I joined in on the fun and signed up for a Formspring account and will probably check it regularly until the novelty wears off. Until then, ask me anything!

A new season of America's Next Top Model has begun, full of high-pitched screaming girls, cat fights, crazy clothes, crazier hair, and of course some makeover tears. Bring it on! For reasons I can't fully explain I just love ANTM. It's my guilty pleasure show, best when combined with tasty chocolate cake. Apart from just loving to see the finished photos, I'm ashamed to say that I think one of the draws is being witness to the insane all-girl drama that erupts in the Top Model house each season from the safety of my living room. You'd have to pay me a helluva lot of money to lock myself in a penthouse with twelve spastic young women under the eyes of nation-wide television cameras for three months.

Three books checked off my to-read list over the last month: Part of the Pride by Kevin Richardson and Born Free by Joy Adamson, both about human-animal bonds with wild lions in particular. The stories and the people in them and how they're able to form relationships with big game predators like this are fascinating to me~ I also finished The Pact by Jodi Picoult, about two families torn apart by the apparent suicide pact of their two children. It was more or less the classic Picoult child angst/parental grievances/courtroom drama plot that I've come to know (and love) her for, which I still end up enjoying no matter how many time she does it. My only complaint with this one is that the ending and outcome of the trial itself was, in my opinion, completely unrealistic. }:P Her newest novel, House Rules, about a boy with Asperger's syndrome accused of murder sounds like another typical Picoult book, but like always I'm eager to read it anyway.

I went out the other day and made (what is for me) a rare venture to purchase some new cosmetics. I bought some new sheer foundation, some mascara, a couple new swatches of eyeshadow (which according to my Google researching should be ginger-flattering), and two new facial moisturizers (the sales associate that helped me was scandalized that I used Vaseline lotion on my face as it is apparently a big no-no and does more harm than good.) This is why I hate shopping for cosmetics -- I have no earthly idea what I'm doing or what I'm looking for, which leads to me inevitably having to ask a makeup associate for help, which in turn almost always ends up making me feel exceptionally stupid and embarrassed. I walk through the beauty section aisles paranoid that every other woman is staring and judging me on my complete lack of innate female prowess with makeup.

On a related note, holy jeeze I had no idea there were so many shades of black mascara. Classic black, very black, emerald black, black brown, soft black, and what I'm sure is the king of all black -- blackest black. o_O How different can one black mascara look from another? I'm glad I opted for the much harder to find (yet with a much less intimating range of selection) brown mascara. Among all of the leagues of various blacks, there is just... brown. Straight, safe, simple brown. Much less work in my opinion.

Pretty sweet trailer for The Last Airbender is finally out! XD


I am so excited and at the same time so dreading this movie. Excited beyond all reason in the fact that they're bringing this wonderful series to the big screen; dread because they're already RUINING IT with all of the blatant whitewashing they've done to the cast. D:{ Instead of keeping with the original feeling of the show being richly multi-cultural, they've thrown Caucasian actors in all of the protagonist roles with the token stereotypical colored villain. The hell, Hollywood?

Don't get me wrong, I think it's unfair for people to say that twelve-year-old Noah Ringer is not deserving of the role of Aang. I'm sure he'll be great, but I'd just like to know what put Ringer's audition tape over and above someone like this kid who actually IS Asian and has some amazing skills (I swear, he copies some of the exact moves Aang does in the show.) Admittedly, the white cast all look better once you see them in costume, but they're still very obviously white -- most noticeably I find in Katara and Sokka. It's jarring. The guy they have playing Zuko (who I'm sure will still make a very good Zuko, all you need to play Zuko is BUCKETS OF ANGSTY LULZ) would have made an amazing Sokka appearance-wise, in my opinion. For different non-race themed reasons, I'm also disappointed at the change to Iroh's character who's gone from the jolly old fat man we loved so much to a slim, if not sinister-looking soldier (...with dreadlocks...?) I just can't imagine Uncle Iroh's obsession of tea and evening sing-a-longs coming out of this guy. It makes me sad. ;_;

I would promise that I'd boycott the film by not watching it... but that would be a horrible filthy lie, because just as with the horrific HP movie adaptations, despite how awful they are, I watch them each time anyway because I am an obsessive fangirl and my fandoms demand no less of me. I can't help it, the trailer looks so good! >_< (Damn you conniving Hollywood production studios and your sexy special effects!) I may, however, scowl furiously when I see Shyamalan and his casting director's names scroll across the screen.

I'm sorry, but WTF? Australia bans small breasts in an effort to safeguard children?
That's right, apparently if you're a woman with small breasts, you will induce pedophilia.

I honestly don't know whether to be outraged or just boggled. Don't get me wrong, I'm totally on board with pedophilia = BAD; however, when you take a fundamentally logical concept like that and then translate it into a ridiculous law like this, you lose all rationality points you once had. You can't ban certain adult publications simply because of breast size. It's incredibly offensive to declare that just because a woman sports an A cup she should automatically be suspected of being a minor, or that she's automatically spurning insidious new pedo lust in anyone watching. Child pornography should fall under the illegal category only if it ACTUALLY involves minors. I don't care if someone looks like they're under 18 -- if you can verify that they're an adult than it's not illegal. This whole things sounds a lot more like a government grasping at straws because they're all out of actual ideas.

Oh, and hey Austrialia, while we're at it -- what?
Female bodily fluids are apparently considered illegal and "obscene". (Possibly NSFW.)

Seriously? It seems the land down under *ba dum CHING!* has a lot of crazy sex laws. So Rule 1: no golden showers or similar urine fetishes at all; Rule 2: on the grounds that it may possibly have itty bitty traces of urine in it, so also is a no go for any depiction of the rare "female ejaculate". So let me get this straight -- watching a film where some dude lets go all over some woman's face is fine, very good, a-okay; if the woman has any incidental bodily fluids though then that's obscene. I'm sorry... what? We're now holding each genders' fluids to different standards? That is the stupidest example of blatant sexism I've ever heard. Basing a ban on the theory that there may be urine also does not count as justifiable reasoning in my opinion. (The whole idea that they're banning any sort of sexual fetish in the first place -- within non-violent limits obviously -- seems ludicrous to me to start with.)

So clearly I learned some new really dumb things about Australia today. Reading it back now it actually feels like a strange and slightly uncomfortable version of a "The More You Know" segment. To be honest I'm not one for usually baring my teeth at this sort of thing, but these are some of those really ridiculous types of laws that make me want to rip my hair out from both the standpoint of a woman and also just a general society viewpoint. I guess it was just one of those sorts of days.

It's a little early to be placing bets on which gossip and entertainment site has the real spoilers -- if any in fact do exist yet -- but most I've seen tend to favor the same general mix of the following two collections of upcoming character plot bunnies for SatC2. (I think it goes without saying that if you like Sex and the City and hate movie spoilers, you should stop reading now.)

1. First batch of sparkly spoiler love
2. Second serving of slightly different though not any less intriguing spoilers

Personally I really like the idea of curtaining the entire movie within the current financial recession. I think it gives us an interesting (and most likely hilarious) chance to see how each of the girls -- and when I say "girls" I am also bunching poor Big in with the ladies -- who are overall all used to having pretty free spending habits, handle the financial dip. (Hopefully it doesn't effect their wardrobes too much, I wouldn't want to see the pretty Clothing Porn aspect of the movie suffer.)

• Carrie: Main plot point seems to be that the Preston household loses their millions somehow. I can't decide whether Carrie or Big would be more traumatized by this, or if either of them really would be at all.
  
  Some sites elaborate on the Carrie story and are saying that she gets *shudder* pregnant, which are my worst dreams come true and I hope to god isn't true, because the Carrie/Big dynamic just does not do babies. It's wrong. Wrong wrong wrong wrong. D:
  
  Then there's the people also saying that Big cheats on Carrie, while others are saying that Aiden makes a reappearance and Carrie cheats on Big with him. *Boggled* Frankly I find both hard to believe simply because it's a "been there, done that" *groan* scenario any way you look at it. Carrie's cheated before, with Big on Aiden (WTF? Like Aiden would ever in a million years cheat with anyone. Give me a break.) in season three, and after the fallout from that incident I doubt her character would ever risk having another indiscretion, especially on Big. As for Big, I think if they make him let down Carrie one more time it's going to be overdone. We've had six television seasons of Mr. Big being an on-again-off-again douche, and the wedding betrayal from movie one was in sense the climax of their long-time relationship drama -- if they try to top it again, if you're not already a longtime Big hater then you've got to start thinking, "so WHY is Carrie with this guy...?" Hopefully I'm hoping that no cheating either way occurs, if not anything than to pay some respect to both characters and their assorted pasts. They need to stop leeching primarily off the Carrie/Big relationship drama and get a new theme. :P


• Charlotte: I highly approve of the potential Charlotte/Harry paranoid-is-he-cheating-no!-he's-building-you-a-sweet-dream-house plot. LAWLs and appropriate heartbreak and resulting sweetness will abound, as only two characters like Charlotte and Harry can pull off.


• Samantha: In a horrible way I really love the concept of Samantha's breast cancer coming back into play. It was one of my favorite story arcs though out the series, showing Samantha both at her most vulnerable and strongest moments.
  
  On the flipside, I don't know how I feel about her possibly going back to Smith. :P They already went through the trouble of bringing Samanatha back to her roots at the end of the first movie, why go all flip floppy again? At the very most I hope they just end with the two of them remaining really close friends, with Smith being there for her through her illness, etc etc. Move forward, not backward!


• Miranda: I have no idea what to think of the proposed Miranda plot. Sued for malpractice? Leaves the law firm? D: Starts a restaurant with Steve? o_O WHUT? Srsly?

I understand why some people are all outraged by some of the apparent character turns for the girls in these spoilers, but the way I look at it as soon as the sequel (and I hear now a third is in the works) was confirmed, you sort of had to expect the sad but inevitable franchise milking to begin. I think these prospective storylines both have their merits and downfalls -- but again, you sort of have to take it with a grain of salt until plot points are confirmed with IMDB or similar. In the mean time, however, I'll accept a mish-mash of the above theories until I read evidence otherwise.

I could do with another good week of relaxing. Seeing as that is not possible, however, I shall instead try as hard as I can to stretch out the rest of this Sunday evening. *Cling* Quick and dirty recap of my splendid -- but still much too short -- time off:

• Christmas was good. Got chocolate, a new digital camera, kitty fountains, big comfy blankets and *drumroll* a SHINEH NEW IPHONE! XD Love love loooove my new phone. I'm not sure how I ever managed to last this long without a smartphone.


• Went for a double feature movie day with Sister and friends. Movie one of two: Avatar in 3D. Loved it~ It was one of the most entertaining movies I've seen in a while. It was a gorgeous visual feast for the eyes, and I really really enjoyed the whole Na'vi race and tribal culture and Pandora world. You can bet your bottom that I cried big sappy girl tears when they destroyed the Hometree. ;_;


• Movie two of two: Sherlock Holmes. Also very delightful -- and soooo slashy, lololol. Seriously, it was the most slasherific WatsonxHolmes crackfest ever. They bickered and nagged one another like an adorable old married couple. I mean, seriously: "My tongue is going numb. I'm not going to be of any use to you." SERIOUSLY? *BAM! Falls out of chair at BUBBLING HOT SUBTEXT PUNCH IN THE FACE* I kept squirming and imagining at any moment Robert Downey Jr. was going to shove Jude Law down on the cobblestones and have his sexy, snotty British way with him.
  
  EDIT: for Mike and Greg -- WE TOLD YOU!


• Watched the long awaited, two-part "End of Time" Doctor Who special and was left oddly disappointed. I think all of the over-hype killed it for me. It was cool to see The Master again and the -- extremely brief -- return of the Time Lords was kind of neat, but frankly I thought the whole story was pretty bland. Either way, however, Ten is now all gone and I shall miss him dearly while at the same time I try very hard to remain open-minded and give the new boy a chance. This courtesy does not extend to Eleven's new catchphrase though. ("Geronimo"? Really? *Makes a face*)


• Phoned Ben Moss regarding the status of my ring after already giving them over and beyond their original four week ETA, and they in turn told me that it wouldn't be ready until January 17th. *Deep breaths* If they hadn't sent me on my way with a temporary ring like they did, by now I would entering into that Royally Ticked phase.


• Royally Ticked phase was reached and surpassed after three different calls over the last week with Marks Work Wearhouse though -- when after waiting and waiting for them to order me in a size 9 pair of stylish winter boots, I was notified that no size 9's apparently exist ANYWHERE and I can expect them to be in about NEVER. D: Why did you waste all of that time ordering in the wrong boot style and not telling me certain stores had them in when they actually did, because now everyone else has bought my boots and they're all permanently sold out!!! ARRRRRAAAAAAHHHHH! Will never shop at Marks again. So angry. And now I have to find new winter boots that are not also piss ass ugly, which is no easy feat. The retail world was not kind to me this holiday season.


• Did not get H1N1 shot as planned. Did not play any Guild Wars. Did not draw anything. :x I did, however, do a lot of sleeping. So overall, my holidays were not very productive, but still enjoyable even if I was asleep for most of it. Upon reflection, it was probably a good thing I saved up so much energy sleeping, since I will now most likely need to conserve my strength for when I'm overtaken by a bout of deadly swine flu.

I whipped up a quick no mess, no fuss blog where I will be doing most of our wedding planning and brainstorming in an attempt to not overwhelm my regular blog with marriage talk. It'll be a convenient place to throw around any links, ideas, pictures, etc I find over the next year or so and talk wedding stuff amongst the bridal party. Plus, I think it'll be nice to have some sort of journal-type keepsake of the whole experience to look back at afterwards~ :3

Feel free to follow if you'd like, though most times it'll probably just be me rambling to myself. (Hey, just like I do here!)