But I stumbled upon a great new manga. It's actually a Korean "manwha" if you care for the difference, but the art is incredible and this is KUNG FU WIN. A little cliche, featuring a bullied school boy learning kung fu to stand up for himself, but the parallel story line about the various korean martial arts schools (mafia!) linked to the boy through his undercover teacher makes thing very interesting. Fanservice for men AND women, incredible! Most male characters are incredibly ripped and a lot of them are dressed in sharp, tailored suits. What more can a fangirl ask?

Unfortunately, The Breaker is only sporadically updated. There are, however, three volumes already translated!

And it makes me cry.

Colin Morgan as Merlin and Bradley James as Arthur are brilliant with a great chemistry. The actor who plays Uther and Angel Coulby as Gwen are no slouches either: I can BELIEVE in them. But beyond these four and the gorgeous scenery, the show has been disappointing so far.

It may be because I've read Malory's Arthur, studied life in the medieval times, and watched Lord of the Ring and Harry Potter, but the writers of this show are terrible. The number of plot holes and moments of cliche actions and words pain me. The poor character development and pacing don't help either. The clothes are another irritation--they are inaccurate, gaudy, and UGLY. Do the costume designers know that shiny indicates poor quality? Morgana looks like she's wearing synthetics all the time! I clutch my seat when I watch; not in joy beyond words, but in terrible disappointment.

Morgana's character is ILLOGICAL, underdeveloped, and COMPLETELY UNNECESSARY. Her smile scares me and besides needling Uther like a sissy girl in stupid sounding arguments, is that her sole role in the show? She looks like a gremlin! Gaius is a stereotype (Dumbledore's next great adventure is to be mentor to Merlin!) and only saved by the incredibly amusing facial expressions of the actor. The dragon needs to be put down. Actually, all the monsters do--I've seen smoother CGI work in the cheap, Chinese, kung-fu historical dramas my parents like to watch. And ss it just me or does Nimueh look a lot like that singer, Helen? She's LAME. The acting in her case is completely overdone and makes me cringe. Less is more in this villain's case and the actress is a huge case of FAIL.

Of course, I've only watched the episodes that nbc has aired, so my fingers (and toes) are crossed tight in hopes that the next episodes are better.

Ever since I watched the Star Trek movie, my fervor for Kirk/Spock has renewed itself and I have gained a new 'ship in Sulu and Chekov. I've devoured tons of fic and reread ST:TOS Kirk/Spock fic too. And a pattern has emerged.

McCoy, aka Bones plays matchmaker/yenta many, many times.

Sulu gets his man/saves the day when he stops being noble. His man being Chekov of course.

Spock is really, really funny. It's just a deadpan kind of humor.

Uhura is the scariest person on The Enterprise.

It's so wonderful! <333

So, in the interest of enticing future employers with my riveting personality and interests, I'm thinking of making another blog, but using my RL name and featuring my more philosophical thoughts. AKA, non-fangirl stuff.

I've heard that wordpress and blogspot are the two most popular, especially in terms of coding/layout customization. Which one should I get? Hm...

Also, I am furious that I cannot watch nbc Merlin due to my lack of television. I am ashamed because I have forgotten to call my dad and it's now 12:06. Damn.

For more information:
PICTURES:
here and here
NEW INFORMATION:
Here - near constant updates
Here - ONTD_political live post
ON TWITTER:
@StopAhmadi, @ProtesterHelp

krhgajenviorakg!!!! Key smash love! Up made me cry and the the characters were AWESOME! Was it just me, or was the "hippie who needs a shower" look a LOT like Mr. Smith? Hee, I was hoping, by some weird twist that he turns out to be Russell's father. From this movie, I will never look at geriatrics the same way again. Mr. Fredrickson (the main character?) kicked BUTT with his walker!

As for Star Trek. KIRK AND SPOCK FOREVER and whoever says otherwise, phooey to you! McCoy was beyond cool, but Uhura was nothing special--just the token female who didn't get enough screen time/development for me to really like. My goodness, through out the whole movie, I drooled over the Starfleet uniforms. They never looked this good on the original Star Trek actors!

God, that one scene where Spock and Kirk are standing in front of the cockpit of the red matter ship? They are so close and STARING DEEP INTO EACH OTHERS' EYES and the background was gorgeous and where can I get a great screenshot of that for my desktop?

Everything rocked (Sulu's RETRACTABLE SWORD OMG!) but the guns Spock and Kirk wield on Nero's ship really look like cheap plastic toys. And I like the original beaming better. Particle travel looks way cooler than the weird horizontal swirly they had going.

Now... Who can I slash with the incredible Christopher Pike?

Note--watch The Princess and the Frog, Fame, and maybe G-Force when they come out.

I'm tired. It's a very familiar state and unfortunately, I'm only going to hit exhausted before the day is over. After carefully putting away my flashdrive, the 4 gig one with all my class files in it, I quickly change into my uniform, grab my apron from the closet, and am out the door and running to the bus stop just in time to catch the 4 pm 56 to downtown.

Tonight, I'm lucky--the bus driver's not a newbie and I'm walking through Jack's service entrance five minutes before my six-hour shift begins. Jack's there, of course, a toothpick being chewed to splinters where a cigarette would've been three weeks ago. He grunts at me from his stove as I sign in one the beat-up old clipboard. "Cheryl's sick. Called in three hours ago from the hospital--got some kind of food poisoning. You get overtime pay for dinner rush."

The beginnings of a headache tingle, but I manage a smile, "Thanks boss. I'll handle it."

Therese comes through the kitchen doors, sliding three order forms onto the service station, "Oh, good, you're here." She tosses me the form pad, signs out and is gone before I can greet her.

Chris, the short order cook, dumps food onto two plates and deposits them next to two of the order slips, crossing out some of the items, "Hey man, two starters for tables three and six."

Tucking the pad of green paper into my apron, I grab a tray and take the orders out to the dining room. It's mostly empty, thank God. Only four of the ten tables are in use and Kyle, the bus boy, is occupying himself with the front windows. I deliver the fries with a minimum of fuss and head towards the tall redhead, "Hey Kyle?"

"Yeah?"

"Cheryl's not going to be here for dinner rush. Would you mind taking care of water requests?"

"Always do, don't I?"

I grin, "I know, but just to be sure."

"Yeah, don't sweat it. Just take the pitcher to my cart."

"Thanks."

The beginning of my shift passes with little trouble. One of the kids at table two spills his juice, but the mother's cool and tells me rather than wasting tons of paper towels trying to take care of what a quick swipe of a washcloth can clean up. Traffic starts to pick up around six and people waiting for sit down dining and to-go orders begin to build up in the waiting area. It's a good thing I'm good with my hands, for I often have bags on to-go hanging from my arms while trays full of appetizers are balanced on top.

Around eight, my worst nightmare shows up: Joseph Anderson and his demonic brood, ages eight to twelve.

Last final complete! Felt good about the 30% final, lucky if I get a C on the 25% paper. Oh, English! How I've neglected you for Design!

But--mwahahahahaha--I go home tomorrow! 24 more hours until I can taste my Mommy's delicious, delicious cooking again! I anticipate liek whoa for the last week or so, I've had nothing but ice cream, fruit, and frozen food. Very nutritious, yes?

School-wise, I'm home for a week (dentist appointment, oh noes!) and then back up for summer session. BUT! I've got a PAID teaching assistant job! It's for the same lower div des class I'm doing now, but for half the work and hours for another professor and PAID! If it's the same as last year, I'll be earning $11 per hour, 3 hours a day, 3 days a week. The brilliant thing? I was 3 MINUTES ahead of the other girl in e-mailing the professor of my interest. First come, first serve, BOOYAH!

In case you guys haven't realized, I am RIDICULOUSLY happy on having finished this VERY crappy quarter. NONE of my design projects have been satisfactory.

And if any of you might happen to have facebook profiles, there's this nifty little app game called Restaurant City that's an amazing cute flash thing you should totally check out. CUTE!

Yesterday, I was doing my laundry around midnight. When I went to take it out of the dryer, the dryer was empty and I went to sleep depressed and curious: why would anyone want to steal my spring wardrobe? Out on a limb--perhaps it was a mistake and they returned everything to the laundry room?--I returned there in the morning. And realized that some bastard or bitch had taken offense of my 5-minute-tardiness in taking out my clothes for everything was on the ground outside the window. There was dirt, pebbles, and a freaking SPIDER in my formerly clean laundry. All I cam hope is for karma.

On a similarly disheartening note, I have many, many deadlines next week. On Monday, I have a CSS/coding/internet protocol quiz, a short history paper, and a longer English paper due. On Wednesday, I have a history final, a web site redesign final project, and a huge English paper due. On Thursday, I have TWO huge design projects due. Let's see... That makes EIGHT deadlines in FOUR days. Kill me now?

On a more entertaining, completely unrelated note, I have gained a new 'ship! Hurrah for the awesomeness of Sulu/Chekov-love! Too bad I won't be able to really explore this pairing until after this week. T^T

Oh, and I was rejected from a job and club officer position these past few days too.

If you guys are anything like me, with parents who raised her with old Chinese classics, or just love awesome physical feats, check out this incredible Thai movie, Ong-Bak. It was painful listening to a language pretty much like Vietnamese (as in very shrill, high, whining tones that are as far from musical as linguistics can get), but the director. Man, the shots are INCREDIBLE. There's the inevitable slow-mo, but the main actor? He's the Thai version of Jet Li and Jacki Chan. He's the REAL DEAL. If you have access to a projector, try to rent this and watch it on as big as a screen as you can. I watched one of the most intense fight scenes where the hero and his skeezy side kick of a friend are chased through the streets by thugs on a lecture hall sized screen for my film history class and it was BREATH TAKING.

Easy peasy. Getting injected with the vicodin was what hurt the most. XD The dentist stabbed me almost 10 times! I was breathing so hard and deep through my nose, I was almost hyperventilating. When he and the assisstant left me to wait for the numbness to spread, my hands shook so much I had difficulty holding a pencil.

Then it was about 20 minutes to remove the teeth.

I was more shaken from the vicodin injections than the actual op! I went right to class afterwards, though I didn't really need too--nothing much happened today. I had to buy antibiotics and a supplement for it though, so there goes another $20. Today's liquid diet day, and then I eat non-lumpy soup tomorrow.

^_____________^ because the bleeding has stopped!

Thanks to mah sis and lilian_cho for the inquiries of my pretty hardy constitution. My professor was extremely surprised I showed up at all.

One of my wisdom teeth has been painful just recently, so today, I tried to schedule an appointment with an oral surgeon to remove it. First, I call my dentist, who is currently out of town for a convention, but the receptionist refers me to three others. I pick one and call them. Arrange an appointment. Call my dentist to get referral paperwork faxed and for insurance info. Call oral surgeon to confirm insurance--THEY DON'T TAKE IT! Why? My dentist wouldn't refer me to another who doesn't accept the same insurance! But in a panic, I call option #2 and arrange an appointment. In the middle of that, my phone beeps call waiting. I check voicemail--OH, NOW THEY ACCEPT IT.

At this point, I'm so terrified about doing this wrong, I call my mother and let her know. And she reams me a new one. WHY AM I CALLING DENTISTS TWO HOURS AWAY WHEN SURELY MY COLLEGE TOWN HAS SOME? Very ashamed, I hastily look up the two dentists in my area and call them. No luck--neither of them have appointments until NEXT MONTH.

I call my savior again and Mom remembers that the surgeon who removed her teeth said that they can't be removed when only halfway out--I'd have to wait until it comes out all the way. At this point, I'm near tears because it's already difficult to eat and the tooth constantly digs into my cheek. I think my Mom gave up on me, because she took over.

THEN Mom calls back and says I should be able to get the extraction and to try, explaining my situation more fully, to call the local dentist again. Success! Fortunately for me, there was a cancellation for this Thursday and while I'll have to skip my second class, I can make it. But the lady cautions me about cost, obviously figuring out my student status and while insurance will pay for 80%, I'll probably have to pay about $100 out of pocket, right after the surgery.

Cue Mom. Who tells me to call the home referral again for their estimate so we can compare.

But now, everything is A-OK! Tomorrow, the local dentist will get back to me on insurance coverage and if it's 100% like it should be, I'll cancel the hometown appointment and go to that one. Hopefully, I won't be missing too much of my 2nd class that day.

Because keleosnoonna can find the most AWESOME things and Japanese/Korean boy bands will do CRAZY things on game shows in the name of publicity.

Taking a little break off from rehauling my meager portfolio work, I updated myself on the Avatar casting discrimination.

There was a heart-felt, heartrendingly passionate post by artist Derek Kirk Kim. It was very long but well thought out. Another blog picked out what I thought were the two most significant points in Mr. Kim's argument.

I also followed links around to an online petition in the works and if you can't spare time to send an actual letter to the producers of Avatar, please sign it. There's only five thousand people right now (I was 5310) and I KNOW there are more of us concerned about this issue on the interwebs than that.

After the Dragonball debacle, which I am NEVER seeing because it cannot be any good at all, despite having Chow Yun Fat, attention should be drawn to Avatar. Especially as it's hitting the grass roots of EVERYTHING: children.

If it's the money, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon did absolutely amazing in American theaters and it was all in SUBTITLES!

Again from notalwaysright.com:

Fighting Fire With Fire

All-nighter, then at school from 8 am to 7 pm, from which I spent 9-11 running around town getting things printed and mounted for a final project. Came home and ordered Beijing Beef with Rice at local Quickly's.

Found a dead mini-cricket in the rice.

Whatever, I'm too tired and hungry to care. Om nom nom nom.

I am in LOVE with notalwaysright.com, since two of my past jobs involve the fast food industry and calling. As I'm working my way back through the archives, I come across the most PERFECT and most slashable anecdote EVER.

quote----------------->

(Note: I’m about five-seven, one-hundred forty pounds and work at a video game store. My best friend is a foot taller, and about a hundred pounds heavier.)

Me: “Thank you for calling ***, can I help you?”

Customer: “Uh yeah, I bought this stupid hockey-game, and I wanna return it ’cause I don’t like it.”

Me: “Well, I’m sorry sir, but you can’t simply return a game because you didn’t like it.”

Customer: “Uh… I mean, the game doesn’t work right.”

Me: “Sir, you just told me that you didn’t like the game, not that it was defective.”

Customer: *click*

(Thirty minutes later, I’ve just opened the store and my best friend stops by. The same customer storms in with a game.)

Customer: “Uh, yeah, I just called about thirty minutes ago, and some guy said I could get my money back because I didn’t like this game.”

Me: “Sir, the person you spoke to was me. I’ll tell you now, as I told you then, you can’t get a refund for a game if you don’t like it. Nor can you get an exchange.”

Customer: “Well, I’m just gonna have to come across the counter and kick your a**, you son of a b****!”

My friend: “Hey, really quick, could I get your name and if you have any severe allergies to pain-killers?”

Customer, to my friend: “Who the h*** are you, and what the h*** are you doing?!”

My friend: “I’m his wrestling and sparring partner, and I’m calling you an ambulance.”

(The customer leaves, quickly. And yes, my best friend is also my wrestling and sparring partner, for the past 3 years.)

-----------------/quote

I'm not the only one, right?

Thanks to danceswithgary, I now have a dreamwidth account too, though I have no clue what I'm going to do with it. DW has a lovely crossposting tool, but LJ doesn't.... Huh, I should probably post over there first then. But whatever. XD I go with the flow and hopefully, back stuff up somehow. Under the same name of course, because I have been animeartistjo for six years and can't change now.

Also, I love torrents. ;D

Got a bunch of m/m ebooks yesterday. The 5 I began to read are terrible and I'm afraid it's going to be a common theme: poor character development, nonsensical or sex-driven plot, and boring dialogue. Josh Lanyon's the best so far and the next best, a Psycop novel started rather abruptly. It had a great main character voice and established in an interesting alternate world to make up for the random relationship though. The other three--ARGH.

Anyone might have authors to rec? Please, please, please no bdsm-centric novels please. I've read one and it made me wince. Like bad fanfic it was.

Time spent on campus: 8 am to 9 pm.

Food eaten: three hard candies, a cinnamon-raisin bagel with pesto cream cheese, and six stale gummi bears.

Still to do: study for history midterm, grade several papers