched the gender of his character for the new one:

Q What personal touches did you, the directors and the writers make to separate this film from the 1980s original?

PB (The original) was more of an eerie, creepy slasher film and this was more of a broad thriller. I think there’s more of a story that will draw you in and keep you invested. (In the original) my character was a girl.

I think they changed that to make the relationship between the stepfather and my character to be one where you can only see one of two ways for it to end, that probably one of them was dying. So it has to end in a battle, so it’s a different kind of rapport that they developed.

Q Do you think we will see more male protagonists in horror films?

PB I don’t know how it will influence or if it is a sign of the change. It’s less predatory, because now the character can go head-to-head with the killer. I think it just changes the whole dynamic between the killer and the victim ­— they’re less victimized. I think it’s an exciting one.

...god, how that annoys me.

I don't really blame the actor for the sentiment expressed, since I think it's an accurate depiction of how Hollywood filmmakers think. But it annoys me nonetheless.

Why exactly is a male victim less "victimized"? Is it because he's allowed to fight back, do more than run and scream? Is it because he's allowed to WIN if he does fight back?

Women are the most common victims in horror movies, and they do seem to be, usually, more inclined to run away screaming than try to fight back. "Scream queen" is a B-movie staple, after all. I'm pretty sure this is the idea that the original Buffy the Vampire Slayer was lampooning, by allowing the tiny blond girl to actually fight back.

I guess what I'm mostly annoyed at is that, I'm getting the impression (perhaps wrongly) that they specifically changed the girl character to a boy so that he could fight back. So they could change the dynamic from "get away and survive" to "kill or be killed." And that shouldn't be necessary.

Sure, the average youngish girl can't take a big guy in a fistfight. But she CAN probably figure out how to fire a gun. Or use a knife. Or set a trap. Or some other way to use cleverness to even the odds. If Hollywood actually wanted to shift the dynamic of a horror movie, they could, even without changing the gender. And if the emphasis was less on "victim" and more on "fighting back" for female protagonists too, then ultimately the gender of the victim wouldn't have to matter at all.

It's just a bit disheartening to me. I don't like normal horror flicks. I DO like kill-or-be-killed action/thriller flicks. But as much as the interview might have made me think I could actually enjoy the remake, I'll never be able to watch it now without thinking how much I'd like it more if Penn Badgely's character had gotten to remain a girl.

Oooo! GL movie interviews!

Oooh! Green Lantern Movie gossip!

Granted, not much, but still, I'm very excited! And heck, interviews!

"Space epic!" Kilowog! Sinestro! Oa!

Only way this could be better is with a Guy Gardner cameo!

Okay, there is a very strong possibility they could fuck it up, but I can't think about that right now. It sounds awesome! :-)

Huh.

Dan Didio's writing Outsiders?

Huh. Well, I've never hated the guy like some folk, so I'll give it a shot. I don't think I've ever read anything by him, so I can't really say if I like his style or not. But well, honestly, I don't have much interest in the Outsiders anyway, so if he's bad, well, I'm not likely to care.

I'm kind of curious to see what he comes up with.

Green Hornet movie?

Why in the world did I not know of a Green Hornet movie?

My mom will be thrilled! Or hate it. She can be picky. And I have no idea how she feels about Seth Rogen.

Still. Cool!

Yay, An Actual Post About Comics

So. On the side of awesome, I've FINALLY gotten around to the comic book shop. Weeks overdue. I have no idea where to even start blogging.

I'm surprised to find out that despite the fact that Captain America Reborn is bringing back my favorite Marvel character and Blackest Night and its tie-ins are awesome as well, my favorite overdue comic in my batch was Uncanny X-Men's Nation X (515).

I think it's because it totally appeals to the part of my brain that enjoys kingdom building stories. And I like to see the ramifications for all the split-second decisions.

Also I always like seeing Xavier continue to be the worst father figure ever. You didn't teach him that human life was acceptable collateral? You RAISED an army of CHILDREN, you asshole. And that's not even getting into your recent assholish deeds.

But on the plus side, I'm always happiest with someone to hate, which should get me through the inevitable irritation of when Xavier takes over again. Despite the fact that until Osborn's fun, Scott was doing a better job toward mutant-human co-existence than Xavier ever did.

And when he did finally copy Magneto's schtick, he did it one better since he did it with Xavier's army.

I don't care what anyone else says. I love Cyclops and always will. <3

Watching Bad Movies...

I am currently watching Pirates with some friends. It's that apparently very high budget soft-core porn movie. I find that sort of thing hilarious.

The budget IS impressive. And the plot...actually almost seems to make sense. Well. For one of these sorts of movies. Some of them can even act!

I can't tell ANY of the women apart though. They're all tan, platinum blond, black eyebrowed, and wearing way, WAAAY too much black eyeliner. It's starting to freak me out.

The evil pirate lady is kind of cool. But then I'm still fairly early into the movie, so who knows if she'll remain interesting. I can at least tell her apart from the others.

Also, the inept pirate hunter guy currently makes me laugh.