This past weekend a Shaw rep came and hooked up our brand spankin' new PVR!  When we changed up some of our Shaw cable/internet plans we were pleasantly surprised when we found out a free PVR was built in to the new cable box, and let me tell you, I love the this magical box!  The ability to pause live television is ingenious.  "OOH OOH, LOOKIT ME!  THERE GOES THE DOORBELL, NO WORRIES, I'LL JUST PAUSE MY SHOW LA LA LA LA!"  *Happy armflail*

You know what else was happy armflaily-filled?  Cowboys vs Aliens!  I don't care who they are, those movie critics are crazy -- CvA was awesome.  I mean, come on.  It has cowboys.  And it has aliens.  There are no surprises in this movie and no disappointments.  The movie delivers 100% on everything the trailer promises, (plus with the perk of sexy Daniel Craig in a cowboy hat!)

In comparison, you know which movie wasn't awesome?  Captain America.  I went in looking for the same radness that Iron Man and Robert Downey Jr. delivered; instead I got a two-hour long American propaganda-filled battle scene with bad acting and a bad script.  Maybe the Marvel magic lies entirely with the wonderful Mr. Downey Jr?  Or maybe Iron Man just has a way cooler costume.

Haven't posted in a while.  July in a nutshell:

• We suffered a minor crisis as an indirect result of installing our new dishwasher, when we woke up the following morning to discover that we had sprung a rather frightening leak in our basement ceiling from a pipe under our kitchen floor.  Luckily Mason and his father Bob the Builder'ed it up and managed to patch up the pipe within the day, and we spent the next week with fans cranked up full force up in the roof and on the floor to avoid any possible mold or water damage.  Things are now more or less fixed and back to normal other than the giant three foot hole still in our ceiling.
• Last weekend we had an unexpected kitty-shaped visitor camp out with us for an evening.  We found the young cat out in our backyard, unneutured, with no collar or tattoos, so I set him up with some food and water, a bed, and litterbox in the garage over night until the Humane Society opened up the next day.  I figure he was a house escapee rather than a stray, considering how openly friendly and affectionate he was, but I went around ringing doorbells that morning and no one recognized his photo.  He was so sweet, he liked to headbutt and nuzzle you in the face, being all "LOOK AT HOW ADORABLE I AM! SUBMIT ALL YOUR LOVES TO ME, MUH HA HA!"  I hope he was claimed by his family, if he had one, or gets adopted by someone nice.  *Hugs him*
• Sister and I had a Harry Potter: Deathly Hallows 2 movie date!  Both halves of this last movie were surprisingly awesome for a change, a really nice wrap up to a sadly lackluster movie franchise (with the exception of the epilogue which, trust me, is just as awful in movie form as it was in the book, only now you actually get too see Ron's thirty-year-old beer gut and Malfoy's hilarious facial hair.)  I liked that they ramped up the castle battle to be a bit more epic, though I was pretty choked that they cut out Fred's death scene; also sad that they hardly touched at all on Dumbledore's backstory.  On the other hand, as much as I've been a long time hater of Alan Rickman's portrayal of Snape, he really redeemed himself a bit in this one.  He finally abandoned the whole campy Capt Kirk line delivery and the over-the-top billow genie moves for some actual acting in parts for a change.  I've never been a fan at all of the Snape/Lily ship, but I gotta say that I sobbed like a giant goober during the scene where he finds her dead in Godric's Hollow, and afterward when he's lamenting to Albus.  ;_;  Oh yeah, and btw, McGonagall?  She's hilarious.  Trust me.
• Only one month until I go back to school.  It's a little pathetic how even at the age I am now that one of the parts I get most excited for about returning to college university (MacEwan would insist on accuracy) is the prospect of new school supplies, especially when you consider that school supplies for my program pretty much consist of maybe a binder, paper, and a handful of pens.  Don't get me wrong, I'm looking forward to the classes themselves, and the concept of graduating in two years and being able to secure a career I'm actually passionate about is obviously appealing, but some how that package of brand new blue Bic ballpoints makes me positively squirm with glee every time I walk by the office supply aisle at work.  Yes, it's absurd, I know.
• On the note of school and library careers, I applied for a (very) part-time page position at the St. Albert Public Library this week which I'm hoping my volunteer cred will score me first dibs at.  Even a few hours a week of legitimate library work would be great for my resume and maybe open up some opportunities for something full-time.  Please cross your fingers for me!  >_<

In all of the crazed wedding prep hubbub, I've sort of forgotten that my birthday is also coming up right away.  I had a lengthy debate with Mason a few nights back about how old I was turning this year; me insisting I was turning 27 and he quite confident that no, I would be turning 26.  As it turns out, apparently I don't even know my own age.  I am, in fact, only 25 -- not 26 as I've steadfastly believed all this time.  This realization is extremely discontenting.  I've been living a horrible filthy lie for the past year and I didn't even know it!  D:  *Awash in a traumatizing sea of sudden insecurity and double-guessing of oneself*

On the flip side, you know what the perfect present a man could get his soon-to-be 27 26 year-old confused wife?  That's right, a Miche bag! *Glee!*  I decided on the bigger "max" size bag, because I'm always cramming extra stuff in my purse, not to mention the occasional giant hardcover book.  Selecting my choice of two shells was hard, there's a lot of really nice ones, but I finally settled on the "Allison" and "Lauren" styles:

So pretty! Plus you can find pretty good deals on second-hand shells on eBay, so that'll be the next place I hit up next time I'd like to buy a new one.  Very excited for my shiny new bag(s) to arrive in approximately 5 - 10 business days~  :3

In book related news, here's the lowdown on my reads over the past couple of weeks:

• Beatrice and Virgil by Yann Martel
  A once-successful writer, Henry, living in a foreign city receives an envelope one day among his usual fan mail, containing a note asking for help and a single scene from a play featuring two characters named Beatrice and Virgil.  He decides to deliver his response to the letter in person and finds himself in a taxidermist's shop.  There he meets the eldery, mysterious owner who introduces him to the two characters from his play -- a stuffed donkey and howler monkey, and Henry's life changes forever.  *Du du DUUUUUUH*  (Can you tell I totally rip these summaries off from other sources at times?  I'm so lazy.)  I was really excited to hear that Yann Martel had written a new book, as his second novel, Life of Pi, is one of my all time faves.  For whatever reason this new book hasn't been very good reviews on Goodreads, but I liked it myself.  Not amazing, but enjoyable.  I think I actually appreciated it more than others because I'd accidentally spoiled the ending for myself beforehand so I was reading into all of the abstract stuff knowing what most of it meant before the realization is supposed to come at the end.  3/5
  
  BTW, looks like a movie adaptation of Life of Pi is finally in the works.  Like all great books I love that get turned into movies, I'm excited but apprehensive about this news.  Please do the book justice!

• Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld
  The first novel in a trilogy, this steampunk-ish take on some of the events surrounding WWI splits its time between two main characters -- Aleksandar Ferdinand, fugitive prince of the Austro-Hungarian Empire; and Deryn Sharp, a daring British airwoman disguised as a boy.  The book pits the mechanical might of mecha-like "clankers" against fabricated splices of specially-engineered "beasties" in the place of the usual WWI war machines (hence the steampunk slant.)  The story was okay, slow to start off with (especially Alek's storyline, which I found dull compared to Deryn's) but it did pick up as the book went on.  To be honest I think the biggest turn off for me in this book was simply the steampunk theme itself, I'm just not a huge fan of the genre in general.  I also have some serious issues with the disturbing way the British forces apply the use of the spliced creatures they create...  Hurling bats into propeller blades as a weapon...?  Engineering giant flying whales with pipes and airship engines molded into it's gut...?  The creep factor is high here, folks.  I hope the WWI equivalent of PETA lays some much-needed smack down in the sequel.  3/5

• Moxyland by Lauren Beukes
  I probably shouldn't even be talking about this one yet since it's our most recent book club assignment and we haven't had our meet up yet, but oh well; I'll just rant about it a second time in much greater detail at our next meeting.  If that wasn't a hint for you, no, I didn't enjoy this book very much at all.  It takes place in a high-tech futuristic version of Cape Town, South Africa, following around a couple different groups of all equally annoying, obnoxious, hipster-like central characters who I spent most of my time just wanting to smack across the face.  It's unfortunate that the characters were all so unlikable because the story concept itself could have been pretty interesting otherwise, if not for the constant feeling like it was being narrated by four punk teenagers from Nexopia.  *Rips at hair*  2/5

While I was by the library today I picked up a few new books, the first one of which I just started this afternoon and isn't actually that new for me at all.  Beauty is a YA retelling of the classic Beauty and the Beast tale that I absolutely loved when I was in Junior High.  I think I checked it out from our school library three different times, and I just couldn't resist picking myself up a copy today and seeing if it was as good as I remember it being.  Turns out -- it is!  :D  I'm really enjoying reading through it again, and I think I may need to track myself down a copy of it to buy permanently for my own bookshelf~

Mood: Mostly sleepy.

I had my first volunteer shift at the Stanley Milner Library yesterday, sorting books for their upcoming book sale(s) down in the basement. There were less volunteers than I thought there'd be, and I turned out to be the youngest among them (looks like most of the EPL volunteers are older people who are retired or don't work full hours and have oodles of spare time... so we have something in common then), but it was a good time. It also helps that for each volunteer session I help out at, I score four dollars of free used books! XB (When we're talking used books, four dollars buys a respectable pile of new novels to add to my collection~) They also have a drink fridge and sneaky filing cabinet drawer full of snacks to nibble on while you're sorting. Definitely worth waking up early for yesterday morning.

Mason and I watched the new DC animated movie, Batman: Under the Red Hood the other evening, based on the whole Jason Todd reborn storyline. Verdict? Pretty sweet. :B I've read "A Death in the Family" and I'm familiar with the general plot points of Red Hood's origin, so it was neat to see a video version of the story (and according to reviews from people more comic-savvy than I, the adaptation is pretty well done.) Pleasing art and animation, good script, and much more blood and violence than I've seen in the past Batman animated videos. My only sad note is that this movie changed all of the usual voice actors I've come to know and love from the animated Batman universe -- it's silly, but there will always be a little part of me that shuns anyone who tries to fill Kevin Conroy or Mark Hamill's shoes. On the other hand... Neil Patrick Harris as Nightwing is awesome! *Glee*

On that thought, why is it that random street thugs know that Nightwing was formerly Robin...? o_O Did Batman post memos up all over Gotham? Is there an official Batman newsletter?

Mood: Very sore feet. Stupid fishy shoes, why do you spurn me?!

I've been lazy with blogging over the last week or two, so I'll try to keep these all short and sweet!

• Edmonton Pride Parade

  Awesome! Went with Sister and friend and walked in the parade along with the Grant MacEwan GLBT group. I was originally assigned the task of enthusiastically giving out temporary tattoos to the crowd, but I'm too shy and am not a huge people person so that fell flat pretty quick; so instead I got to blow bubbles~ X3 Much more fun. By the end of that parade I had some proper bubble blowing technique down, I tell you. *Smug*

  It was a great turn out for both the parade parties and the crowds watching. This was the first time I've ever actually walked in the parade, and only the second time I'd ever been to it at all. Every year I mean to go, and then something always comes up and it's always the same old "okay, well maybe next year." I enjoy going out and showing my support, and I really love the atmosphere and watching all of the different people laughing and smiling and just being with each other -- some unfortunately whom I'm sure don't usually feel the same easy comfort in walking hand-in-hand down the street any other day as they probably do during pride day. I wish everyone could feel as confident, open, and happy all the time as some of the people I saw today. What a thought.

• Homeland by R. A. Salvatore

  A race of dark elves called the Drow live underground and are feared by all for their vicousness and single-minded drive for power no matter the cost, least of all when it comes to killing their own, which is practically encouraged. The newborn Drizzt is born and grows up to be not quite as malicious as his family and culture would prefer him to be...

  I don't know what to think about this book. I guess it was okay, I made it through to the end fast enough, but it was just too... evil? As in a complete over-abundance of. Usually I'm a sucker for the villain. I have a long, sordid history of always rooting for the bad guy, and almost every one of my favorite characters from any fandom has been the the villain; but my biff is that evil is not interesting unless it's dished out with some good alongside for the ride. All this story had was Evil Smiles and Evil Plotting and Evil Ambitions, where mothers kill sons and sisters kill mothers and brothers want to kill sisters and all it is is a giant clusterfuck of hate and assassination and EVIL. It made the villainous aspect of any potentially interesting character really boring and redundant. I think Homeland had potential, but fell flat.

• The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon

  A boy with Asperger's finds his neighbor's dog dead, impaled with a garden fork in the yard; despite his father's demands otherwise, brilliant young Christopher begins his own super-sleuth story to discover who killed the dog and ends up finding out more than he bargained for.

  This one's been on my to-read list for a while, and I was more eager to read it after finishing off House Rules recently by Jodi Picoult. The Curious Incident (etc) itself was good and an interesting read. The thing that struck me the most between this book and Picoult's was how very different the first-person PoV narrative was. Picoult's character is very aware of his Asperger's and why and how it affects aspects of his life and those around him the way it does; yet his inner dialogue was for the most part precise, articulate, thought out and -- for lack of a better word -- "normal." Haddon's character, on the other hand, is a whirlwind of thoughts and stories and descriptions and feelings, served up by the way of simplified language, many run-on sentences and topic derailments. It made it a bit exhausting to follow what the character was thinking some times, but in a way I think that's the point. Different books with different takes, though both very interesting in separate ways.

• Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging by Louise Rennison

  This one was a light read with lots of laughs. Think Bridget Jones but for teens. Basically it chronicles diary-style a school year in the life of fourteen-year-old Georgia Nicolson, and predictably all manner of teenage girl drama and hyjinks ensue. There were some pretty funny bits, mostly because I remembered thinking some of the same things and using the same ridiculously silly logic at points back in my teenage days; and also because the narrator is British and uses lots of fabulously amusing English slang, terms like "nuddy-pants" and "jimjams" which are automatically hilarious to anyone who is not British.

• Sex and the City 2

  Awful. :c It started off well enough for the first half hour or so and geared up by introducing the new life hurdles that were going to be addressed for each character -- and then they all promptly jumped on a plane to Abu Dhabi and the remaining hour and half of the whole movie was a giant boring vacation slide show. Look, here we are on a camel! Look, here we are sipping cocktails by the pool! Look, here we are singing karaoke! What? Plot, where did you go? Did you accidentally miss the plane to the Middle East that your leading ladies were on? *Story plot sits sadly alone, abandoned completely in airport waiting lounge* So very very disappointing. My sad face was very sad indeed.

• Splice

  I have no words for this movie. We all left the theatre exchanging equal WTF expressions of "Ngggwha...?" Seriously. Here's the movie: Scientist couple create crazy human/mult-animal hybrid creature. Man wants to kill it, woman wants to raise it like a adorable monster-like puppy. Man is weary, woman loves it as a daughter. Man loves it like a daughter, woman preforms crazy mutilating experiments on it in the name of science. Man mates with it, woman is horrified and hates man. Man confronts woman. Woman loves creature! Woman hates creature! Man hates creature! Man loves creature! Man and woman go to kill creature! Creature dies, man and woman love creature, cry over loss of creature! Creature rises from the dead and swaps gender, so now she's a he who kills everything! Man and woman hate creature! Creature rapes woman and kills man! Creature is killed and woman is left impregnated with creature's own incesty, double-hybrid spawn.

  Potential sequel...? I hope not. o_O

In other news, I'm a horrible kitty mother and I forgot that everything including pet stores close freakishly early on Saturdays and now I have no breakfast for Iroh tomorrow morning. Bugger. I fear much drama and kitty woe (of the loud, especially obnoxious variety) shall occur when he notices the complete lack of tasty kibble in his bowl. :x

Mood: I AM IRON MAN! Nana nana nana na IRON MAN!

...was pretty awesome. :B I agree with the general opinion that it wasn't as great as the first movie, but as far as sequels go it was pretty sweet. Robert Downey Jr. is smoking hot even in a bowtie or when he's pale and sickly with palladium poisoning, and props to Ms. Johansson who's completely bombshelly whether in a little black skirt or skin-tight denim leather. Marvel provides fan service for everyone!

One thing I did leave the theatre disappointed about (and apparently I seem to be the only one thinking so) is that I really thought they were going to touch upon Stark's drinking problem in the sequel and they didn't, not really. Yes, people point out that we see him with a drink in his hand through a good number of both films scenes, but that's a pretty common sight in any media when a character is snotty, powerful, and rich.

I just keep hearing about how this great hurdle in Tony Stark's life is dealing with his bout(s) of alcoholism, but I'm not seeing it and I really think we should. Currently Hollywood's version of Iron Man doesn't have any skeletons in his closet. Every other hero does. Bruce Wayne constantly dealing with the loss of his parents. Peter Parker wracked with guilt over being the round-about cause of his uncle's death. Bruce Banner being forced to live apart from society to keep his big green alter ego in check. Et cetera. Establishing Stark's struggle with drinking would give him a much needed venerability and weakness, and I think he would prove a more complex and interesting character from it. I'm not saying to make the addiction the entire primary plot for the whole movie (because as it has been earnestly pointed out to me, when would they have time for all of the action and EXPLOSIONS?), but use it. Alcoholism is not a minor aspect of an individual's life -- alcoholism affects everything, and I think they need to develop a story that can reflect what it affects in Tony Stark's every day life of being rich and fabulous and doing the superhero thing.

I'll cross my fingers for Iron Man 3. Until then, drunk or not, Robert Downey Jr. is still all sorts of sexy.