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.

Hold the phone... they're making a second Sex and the City movie? I've known that there's been rumors about a potential sequel, but how have I managed to go this long without knowing that it was confirmed back in February...? With a release date for May 2010, a mere five months away?! D:

I'm so torn on whether this calls for jubilation or dread. Obviously more SatC is always an enthusiastic fist pump; but the first movie wrapped up the girls' respective stories so nicely while managing to keep them all in character... I'd be afraid of what sort of silly, contrived plots would be concocted for the sequel for no reason other than to milk the franchise to a grim death. I really hope they don't turn the Carrie/Big dynamic all domestic with a crazy pregnancy plot twist like people are theorizing. Tiny, drooling Mr. Big's... That just seems wrong. Do not want.

Nevertheless, I'm excited and will see it either way. <3

I really really did. And Ichiban. And beef noodle Hamburger Helper! Mmm... Don't get me wrong, the cruise ship had tons o' wonderful food (much more on that later) but at times I missed some of the do-it-yourself half-assed dinners we make at home. Call me a simple gal.

(I'm lazy and didn't want to re-write every bit of the cruise all over again, so for those who I emailed while away, you've already read most of what follows, except for the change of tense.)


Our cruise was awesome! The boat was FREAKING HUGE. D: Twelve or so decks, swimming pools, theaters, tons of restaurants and buffets, an arcade, shit loads of bars, a casino, shops, a mini basketball court, and... and... *sits there bewildered* It was a little jaw-dropping when you first walked on deck.

The only thing I would say I'd change for the next time if we ever go cruising would be to fork over the little extra money to get a room on the upper decks. Mason and I were on the very bottom left corner of the boat at the back, and while the room itself was pretty nice, you could hear all the ship engines and really feel the ship swaying at times that far down. Not too bad though.

My absolute favorite thing on the cruise was THE FOOD. OMG. *Drools* There was SO MUCH OF IT. And it was ALL FREE. X3 *Dies a little inside of happiness* Deck 9 of the ship was called the Lido Deck and it was pretty much just non-stop buffet -- every section you went to had a different sort of style or type of buffet (oriental, grille, grand buffet, deli, etc.) I spent a lot of time there. :B Chicken! Pizza! Ice cream! Chocolate cake! Pasta! They sort of changed the specifics of the buffets each day, but the basics were usually there all the time, and you could just go at pretty much any time of the day and grab whatever you wanted! *Happy flails!*

For dinner we usually went down for our nightly scheduled sitting at 8:15pm in the Platinum Dining Room restaurant which excitedly was ALSO FREE, only instead of buffet food it was like, amazing really expensive-like meals that I could never afford here at home. BUT IT WAS ALL FREEEEE! If I wanted three whole appetizers and two main courses, I just got them all! *Flails and sputters incoherently* It's a good thing I have a healthy metabolism or else I'd have come home a whale.

The day-by-day recap:

Friday was just a shit load of flying. Boooo. Though fortunately I took Gravol far enough in advance this time so I didn't feel sick at all for the flights. We got to Florida and got a hotel for the night. Very very tired.

Saturday we went to Wal-Mart to pick up a few things, then went off to the port to get on the ship. We spent a good amount of time exploring the boat, it was all a little sit-there-with-your-mouth-gaping at first.

Sunday, our first full day on the ship, we stopped at port in Nassau, Bahamas. Unfortunately, with it being Sunday most of the city was completely shut down for the Sabbath or what not. We turned left when we should have turned right and everything was closed and empty and very depressing so I got a little sad as we just walked around doing nothing. Then we figured out that as long as we stuck to the couple roads that the cruise map had on it, all the touristy shops were still open so the day took a positive turn~ That evening was the first Elegant Night on the ship, so all the guests got all gussied up in their formal wear which was so much fun, and we went for fancy dinner~

Monday was our first full day at sea. It was also Mason's birthday *BIRTHDAY LOVE!* so we got him a fancy cake delivered to the restaurant when we went for dinner. It was soooo relaxing~ Our basic itinerary for the trip so far at this point had been 1) sleep late, 2) get up and wander up to the buffet for breakfast, 3) wander around, read, watch a movie in our room, 4) nap nap nap with some lunch in between, 5) lounge, 6) wander up for dinner and then either 7) see what shows or entertainment is going on, or 8) go back to the room for some Doctor Who and go to bed. It was wonderfully lazy~

Tuesday we arrived at port in St. Thomas. We went into town with Mason's parents and shopped for the morning. (I scored a beautiful knock off Coach bag that I luuurve.) X3 Getting from the dock down into the city, we took a boat/ferry thing with a piratey flair, and on the way back they went around some of the islands and gave us a bit of tour which was pretty cool. We went back around noon for lunch (buy food at port? You mean pay money? PFFT.) and then went back to our room to nap and steal a few minutes of free internet from Mr. Huffman's wireless card while we were still close enough to land to write a quick email home. After dinner we went down to the Amber Palace theater and watched a pretty cool magic show.

(My only real sour spot up to this point had been that this was the one day we let the steward in while we were out to the clean the room, and when I got back after shopping there was no towel animal waiting for me! ;_; I was so excited for my towel animal! Mason's parent's got one every day and Tuesday was the one day I was going to get one and I didn't! *Mope mope mope* In desperate towel-y hope, I let them clean the room again the next day though while we were at the next port. If they didn't leave me a towel animal again I thought I may do something rash. *Flails pathetically and cries*)

Wednesday was St. Maarten and as we got into port we started off the day with some bad news and some good news. The bad news -- the weather was stupidly windy so the water was super choppy and therefor cloudy and not fishy-viewing-friendly. Color me very sad. :c The good news turned out to be that they refunded our tickets and we proceeded to have probably the best day in port we had through the trip~ The weather, despite being windy, was gorgeous. The town was beautiful, the shopping was great~ (I bought myself a very pretty jewely/flowery necklace.) Then we literally came out of a dark alley between shops and suddenly OMG BEACH! White sand, turquoise water, splishy splishy splashy! XD Nothing completes a Caribbean cruise than a day of frolicking on a Caribbean beach~ When we got back we finished off the evening with a really good comedy and magic act on the ship.

(OOH OOH and I got not just one, but TWO towel animal menageries on Wednesday! One and two! *Glee glee glee* The towel animal gods decided to make up for their lack of love earlier.)

Thursday was the beginning of our final two days at sea before we get back into port. We lounged all day -- slept, ate, watched movies, read, and ventured into the casino. I brought ten dollars to gamble with, but I'm not sure how much I actually lost or gained as when I sat down at a slot machine there turned out to be $20 worth of credits which I wasted no time in cashing out and fleeing away with my (only somewhat stolen) bucket full of shiny jingly quarters~ ¬_¬ Muh ha. We also had another elegant dressy night for supper.

Friday was another day of lounging. I don't remember exactly what we did this day, but it was very similar to Thursday in the sense that it involved a copious amount of free food and lazing around. I got a giant piece of chocolate cake and watched the Sex and the City movie in the afternoon~ We also all went down to the casino again and I spent probably a full hour huddled around the quarter-tossing game with Mason's mom and went through about $80+ of her gambling money trying to help her get the wad of cash to fall off the little ledge. LOL so much fun, we drew quite a crowd with all of our shouting and hollering.

Saturday... we leave the boat. *Sad face* We had a full day just killing time in Florida since we were paranoid about the possibility of missing our flight home so we scheduled it for the next day, but it turned out we were off the boat and set to go by 10 a.m., so after a thwarted attempt at trying to change our tickets last minute to leave that afternoon, Mason's parents used some of their timeshare points and booked us into a fancy resort suite for the one night. I spent a good couple of hours catching up on my much-missed interwebs (the resort BLOCKED Facebook though. What? Seriously? WTF.) and watched the last half of Titanic on TV (probably a good thing I watched it after the cruise and not before.)

And finally Sunday freakishly-early-in-the-bloody-morning we finally flew home. It was a very tiring and somewhat cranky day, so I was pretty happy to walk into my apartment. Not so happy to be greeted by the cold and snow, however. It's a pretty raw deal to leave for the Caribbean only to find out that the weather back at home is a balmy +7, and then have it plunge back to freezing when you walk off the plane back in Edmonton. I didn't bring my coat either. It was miserable scamper back through the parking lot with all our heavy bags.

As fun and awesome as the trip was and as sad to not have free food (paying for food sucks!) and warm weather anymore, I'm still always glad to go back home. I huggled my bunny who I missed very much *HEARTS* (millions of love-filled thanks to Chelle, Nickie, and Brock who took care of Toby while I was gone!) and mooned over my lovely computer and fast non-crashy non-Facebook-blocking internet.

Pictures to be posted on Facebook hopefully soon!

*Munches on her beloved Save-on-Foods crinkle fries and Swiss Chalet sauce* *JOYGASM* X3

Shiny #1) First off: Sex and the City. Fabulous. Exclamation point. I got to wear my new dress for the first time and my new heels for the second (and painful) time; we stopped at Moxies to eat before the show and it was packed with half of the female population of Northern Edmonton and St. Albert all going to see SatC. The movie itself -- I luuuurved it, it wrapped up the series so nicely and I spent the entire two and a half hours giggling and flailing and smiling and exclaiming "I love (insert every different character's name here at various points through the movie)." I may have to go see it again when I won't have to worry about fighting a tramp squad of bitchy girls for stealing our saved seats and want to kick them in the face with my high-heeled shoe.

Shiny #2) This was an exciting weekend for my hair in particular. I finally sucked it up and forked over the money for a hair straightener, and while I don't regret the purchase we have a little bit of a love-hate relationship that we're going to have to work on... If we can get past the whole "omg the evil fucker wants to scald my flesh off!" and assorted related stress that comes of that, then we should be in a happier place. It's not something I would do every morning (as much as I wish I had the patience to though, because it's nice to be rid of my accursed hair wave.) I also realized yesterday that my hair has finally grown long enough to put up! *GASP* Look! Ponytail! I suddenly have all these new choices of things I can do with my hair~

Shiny #3) Nickie got a CUTE DWARF BUNNY! :D He's tiny and black and furry and adorable, and I shall call him Frodo. When she texted me about it I flailed and squee-ed until we went over to see him, and then I vaguely remember an excess of gushing and more flailing. Game nights at Brock's are going to be an extra point of awesome now with a fuzzy animal to cuddle~ YAY FOR NICKIE'S BUNNY!

Shiny #4) I bought myself a Nintendo DS! And it's pink! :B Hee hee hee! I love it, I can finally play all the cute girly games that no one else wants to get, like Nintendogs, and Animal Crossing. I got an obscure little game called Cooking Mama and it's terrifying how addicted I am to it. (It also makes me unbelievably hungry and I occasionally have to stop and go make myself a late-night snack of pasta or something equally delicious so I can play again.)

Shiny #5) We finally got tickets booked for our Carnival cruise in January~! Seven days in the Eastern Caribbean, and the ship is completely decked out. It's going first class on the sea, baby -- it's going to be sweet~ *Can't wait*

I'm off to play more Cooking Mama now. *Skips off*

*Glee* We saw Prince Caspian last night. My thoughts: very enjoyable, though not as good as the first one (with a distressing lack of Aslan, D: which made me especially sad.) I did like the four kids in this movie much better though, they were much more mature and were all down to business and "This is our Narnia, bitchez!" No more silly whimpering and crying.

Our camping trip last weekend was almost ruined and we learned a valuable lesson: never make reservations at Leduc Lions Campground...because when you go to check in, they'll have lost your reservation! *Rage fume stomp stomp* Then they figure they can squeeze us in the overflow still, but then we find out that, contrary to what I was told on the phone, they don't have fire pits for us! And even if they had them, we wouldn't be able to use them because they have a fire ban for the May Long weekend! *Pulls at hair* WHY didn't you tell us this earlier today when we phoned you?! I was not a happy panda. Thankfully Dan offered up his acreage, which turned out to be way better anyway, because 1) had the giant field completely to ourselves, 2) free! :D and 3) indoor plumbing! A million times, FTW!

I love my work. It's wonderful to have a job where you don't dread going into every morning (other than for lack of sleep the previous night...) and the people I work with are awesome. Now that I finally have actual work to do (it only took, what, six months?) the 9 - 5 days are not dragging by. The only problem is that now I'm stupidly busy at work -- and when I'm pushing a tight deadline like I was yesterday I start to get snappy and am not so much fun to be around (sorry to all the programmers who I snarled at *sweatdrop*.) I didn't even have time to go to my first sprint-end Beer Meeting with the guys (in which they all go out for the afternoon to a pub or restaurant for their big wrap-up meeting over food and drink -- though I have a sneaking suspicion that not much work is actually discussed so much as is probably hazed over and then derails off into chatter and slightly drunk debate over *insert random insane topic here* which always ends up hilarious.) I was looking forward to it, I may have even had a Wildberry cooler. :c

Because of aforementioned deadline, I had to bring home some work to finish up this weekend. I'm slightly bitter at the idea of doing work on my shiny weekend of traditionally-no-work, but it should only take a couple hours and if I time it right maybe I can find a couple back-to-back episodes of What Not to Wear to watch in the background while I do it.

OMG Sex and the City movie in six days! :3 *Flail flail flail*

For the last week I've become what some people may call a tad obsessed with eBay...and Amazon...and some other online stores of a slightly more seedy reputation. I decided that I was determined to own the entire series' of both Cardcaptor Sakura and Sailor Moon, and damn it, when I decide to buy something neither rain nor shine nor upcoming birthdays will stand in my way! CCS was no problem, I've watched the bootleg version before and thought the subs were fine, so I picked a random "Buy Now!" off of the millions on eBay which is now somewhere on it's happy way to my house.

Sailor Moon was a whole other irksome story. I was pretty set on tracking down the officially licensed American copies by ADV and Pioneer...until I learned that both companies had long lost their rights and the official DVDs have been out of print since 2004, and tracking down any rare remaining copies now that won't cost you hundreds of dollars just isn't freaking possible. D: I scowered eBay like a vulture watching copies that I easily could have sniped but they all get raised up to stupidly ridiculous prices by dumb rookie buyers that can't keep their fingers off their bid buttons! *Rage* I posted a "Looking For" ad on the Facebook marketplace and anime forums and had no replies! I found some copies on a random DVD site but it turns out the company is a giant money-stealing fraud group that I can't trust! I managed to track down both the S and Super S seasons for reasonable prices on other sites, but they wouldn't ship to Canada! I was about to find someone in the U.S. that I could ship them to and then suddenly someone else snags both copies away! I have been thwarted at every turn! Fate is against me, so after a week straight of a little flailing and much impatience, I said SCREW IT yesterday and buckled for some bootleg copies.

I'm a little crestfallen about the whole thing and you never really know what kind of quality you're going to get with an import. I'm fairly confident I chose the best bootleg versions that are made for SM; Anime Cartoon are the manufactures of both the Cardcaptor Sakura bootleg I bought and have seen, as well as my Escaflowne import I originally had; and they've more or less been direct rips from the official DVDs so my chances are pretty good that the quality of these will follow suit. *Crosses fingers* I bought them from shopanimedvd.com and while the research I've done on the site didn't say all awesome reviews they did accept PayPal which means if they screw me over I can cancel the transaction easily. So for $245.00, I will soon have all five seasons of Sailor Moon and all three movies. Not a bad deal. I just wish it would hurry up and get here NOW.

I had a meeting down at the bank yesterday and finally have begun an RSP that I really should have started five years ago. :P I'm putting them into a Canadian Dividend account which will give it lots of growth over long term (YAY!) but also means there will most definitely be some fluctuation now and then as well that will most likely make me cry and will take all my willpower not to freak out and take it all out. *Hyperventilates a little. Her father gives her chocolate and tells her to calm the hell down.* Speaking of monies, I'm getting a shiny $1,600 back on my tax return! HUZZZZZUH! I'm using a bit of it to pay off my impulse anime purchases above and then the rest of it's going right into the brand new RSP~ (and will hopefully grow, not shrink...)

Mom and I went out and saw The Other Boleyn Girl the other day, and it was really good; though admittedly I was a little more distracted by the new OMG Sex and the City trailer before it! I'm so freaking excited for that movie! May 30th will come and we shall fancify ourselves up in pretty dresses and shoes and dance off to the theater and have a girly good time~ *Fits of maniacal girlish giggles*