Not sure why I'm tense, either. I think it's a hormonal thing, because I've felt like I wanted to cry all day long, even though I was relatively cheerful otherwise. Mother's Day was fine--y'all know how close I am with my mom, so that's never stressful. After we had lunch at Panera (so that Sister Girl, who had to work this afternoon, could join us), we had dessert at my grandmother's, and everything was fine. I just want to scream, is all.

( Linkspam )

Tags: american idol, batman, bond, books, harry potter, indiana jones, internet, narnia, publishing, steampunk, tv, x-files
Current Mood: tense

I know a lot of y'all think that American Idol is a crock, but I feel like rambling on about it anyway. I'm not saying it isn't, actually--to me, once you get past the embarrassment-squick cattle call auditions, it's a group of reasonably talented people doing orchestra-backed karaoke for an audience of 15 million people, which is totes okay by me. ( Then there was a shriek from my general direction )

( Linkspam )

Tags: american idol, animals, conversations with my mother, harry potter, indiana jones, movies, narnia, tv, twilight

Dammit! I keep forgetting it's Lostnesday!

(Lost's Kim OK With Jin's Fate ... "whatever it may be.")

Tags: lost, lostnesday, tv

A couple of things I wanted to talk about--first of all, crime. Local crime. Times is hard, and it's getting a little scary out there. My parents were at Publix doing the weekly grocery shopping last weekend, and there was, like, a gang rumble in the parking lot while they were getting into the car. Like, groups of people chasing each other around and smashing bottles and calling for getaway cars ("Come and get me, man! You gotta come pick me up, man!" An effective gangbanger should always provide his own ride, I always say). All while my stepfather's standing at the cart return with his hands on his hips going, "Huh." ("George, GET IN THE CAR!")

In a scarier incident, my aunt was in the parking lot of the Wildwood Wal-Mart when a stranger approached her and demanded a dollar. She said no--I don't know how to explain it in print, exactly, but you know how there's asking people money and then there's threatening ways of asking people for money? This was one of those Prelude to a Purse-Snatching ways. Something you need to know about my aunt, by the way: she's an inner-city kindergarten teacher, and she doesn't put up with shit. "I think you can give me a dollar," he says, edging closer. "I think you need to get a job," she fires off. He edges closer: "I think you're going to give me a dollar." My mother's telling me this story and I'm kind of freaking out at this point, but fortunately, one of the Wal-Mart employees came up to my aunt and said, "Ma'am, is this man bothering you?" And then the employee recognized the man, because he had just tried to snatch someone else's purse a few minutes earlier and they were still looking for him. This is all in the middle of the day, by the way.

"It's the economy," my mother said. "People are having to choose between food and gas, they just can't pay for both. They're getting desperate."

Well, then there's the other thing that happened to my cousin--same aunt: her daughter. My cousin was walking home and parted ways with a friend a street or so away from their house, when she noticed this white SUV was following her. Like, really closely. Really slowly. All the way up her street. My cousin has a very small build, so she often looks younger than she actually is (she's graduating high school this month, but she could probably pass for early teens if you weren't looking closely); maybe the creep in the car thought she was a much younger girl, I don't know. Maybe he didn't care. So this SUV follows her up the street, and she's freaking out this point, so she runs up her driveway, and the car follows her what the hell. Like, up this long steep hill to her back door. Fortunately my cousin was able to get in safely, and the car fled, but what the hell? The world is a scary place, and you can't always blame it on the economy.

( Stripped-down linkspam )

Tags: bond, cloverfield, crazy, crime, lolcats, movies, music, narnia, star trek, star wars, steampunk, x-files, x-men
Current Mood: French onion soup, nom nom nom

Two things that came up in the comments of the previous entry:

1. Ellen Page IS Jane Eyre (thanks, elbeonore). "Alison Owen of Ruby Films, who most recently produced 'The Other Boleyn Girl,' is working with BBC Films to develop the new adaptation of Bronte's classic 19th century romance." OH HELL NO.


2. This thread:

crumpeteer: I'm waiting for the action figures. But really they won't have much action except to mope around and pine over Bella.

cleolinda: Edward would definitely have Sparkle Action, though.

crumpeteer: Most embarrassing moment in vampire lore EVER.

cleolinda: I hereby swear (holds up hand) that if I write a 15M for this movie, I will try my damnedest to work in the line, "I have begun to doubt your commitment to Sparkle Motion."

crumpeteer: And I'll want an icon of that.

cleolinda: Done!

Tags: icons, jane eyre, movies, the other boleyn girl, twilight
Current Mood: mischievous

Until I get these annotations finished (please God SOON), I'm going to post only what I consider to be the ESSENTIAL linkspam--things that I personally geeked out over and/or felt were semi-important. I tend to geek out over pictures or trailers, so... that's largely what's going to make it through. Maybe some videos of polar bears. Who knows. ( Read more... )

Tags: awards, batman, crazy, indiana jones, narnia, twilight, x-files
Current Mood: tired

... because I am having a really bad day don't know that I'll have time for anything much more detailed. Two new trailers in HD: the new Dark Knight and Twilight.

ETA: Okay, I got as far as "You really shouldn't have said that," and suddenly everything wrong with my day was so very, very right. You know, something about this whole Twilight phenomenon really got my back up at first, but once I heard about the vampire baseball? Something crabby inside me just broke. I realized at that moment that I was going to love this movie like cake. Just... maybe not for the reasons the filmmakers intended.

Tags: batman, movies, twilight
Current Mood: frustrated

Box Office Report: ''Iron Man'' forges historic box office win; The Future of Iron Man: Alcoholic Tony Stark, War Machine, and Beyond.

If you had told me a year ago that we would kick off the summer movie season with Robert Downey Jr., Action Hero, I would not have believed you. ( Spoilers )

In conclusion: Would see again, will buy DVD.

Oh, and a word on the trailers: ( Read more... )

Tags: movie discussion, movies, philosophical ramblings

Belated reader links:

From my college friend Marcus (we stayed with him on the New Orleans trip, remember?): "Here's one for your linkspam I would appreciate being included. Because I'm awesome and because I think your readers would dig Hemon and his writing. Anyway, here's the link: it's an interview I did with Chicago-based writer Aleksandar Hemon. An amazing writer with an equally amazing backstory."

quasar360: "I don't know if you've already seen this, but I think it would be exciting news to any Star Wars fans in your readership (I know I found it squee-inducing): Del Rey Offers Free Download of First Book in Legacy of the Force Series. Just to clarify: it's a promotion for the upcoming release of the last book in the series (the first book has been out for some time), but it's a cool opportunity if you still haven't read the first book or don't own a copy."

amberdulen: "I'm sure you're getting all kinds of links for this "Scarlet" fake-tv-show viral-marketing scheme. The idea of fleshing out an imaginary series makes me giggle like a schoolgirl, so here's a wiki I set up for exactly that purpose. I suspect I'm not the only one who'd love to take the concept and run with it."

( Moar linkspam )

Tags: animals, batman, bond, books, cloverfield, crazy, cute, indiana jones, lolcats, lost, movies, music, narnia, stage and theater, star wars, toys, tv, twilight, webkinz
Current Mood: mellow

Since it's Lostnesday, a couple of links: 'Lost': A non-fanboy's rave; Explain Lost To Its Own Producers, who then grade the explanations (check out the "Time Travel" and "Dharma is everywhere" suggestions; the last one re: Jacob actually kind of blew my mind a little. WARNING: These could be considered spoilers, given what the producers confirm).

For y'all non-Losties: massive linkspam in the previous entry.

Tags: lost, lostnesday, tv

So the McJackass clan has passed two more checks--this time at Target and Home Depot--so they're up to something like $2400 now. But that's not $2400 coming from us--as raven_feathers succinctly pointed out, "It's not about your money in your bank. It's about the swag." They're actually stealing from the retailers, not us, since banks tend to back their customers up, it seems. Of course, if the McJackass clan starts applying for credit cards under our name, we're screwed, but there you are. And it's already hellaciously inconvenient to go around with certified bank letters explaining what happened to everyone my mother's written checks to in the last two weeks. Plus, any automatic payments made on that account will have to be updated to the new debit/credit card as well.

(Since people brought the issue up: my mother does drop checks off to be mailed at official USPS boxes, so they weren't poached from our mailbox.)

I'm starting to worry about my mother's health, actually--my grandmother's had shingles for nine weeks now, and while they're almost gone, this has necessitated my mother and my aunt taking turns to go by her house to fix each meal and help her with the ointments, and the strain of constant running-around is starting to get to both of them. So then we have the Great Check-Washing Scam of 2008 and all the crapfulness that's entailed, and today my mother had to stand in line on her lunch hour (after taking care of my grandmother) at the DMV to re-pay for the family car tags, since those checks had bounced. Since it's the first of the month (which was particularly galling, since she'd gone out of her way to pay for our tags early), there were about a hundred people in line. And then the presiding deputy told eight of the ten women working the counters to go on to lunch. All at once. 80% of them. With a hundred people in line. "You have another story to tell your people," she said grimly when she stopped by the house (she calls y'all "my people"). "I'm standing there with steam coming out of my ears afraid I'm going to sink down through the floor because it's melted underneath me." That's not really a story; it's more just "a thing that happened without any climax or comeuppance or dénouement," but I wasn't about to tell her that.

My point is, I'm really worried about her stress levels. I mean, she's always been a type A personality, but I think she's got an overload of fuckery on her plate at the moment. I'm really hoping that I can finish these annotations (which I originally thought, somewhat hilariously, would take me a weekend) a few days before Mother's Day, so that hopefully I can write her a check and wrap it up in a pretty box and give it to her as a surprise. Any little bit I can pull together would help at this point, I think.

Oh, and the police department here said they would need to go to Columbus, Georgia, to file a report. The bank's already dealing with it, obviously, but they'd suggested we go to the police as well. So my mother's going to talk to her people--the UAB police department, whose benefits she administers and firing squabbles she mediates, to get their advice. (See, she has people, too. Everyone should have people, I think.)

Another massive linkspam--sorry about my spam management, you guys. : ( I've got some reader links, but I'm saving them for tomorrow so they're not completely lost in the tidal wave of awesome. ( Read more... )

Tags: american idol, animals, annotations, batman, bond, books, cloverfield, comics, dolls, harry potter, his dark materials, history, indiana jones, lexicongate, lord of the rings, m15m, macros, music, my mother, my next garage band, narnia, perfume, quelle scandale, scamistan, spider-man, star trek, tax panic, teh kraken, tribulations, tv, twilight, victoriana, x-files, x-men
Current Mood: busy
Current Music: David Cook, "All I Really Need Is You"