finally watched the last two episodes of Inu-Yasha

What in the world!?! That was the end??? They didn't defeat Naraku! They managed to pull in all the main characters except Kagome's family and the wolf-demon jerk, but Inu-Yasha and Kagome still haven't moved forward in their relationship and Naraku is still alive. What a lousy way to end a series. There's still the fourth movie, but my hopes aren't high for it: i saw the first 10-15 minutes of it and it didn't seem to be very good. i guess i'll have to turn to the manga for closure... if i can get my hands on it. i don't think the library has it, but maybe i can find it at Barnes & Noble.

title

More than anything else in the world of WoW, i think i am most proud of my titles. Why? Titles usually take some effort. Titles let other players know that you've been working your fingers off until you're blurry eyed and sleep deprived. Titles have power, there aren't that many in the game (though the number is growing). Some titles come with mounts, non-combat pets, or tabards. My titles are as follows:

Luinel, Champion of the Naaru
i wish i would have finished the Hand of A'dal quest line before Wrath went live, all i needed was the drops off the final bosses in the Eye and SSC, but i never was in a guild that got that far. Both titles have long, involved quest lines that i spent a lot of time soloing to complete (except for one summoned "boss" that i asked a shaman in my guild to help me with).

Luinel the Explorer
Super easy, seeing this above my head always makes me think of Dora.

Ambassador Luinel
This was completed before becoming a Champion of the Argent Tournament, and i am rather proud of that. i completed all the starting zone quests in Tirisfal Glades, Durotar, and Mulgore, did a little questing in the Barrens, and ultimately got the rest of the way by turning in about fifteen Perfect Yeti Hides and completing two last quests to kill nagas in the sea off Desolace.

Luinel the Argent Champion
i was already exalted with the Argent Crusade through running heroics with my tabard on, so i put on my Seal of the Dawn on and ran Strat three times, finally acquiring the Piccolo of the Flaming Fire on my last run. i even avoided trash as much as possible, only killing what i agrod and what needed to be killed to get to the Baron... the mount never dropped.

Luinel, Guardian of Cenarius
Once again, i was already exalted with the Cenarion Expedition merely from questing in Zangarmarsh and grinding a bit for the Nethercleft Leg Armor pattern back when i was a leatherworker. i was also already on my way with the Cenarion Circle because i ran AQ20 and AQ40 with Vitality shortly after the merge. To finish this i did a little questing in the area, mainly the quests in Hive'Regal for Combat Badges and killing Twilight Cultists for Encrypted Twilight Text and Twilight Trappings (which enable you to summon an elemental, which drops an Abyssal Crest. i got my rep from honored to exalted in just over two days. It was far easier to grind this rep than i expected.

Luinel the Flame Keeper
i finally completed all of a holiday's achievements: i tried so hard for Hallowed and Love Fool, but alas they simply were not meant to be.

i'm sure that i have at least one more title, but i'm too tired to remember what it is at the moment. As soon as i can log in again i'll see it and be like "duh!" and will update this post to reflect this moment of brain dead ditziness.

HBP

So we went to see Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, which was meh compared to Alias, and i saw a featurette on the new Harry Potter and a preview of it which actually contained some snippets of Harry fighting Malfoy and Snape and some inferi... which look surprisingly like Gollum instead of zombies. i believe that it was Gambon who said that this is the best Potter film yet, and after seeing the preview, i do believe it. Have to laugh about Hermione beating Ron with the book and Ron bemoaning the fact that the girls are going to kill him. i am soooo looking forward to the moments with Ginny, they never feature her enough for my liking, and i am still annoyed that they changed her patronus to a horse (the original phoenix was so much more her, and meaningful because of the events in the Chamber). i simply cannot wait to see it, i will most likely attend the midnight viewing again. It makes me want to work on my Fair Ginny sweater and knit some more house scarves. Yeah, the preview gave me chills, and ironically enough... i don't think that Dumbledore looks ostentatious enough when he's going to see Tom for the first time. Wonder if it's actually different in the film? i hate how they wash all the colors out. ): Argh, i feel like reading the books, too, i don't know that i have the time, and it will only make me more aware of the differences between the book and the movie, but HBP is probably my favorite book of the series now, and OotP was disappointing enough. Only the Dumbledore's Army scenes really made the movie bearable.

Vulcan grieving

"...Vulcan philosophy acknowledged grief as a valid response to loss. 'I grieve with thee' was an ancient formula which Surak himself had refused to renounce. While Surak had cautioned against succumbing to the debilitating emotional effects of grief, and most especially against the tendency to transform grief into a desire for vengeance and violence, he had nonetheless taught that even the most logical, dispassionate civilization must cherish life and the ties of family and community and must acknowledge and reflect upon the great cost incurred when a life, particularly that of a kinsman, was lost. Otherwise, he had written, that dispassion would become callous self-absorption, nullifying the bonds that enabled individuals to function as part of a greater whole."
~ Star Trek Titan - Over a Torrent Sea, pg. 8-9

Yeah, this is kind of bothered me in the new Star Trek, how Spock was encouraged to take revenge and didn't want to offer the Romulans any help. That's not the Spock that i know and love, the kissing on the transporter pad bothers me far less because i'm used to emotional exchanges happening their on TOS, TNG and Voyager. In many ways, i just feel that Abrams and the rest of TPTB just didn't really... get what Star Trek is about. There were far too many moments where it felt like they were trying to copy Star Wars. Star Trek is so much better than that.

gimme some candy!

After hearing about this sketch from my aunt and uncle for around a decade, i finally decided to look it up. i must admit: it is funny... though cut off at the end. ):


via videosift.com

As far as the newspaper unicorn... that would totally work these days, all one would need to do is say: "I'm Charlie the Unicorn, and i'm crazy cuz i didn't get any of that candy! Gimme some candy!" Yeah, kinda lame, but come on, it's kinda funny. Shun the non-believer!

bleeping Grey's finale

i hate that i like this show so much, people call it a stupid soap opera... but i know that's not true. These characters, maybe this season more than ever, have been moving forward. They have extramarital sex, their lives are their careers, but they love each other, they are family. Watching the finale tonight... i just got so irritated with everyone for bad mouthing George during an anonymous guy's surgery, and then... as it turned out... John Doe was George. i was crying and so not ready for that, nothing in the episode prepared me for that twist at the end, even while a part of my mind knew that there was something wrong.

i am so sick of being inundated with the war of the sexes, with homosexuality (but who knew Arizona would be pro-military?), with people being firm and knowing that they're right when all they're doing is hurting themselves and others. i don't know what to do, my life is a mess, all my fighting is getting me nowhere, but i am trying, i am trying not to complain, to have faith, when all i want to do is scream that soul mates and love and happily ever after is a bunch of b.s. because it's never going to happen for me. i thought i had it, and now he's changed, now he just wants to use me for a shoulder to cry on when he's drunk, and i can't help but still love him and i can't not answer the phone and i can't stop praying for him and it just makes me miserable. Not everything in life is about "me," one cannot always put him or herself first.

George O'Malley is my hero.

Lost theories

First off, spoilers abound; if you haven't seen the finale, read at your own risk.

My mother and sisters (2 and 3) were incredibly upset by Juliet's death. Personally, i saw it coming, and don't actually believe she's dead. Katie and i have been discussing the parallels between her and Desmond when he turned the key. Megan doesn't necessarily believe (as Katie and i do) that Desmond was setting off an atomic bomb when he turned said key, but in both cases the protagonist was forced to go underground and manually cause a flash of light. We already know that Desmond was jumping around in time and needed a constant when he left the Island because he had recently come into contact with radiation. The question is whether Juliet, Sawyer, Kate, Jack, Hurley, Miles, Jin, and Sayid will have their timelines reset or stay where they currently are, in the past. Megan is of the opinion that Miles was right, that their actions were causing the incident, but Katie and i disagree. While the Losties were debating (and having fistfights) about the issue of whether or not the bomb should be deployed, Radzinsky was already causing the Incident. Everything metal was getting sucked into the chasm before the bomb was dropped.

i believe that the Losties will jump forward in time, but their arrival in LA is not necessarily guaranteed (i have always hypothesized that Ben wanted the plane to crash merely because Jack was aboard, however the season finale has revealed that people can only come to the Island if Jacob wishes them to). In any case, Desmond's past will change significantly, the rest of the Losties' lives have the chance to, and it is unclear if Juliet will need to come to the Island at all.

Re: the statue... i was originally under the impression that it looked like a cat from the back (i.e. Bast) but was always rather in love with the theory that it was Tawaret, the Egyptian goddess of fertility. This seemed important when coupled with the fact that women are having trouble bearing children on the Island. There are several things problematic with this, however, as Tawaret is normally only depicted with one ankh, the statue appears to be wearing male garb, and we do not actually know when the statue was destroyed (only that it is sometime after 1845). Apparently the statue has been confirmed by ABC to be said goddess, but this does not explain why in the beginning of the season finale, when the shot of the statue was shown, there were neither breasts nor a pregnant belly/hippo shape visible and the face of the statue appears to be more of the crocodile variety. What now bothers me about Tawaret is that she is sometimes married to Apep, the deification of darkness and chaos (Jacob's nemesis, anyone?).

All of this leads me to believe that the statue is actually Sobek, who is possibly Ra and possibly the embodiment of four gods at once (the ears do appear to be more hippo in nature but also match some depictions of Sobek). What is most interesting (imo) about Sobek is that some see him as evil, some good, and some say that he can repair evils that have been done. In some accounts Sobek created the universe.

Mom, for her part, sees Jacob as an embodiment of Christ, Katie sees the nemesis as Esau, some on Lostpedia seem to think that Jacob is Ra and nemesis is Moses... i would go with Jacob = Christ because of his apparent abilities to make people live forever and raise people from the dead, but i am not sure TPTB are willing to make such a strong statement. i am more likely to think that Nemesis/Esau is Ra than Jacob is. Whatever Jacob's identity is, i believe he is not evil and that he has the power to give life: case in point, when Locke fell, Jacob touched him, seemingly bringing him back to life (it had been said in previous episodes that there was no way Locke could survive that fall, apparently he didn't). Katie also notices that Juliet is the only individual not touched by Jacob in the finale flashbacks; she believes that Jacob was in the chasm with Juliet and brought her back to life (but remained unseen) so that she could set off the bomb.

Lastly, many people on Lostpedia keep referring to the cabin as Jacob's when in the finale (and earlier episodes) this is clearly confirmed not to be the case. In my opinion, the only person that we can say the cabin belongs to is Horace (whose name also has Egyptian connections, because Horus was friends with Sobek) because he built it. Of course the question still remains, who did Locke see in the cabin? All that is clear is that the man had brown eyes and long curly hair. Jacob has blue eyes, as does his nemesis (though the most obvious answer would be that it was the nemesis who was trapped there). At this point, the most likely candidate seems to be Horace himself, as he was trapped in a time loop building the cabin. My guess is that the nemesis was possessing Horace before he inhabited Locke, but this only begs yet more questions (such as was he using Horace's body or a clone as with Locke's).

As ever, i'm sure that i'm forgetting something, and by the time i remember to write it down it will have already been disproven (my statue theories have been stewing for weeks).

observations on finales

Re: Fringe
~ Somehow, i knew as soon as we saw Walter at the cemetery. Interestingly enough, this means that if Peter gets anyone pregnant, the results could be catastrophic. This is rather like Lyra and Will in His Dark Materials, and frustrating because i'm kind of a Olivia/Peter shipper.

Re: Lost
~ Is Ilana related to Ana Lucia? Didn't she have a sister that was mentioned, but never shown?
~ What plans does pseudo-John have for the Others exactly (as referenced when he told them to rest at the Beach Camp)?
~ Richard said: "...only our leader can request an audience with Jacob and there can only be one leader on the Island at a time..." Katie asks, "Does that mean that Ben is the leader?" This is kind of a blatant giveaway that Locke isn't the leader, which i did not see coming at all. For some reason i was blindfolded regarding "Locke" the entire season, despite the fact that in the past i was fully aware of the menacing music sometimes focused on him during the earlier seasons (causing the viewer to question whether Locke has good intentions).
ETA: Of course this also begs the question: who was the leader of the Hostiles? Richard said it was Ellie, but Ben acted like it was Widmore. Was Ellie the leader first and if so, does she get kicked off the Island, making Widmore the leader?

another excellent review

This one looks at the science behind Star Trek.

i went to the 7:30 show

Still haven't gotten to see Wolverine (though i hear it's great), no i went to the movie that is destined to be the #1 show of the weekend: Star Trek. i went to WoW Insider last night and it was hilarious, just about all of the people over there had cleared their weekend for it. Well my sister Katie and i went tonight, after i had babysat while my mom and her sister went to a matinee. She's watched most of Voyager and all of TNG, but she's yet to see any of TOS or the old movies (i must remedy this soon). i was surprised how much she actually knew about TOS and dredged a lot of old memories out of the depths of my mind (i haven't been actively watching any Star Trek in so long, except for occasionally sitting in on my mom's recent Netflix rentals of TNG... i still haven't managed to buy a single movie or season of Star Trek on DVD, though i do have a bunch of overpriced Voyager videos somewhere on the other side of the attic...).

First off, let me just say WOW. i am totally crushing on Zach Quinto, i wouldn't call him my type at all, but his love scenes just get under my skin a little bit. The only thing i can figure is that he's got a young Julian McMahon/Leonard Nimoy thing going on, cuz WOW. This year he has slowly become one of my favorite actors.

Second off, i was trying to avoid spoilers, so the movie totally threw me for a loop. i expected the bad guys to be Klingons, not Romulans from the future sans hair and foreheads (you know the Romulan foreheads had a thing going on in TNG). My biggest issue with this... well i have many. Don't get me wrong, i loved the movie except for the Star Wars animal chase thing that was going on and the fact that it took so long to bring in the theme music, but at this point in Federation history it is my understanding that Starfleet really does not know much of anything about the Romulans (as i recall they had heard of them but never met one face to face--in person or via viewscreen--and no one knew of their cousin genetic relationship with the Vulcans). And there's the big thing about where said Romulans came from because: (spoiler warning)

not only is Kirk's father dead, changing his history, but Vulcan is dead as well, completely changing the historical course of the Alpha Quadrant. This means that characters like Saavik, Tuvok, and other lesser--but no less beloved--Vulcan characters are very likely never to be born. Simply put it changes the entire face of TNG, DS9, and Voyager because all of its characters are likely to be affected like Kirk was in unknown ways (Kirk's father wasn't the only person to die in that conflict, remember the anonymous woman that got sucked into space?). So basically all the TV shows have been erased. It would have been really easy to fix things when the red matter and Romulan ship caused the white nova (what the heck is red matter anyway? i had never heard of it), for it to have caused a reset, or it would have been nice for Kirk and Spock to go forward in time and fix things, but we didn't get that. We get a new universe with the old one most likely so largely changed that it has basically been erased, which is the problem with the new Terminator TV show: they are rewriting history and rendering beloved characters and storylines completely defunct). For instance, this totally erases bringing back Spock in Star Trek III because they can't take him back to Vulcan for that ceremony.

Also, does anyone else find it weird that Vulcan has no colonies already for their people to settle in? They had ALL of their eggs in one basket when they've had warp capability far longer than Humans did? How long is Spock supposed to stay alive and rebuild the Vulcan culture? Is Spock going to find a Vulcan female and do his part or stay with Uhura? Is his intended (T'Pring) dead?

So i guess that's all i have to say about that, i'm still trying to process this, and the movie raised a lot of questions. Winona Ryder as Spock's mom was just wrong. Of course, as soon as i saw the engineer in a red spacesuit... well we all know how that's going to turn out. They took way too long to bring in Scotty, and that little alien: i just kept expecting him to break into dance like an Oompa Loompa. There were a lot of unidentifiable alien races sprinkled throughout this movie, i think there were lots of things in here that were too close to Star Wars for my liking, such as warp looking like hyperspeed and working like jumps in Battlestar Gallactica and Wing Commander. i also don't think that Orion slave women are so liberated this early in the timeline (read Imzadi: the chick in the beginning of that book is strange for her species, and that's like two hundred years later or more).

Incidentally, saw the new Transformers preview, it looks awesome, and the G.I. Joe preview. Once again, Starship Troopers came to mind and how much they royally botched that movie by neglecting to give the grunts the suits they had in the book. It also occurred to me: what movie are they going to make next from an 80's cartoon, Rainbow Brite? Of course, as soon as i said that to Katie, and explained to her what Rainbow Brite was, it occurred to me that the next movie will probably be He-Man, and it's probably already in the works (which is rumored to be the case.

i knew i recognized that voice!!!!

Still thinking about the Fringe preview, i decided to look up who is playing William Bell: slight spoiler rofl. So yes, i am very familiar with that voice.

Fringe finale next week!

i finally got to watch this week's Fringe last night and i was really surprised on what the Watcher did. i expected to see him in the opening scene when the camera was turning around chaotically, just as she was about to combust. i also didn't expect the firey death at the end! i think next week we finally bet to meet Belly (or is that Bellie?) if the preview is any indication. The deja vu insights were amazing. It's going to be hard to wait all summer for season 2; i wonder when the dvds are gonna come out.

Suddenly it's all so clear...

Last week we read "The Importance of Being Earnest" in Brit Lit and the professor had a slideshow with images of Oscar Wilde. One of them was the cover/poster for the movie Wilde (which i know Orli Bloom is in, but it somehow escaped me that it stars Stephen Fry, which is ironic in light of V for Vendetta). And suddenly, the message that J.K. Rowling had subtly told her readers (as much pains me to admit) that Dumbledore is gay was blatantly staring me in the face. Remember when he goes to meet Tom Riddle for the first time in the orphanage? Yes, well, i guess this image is worth a thousand words.

"You knew...."

i will now provide an edited version of my response to tonight's Lost:

Oh no they didn't! They did not just kill Daniel!!!

Only when i said it, there was a lot of (&@#$(&@)($&#@)(*$&@#$ thrown in for good measure. i really need to work on controlling my tongue. But seriously: i was so surprised that a couple of bleeps worked their way in.

yesterday i was having a numa numa iei day...

Today i'm cracking up over Elijah Wood.



What in the world? Since when is he doing kiddie shows?

hectic finals preparation

i've only been watching Lost, Fringe, and two eps of Inu-Yasha lately. Every once in a while i'll catch an episode of Alias with my mom and sister (they're my dvds, but my sister is watching them for the first time, and some of them are new to my mom, too). i haven't been overly excited about Lost this season, it's been kind of interesting, but not enthralling. i'm hoping for a Daniel episode next week.

Fringe, on the other hand, is always interesting. i loved seeing the mini-Observer! And finding out about Olive... wow. Was it just me, or was her blanket starting to get bleached white when she woke up the first time (just like in the video at the end)??? It is going to be very interesting to see where this show is going. i think the woman in video is probably Nina Sharp and that next week we might finally get to meet the elusive CEO of Massive Dynamic (it's almost sweeps).

i am taking a break from WoW at least until finals are over: i don't have time to commit with it when i have work and school and am training for a triathlon. i have been reading a little bit of Twilight fanfic again and spoilers about New Moon. Mostly i am focused on RL though.

Saw the original Day the Earth Stood Still last week, was not impressed. It had pretty good special effects but the character development was thin while the director seemed to have an obsession with filming confused soldiers driving around in circles in the dark. i hope to see the new version with Keanu soon.

As far as reading, i'm slowly working on the War of the Rose trilogy (have the Last Paladin, can hardly wait to read it!) i should be focusing on Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, the Commitments, and other school related fare, but am sooo ready for summer break. i really, really, REALLY hate finals.