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!)

I just finished watching an amazing documentary on Kevin Richardson, an animal behaviorist for a private reserve in South Africa, and nicknamed "the lion whisperer" by the media for the uncanny ability he has to bond with lions and other wild animals. So good~ It both blows my mind and makes me green with envy the way he's able to interact with these lions and hyenas to the point where he's been completely and fully accepted as one of them.


(More videos on http://www.lionwhisperer.co.za and YouTube; and the aforementioned documentary, "Dangerous Companions", is easily found on Google.)

He reminds me of Timothy Treadwell only way better and smarter, without the apparent crazy vibe and the fact that he, you know... hasn't gotten himself eaten. The interviews and YouTube clips of him are all extremely interesting, and I'd love to get my hands on a copy of his book.

He makes me strongly regret, not for the first time in my life, that I never followed through with my original longing to work with animals. :c I think sometimes that if I could go back to see myself in high school, I'd give myself a firm slap upside the head: "Buck up! Who cares if you're rubbish at science? You could hug a lion some day!" *Whappa whappa whappa!* Stupid fear of science. Stupid fear of giant African bugs. Sometimes I'm just the stupid one. The only possible chance I have now is if I ever get the chance to travel to Africa; or if the fates are extra cruel they'll give me cancer and I will then be in a position to grotesquely take advantage of the Make A Wish Foundation. ("You want what?") In the mean time I shall continue to hug my kitten, who however lacks in considerable size and majesticness *Iroh runs into smack into a wall* makes up for it in 100% pure adorableness.