quietprofanity

Comment to this post and I will give you 5 subjects/things I associate you with. Then post this in your LJ and elaborate on the subjects given.

*Mr. A
Mr. A's just fascinated me ever since I've heard of him, which I think was when papajoemambo put up some splash pages, and the more I hear the more I love in an inappropriately ironic way. His status as one of the inspirations for Rorschach -- my favorite character in Watchmen -- is a part of it. That he's basically the Gary Stu mouthpiece for the second, lesser-known half of the team that created Spider-Man is another. It also helps that his stories are fucking insane but also TOTALLY SINCERE and convinced they are THE BEST THING EVER. I mean, that's actually kind of cute. The fact that Ditko's id unleashed is still quality enough that creators who think Objectivism is a big fat turd nevertheless draw inspiration from his work I think is testament to how oddly likable these stories are.

*Pink! (The color, not the...uh, singer)
I actually kind of like the singer. Not the early stuff, but "So What?" is fun to blare in the car. And I picked my color layouts for the purple, but since I was asked ... I actually quite like pink. I went through a phase where I was all, "Eww! Pink is for wussy girls, I'm not a wussy girl" but I grew out of it. I have a couple of pink shirts and I think I look good in the darker shades. Pink can be fun to kind of own in a semi-ironic way, too. This is why I have a pink Nintendo DS, a big pink carrying case, and a pink PURSE for my DS. Laugh all you want, the guy who sold me the last one was totally jealous. (This is true.)

*Lum!
Urusei Yatsura isn't something I watch all the time. (Mostly because it is EXPENSIVE and semi-out of print.) But I've always loved Lum. She's sexy, she's funny, she's mostly nice but she can kick your ass WITH FUCKING ELECTRIC SHOCKS. She's awesome! I like her so much I've showed UY stuff to my cousins who were probably not old enough for it and they loved her too. Yeah, she can play into the bimbo/sexy alien girl stereotype sometimes, but I think she subverts enough that you can just watch in joy. As my cousin (who later named one of her stuffed animals after Lum, DO YOU SEE WHAT I DID THAR?) said, "She's pretty and she flies and she has a neat outfit and she has powers." She does indeed.

*Writing
I like to write a lot. It was part of the profession I had up until ... oh, two days ago. (Shit.) I remember wanting to be a writer from when I was REALLY LITTLE because I liked stories so much, even if I never had the discipline to finish my stories until I started writing fanfic (which is kind of sad). While I've had my blocked periods, I can't imagine a life without writing, and when I can write, especially for fun, I feel a lot better in body and mind overall. It's just ... yeah. I don't want to say it's MY LIFE, because that is silly and too reductive and not what makes you a good writer anyway, but it's a major part of my life.

*Comic book meta
... Can I be meta about comic book meta? I feel like my brain might explode ... I don't know. I remember when I really got into the Internet fandom I always really liked reading people expounding on Spider-Man or whatever, even if it was goofy stuff like which Green Goblin was their favorite or something like that, so I guess I'm just sort of doing the same thing and adding my own spin. I spent a lot of time writing for Sequential Tart at one point, too. I don't know if I did a great job there, but it exposed me to a lot. Anyway, it's fun to expound on these things and figure out why characters do what they do and what creators might have been thinking. Kind of like fanfic, only more straightforward and the fetishes aren't as sexy.

"If you want Caitlin, then face Veronica, tell her, and be with Caitlin. If you want Veronica, be with Veronica. But don't pine for one and fuck the other. Man, if you weren't such a fucking coward... - Randal Graves, Clerks

If you replace "Caitlin" with the name "Madoka" and the "Veronica" with the name "Hikaru," you would have had the advice that Kasuga Kyosuke needed since about episode four. Alas, unlike Clerks, Kimagure Orange Road has no snarky friend that can knock out the main character's douche-nozzley problems in two hours. But Kasuga Kyosuke doesn't have a friend like Randal, and I was stuck watching this fucker for about 20 hours.

( Read more... )

And for sitting through that ... Anthrophromorphic Multi-Racial Lesbian Couple. YAY!

So, given that Twilight is on everyone's lips, I actually considered buying it. To the point where I went to Borders totally planning to buy it, was actually WALKING AROUND THE STORE WITH THE BOOK IN MY HANDS, but I felt my 80+ books at home practically screaming at me, "WHY? Don't you love us? Don't you LOOOOOVE US?" and I couldn't do it. Thoreau in particular would have been mad at me. So ... I will not be sporking Twilight.

I'm also not sporking Sabriel, even though on reflection I like it less and less but will probably still read the sequels out of inertia ... Well ... there's not much to spork, besides that scene where the guard goes "You seem like you have a hard life." And Sabriel's like, "Yes, I have led a hard life." That was kind of unintentionally funny on reflection. I'm very, very, very much planning to spork Kimagure Orange Road when I finish it. Partly because I'm pissed at myself for spending all that money and time on it (and I'm not even HALF-WAY DONE!), but mostly because I want to give the stupidest female anime character EVER the tongue-lashing she deserves. Although I'd like to learn how to take screenshots before I do that. The sporking will be useless unless we can make fun of the bad 80s clothes. (Particularly Kasuga's. I think my favorite was the pink shirt with rolled-up sleeves and the gray vest and the thick, yellow tie with black stripes.)

Boy, I love-hate Kimagure Orange Road. I love-hate Kimagure Orange Road so much I totally forgot everything else I had to talk about ... let me think.

***
Here's a good subject, James Frey. I still hate James Frey. I hated him ever since I read that Smoking Gun report and was joyful when Oprah slapped his lying ass down. I see a lot of people rushing to his defense these days with all this "He is an artist! That's what matters! Oprah was a mean, mean, mean pants with too much power!" Dude, please. The guy is a tool. Fuck the lies about his prison sentence. The guy appropriated a local girl who he never knew's tragic death for his own persecution complex.

And, oh look, he's still doing it. It wasn't me! It was the publisher! It was my agent! I wanted to call it a novel! They were just mean! NORMAN MAILER LOVES ME! Shut up, tool. You're a tool. You were a tool before you revealed yourself to be a liar when you gleefully picked on David Eggers to puff up your ego. So fuck off, tool. TOOL!

And the reviews for Bright Shiny Morning (a title which sounds like it would be better suited to a Anna Quindlen or Elizabeth Berg or a Ann Patchett novel. No disrespect meant to the ladies when I say that. I'm still planning to read their books and there is nothing wrong with being girly. But when the author is all "I AM KEROUAC! I AM HEMINGWAY! I WRITE MEN BOOKS! FOUR HUNDRED BABIES! AAAAARGH!!!" I can't help but smirk at the irony.) are kind of funny.

Esperanza, a Chicana from East L.A., forgoes a college scholarship after being embarrassed at a high school graduation party over the size of her thighs. Eventually she takes a job as a maid for a tyrannical white woman in Pasadena, only to fall in love with the woman's son.

That's nothing compared to the story of Dylan and Maddie, two crazy kids from Ohio who come to L.A. with only their faith in each other to sustain them.

After nearly 300 pages, living on $20,000 they've stolen from a vicious drug-dealing motorcycle gang, Maddie turns to Dylan and says: "You know how I read all the gossip magazines while I'm at the pool? . . . And they're all about these famous people, actresses and singers and models and stuff. . . . Well, I think that I want to be an actress."

"An actress?" he asks.

"Yeah, I want to be a movie star."

How do we reckon with a novel in which the desire to become an actress is treated as original and organic, in which the only Mexican American character is a maid?
-- David L. Ullin, Los Angeles Times

Imagine the movie Crash rewritten as a pastiche of Tom Wolfe, Bret Easton Ellis, and Jackie Collins — and you get a sense of the frustrating experience of reading this slack, self-indulgent mess.
-- Thorn Geier, Entertainment Weekly

There are four main story lines. One concerns a $20-million-a-movie married superstar who is secretly gay. Another involves a teenage couple who run away from home in small-town Ohio to work service-level jobs in L.A. There's also a mildly demented homeless man who finds purpose when he meets a meth-addicted runaway. And there's Esperanza, a maid who makes a love connection with her psychotically mean boss's nice, nerdy son.

These stories have two things in common. One, they take place in L.A. Two, they are all clichés. Frey has less fear of cliché, or of sentimentality, or of stating the obvious, than almost any other writer I have ever read. He literally writes as if he personally discovered that show-biz people are fake, homeless people can have hearts of gold, love can bridge any divide, and people go to L.A. to watch their dreams die.
-- Lev Grossman, Time (And he LIKED the book.)

This video review isn't bad either

***

I'm over half-way through my Savage She-Hulk trade, which means, according to my arbitrary system, I'll allow myself to buy comic books again. I'm kind of looking forward to it, even though Marvel recently crushed most of my hopes and dreams with the Spider-Man bullshit.

But oh well, I have lots I'm looking forward to buying and reading. Black Hole, the rest of Urusei Yatsura, A Distant Soil looks like something I should go back and pick up. Yeah.

I'm going to try to make a habit of buying a series all at once or at least in a close approximation to "all at once" so I'm not like, "I know that series!" but in reality I've only read two books of it. And I'm kind of ashamed now that there's anime and manga I have not finished for OVER A DECADE! AARGH!

I'm getting better. At least the anime list is depleting, too. Almost ... halfway ... through ... KOR ... must ... keep ... going ...

Weirdly enough, I don't know what anime I would want to watch AFTER all this stuff. Probably just try to finish some old dinosaurs. Not all of them. I think I can quit giving in to the Tenchi inertia.

***

I have a personal essay I should be writing. Why am I not doing it? Bad me! Bad, bad, bad me!

***

YouTube doesn't like me ... or Google doesn't ... anyway, they've both ganged up on me. Maybe later we'll be friends again. OK, see ya.

Some people say (or once said) I let Japan off too easy when it comes to sexism. So let me say I really, really, really wish Japan would get with the times i.e. girls defending themselves from rape/sexual harassment and not make it seem comedic/reckless when they do. Midori Days did this too and I REALLY freaking hate it.

I like watching this stuff for goofiness and the occasional superheroine fantasy. This bullshit totally ruins it and throws me out of having fun. This stuff is far more offensive than robot maids (who I've always thought have a worse reputation than they deserve) and unrealistic sexualized costumes, IMO.

Other than that, the show has been just dandy so far. I love the twins.

---

Here's another piece of happiness, lest you think I'm turning into Bitchy McBallbuster. I finished reading Cathedral by Raymond Carver, which is a group of short stories. They're overall very good. Depressing, but not as much as his reputation would say. Some of his characters (usually alcoholic, white working class dudes) are unsympathetic, but others are sympathetic. Anyway one of his stories was, believe it or not, a FANFIC! A fanfic of "The Five Forty-Eight" by John Cheever, a story which I had ALSO read. This got me hyped up and excited when I realized it even if the story was ... kind of a letdown. But when I re-thought about it the basic theme was the notion of someone nearly doing a horrible thing and then slowly integrating back into real life. I was sort of interested in that when I wrote a short story of my own. So it turned out to be good when I thought about it.

Old Movies (16)
Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? :)
Rush Hour :)
Bruce Almighty :(
Darby O'Gill and the Little People :)
Luther :(
Thank You for Smoking :)
Soultaker (MST3K version) alone - :/ MST3K - :)
Grindhouse: Planet Terror :)
Grindhouse: Death Proof :(
Eragon :(
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly :)
Teeth :)
Persepolis :)
Much Ado About Nothing :)
Little Children :)
The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934) :)

New Movies (14)
No Country for Old Men :)
Iron Man :)
Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian :(
The Incredible Hulk :)
The Dark Night :)
Mamma Mia! :/
Wall-E :)
Brick Lane :)
When Did You Last See Your Father? :)
Gonzo: The Life of Hunter S. Thompson :)
An American Carol :(
Zack and Miri Make a Porno :)
Twilight :)
Slumdog Millionaire :)

RiffTrax (4)
Spider-Man 3 :/
Saw :/
Eragon :)
Jurassic Park :/

TV Shows/Seasons in total (5)
The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzimiya :)
Ouran Host Club :)
R.O.D. the TV :/
Yami to Boushi to Hon no Tabibito :(
Hellsing :/

TV Shows/Seasons Finished (4)
Otome wa Boku Ni Koishiteru :)
Gunslinger Girl :/
Kimagure Orange Road :(
Lucky Star :)

Still without Internet. :-( Been playing Ace Attorney 2 ([sigh] Have to get used to that new series name ...) Second case very hard, but getting used to the psyche-lockes. Nearly every lawyer pings my admittedly-faulty gaydar. Except maybe Franziska. She'll ping it after she gets over being still-emotionally 13 with her "I'm imitating Daddy!" followed by tantrums. I still like her, though. And I still don't like Maya very much. Don't hate her but ... don't much care for her. Ema I liked a little better, though.

Read Angela's Ashes ... it's one of those books I want to use to beat over the head of people who are like, "Women were happier when they had limited economic options!" The other one is The Prize-Winner of Defiance, Ohio. Lovely writing, anyway. Will read the second and possibly third.

Read Left Hand of Darkness. See why people think it's boring. Hate to be Colbert, but all head, little heart. Except for a bit at the end. Good worldbuilding. Good man vs. nature story. Deserves acclaim. Probably better than Russ. Still worth time.

Read Black Dossier. Climax weird. Gollywog use questionable. Otherwise extreme awesome. Collecting all (well, most) books referenced for reading. Made me happier than anything.

Finished Slayers Try. Was okay. Too much infodumping. Like characters.

Half-way through Noir. It is good. I keep getting bored.

Apartment: Mouse shit pile on chips ahoy box. Breadstuffs now in fridge. Bed has proper bedding except dust ruffle thingie. Hot water fixed. Leaky ceiling not fixed. Watching Evening Harder repeatedly as I do chores. Kevin Smith: Sold Out must come out or QP go crazy.

Still infected. Reduced sugar intake. Realized addicted. Only eating half-cookies now. Getting better.

Need more yogurt. Don't feel much like eating. Web sites say don't eat bread. Or cheese. Or mushrooms. Or fruit. Or drink milk. Or tea. Or soda. Or fruit juice. Wish they just said "drink only water." Much simpler.

Don't feel much like exercising. Don't feel much like doing anything. Must save Maya or Japanifornia legal system will kill her.

Dad has gift. Mom has gift, but the cover is missing. Smite.

Everything a half-hour away in new place. Lame.

Like laundromat. Drying take 30 minutes. All other times hour. Hurrah!

Okay, bye.

I started watching Buffy again ... I'm really getting into Season Seven. I ... still don't hate Season Six, even though that's the right thing to do. But Season Seven is a little more "Must See Next Episode." I just finished watching episode 22.9 tonight.

The show makes me realize I also miss Angel very much -- he's always been my favorite character. I feel a little embarrassed to say that; it seems so "SQUEE!" fangirl-y. But to be honest, it was really Boreanaz's acting that got me (YES, his acting). Just by his body language you can tell if he's Angel or Angelus. And that episode where he's possessed by a female ghost and thus plays a woman and manages not to make it into a joke? <3 Best. Acting. Ever. Maybe I need to ask Mark if I can borrow his Angel DVDs after I move.

I've also (like, for the last couple of months), been reading these spin-off stories about previous slayers. Mostly meh, but there was one I liked a lot. Still have three to go (unless I want to get the other books in the series ... I dunno).

---
On anime ... I finished watching Midori Days aaaaand, well, given that I think I was being a good sport about, i.e. I watched it despite the premise, which is basically a long masturbation joke. I will also do with the other show 47nite gave me about a guy who up and goes to a girl's school to play out Marimite because his Dad tells him so. ... I still didn't like it. I DID like Rin, because she made me laugh a lot -- except when she encouraged a 10-year-old to try to seduce her brother ... then she was making me throw up. But, other than that, I really liked her and got stupidly happy whenever she appeared. She was loud and brash and occasionally stupid and always kind of an asshole, but not enough of an asshole to let her brother down. I loved, loved, loved the idea that she taught her brother how to fight. Speaking of whom, I also liked Seiji, because Seiji is basically Ichigo from Bleach in a romantic comedy. They are alike in looks, action and philosophy. And Ichigo is my favoritest male anime character ever and my second favorite male superhero. So I liked Seiji by proxy, and probably was more forgiving of when he acted like a jerk than I should have been.

Alas, the show was not called Me and My Stupid Fucking Cow of a Sister, which would have been an awesome show.

See, I'd recently been introduced to the idea of Bechel's Law via the blog of Karen Healey. I shall let her explain using quotes from here

A character in Bechdel's Dykes To Watch Out For states that she won't watch a movie unless:

- There is more than one women in it, and;
- they talk to each other, and;
- about something other than a man.

Looking over Midori Days...

1.) More than one woman
Let's see ... Rin, Ayase, Shiori, Big!Midori, Little!Midori (since I think they barely act alike I will henceforth be referring to them as two separate characters), Midori's Mom, Midori's friends ... hey, we're not doing too bad!

2.) Talk to each other
Hey, yeah! Rin talks with Midori. Rin talks with Shiori. Ayase has her friends, Midori has her friends ... although something seems off ...

3.) ... about something other than a man
Aw, damn. And you were doing so WELL.

I blame Little!Midori, for most of this, as her dialogue mostly follows these lines: "Seiji, Seiji, Seiji, Seiji, Seiji, Seiji, Seiji, Seiji, Seiji, Seiji, Seiji, Seiji, Seiji, Seiji, Seiji, Seiji, Seiji ... SEIJIIIIII! Does Seiji like me? Does Seiji think of me? I love you, Seiji. Am I useful to you, Seiji? SEIJIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII!!!"

Now ... I will admit it is the M.O. of teenagers, especially teenagers who've been infected with the stupid!disease, to obsess over a guy. And I would probably be a little more understanding of her obsession if she really should be thinking about more important things in life ... like, oh ... BEING ATTACHED TO A GUY'S MOTHERFUCKING HAND. But no, she's OKAY with that. No physiological trauma. She's with her SEIJI, all is well.

And yes, it's a fantasy. But so was Ranma 1/2, and all of THOSE characters had to deal with issues due to their changed bodies. And Seiji has to deal with having a girl for a hand. Little!Midori? Not really ... she seems to do fine.

The whole story is the male's story. Other than Rin, women really never get to do anything for themselves.

How this story dealt with the whole issue of sexual harassment really made me want to hurl. In two instances men have to "save" women from being victimized. Early on in the series, Seiji saves Ayase (who goes from being strong to a girl who gets caught by the head of the evil gant TWICE -- yeah, I get it was meant to show her strength was mostly bravado but TWICE?). Later on in the series, the Disgusting Otaku Toad Creature saves Midori-with-Seiji-on-her-hand from a guy who takes phone cam pictures of her panties in a dream sequence. Both of the girls are total victims in this situation. They get no revenge for themselves and are basically just damsels to be taken out of distress. Midori doesn't even really seem BOTHERED.

And yet what happens when Ayase and Little!Midori come into somewhat sexual situations with the GUY they like? Ayase later punches Seiji in the face for attempting to kiss her. And Little!Midori slaps Seiji silly whenever he sees her or she sees him naked accidentally.

So what's the message? Women can't fight when it matters, because they must be saved by men in dramatic scenes that prove how much of a hero the man is (except in the case of Disgusting Otaku Toad Creature, because that was a dream sequence and he's still Disgusting Otaku Toad Creature). However, women CAN fight back when it doesn't matter, because it's funny! Even when the Marin-lookalike fights back when she thinks she's about to be hurt ... well, it was really just Seiji and Disgusting Otaku Toad Creature was supposed to save so it's still FUNNY!

[long sigh]

Now, I will admit that this may be sort of turned around when Little!Midori helps save Seiji save Kota from the gang who just brutalized and sexually humiliated him. (Sheesh, aren't Japanese comedies NICE? The ugliness of life is so funny to Japan ... :-P) But ... well, if she wasn't so "THIS IS MY FAULT AS I AM INCONVENIENT TO HIM AND SEIJI ..." It would have been a bit better.

Also, would it have killed the writers to have SOME character similarity between Little!Midori and Big!Midori. Would a girl so painfully shy that she couldn't bring herself to talk to a guy normally suddenly open up and confess her feelings AFTER she's undergone a major physiological change AND the guy she's obsessed over sees her naked AND she's been shown to be a bit of a prude? I really, really do not buy it.

But I do have to admit ... during the last scene, when Big!Midori opened up to Seiji, overcoming all her fears and finally confessing to the guy she liked and found that this big, scary guy who she somehow loved anyway and would have loved to talked to but never felt she could liked her too ... I was really with the show. Because there is a nice wish fulfillment in there.

... Too bad the show wasn't anything like that.

---

Um, wow. I didn't expect that to be so long. I'm also watching Lucky Star, which is like Azumanga Daioh but requires extensive annotations for Americans so we can pretend to laugh along with the joke on a Japanese shampoo ad from the 70s. Yeah, the jokes on this show are obscure (They mentioned the freakin' 3DO console system ... I NEVER thought I would hear that name again.) But it's goofy enough that I like it anyway. Oddly enough, I think my favorite character is Kagami ... which doesn't really make any sense because she's such a stick-in-the-mud, but also trying to be sensible among all of the insanity around her and ... mmm ... okay, I understand myself better now.

I'm also wondering about the implications of having a otaku female character whose interests run very, very male. (She reads mostly shonen and hentai.) At first I was like, "They couldn't have tried to write for the girl audience?" but then I kind of chilled out and thought it was better this way. (Midori Days may have made me trigger-happy.) Konata would probably drive me crazy if I hung out with her -- maybe that's why I like Kagami so much -- but I can forgive a lot for uniqueness in a character.

Still, I wish she didn't introduce me to the concept of moe. That shit kind of skeeves me ... while providing me with inappropriate Stooge images.

Oh, and cyberweasel, with your "Why no Nintendo?" ... a character was playing the DS Phat in one episode.

Anyway, I'm six episodes into this one and still going strong and all. Maybe I'll watch one before bed.

---

I started reading Agnes Grey, because I had a dream about the Brontes and felt like it was fate, but I've been ending up reading from a collection of prize-winning newspaper stories instead. I don't really feel like I want to dedicate myself to a long thing right now, I guess.

---

I was going to write something about Judaism ... but I'm too tired now. Later.

It seems as I get older I'm going to be hit more and more with "You dumb TEENAGER!" moments when I watch anime and read manga. I'm not talking about Sailor Moon when I say this. Usagi acts like a moron, but she's also part of a coming-of-age story. It doesn't really matter that she starts out as a crybaby, she's SUPPOSED to become better than she is. So I can accept that and it's not what I'm talking about.

What I am talking about is just those moments where a teenager ... well, makes one of those dumb teenager decisions because that's what teenagers do ... because they're teenagers.

Momoko from Peach Girl threatens to throw herself out the window because Touji won't listen to her ...
You dumb teenager!

"You know, I think I'll just leave my Mom in the lurch because I'd rather be the hand of some guy I'd never spoken to and is kind of a jerk to me but I find him FASCINATING."
You DUMB teenager!

The whole of Fushigi Yugi: Eidoken (I'm talking about Mayo, here. Not Miaka.)
You DUMB, DUMB TEENAGER!

And no, I'm not saying it's not realistic ... it just makes me not so much in these girls' corners.

And, on't look smug about yourself, American comics fans. Much as I like her, Nico from Runaways is pretty much the quintessential dumb teenager.

Well, I fail hard. I had a goal to get my unread books under 50 and when I did I blew it and got a bunch more, plus three books on loan from my Dad.

Still, my books are at least getting read ... my irritating and difficult to use and I hate it poor, neglected DVDSpot ... which I totally need to put under the new name, languishes.

Here is all that I am not watching (or watching very slowly) and why:

Buffy the Vampire Season Six/Season Seven - I don't know what it is, but I'm just really not in a Buffy mood right now. Plus, I already know what happens at the end of Season Six and the episodes are 45 minutes long, which is a long time when you have clothes to iron and dishes to clean ... so no Buffy. Plus, I think skipping Season Five to go Season Six may have killed the momentum. Maybe I'll try again later.

His and Her Circumstances - I know if I had watched it at some earlier time in my life ... perhaps when I BOUGHT IT like a year or two ago, I would have been totally enthralled. But now I am ... not. It's probably me ... the time in my life this story tells about is unequivocally over. But I don't give a shit about Arima and Yukino anymore. Of course they're going to stay together and their relationship is going to progress at a snail's pace ... it's dull. The animation style isn't innovative so much as it is distracting. And I feel like there's something inherently wrong with a series when I'm starting to think that the lead character is kind of a dick (I mean, seriously ... how come the only way he can make the relationship progress is lashing out at her? That part where he threw her against the wall made me want to hurl.) but I think having the whiny pretty girl who's drawn as a globby-monster half the time and talks through her nose kicked the series up a bit. I'm actually pondering selling this, and if the lesbian ends up with the irritating ex-fat kid, this thing is SO going.

How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days - Well, I don't like this movie ... my brother got it me because he knew I liked the book but ... yeah, bad movie.

Kimagure Orange Road - [sigh] I thought this show was going to be a lot more deep ... like Strangers in Paradise but anime and without mobsters deep ... which isn't even all that deep but more compelling than this. Plus, this show features another male lead who is supposed to be a nice guy but is actually a dick with an entitlement complex. When he accused his sisters of being whores because they went to AN AEROBICS CLASS, he totally lost me. Still I like Madoka enough (and I paid enough for it) that I may continue.

The Marx Brothers Collection - Well, this I have been mostly watching. Two more movies to go. I didn't watch this as quickly as the Silver Screen Collection because that one lacked the boring-ass romance and insipid songs and freaking BALLET ROUTINES. (The totally-not best was At the Circus, in which the movie had TWO ROMANTIC SONGS before Groucho even showed up. At least it had "Lydia the Tattooed Lady" when he DID show up.) Still, two movies to go and I'll probably always watch parts of each of them ... albeit after fast-forwarding through the romance.

Noir - I think because I first got into the series with a free review copy of a late episode I don't really have the drama to keep me going ... plus, the series is long and hard to commit to, but I expect I'll finish it eventually when I find time to start again.

The Osbournes 2 1/2 - I own this for completions sake because it was cheap and don't care too much anymore ... maybe I'll watch it.

Serial Experiments Lain - Well, it's compelling ... but I do have to iron stuff ... and I will feel like I'll be sitting around staring into space for hours on end ... still, I want to see what happens ... maybe one day.

R.O.D. the TV - Um ... I'm sorry, 47nite, I'll work on it ...

The Slayers Try Collection - You know, I don't really have a good excuse ... I probably should get back to this ... yeah, it might have been a mistake to buy the last third of a series only but it would probably brighten my day.

A Star is Born - My excuse is I haven't had the time ... although I really should, especially since I learned that Dorothy Parker had a hand in the script ... how much, I wonder?

Random episodes of Vandred I got for Free, Some movies I bought aeons ago for a dollar - I don't care ...