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Two movies in as many days! I am impressed with myself. And while I saw Water for Elephants (which was also good) so early in the day that the theater wasn't very crowded, I very nearly had it to myself this time.

@cleolinda: I am the only person in this theater, and I doubt that is going to change in the next ten minutes. It's kind of awesome.

@cleolinda: I am totally unafraid of going to movies by myself. I've gone with someone else and had the theater otherwise empty. But this is a new one.

@cleolinda: Except for the fact that I'm having to watch the trailer for The Beaver again, this is pretty much the ideal viewing experience.

@cleolinda: OH DAMMIT

At least the two other women didn't sit in front of me.

A preamble: ( Read more... )

@cleolinda: I get irrationally pissed off that they call it The Twilight "Saga." Needs moar Vikings before it can be the Sparklingasögur.

@queenanthai: @cleolinda And cue the 30 people who will insist you make that a fanfic.


Oh hey! They actually have Icelandic epics translated online.


THE THIRD SONG OF THE SPARKLINGASÖGUR

CHAP. XXIV.

( Read more... )

Today's The Month What My Journal Was Born In flashback: I learned my recappin' in a hard school, y'all. For about three months, I wrote daily Days of Our Lives recaps. And then, between my class schedule changing and the show being on every weekday, I burnt out. BUT THE LESSONS I LEARNED STAYED WITH ME FOREVER. And as soon as I figure out what those lessons were, I'll let you know.

So what I ended up doing this morning was going back and tagging those entries so that you can get them all together (start at the bottom here and move up). Quick excerpts, if you'd like to see what my recapping style was like four years ago: ( WOMAN, JUST GO TO THE OLIVE GARDEN WITH ME )


I never did find out how the Bizarro Salem or the Love Cage storylines ended up, by the way.

So last night, Sister Girl and Sister Girl's boyfriend and I were watching the nightly NBC news, you know, with Brian Williams, and some telethon had pushed it up to 6:30 from 5:30 but Sister Girl was happy that she'd get to see it anyway, because apparently she loves Brian Williams, so we sat there and laughed for a half an hour as he walked down the streets of drizzly, antclimactically un-Gustaved New Orleans, stopping occasionally to put his hands on his hips in a hero pose and intone things like, "But NO ONE... died today... in NEW ORLEANS."

"I'm gonna name my kid Brian Williams," she announces.

"Like, first name and middle name, or like 'Mary Catherine,' all together?"

"No, like Mary Catherine. Brian Williams."

"BRIAN WILLIAMS, YOU GET UP THERE AND CLEAN YOUR ROOM RIGHT NOW!"

So then she tells us this story about how this guy she works with is named Michael, and he's a Michael Jr., so he doesn't want his son to be Michael III. But he still wants him to be named Michael, so he's going to name the kid... JaMichael. (Pronunciation: "Juh-MICHAEL.")

"You need to name your kid JaBrian Williams," I tell her. "You know, so no one gets confused."

So Brian Williams is still striking poses all over Bourbon Street and we start trying to figure out what the next few hurricanes will be called, since we've already got Gustav, Hanna, and Ike in play. I think you know what the answer to this question is.

"JaHurricane, obviously."

"It was upgraded from JaTropical Storm."

I have to tell you, we cried laughing over this. No, we were not high.

... with bonus Twilight recappage here and there. This is, after all, the kind of quality service you have come to expect from Cleolinda Industries. Even if we're not very punctual.

(Hey, guess whose computer crashed yesterday and ate three chapters of recap? ARRRRRRGH.)

To catch up: the first half of the recap is here; the free PDF download is here; a list of other Twilight recaps I've done is here.

New icons! New "Growing Up Cullen" icons from inthe_redshirt ("Even the monkeys leave after that" is still my favorite line from this one); icons of the first half of the recap from bisty_icons; from k_maedae, Outrageous Flavor feat. Furious Kitten, Summer '09! (Do feel free to make your own, seriously.)

ETA: Moar recap icons from bisty_icons; icons by paintanelephant; icons from diddakoi; from laughingacademy: gaze upon the fabulousity of mspaint_lolz.

ON TO THE RECAP. ( Let us read Austen in the backyard and sulk upon this )

You know, I was in the shower today and I had one of my Great (For Certain Values of "Great") Thoughts, and it was this: perfectionism can be a kind of cowardice. And I'm suffering from it. Because really, perfection doesn't exist, you know? I mean, if it does, it happens only in nature or accidentally; I don't know that you can achieve perfection intentionally, just because of the perverseness of the universe. Um. If that makes any sense. It probably doesn't. What I'm getting at is that--of course we need to have standards. And of course there are objective fields in which you can be "perfect," in which you are right or wrong. Math, for example. The answers on your math homework are either right, or they aren't. Your spelling is either correct, or it isn't. (Yes, I'm sure there arguments against those ideas. Work with me here.) You can choose to break rules for effect in your writing, for example, but that's a kind of perfection you're choosing not to achieve. With objective correctness, when it's right or it's wrong, you can spellcheck the thing and you know when you're done.

With perfection, you don't. Or rather, you know that you're not done. And really, you'll never be done. Which is why I think--I just realized--seeking perfection is a way of being a coward. Because that way you'll never finish, you know? You are nobly dedicating yourself to the pursuit of getting it just right, rather than exposing your imperfect work to see the light of day--rather than allowing yourself to be vulnerable. And being vulnerable is incredibly scary, or at least I find it to be so--opening yourself up to criticism and rejection and all that. And I'm having a big problem with that, in terms of finishing the annotations and the first Black Ribbon book. Obviously we have to have standards, but... I'm trying to teach myself that "good enough" is... well, good enough. Even if people hate it and give me hell for it in some worst-case scenario. Because "I did it" is worth it, at the end of the day.

Linkspam! ( Vampire baseball, Wolverine in trouble, Gnomeo and Juliet (no, really) )

So you're here from part one? Okay, before we get into this, let's do two things. Number one: If you are pregnant, do not read this section of the book. You may not even want to read this section of the commentary. I don't even plan on having kids and it squicked me the hell out. It's like David Cronenberg took over the book for a hundred pages or so, seriously.

(Another reason you can skip this? This section is kind of like the camping section in Deathly Hallows: just when you're ready to kill yourself from boredom, you find out there's another hundred pages of it.)

I would also like to state this clearly and up front before I inadvertently offend someone: ( Babies are awesome! )

Okay, second thing: ( Roll call! )


( Onward: Book Two, Jacob! )

The continued adventures of sparkly vampires and the emoteens who love them. (See also: Twilight; New Moon.) By the way, for anyone who was having trouble with the video the other day, trailer_spot has fixed us up a direct download of the five-minute Robert Pattinson interview where he politely, respectfully, Britishfully talks about how ridiculous Edward and Bella are.

Oh, and I was psychic, as I so often am, in bringing up Wuthering Heights the other day, because it's apparently a big plot point in Eclipse. Maybe Alice will let me hang out with her now? So that's what I'll be listening to while reading this time; for the first book I put the David Cook stalker-rock cover of "Hello" on repeat ("I've been alone with you inside my mind..."), and for the second, Dido's "Here with Me," because it seemed like the angstiest thing I had on hand. Although I guess I could also go with Evanescence's "My Tourniquet," complete with the Romeo + Juliet sample of Claire Danes screaming "I LONG TO DIE!!!" ( Why can't you just date the werewolf next door? He's practically family! )

So... I finally read an e-book of Twilight last night, and... I kind of love it like cake. With rainbow sparkles sprinkles. Carried in by ponies. Pink ponies. If I had a hard copy, I would snuggle it. I'm going to read the other two, but they'll have to wait until I reread the first one again. Note: I also own and have seen Van Helsing about fifteen times, so... my loving something is not necessarily the most ringing endorsement in the world. I'm just saying.

So, in a nutshell, here's what the book is about: ( I am not making any of this up )

ETA: Read a first half of Midnight Sun/large chunks of Twilight recap here; read more Twilight series recaps here.

So. We had breakfast for dinner, with scrambled eggs and bacon and toast (and not toaster toast, oven toast, which is always better because you can toast it with the butter already on) and hash browns (fried! not baked! because we were baking the toast!) and everything was delicious and crispy and wonderful. Except the eggs. They weren't crispy, because that would be gross.

Anyway! It's storytime again, like I promised, only it's not about my mother, it's another Awesome Tale of Awesome TV Awesomeness. I was working the other day and Sister Girl came home and flopped down and turned on the TV and happened across the Lifetime Television Movies for Women and People Staying Home Sick (or Maybe Just Hungover) Channel, which was having a Nora Roberts marathon. "Heh," she said. "I saw this the other night." ( Shoot him! WELL, SHOOT HIM! )