Or else I might be like, crying pathetically in front of my computer or something. Instead of posting this picture!!




( oh and this one )

Never done it in real life, but occasionally I will find someone's really interesting LJ and read it, even if it's about personal/private things. Then I feel too guilty and stalkerish to friend them or anything because it would be weird and I'd know all their personal issues.

I have no idea if anyone else does this. LJ etiquette still confounds me for the most part.

I watched True Blood. Um, it's pretty good, I guess. A seven, maybe?

I don't know, I got tired of the "all conservatives are ignorant, closet homosexual bigots" thing after the first couple of times it happened on the show. (Actually, I got tired of it after the 35 000 times I saw on other shows.) I mean, I have it on good account that no more than 40% of conservatives are ignorant, closeted homosexual bigots.

I guess I will keep watching this season just in case Terry gets a bigger role.
 

I blame television, personally. Shows being between seasons means less inspiration for hot TV people posts, which sometimes actually have dudes in them. I guess I could go and look for something with the three or so actors I'm interested in, but I don't know, I’m just not feeling inspired with the fictional heterosexuality right now.

Any suggestions?

In the meantime, here is more lack of hetero:



I mean, god damn. LOOK AT HER BEING ALL TINY AND ADORABLE AND IN A FLIGHT SUIT. GOD.

Until then, from Ace of Spades:

But now I really need some cheering up.

So... pictures!


( Here there be women. )

So, I was recommended a movie after begging around for Japanese horror movies to watch and kid myself I was studying. I went in knowing absolutely nothing about it apart from what I could deduce from its cover:

I assumed it would be the typical Japanese horror movie, which apart from the obvious cultural differences when it comes to the bad guys, is not too dissimilar to the typical Western horror movie (except maybe that Japanese ones tend to focus on characters that are twenty-somethings, rather than teenagers being played by twenty-somethings.)

It's not typical. It's... well. I don't have an adjective. I am lost for adjectives.

I guess all I can say is that it was my kind of movie. I don't like overly serious horror. In any 'dark' genre, I think the creator has to be careful to balance out that darkness somehow. Any hack with psychiatric issues can wallow in pain and angst; creating something more well-roundedly effective is what's rare. (I will probably write more about this later with reference to Tarantino movies.) In a genre as dark as horror (blood! death! screaming!), comedy can be a good way of doing this.

Which is why I like and appreciate, say, Return of the Living Dead over its alternate sequels, Day of the Dead or Dawn of the Dead. The mix of humor in ROTLD somehow heightens the emotion and gets the viewer more involved, rather than canceling out the horror element, as one might expect. The comedy often actually makes the horror part more scary - for me, anyway. The balance means that there's less of that uncomfortable distance that you can get with the 'I'm watching a psychopath's fantasy on screen'-style horror movie.

And Hausu was another great example of this, the comedy element being even stronger than in ROTLD. I didn't get that 'psychopath' feeling at all in Hausu. I got raw, innocent, artistic expression and it was damn interesting. (And there was at least one scene that pretty much scarred me for life. But in a good way.)

If you have even the slightest interest in Japanese horror, you should see this movie. If you are very interested in the horror genre, or in Japan in general, I strongly recommend that you see this movie. If I had a friend that was in a tragic car accident that wiped out all his memories of Japan and of anything vaguely related to Japan, and he asked me "Hey, what's the deal with Japan?" I would make him sit down and watch this movie. And at the end he would nod and say "I see."


(Note: If you do ever decide to watch Hausu, I recommend obtaining it without watching the trailer beforehand. I was going to link it here, but it's one of those annoying trailers that basically ruins all the good bits. The less you know about this movie going in, the better.)

I also found this interesting t-shirt.

Although to be honest, I don't think the uniform she is wearing is all that accurate. 

YAY I AM ON THE FRONT PAGE OF CRACKED.

On a related note: last night I said to myself: "Self, I feel like reading. I think I will read this informative book on the influence of the Babylonian exile on Jewish creation myths." Of course, I then put aside the book and started reading Midnight Sun instead.

What kept it amusing for the 50 pages I got through was a) Jasper and b) keeping a mental tally of every time Stephenie Meyer uses the word 'chagrin'.


CURRENT CHAGRIN COUNT: 3

I think I will start writing Twilight fanfiction.

Supernatural is out because it doesn't have any female characters.

What kind of situation are we talking about here? Day to day interaction? Limited seats on a lifeboat? One place left on your spaceship when the planet is being nuked by Cylons? I NEED MORE INFORMATION HERE, PEOPLE.

PICSPAM!!!!

...um, the usual 'hetero' aspect has been modified. But with good cause!



( Today's theme is under the cut to avoid BSG finale spoilers! I am the king of spoiler politeness! See if you can guess it! )

At this week's translation theory class, the class using the room before us had ran over time a bit and there were still people in the room. When me and my classmates filed in, the woman who had been teaching that class thought I was the new teacher and referred to me as such.



...anyway. I am really just attending the course for the hell of it at this point, because I can't finish the school year here and so will probably end up taking the translation qualification test in about a month or so. I filled in the forms yesterday, and there was a big note about how everyone overestimates their language ability and that only 20% of applicants actually qualify. I've been doing practice tests and coming out pretty much borderline so far. The worst part is that NAATI won't let you bring a computer into the exam. Um. Yeah, I have enough trouble writing simple English sentences legibly, let alone translating three-line running sentences where the verb comes at the end.

On the plus side, at least I can watch Japanese horror movies and call it studying. I started watching Kairo the other night then realized I was alone in a big house and stopped. I will try again when I'm back at my place and I have a kitty to use as a decoy if anything evil attacks distract me.

I don't know if we had this lady before, actually. But I'm staying at my sister's place and she's all I've got on my laptop.

Meanwhile, the poor neighbors are asking "Why did the young girl in that apartment suddenly change from playing trance music every night to playing country? What has happened?"

Um. Well, let's just say if you ever want an exorcism done and need someone to provide the linguistic element, I'm the person to go to.

I could even probably help you with Japanese exorcisms as well, but I'd charge extra for that because Japanese spirits are fucking scary.