feeling pessimistic

i saw The End of Time (part 1) last night and Sarah Jane's Wedding this morning.  What a horrible send off for David Tennant, more of the season 3 finale tripe that didn't work then but it's been amped up even worse.  i'm afraid that there's no fixing it, not like they can use the reset button yet again.  i am extremely upset with all the quarry running around filler, lack of Wilf, and of course Donna.  She hasn't recovered at all???  i thought better of her, i am even going to try to write a fanfic just so i can get over it.  i am really really confused:  they make it look like Wilf is a sleeper agent for someone from Gallifrey, but he almost got changed into the Master, and Donna doesn't get affected at all?  Watch, they'll try to explain it away with something that makes absolutely no sense.  As invested as i am in my Donna-is-a-Time-Lady theory, i don't think RTD will use it.  i rather have lost hope in the series and feel like Moffat is getting a raw deal.  Why is series five going to be called series one now?

ETA:  i watched the first part of Blackpool last night, too.  It's absolutely hilarious, completely irreverent and inappropriate.  The skinny git is never going to fill out if he keeps throwing perfectly good food (well, i must admit it was junk food) on the curb.  i also watched the Human Footprint this morning, which was okay i guess, totally does not take into account those of us who use cloth diapers, local grown food, organics, etc.  And since when are carbon dioxide and carbon horrible?  i actually was surprised how small a person's footprint is, i rather thought it would be worse with how much they go on about it, and personally i feel that i am below average for most of what they detailed, the meat possibly being the only exception.  i have yet to ever have lamb and probably eat far too many cows.

finally back home

We drove overnight, which was heinous per usual.  i am sore and stink and am sick again, either due to using sanitizer at the hospital when we went to see Grandad or allergies in LA or Yuma.  Last night after finally falling asleep i was starting to dream that i had read a fanfiction in which, in Donna's missing year, she had been pregnant and was having her baby in the first part of the End of Time.  i'll probably get to watch that sometime tonight (one can only hope).  In the meantime i'm mighty tempted to write a fanfiction of my own, but am not sure that i should do so while so sleep deprived.  i think the only person to get less sleep than me last night was my Dad because he was driving.  i was afraid to fall asleep because i didn't want to wake up to realize we were about to crash because he had fallen asleep.  i hate driving overnight.

the DOCTOR has a ring!

i just happened to be in the mood to progress in my classic Doctor Who viewing, started up "the Dead Planet," and just happened to notice:

The Doctor has a ring that looks an awful lot like Donna's!!!  He even wears it on the same finger and hand that Donna usually wears it on.  So this begs the question, is Donna's ring a coincidence?  Did she just happen to find it in the Wardrobe Room long after the first Doctor stopped wearing it?  Or does the ring have a deeper meaning, whether it could have been used with a Chameleon Arch or not?  It is, of course, very hard to tell, but the two rings seem to be two similar in my opinion for it to be purely coincidence.

Donna's Ring(s)

1. Runaway Bride - plain biodamp (not the same as in Journey's End)
   
2. Partners in Crime - no
3. Fires of Pomepeii - no
4. Planet of the Ood - she's wearing a band on the usual finger (right hand middle)... the biodamp ring again?
   
5. The Sontaran Stratagem - on left hand while she's flying the Tardis (the hand towards the camera), but it's not the same ring as in Journey's End
   
6. The Poison Sky - black ring again during "Back of the neck" on left hand finger
7. The Doctor's Daughter - First appearance!  It's on her right hand while using stethoscope.
8. The Unicorn and the Wasp - nope
9. Silence in the Library - yes
10. Forest of the Dead - flashes of it in some scenes i think, but no clear shot
11. Midnight - can only see one hand:  no
12. Turn Left -  no
13. The Stolen Earth - while at the Shadow Proclamation
14. Journey's End - still wearing it in the Tardis (particularly when the door is slammed on her)

So Donna is wearing the no ring whatsoever in 5-6 episodes, a simple band in "Runaway Bride" and "Planet of the Ood", a black plastic ring in "the Sontaran Strategem" and "the Poison Sky", and the Ring itself in 5-6 episodes, most notably while inadvertently creating the Doctor's clone.

ETA:  Donna is not wearing an engagement ring in "the Runaway Bride"!  She isn't wearing a ring until the Doctor gives her the biodamp ring.  She is wearing a ring in the previews for "The End of Time" which is very different than the grey/black one from "Journey's End."

The Runaway Bride "With this ring I do thee biodamp."	The Planet of the Ood The biodamp ring again?
The Sontaran Strategem The ring Donna wore when she piloted the Tardis.	Journey's End The ring Donna wore during the metacrisis.
The End of Time preview Not the same ring!

At this point, i'm exhausted and grasping at straws. Some people seem to think that Donna becoming a Time Lord would cheapen her experience and growth; i know that erasing her memory cheapens her experience and negates her growth. i'm just trying to find a silver lining in all of this!

in show Doctor Who predictions

Runaway Bride
"Such a sweet couple." (Empress of the Racnoss)

Fires of Pompeii
"Son of Gallifrey" clearly, and yet Lucius stumbles over "daughter of...London."  I believe that he is speaking of Rose when he says "She is returning."

ETA:  Midnight
Donna tells the Doctor (on the phone) "It's a date... well it's not, but you know what I mean."  Her least emphatic denial that they are a couple to date.

Turn Left
The fortune teller acts like the Doctor and Donna are a couple... Donna doesn't deny it.
ETA:  i just found out that the woman who plays the Fortune Teller was Chantho in Utopia!

Doctor Who, Donna, "End of Time," and series five theories

Last night my sister and i were asked to watch some kids during the choir's Christmas performance.  One of the father's thanked us for watching them, and i admitted to having none of my own, which led to him joking that i must watch kids so i won't want any of my own.  The opposite is actually the case, i do not like to babysit (despite the fact that i have a lot of experience doing so, as i'm the oldest of seven children) because it makes me want to have children even more acutely.  Well, because my sister Katie and i are totally obsessed about the fate of both Doctors, Rose, and Donna at the moment, this got our creative juices flowing.

One of the things that I hate the most about the fact that Donna got the mind wipe ending that she did is that we got to know so very little about her.  Martha hogged about a third of the season from her, which really irritates me (as you well know).  So what do we know about Donna?

1. She works as a temp (Super!Temp) and cannot (or will not) keep a steady job.
2. She likes to travel.
3. When we first met Donna, she was ignorant of all the alien activity that had been going on (attacks of the Slitheen, Daleks, Cybermen, etc.)... almost as if there was a part of her brain that was purposefully shutting out knowledge about aliens... which is, of course, where she ends up again at the end of series four.
   
4. In the beginning, Donna seems rather obtuse and slow, but meeting the Doctor seemed to unlock her brain.  After turning the Doctor down on his offer to make her his Companion, she spent a lot of time searching for him, having regret her choice.  She felt as if something was missing in her life and he was the answer.
5. Though outwardly very vocal and indignant, Donna is not very confident about her own worth despite the fact that the more Donna traveled with the Doctor, the smarter and more exceptional she became.
6. Donna has an almost illogical repulsion for the Doctor and all things alien at times ("You're not mating with me, sunshine!", "Martian", "Space man", etc.).  Because of this she does not even want to consider him as anything more than a friend ("We're not married", "So, so, not married."  "No, never").
7. Donna really wants to get married (She was throwing herself at Lance in "The Runaway Bride" and in "Turn Left" Sylvia claims that she only wants to work at H.C. Clements in order to find a husband).
8. Donna really wants to have kids (When she is "saved" in the library she and her husband immediately have twins:  when Miss Evangelista tells her that her children aren't real, she becomes very upset and terrified that her children are going to disappear).
9. Donna's mother is blonde and her father looked like he was as well.  I guess it's possible that she could still have red hair with blond parents, but it isn't very likely.
   
10. Donna always wears a certain black ring on her right hand (i have yet to rewatch all of the episodes from series four to confirm this, but i remember noticing the ring right away as it's fairly large and doesn't really seem to match Donna's style imo:  in fact, it rather reminds me of a beetle).
11. The Tardis is what pulls Donna to the Doctor upon their first meeting.  The Tardis also locks Donna in during "Journey's End."  During said episode Donna was inexplicably hearing heartbeats inside the Tardis.
    

i'm sure there are even more things we know about Donna, but these are the most important to my current point. "Journey's End" bothered me on several levels, for the first thing the Doctor left Rose behind.  I did not feel that the Doctor Clone was very probable, in fact i thought that it was more likely that the regeneration energy would leave Donna pregnant or cause her to regenerate.  Both those things being said, Davies decided to make a Doctor Clone, who is, theoretically speaking, more like Doctor 9 than Doctor 10 (even though he looks like Doctor 10), so the Clone should be happy with Rose and she should be happy with him.  On the other hand, now that Doctor 10 has chosen to leave Rose behind for good, there is never another chance for him to go back to Rose:  that door is closed, and she has a Clone for a consolation prize (which i suppose is a nice prize, seeing how she will now be able to marry and grow old with the man she loves).  This is incredibly sad for the Doctor, but leaves him open to finally pursue other relationships should he so choose (i cannot believe that i'm saying this, but two years was a very long time to still be hanging on to Rose, after all, and i'm sorry if i sound a little bit jaded about it, but the Doctor hasn't exactly been trying to get back to Rose, has he?).

So, back to Donna.  I am 90% sure that TPTB are not going to leave her knocked up with the Doctor's baby (incidentally, i find it rather odd that he seems to have no interest in trying to propagate the Gallifreyan species, which is odd since he is so sure that he is the last Time Lord:  i feel like he should be trying to [re]build a better Time Lord society, but this also has to do with my obsession about babies lol).  Where does this leave us?  We have several factors here that seem to have conveniently come together in order to indicate that Donna is a Time Lady.  For instance, she turns out to be even smarter than the Doctor and seems to know how to fix the Chameleon Circuit on the Tardis (like anyone wants that to be done at this point!), an object that as far as we know she's never even seen before... but this, of course, surreptitiously points us towards the Chameleon Arch idea.  Just why does Donna seem to be more than we originally thought?  There are numerous people that are prophesying about her and declaring that she is the most important woman in the universe.  Donna came back to Doctor Who immediately after the Master left.  In "Journey's End," she was hearing heartbeats, just as Yana was hearing the drums in "Utopia."  So could Donna be a Time Lady?  Could it be that the reason we know so little about Amy Pond and there were rumors that she is an alien is because she is a regenerated Donna? The new Companion is even ginger! So i am hope hope hoping that Donna isn't gone, that she's just going to be continuing in a new form in series five, and that Doctor 11 and she will be guarding Earth and righting the Last Great Time War as equals (assuming that the theory that Matt Smith is actually going to be Doctor 9, and his adventures will be set during the Time War, is not true: this would make Chris Doctor 10 and David Doctor 11! which means David could come back later if he so chooses. Yeah, my hopes aren't too high, but i also don't think anyone will be forgetting the incredible Mr. Tennant any time soon... he is far too popular for that, and one must realize that he hasn't had the opportunity to do any conventions yet and get exposed to his screaming fans in that way; after all, it knocked the socks off of everyone who was on Star Trek).

Which now begs the question:  if Donna is a Time Lady, has she (her real persona) been on the show before?  Well, we already know that the Rani will be returning (her name means She is singing / Queen, incidentally) and that Donna hates Christmas ("The Runaway Bride"). Donna's hatred for the "alien" could be seen as an interesting twist to Rani's hatred of humans. Could Rani be the person who picked up the Master's ring? Of course, it has been reported that Gillian Anderson is going to play her, so that kind of rules the Donna is Rani theory out (even if it did kind of fit and would be totally be mind blowing for her to suddenly be an enemy, not that i want that to happen).

Of course, what do i know, i haven't gotten that far in the original Doctor Who episodes yet. However, i think that the most likely candidate for Donna's identity is probably Romana, who was purportedly just as smart as the Doctor, driven, and a sometimes Companion to him. This is totally random, but the letters for "Donna" can be found in her full name, and her second incarnation was ginger as well.  i am much more likely to think that Donna is Romana than Christina (from "Planet of the Dead"). Another thing that's out there... where did Donna want to go first? Rome! (LOL yeah, way out of field and grasping at straws, i am) which is ironically how Karen Gillan came to be cast as the newest Companion.

So, this theory doesn't fit perfectly, and they probably didn't come up with the idea when originally casting Catherine Tate, but i definitely think that all signs point to this, even if she isn't Rani or Romana.  Incidentally, if Amy Pond is not Donna/Romana... (there are some letters for Donna in her name, too!), then my other guess is that she's a young River Song.  At any rate, i'm not willing to give up on Donna yet, and i am looking forward to watching the final specials more now that i have this new theory under my belt.  It's funny how i've suddenly become a Doctor/Donna shipper when i never would have considered it in the past, but if Donna is a Time Lady... then what's stopping the relationship?  Methinks they doth protest too much!  i might have to write a fanfic or two if The End of Time turns out to be a let down.

internalizing Silence in the Library through Water of Mars

i've watched the end of season four again since last time i posted, as well as watching all of the Doctor Who specials up to this point. i was rather surprised that the last time i watched Turn Left was more emotionally upsetting than the first time: i cried throughout the entire episode. i am very upset with the fact that Catherine Tate and David Tennant will no longer be on Doctor Who, so much so that, while i am incredibly excited to see where series five will go, in a way i do not want to keep watching the show at all. It's all so emotionally draining: i am a lot more emotionally invested in Doctor 10 than i ever thought i would be; i mean, the entire time i was watching Doctor 9, i knew Christopher Eccleston was leaving the show at the end of the series, and i loved him as the Doctor, and hated David as creepy Barty Crouch, Jr. i'm actually rather surprised how much David grew on me, in fact i'm very infatuated with him at the moment (who's Zach Quinto? David Anders? Shia LeBeouf? Never heard of them...), which is mostly just because i feel so bad for the Doctor, i'm sure. He's so infuriating and heart wrenching, all at the same time. So i'm wanting to watch more of the Doctor (have started watching the original series one, which i'm not enjoying too much yet, but Daleks are coming up soon) yet simultaneously dreading any Doctor that isn't Tennant. It's all so confusing. How do i get so emotional over someone who gives me papercuts every time i look at him (wish i could hug him, oh i'm so lame).

So... i'm feeling a little bit better about Doctor Clone being left behind with Rose (some fanfiction helped), though i think it's absolutely ridiculous but makes sense from a storytelling point of view (Rose and the Doctor together would probably kill the show, which begs the questions: what are they going to do about River Song? And when she says "new haircut", does she mean that he had regenerated? Because her Doctor seemed to be #10... how is that going to work???). i am furious about the way Donna/Tate were treated while they were on the show. i love Donna, maybe even more than Rose, but i don't know her very well because Martha was continuing to hog all her screen time. Katie and i were talking about this, how Martha was all "me, me, me" all the time, and didn't really change much (other than the fact that she became so militant), while Rose and Donna in comparison were very selfless and wanted to make sure they fulfilled the Doctor's needs (as well as have fun with him). The one line that i always come back to with Martha demonstrates her bitter jealousy perfectly: "Oh, she was blonde." There was absolutely none of that angst with Donna, who ironically gets to be the one woman (possibly in the universe) who doesn't want to see the Doctor naked... but got to.

Who has he become?

The last few nights, i have had insomnia. As a result, i have read a book, played some WoW (got a new bow in Pit of Saron), read some fanfiction (most of it very ill, as the stories that are good aren't really being updated lately), watched the first two episodes of Doctor Who ever, and finished season four of Doctor Who and watched three of the specials with David Tennant, the latest being "Waters of Mars."

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Read at your own risk!

Last night, i think, was the scariest thing i have ever seen, and not because of the infected humans, but because the Doctor breaks. This special is one of the few episodes in which the Doctor has no companion whatsoever: there are only the people that he meets for the first time within the time he is visiting. And the sad part is that he realizes that he has read about these people before and they are all going to die that very day. But they've taken him prisoner, as it were, and he is forced to watch the first of them succumb, and when they finally let him go it's all falling apart, and he's walking away, back to the TARDIS, back to safety... and he just breaks. He does the thing that has kept him separate from the Master, from all the bad guys, and decides that consequences be damned, but he's the last Time Lord and he is going to be the one to decide who lives, who dies, and where time changes.

As i said, it was the scariest thing i've ever seen, because he was going mad with the pain. So was i, in a way: TV, movies, books, always affect me hugely, i'm always crying, etc. i was sobbing and heartbroken as he walked away. In that moment i wanted to run and hide nearly as much as i wanted to be able to reach through the screen and touch him, hold him. i discovered something about the show that bothered me, that has struck me about Doctor Who as a whole: of all the lessons that he has learned, pain that he has felt, all the people he has lost and saved, he's never learned two things. 1 ~ He keeps coming back for more pain... which is incredibly sad, but not necessarily a bad characteristic.

2 ~ Death is not always a negative. In "Blink", the cop is ready to die, he's had a long full life with a woman that he loved, and the same seems to be true of Sally's friend Kathy. Ironically, the life that the Weeping Angels condemn them to turns out to be happier than the ones they lost. What really bothers me is that, in "Forest of the Dead", the Doctor condemns the woman he will eventually love to a nightmare... and then they portray River as being happy. He then does the same thing to the Captain in "Waters of Mars": because he saves her, she's forced to commit suicide to regain the nobility of her death. It might have been all right if he had taken her somewhere safe, somewhere across the universe, but no, he drops her on her doorstep.

i do not understand why the Doctor cannot understand that death is sometimes longed for, preferable to the pain, to the horrors one's selfishness could cause. i guess that it is because he has never had to experience death himself, because he is always watching people slip away while he is forced to regenerate, live forever. But why would River be happy with three fake children and no Doctor? Why would Rose be happy with a broken half-Doctor that has committed mass murder without a second thought? (Of course he's a git and still won't even tell Rose that he loves her, so good riddance in a way, of course it has to be said, you idiot!) Why would Donna be happy with her brain wiped and the switch reset to mundane? The entire point is that these women were utterly unhappy without the Doctor and were willing to sacrifice everything to be with him, even die.

This is why i dislike Matron Joan... no matter how much the Doctor has hurt you, how can she just turn her back on him? All because he was man enough to return to who he really was instead of being selfish enough to remain who a part of him desperately longs to be??? She did not love him enough. She did not understand that the reason everyone loves him is because he runs towards trouble and puts it back in its place. The reason everyone loves him is because he freely sacrifices of himself for the entire universe, despite the fact that the job is utterly thankless most of the time. People blame him for the trouble he puts down.

But of course, now the Doctor is broken, and slipping away from me forever. i am, of course, hugely curious as to what #11 will be like, but i rather got it in my head that he was going to turn out to be a past incarnation, that it would be the Doctor during the time war... between 8 & 9. i wanted to hold on to the possibility that we could someday get #10 back, after the Last Great Time War is explained. Now that the Doctor has snapped and has decided that he is the Lord of all Time alone... it would be very easy for TPTB to therefore make him try to fix the Last Great Time War, despite the fact that it was timelocked. That, of course, could be considered to be a noble endeavor, but if he refuses to travel with a companion because they only get hurt, because it therefore hurts him too much... who is there to hold him back??? i know 11 has a companion, but there are two more "hours" for 10 (it really comes to about an hour and a half of viewing time with the commercials omitted), and i'm wondering how the heck he's going to be fixed in that amount of time. Wilf has his work cut out.

When did it happen that i became infatuated with a lanky boy ten years my senior? Chris was my first Doctor, i'm supposed to love him more, right? It feels like a betrayal to be so wrapped up in #10. The first Doctor is utterly foreign to me. On the other hand, i'm not sure i want to meet River's Doctor. i think i caught a glimpse of him last night, and it was utterly and completely wrong. i feel stupid to be so utterly bereft. Why do i keep getting sucked in? i'm tired of being so wrapped up in fictional characters' pain, i want to heal and i want to find my own companion... just one. i'm so tired of being single.

dang it

i've already gone through the Frozen Halls attunement process, finally updating my boots to the Muddied Boots of Brill (upgrade from Dawnwalkers, which were from Naxx), which makes me happy. However... i got an upgrade stolen from me by the new loot system, which will not let me roll on leather (Shaggy Wyrmleather Leggings are a definite upgrade from Valorous Cryptstalker Legguards), so they were automatically disenchanted. i guess that's more fair if no one actually needs them, however... i did need them. /sigh

WoW.com is hiring

i think i'm going to apply for the hunter columnist position. i'm nervous about it, though: i've never been paid for my writing, and even though i feel like i'm an aweseom hunter that doesn't mean other people necessarily agree with me.

Possibility as sung by Lykke Li in New Moon

i woke up with this song stuck in my head. i looked it up on the net, but none of the pages i found seemed to have the lyrics quite right. So i modified them to what i think they actually are. This song is awesome, they use it when Bella is sitting in her room, staring off into nothing, for the months without description that occur directly after Edward leaves and Sam finds Bella in the woods.

It's a possibility
It's a possibility
All that I had was all I'm gonn' get
mmMmmMmmMmMmmm

There's a possibility
There's a possibility
All I wanted is gone with your stare
All I wanted is gone with your stare

So tell me when you hear my heart stop
You're the only one who'd know
Tell me when you hear my silence
There's a possibility I wouldn't know

mmMmmMmmMmMmmm
mmMmmMmmMmMmmm
mmMmmMmmMmMmmm

Know that when you leave
Know that when you leave
By blood about me you'll walk like a thief
By blood about me I fall when you leave

So tell me when you hear my heart stop
You're the only one who'd know
Tell me when you hear my silence
There's a possibility I wouldn't know

So tell me when my sigh is over
You're the reason why I'm closed
Tell me when you hear me fallin'
There's a possibility it would show

mmMmmMmmMmMmmm
mmMmmMmmMmMmmm

By blood and by me I fall when you'll leave
By blood and by me i follow your lead

mmMmmMmmMmMmmm
mmMmmMmmMmMmmm
mmMmmMmmMmMmmm
mmMmmMmmMmMmmm

Luna Nueva

There were posters all over Barcelona, particularly on the metro. i finally saw it on Saturday. Let me just say that it was a huge relief because it was sooo much better than the Twilight movie was. i can hardly wait for Eclipse to come out now! We'll have to see how much longer i can wait to see it again, but right now i'm in the midst of finals (of course).

ETA: Yeah, the Remember Me preview was pretty awesome, and i'm not even a Pattinson fan. Gotta love having Claire from Lost, who's got the same dad as in October Sky.

the angels have the golden box!

Very recently i went on a cruise to Europe and Egypt. Inside the museum at Cairo was a King Tut exhibit. i was not allowed to take my camera inside the museum, regrettably, but thanks to the internet i was able to find images of Tut's Canopic Shrine, which greatly surprised us as Dr. Who fans.

yay! hulu is even more my friend!

Remember how i said that the end of Inu-Yasha was lame because it had no closure? Well the manga was apparently still going strong even after the anime was canceled and has continued to gain support. A new show, Inu-Yasha: the Final Act, has just started airing with 26 new episodes to finish out the story, and according to this article--Inu Yasha Final Act Simultaneous Release Planned--they're dubbing the English version at the same time and releasing it on Hulu. So i need to start watching it before it's replaced with later eps!

What's funny about my experience with anime is that i prefer Inu-Yasha in English (it was my first anime, and the Japanese voices just don't sound right to me), while Vandread and Full Metal Alchemist i would usually try to watch in Japanese and subtitled, but would watch both ways. i'm thinking about taking Japanese next fall.

astonishing, i know

i'm thinking about quitting WoW. Which is odd, because i am so in love with the game that one might even go with the label addicted. However, i am now guildless, have half rate gear because i was never deemed worthy of progression runs or running full clears long enough for me to get the drop off the final boss. i am so tired of being out dpsed by jerks and idiots who happen to have a better gun. If we had the same weapon, i would out dps them, and i often am very close to their level of dps with a far inferior weapon. Then i have to pug to get into dungeons for emblems and end up having to work incredibly hard not to pull agro off the tank. Last time i was in H ToC i kept my jousting javelin equipped for a long time and was still pulling agro. When i put my sword back on my belt i literally had to FD and MD every time the cd was up.

Other reasons: i want to get A's and am taking upper level courses for the rest of my school career, and... i cannot really afford the $15 a month fee. But i don't want to give up on gaming entirely. i miss Diablo II. i could play alone or with my sister (another reason WoW has lost it's charm, i've been utterly abandoned yet again). When playing with others, Diablo's minions get stronger accordingly, but you could totally solo everything (well, Diablo was nearly impossible to defeat as an assassin, but you get the idea). i finally looked up Aion, after purposefully ignoring it because there was no way i could take it up and play WoW, and wouldn't you know, it looks awesome but costs more to buy and still has the $15 a month fee. i've thought about Guild Wars, but when i looked it up online it looks like they want you to pay for additional items, like characters and bank slots (from what i can make out). Similarly, LotRO was horrible when i did the free trial, and i couldn't even try another class without deleting the first.

So i am not really sure what to do. i don't really like feeling like there is always a couple of people in any guild i join that have it out for me. i get overly defensive and emotional. i've been thinking about that a lot the past couple of days and feel that i probably get that from my father, who is very adamant about always being in command and having his wishes followed exactly, yada, yada, yada, as if he has an irrational fear of being disrespected or looked down upon that i have somehow inadvertently inherited. What really disturbs me is that i'm nice, i help people out, and i usually get mistreated. For example, Levi accused me of behaving the way that he allowed Daymann to, and because they know each other in RL, Daymann was often inexplicably rewarded after bad behavior. Trying to find help about what to take up instead of WoW i only stumbled upon people who were addicted to WoW and quit the game and described themselves as being right jerks while playing, on 24/7, and so rich that it was ridiculous (yeah, i'm not really addicted compared to some, though i did play too much in an attempt to curry favor from Levi, and we all know how that turned out). That (rude behavior) is so not who i am. i'm so tired of constantly being let down and being alone. idk, maybe i should just join a knitting circle or something. i really do not know what to do, i'm so tired of feeling so alone. i wish the Doctor would come rescue me... of course, a Mediterranean cruise would seem rather tame after traveling around in the TARDIS for a while.

/sigh... david and zach

i found this post quite a while ago, after i had started watching Doctor Who, but before getting to series two, and while i was still basking in the Star Trek induced haze of Zach Quinto drool. Yeah, i know that sounded wrong. Anyways, now that i totally love Mr. Tennant as the Doctor, i felt that it might be worthwhile to look it up again. IMO Mr. Quinto wins, but to be perfectly fair the author of the post totally used the same hairstyle from David repeatedly, merely from different angles, so Zach wins simply on versatility. Anyways, The Hair Off.

Alas and alack that i keep getting infatuated with these actors that are pleasantly geeky, are devoid of significant others, and vote for the other party (as it were: Zach strongly supported Obama, and David votes Labour... which is also true of J.K. Rowling, which is neither here nor there, save that David was in the fourth Potter film and both Brits profess to be Christians).

oh yeah...

i meant to say this a couple of weeks ago, but forgot.

i would really like to see, just for once, anything where John Savage does not play a drunk and/or mentally deranged individual.

And now, back to this week's Fringe.

watching Heroes

Well, i'm waiting for it to load. i've been putting it off because i have absolutely no desire to see any more lesbian kisses. Does anyone else have a bad feeling about Claire's roommate, Gretchen???

New Moon... dang it

So yesterday i forced my sister to finally watch Twilight, and inexplicably i was noticing new things, probably because i was knitting and that just increases my awareness. Afterwards we watched the New Moon trailers; i am so excited, but we'll be in the Mediterranean when it premieres, so i'm going to have to wait a while to see it. One of the things that has bothered me about Twilight (in the parking lot accident) and New Moon (in the birthday party and Volturi scenes of the trailers) is the haphazard physicality that is going on. Edward wasn't meant to just stop the van with his hand, it was more involved than that in the book: he lifted the van, shifted Bella's legs out of the way so they wouldn't get pinned, etc. They so dropped the ball in the movie, even cutting out Bella's head injury (many of the things they changed in the movie made absolutely no sense whatsoever). Well it seems to be continuing in New Moon, unfortunately. First off, it's been a while since i read it, but i don't remember things coming to blows in the Volturi's inner sanctum. The more obviously glaring mistake is in the birthday scene, where Edward seems to be forcibly shoving Bella backwards (which is something he would never do, just as he would have never taken Bella to play baseball when there was a random vampire killing people in the area) and tackling Jasper. In the book, it's true that Edward knocks Bella over, but he's using himself as a shield, not destroying pianos with his brother. i guess TPTB felt they had to play the scene up, when in reality it's dramatic enough on its own, and the entire point of the scene is that the incident was not really a big deal in Bella's mind, so much as it was in Edward's.

i don't know who is making these choices on the film, but they need to get with it. Vampires are hyper aware and super strong and can make decisions faster than a normal human, and they don't go around haphazardly shoving people about because they've already come to blows several times in the blink of an eye. Taylor Lautner's physicality while jumping in Bella's window is the level they needed all of the movie's stunts to be at, and i don't know if that means stunt doubles, or cgi, or what, but what they are currently doing is not cutting it. The consumers of movies are now used to bullet time, you can't get buy with shoddy film making like this and just expect the consumer to ignore it. What are they going to do in Eclipse when the Cullens are teaching the wolf pack how vampires fight? i imagine they'll probably skip the scene entirely, because it's too expensive or impractical, but these movies are turning into the Harry Potter films, where they seem to randomly cut things out and rearrange plot lines and later realize... "what the heck are we supposed to do now, we royally botched this." Have these people read the books? Cuz it looks like they haven't, and most of their audience has.

Then there's the indecency of this screenshot (featured on Twilighter's Anonymous), where Mr. Pattinson's pants are practically falling off: his six pack looks air brushed on, and... did someone bite his left nipple? Every time i see the preview, i cannot help but think "wow, i did not want to just see his pubes" (was that from Wayne's World? i think it was).

i don't know, maybe i am assuming too much, maybe the average consumer isn't as aware of film making as i am, but i just expect better. i'm looking forward to seeing New Moon, but i already expect to be just as disappointed by it as i was by Twilight. The book is always better.

ETA: Is it just me, or is the Volvo black now??? Why?

an interesting contrast

Does anyone else think that the orange scrubs that the residents from Mercy West wear makes them look like convicts???

Mmm, Muse

i was watching FlashForward tonight, and V had several previews (can hardly wait until November 3rd!!!), a couple of them featuring Muse's new song Uprising. i love Muse.

Jane Austen quote

"Vanity and pride are different things, though the words are often used synonymously. A person may be proud without being vain. Pride relates more to our opinion of ourselves; vanity, to what we would have others think of us."

yeah, i'm not very vain, but i can only give so much.

geeky pleasures and let downs

i have been watching Fringe, Heroes, and Grey's online mostly, with some Doctor Who thrown in (and disc one of season one of Ugly Betty yesterday, ty Netflix). i have been too mentally consumed with school to really overanalyze much (midterms last week and this week, such a relief to get them finished). Fringe is going slowly, Sylar returns, Grey's is merely meh (not horrible... but not great either).

The latest emotional upheaval (such as what i would usually discuss on Spontaneous Overflow, rather than here) has been WoW. After weeks of every 25 Ulduar raid being a wipe 20 times to maybe down one boss fest, i lost it in /g, to put things mildly. i have gently advised that it is ridiculous to expect the guild to be able to down anything in 25 Uld when there are guildees that never got fully geared in 25 Naxx and 10 Uld (i am one of them, this despite the fact that i have faithfully attended raids for months). As if that weren't bad enough, TPTB keep recruiting people who are incredibly undergeared, so they cannot even begin to pull their weight. i'm not exactly sure what happened, but Levi (the guild master) apparently got mad at me for being "negative" all the time (this was my first emotional outburst of any sort since Daymann and Fearhavok ganged up on me). He /g kicked me, without warning, without explanation, and put me on ignore. i have heard from a couple of people that this decision was frowned upon and it was requested but last time i was on i had yet to receive a reinvite or explanation and most of the time i'm rather disinclined to want one.

i really liked Levi when he became guild master, but since then he's been rather two faced, and seems to have the tendency to play favorites. He'll say that i'm his "go-to" hunter, but neglect to invite me to raids. My gear speaks for itself, i have one piece of 25 Uld gear (a one hand sword, ironically enough: all of our rogues use daggers, warriors and dks two-handers, so i lucked out). i have gotten a couple of pieces of 10 Uld gear, despite the fact that i have only been inside three times, and only once as part of a guild progression run, and that was because someone had to leave early and was after the newly-promoted to Co-GM Daymann had gotten Avalanche (a bow for a rogue, i kid you not). Similarly, i have only been inside 10 TOC (ToCr to some of you) three times, and never gotten any drops, just badges (which i will admit enabled me to get my one piece of T9 sooner, my shoulders). The one time we went to 25 TOC no bosses were downed.

So, just to be clear, my gear is comprised of:
T8 head (vendor)
vendor neck
T9 shoulders (vendor)
vendor cloak
T8 chest (vendor)
Naxx 25 wrists
T8.5 hands (VOA meh replacement to Hands of Taut Grip from 10 Uld)
vendor belt
T7.5 pants (VOA)
Naxx 25 leather boots
Gundrak ring
vendor ring
vendor trink
Brewfest trink (that replaced a blue heroic trink)
Malice (that 25 Uld sword)
Kinetic Ripper (10 Uld fists)
Arrowsong (Naxx 25 bow off PATCHWERK)

Okay, so, my gear could be a lot worse. i have really good vendor gear, the best available, the only available, and got the majority of those emblems doing heroics in pugs, because for some odd reason everyone in my guild doesn't want to do heroics with me. Now, the core seems to get on around noon (1 p.m server) and get saved to everything while i'm still in school. The rest just ignore me. Eggy says that people say i'm mean, i don't know what that is supposed to mean because i'm always going out of my way to be nice to people and get messed over as a result. This is truly just indicative of the fact that there is too much dps on Hakkar so it is incredibly hard to get any group, let alone one at my level (my last few pugged heroics i was doing twice as much dps as anyone else). Needless to say, i am absolutely thrilled that in the next patch Triumphs will be the new emblem because i rarely get to do the heroic of the day and everything else i don't need. All my upgrades are in Triumphs (please can i have some new pants???).

Now, i am thrilled about my two new one-handers, because i was previously swinging the staff off 25 KT (consolation prize that i got after the then-GM passed me over on the gun, which i still need): this was the first time i had ever not dual wielded. But as you can see, i'm a hunter, when i get one handers, they're cast offs: no one else wants them, no one rolled against me. The bow i have was an upgrade from the UtP bow, and i almost didn't get it because a warrior out rolled me, and he g-quit when they gave it to me. i never aimed for this bow, i wanted the gun off KT since Wrath went live, and i'm never going to get it (it's my bow off Prince, the only time it will ever drop for me again is once i get another char to 80 lol), once we started downing KT we moved on to Uld 10 runs that i was never invited to. The night before my emotional vomit, the guild ran Ony 25 (on the night i have my night class): a hunter that rarely shows up for raids and always leaves early got the gun. So i got very upset learning that. Ranged weapons have an extremely low drop rate, you can't buy them off vendors anymore, i was feeling just royally screwed.

So, i know i was qqing that night, and i'm not proud of it, but it took me over six months of simmering for it to happen. What is the point in being in a guild that doesn't down bosses for two months (except the nights i can't get on, and thus no emblems), won't do heroics with me (no emblems), won't let me into progression runs (except 25 man, we don't have enough as it is, and again big whoop we don't down anything, so just repair bills), i'm not invited to 10 man progression runs (well, 3 times in over 3 months), and the one guild puggish 10 man i only got into once, which was fun. i even go to Naxx to help others, even though i don't need emblems anymore. So, the only thing i can figure that Levi would have to go on for my "complaining" was the advice i gave when he asked for it 95% of the time. i bit my tongue on the rest. Is it really complaining to say "good job everyone" for pulling more than once every half hour (got to understand, the co-GM usually takes about 2 hours to explain fights that we all know or should know already)? Because he would do it, but yell at me when i did it. Is it complaining to say "we need to get people geared so we wipe less in 25 Uld" when i haven't gotten geared, let alone the new recruits? There is nothing else that i can do myself without Triumphs, i have everything enchanted, i have to raid to get gear to drop to get upgrades.

i loved hanging out with everyone, and generally felt more appreciated than ever before, i am completely grateful to the people who would do groups with me as much as they did, and joked around with me in raids (note: my sarcastic/ironic jokes are also not complaining, and if Elfogods can do it, so can i). i have discovered that 10 mans are the most fun, and in 25 mans everyone feels like a stranger. Some nights i just get disconnected constantly in 25 mans, and that also stinks because i'm dying, i feel like i'm letting everyone down, and there's nothing i can do about it! i already upgraded my computer, i can't afford new internet. What is most ironic about this is that the GM and co-GMs complain all the time, no exaggeration, and if they are allowed to bring down morale every single day, why is it such a big deal for me to lose it once every six months? i was online five nights a week, putting in all the effort that i could, and to get kicked was heartbreaking. i was depressed for three days, perplexed, and i still don't understand why he would kick me. Now, i feel relieved because i was constantly under so much pressure. Between work and school and WoW i was at my breaking point (thus the reason i broke). i love Who Pulled, but i don't want to be in a guild that doesn't support me, that isn't fun, that isn't going anywhere.

You have to look out for your guildees. i don't expect new gear to drop every week, but once in over six months? That's a really dry spell. If you are going to recruit undergeared people, you must gear them. Similarly, faithful members of the guild should not be ignored, put down, berated, or disrespected, period. If one puts in the work, he or she should get rewarded, and respected, not be left wondering why the GM is lying to one's face. i have to put up with that enough at work and school, i don't want to do it during my fun time, too.

So, i didn't want to leave the guild, i wasn't looking for a new one, or to return to Predestined even, but now i have to wonder... do i even want back in to Who Pulled? Forget the fact that all my "friends" are in the guild now, do they even respect me or appreciate how much i am sacrificing? i have been raiding for three years now, for a GM to just ignore my experience is short sighted. i don't have to be an officer, not everyone has to salute by any stretch, but how about a little common decency? What is the point in rewarding people who are habitually rude and/or obnoxious (well, that was a given, as they are Levi's best friends, of course he isn't going to kick them)? i don't hold up the raid, i come with my A game, doing the best that i can to perform. i have invested real money, precious time... i don't ask for much in return. Maybe i should find a new guild, but i don't even know where to start. Truth be told, i don't know what to do.

Mortal Instruments and TV viewing

So i just finished reading City of Glass. The ending was a bit strange (her request of the angel was rather selfish, after all), but overall i liked the trilogy (though i must admit that i somewhat expect a sequel, what with Sebastian/Jonathan's disappearance... ETA: this was already confirmed by the author in August). Which leads me to question who is on the third cover of the trilogy: i had seen the thumbnail or it on the back of City of Ashes, so i just "knew" Simon couldn't be dead and assumed it was him with a quiver on his back. But since i have held Glass and discovered that it is a sword... i'm not so certain. It seems to me that they must mean it to be Sebastian, but he had the sword as Jonathan, and then his hair was the same color as his father's... and his hair was curly. So is it Simon then as i originally believed? (ETA: Simon & Schuster seem to think it's Sebastian) Incidentally, i LOVE Clary's hair on the cover of Ashes, and Jace's body on Bones just seems to me to be overbuilt, not to mention too old (he's 17 for crying out loud).

But on to TV land: i saw part of FlashForward this week, but was doing dailies in Storm Peaks trying to get enough gold together to gem my T9 shoulders. i was so not expecting Sulu to be so tough and bad cop, nor was i expecting Penny to be married to Shakespeare. i don't know, the show didn't really capture my interest, but then, i was distracted. i missed Fringe this week, i'll probably watch it today (last week i felt bad about Walter and the released seatbelt situation, and cannot believe where they're going with Charlie). i watched Heroes last night, not exactly what i was expecting. i found Matt's situation to be absolutely hilarious (i wouldn't mind hallucinating Sylar, but of course it's not exactly the same from his perspective!), though i was a bit thrown off by the "20 pounds overweight" bit. Do people still consider him to be overweight? i think his weight is perfect.

woot, it's fall!

The weather outside is lovely, cool and drizzly. i am so excited for fall to begin! Fringe starts on Thursday, other shows will be close behind, and i have no idea where i'll find the time to watch them. At least Lost will still be on hiatus until January (is that a good thing?). There are also several new shows to try out, V being chief among them. Meh, i'll probably just stick with Fringe, Heroes, and V, but you never know... there's that one with Charlie, Penny, Sulu, and Shakespeare (/gag, he's fine, but i hated that movie).

re: Sylar's possible gayness

So, i have been contemplating Mr. Quinto's possible gayness, and i am inclined to think that he isn't gay. From what i understand, he's Irish/Italian and went to a Catholic school. All the Catholics i know aren't into gay rights and aren't gay. However the religion and both ethnic groups are most likely members of the Democrat party, just one of those traditional things. Even if Quinto is gay, voting for Obama doesn't help him in that department, because Obama isn't pro-gay marriage, etc. It's just not one of Obama's issues, he's more into socializing the country, taking away rights, raising taxes, etc.

i always said that i would vote for Lieberman before McCain. Unfortunately, i never had a chance to vote for Lieberman (well, i could have voted for him when he was the veep candidate, but i wasn't exactly fond of his running mate). i regret voting for McCain, but tbh i was really voting against Obama and for Palin. Sorry to get political here. Really, every time i have voted, i was choosing the lesser of evils, though i do not at all regret voting for Bush that is not to say that i agreed with all of his decisions by any stretch of the imagination. i am really happy with my choice from a pro-life perspective.

Watched the episode where Geordi finally meets Leah Brahms this week, which seemed very apropos after my breakdown. Man, i cannot believe how much he makes a fool of himself with women. He never tried to find out if she was married... so embarrassing. Anyways, i'm not saying Mr. Quinto would want to marry me or anything, i was just bemoaning the fact that he's unreachable yet smack dab in the middle of my happy place all the time. Incidentally i bought a bike rack this week to put on my car so i could transport my new bike to and from school and the guy that helped me install it was really nice and flirty. It made me feel good about myself because guys don't usually flirt with me. What's funny is that he seemed to think that i'm younger than i am, while despite his two tours in the Army he is probably only a couple of years older than me, five at the most. Anyways, everyone needs to feel special every once in a while, especially when the advances aren't made by someone super creepy. Poor Claire! i just keep wondering in the back of my mind though if Elle somehow survived... Unlikely, i know, but nothing is impossible on Heroes, look at what happened to HRG.

i <3 Sylar

Well, yesterday in the wee hours of the morning i finished watching Heroes season 3. Right now i just finished watching the episode of Dragnet he was in, "Frame of Mind" (which you can watch on Hulu), a very small roll which was very Sylar-esque (perhaps what got TPTB at Heroes interested in casting him as Sylar? i mean, come on, they must have had some reason for thinking "he can play a feasible psycho" when they cast him). After taking in season 3 and Star Trek this summer i am a bigger Zachary Quinto fan than ever before. This of course brings out mixed feelings in me. i really liked the Sylar at the beginning of the season, that was trying to be a good guy, that had a chance at redemption as a member of the Petrelli family (who in themselves are completely messed up, as founders of the Company and occasional villians, yes even Peter when mixed up with Caitlin's brother). It used to be that Peter and Hiro were my favorite characters on Heroes, but now... it's Sylar.

How did that happen? Peter and Hiro are pretty undeniably good guys. But who are the two characters i would and do most regret the deaths of? Adam and Sylar. When did i become the girl who likes the bad boys? i never would have considered it of me, but it is true that i always drooled over Mr. Sark on Alias and drool even more over Sylar on Heroes. But i suppose there are other parallels, Edward in Twilight, Sawyer in Lost, Wolverine in X-Men, Mike Donovan in V, Alec in Dark Angel, Neo in the Matrix, V in V for Vendetta, nearly anything with Bill Nighy, pirates of the Caribbean variety, the list goes on and on and on. Though Elijah Wood's role in Sin City cured me of my crush on him, i have somehow developed a weakness for bad boys. This is shocking to me. i want to say that it says more for my strength of empathy and compassion than anyone else, but i know that's a load of tripe. i don't feel much compassion for a lot of the people that go through my line at work or walk by me on the street. No, this condition has been hiding in me for a long time, my first big crush was on a boy named J.P (who wouldn't give me the time of day), the next on a Tommy (who liked being chased), there was always Tim (first kiss on the cheek, totally blown out of proportion by his family), and then that anonymous boy at the pool (who was from Texas, that gave me my first peck on the lips, no matter how chaste that kiss was).

i have nearly always chosen my crushes based on looks and the same boyish tendency to pull pranks that my father has. What's so weird is that physically Mr. Quinto isn't really my type (other than the fact that he's the same height as my grandad: i <3 tall men): he's way too hairy, something that i warred with during his love scenes with Elle, and the same is true for Mr. Jackman as Wolverine. Give me the smooth bodies of Mr. Anders (Holt, really) and Mr. Trineer (mmm decontamination scene, anyone?), but then Mr. Sark had the tendency to be a pretty boy, too, so i cannot be going merely upon looks.

i think that it's not really that these men are bad, so much as the fact that they are dangerous. i mean, what about Edward is bad? Sure he killed a couple of psychos in his day, so they would stop hurting innocent people, but he's so traditional and careful that it's enough to drive anyone bonkers. Donavan and Neo and V are all freedom fighters, trying to do the right thing, though sometimes with the wrong methods. i think that what draws me to these men is really shallow but is also what psychiatrists that believe in cavemen would expect of me: i go for the guy who seems most likely to be able to protect me when things go fubar. Peter and Hiro and Matt (mmm gotta love cuddly little Matt / Eric) are definitely capable of doing that against the human element, but Sylar... for all that is strong about the rest, you've got to admit that no one can put down 5-10 members of a SWAT team with the mere flick of the wrist quite like he can. Which of course leads me to Dumbledore... who though always seemed to me to be the epitome of good was also always the most dangerous man of all, for he could bring down governments and Voldemort, had he set his mind to it (oh wait, he did).

This of course leads me to the question of whether i am only attracted to guys that are gay. i mean, there has always been the niggling question in the back of my mind about the guy i worked with in Lynchburg, we all know what Rowling says about Dumbledore, and now i've come to find out that Quinto has kissed a guy in a sauna and is mum about his sexuality in real life. For all i know he voted for Obama because he's gay, but he doesn't want to come out. And then there's T.R. Knight, another good guy that i used to be into, but also decidedly gay. Why the heck is it that i have to worry about guy's sexuality??? What is so wrong with this world that it's not enough that i have to wonder why i'm not attractive enough to a guy, but if it's because he just doesn't like girls??? i have worked with gay guys, and sat next to them in class, i'm not trying to be a hater, but now i maybe possible have to crush on them, too, and never have that emotion returned?

i don't know that Quinto is gay, only that he can act like he is, but i do know that i have this stupid tendency to fixate on men that are totally unavailable. The guy that led worship in Charlotte was the worst, one child with another on the way, and as it turns out this is nothing new. The guys who are most nice to me are inevitably always unavailable, the one flirty customer at the gas station, the soldier that sat next to me in Shakespeare, Kimbo and Robert and Justin at work. The guys who are nice to me, who get me, who care, are already married, already have the things that i want, that i guess most guys don't know that they want until they already have them, that got them kicking and screaming. And then there is my tendency to fixate on actors, to wonder "what if?" i feel like such an idiot for ever believing that i could be an actress, that i would become an actress, that Voyager or Dark Angel were ever a possibility for me (am i insane?), but that is still a small part of me. i grew up crushing on Elijah Wood, then there was Freddie Prinze, Jr. (/gag), then Mr. Sark was always in my happy place, and now Sylar? Why does this always happen to me? Why am i always alone, curled up with pillows and a dilapidated white rabbit in the dark, imagining that someone--who doesn't even know i exist--loves me?

i want to be loved, and protected, and i'm going insane because i'm alone, which so makes me unattractive to the opposite sex, but it's a vicious cycle that i don't know how to prevent. i don't want to love an Obama supporter, i don't want to love a murderer, i don't want to love anyone who doesn't love me for who i am, but i don't know how to stop. Unfortunately, i <3 Sylar.

cold snap

Tracy walks by an ATM, and money pops out, and suddenly i realize: what if it's Micah? i feel so stupid because i didn't think of him sooner, and it was very obvious. Ten seconds later she gets into a cab, Micah is right there, and his voice has changed! Woot.

more heroes

So, as it turns out, when i thought that i had seen the entire season 3 of Heroes, i had actually only seen about half (to the end of the "Villians" chapter). i had no idea there was more to see before this fall, but now am slowly catching up. i am confused about several points, however: how is it that Peter flew away (in "Exposed") when the last hero they showed him touch was Matt and at the meeting with Nathan he hugged his brother in order to fly away? My guess for the identity of Rebel is the Man with the Horn Rimmed Glasses, but i'm just throwing that out there. i'm currently in the middle of "Shades of Gray"... Hulu ftw.

ETA: Of course, logically, Rebel is probably the chick they showed one time in the shed in the middle of nowhere, but something about HRG is a bit off with the whole conspiracy with Angela Petrelli.

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.

re: tonight's lost

Woohoo! Confirmation! (Dr. Candle is Miles' father)

argh

i can't watch Grey's Anatomy because the stupid player at ABC.com won't load and if i try to watch it through Veoh all it does is send me back to ABC.com.

re: bad Ben

Ben always has ulterior motives. He "went to see" John: does this mean that he killed him? He obviously isn't giving Sun the message from Jin to "stay away."

My sister Katie theorizes that John was bitten by the Medusa Spider / given its venom and isn't really dead. After his conversation with Christian Shepherd, i doubt it. i think John is really dead.

My sister Megan was shocked that Charlotte died; i was getting to the point where i couldn't see how it could be avoided. When it happened, all i could think was: "Well, there's the first one of the season." But i'm starting to really, really wonder just who her parents are. Perhaps Ben and his lost love Annie?

recent viewing

Wow, i really need to change the header.

So... i need to watch last week's Grey's in order to catch up. As you can see, it's not high on my list of shows to watch (though it is on the list): i'd much rather be watching Heroes, Fringe, or the Sarah Connor Chronicles.

There is, however, Lost. i think that Ms. Hawking is Daniel's mum (from the jewelry store). i'll go with the idea that Dr. Halliwax (or whatever you want to call him) is Miles' dad. But i can't for the life of me figure out who Charlotte's parents are.

As far as dvd viewing, the family has reached the end of Star Trek the Next Generation. i missed a couple of episodes here and there, but i have probably seen every episode of the series now. At the moment, Mom and Katie are watching Alias, and i sit in from time to time. Last night we watched the season one finale and season two premiere. i still drool over Mr. Sark. The weird thing is that Katie doesn't think he's attractive. i wish they wouldn't have killed Adam off on Heroes, i was really trying to hold to the hope that he would come back somehow.

Speaking of Heroes, whatever happened to Caitlin? Isn't she still stuck in the future? They just totally abandoned her there. i keep thinking Peter will get his powers back, too, and was thinking about just how powerful his father's powers became once he absorbed Peter's abilities. Their power is very similar really, to make another's power their own, though Peter is more powerful in a way because he doesn't have to touch anyone to do it. i just feel like they've majorly mucked up the storyline on Heroes and really wanted Sylar to go good and become a daddy.

Truth be told, i haven't really had a lot of time for viewing. Lui just became revered with Argent Crusade and still needs some gear to raise her dps for raids. i've been trying to level my priest Eviengeline because the guild needs a holy priest. i originally intended to take her shadow, but having the dual specs to switch between will be nice with her, and i don't mind healing. Perhaps i should say yet, because i haven't done much of it yet, mostly on my shaman in RFK and SM.

i recently bought a couple of dvds, one of them being Run Fatboy Run, which i figured how could i not like it with Shaun (Simon Pegg). Which reminds me, i need to watch the new Star Trek movie's preview (as seen during the Super Bowl) but forgot my headphones of course.

Hmmm... better get ready for my next class, can't think of anything else to write.