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Well, I’ve switched comments from BlogBack to the new Blogger Comments. I don’t like the look of them as much, but I think they’re overall much better, as this way, people with popup blockers will still be able to comment, I’ll get email notification (which I love about LiveJournal), and comments won’t get deleted when their post is cycled off the main page. Handy!

So I just got back from seeing “Kill Bill 2” with Rachel and the first session of her summer goal of turning me into a Buffy fan. Both the movie and the two episodes Rachel showed me were wholly enjoyable! I miss hanging out with Rachel. Hopefully, this will happen more this summer!

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I promised them last night, then this morning, and now I deliver. Ashley, I’ll post those pics from the party at Chungy’s tomorrow. Am lazy. Hope this will tide you over. Troy and dinner at Chili’s!

Wow, I look really pretty here

Mimi and I as Athena and Andromache

Ashley and Alex, with Mimi’s garland

Ditto

Mimi is a poseur XD

YayMilkshakes

Sweet’N’Low in Diet Coke?

I blow muchas smoochies to Chungy

Rachel must remove her glasses and take down her hair to be photographed.

Aaron, Rachel’s brother

Alex is photogenic

Mimi stops stabbing Aaron to get a photo in…

…then promptly resumes said stabbage.

HAHAHAHAHA

Chungy is teh Asian!!!1!

So yay, we are happy!

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Go here. Click “News.” Click “The Score From Troy.” Listen. Apparently this score was ditched for being “too classical sounding.” WHA? It’s Anicent Greece, how classical do you want? And it’s so much better than the score they ended up using. For shame.

Edit: ENDCREDITSGUH

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*gasp*

So did anyone else notice JKR said “Sirius’ eyes are grey” in the present tense?

Bah, it’s getting harder and harder to be rational and accept said bucket-kicking. Ah, the trials of fandom.

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AND GINEVRA IS A GERMAN EQUIVALENT OF “GUINEVERE!” I WIN!!! (of course, there’s also the issue of Ginevra di Benci, subject of a painting by Leonardo, and also the Italian word for juniper, a principal component of Gin. *sigh*)

So yeah. “Guinevere.” From the Welsh “Gwenhwyfar,” which comes from two words that mean white/shining/Holy and cloud/phantom/shadow/smooth (from here.) And in Welsh legend, she was a shape-changer. Do we have an animagus in our future? And Juniper, in herb lore, is used for purification. So we have Lily symbolizing purity and now Juniper. Oh, JKR, no you di-int. This is too easy.

So I just read the sample page of an early draft of Philosopher’s Stone, in JKR’s nearly impenetrable handwriting. I think I’ve gone blind. (To see it for yourself, dial the correct number into the phone. Hint: Think OoP.)

And HOLY COW I AM AWESOME. Back when I was writing my miserable excuse for a prequel fic, I blindly guessed that Dean Thomas’ dad had been a wizard and that the girl with the “heavy-lidded eyes” was Sirius’ sister turned evil. And I had in my notes a mention of a “Frank Longbottom”… was that revealled in Book 4, or am I just that scary? No, it must have been canon. I never would have named him “Frank.” (::checks:: Yeah, canon. Okay, now I can breathe.)

And hmm… “Mopsy the Dog-Lover” as Sirius’ part-time “owner.” Gah, I got so excited at this originally, because Mopsy is the name of one of the rabbits from Beatrix Potter’s “The Tale of Peter Rabbit,” but I confused this for a split second with “The Tales of Uncle Remus: The Adventures of Brer Rabbit.”

Theirloveissodistantlylinkedthroughchildrensliterature.

Question of the Day: Why reuse the name “Mafalda?”

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So apparently JKR’s new website reveals that Ginny’s full name is Ginevra.

So… yeah.

The WIAN nut in me is now destroying entire cityblocks in a frenzied rage.

Edit: Wait! No, there could be something here! Forget Arthurian theories or the line of English monarchs! “Ginevra” is the Italian name for Geneva, in Switzerland. Geneva, Geneva… Geneva Convention? Hmm, I shall ponder this some more.

(Or, you know, it could always be a reference to the character in Bite Me.)

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I just cancelled the espressoferrets.com domain. Just so you know. If you have any files hosted that you want to keep, retrieve them now!

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Whee! Saw Troy, which was fairly godawful as predicted, but still crazy fun, as it provided unpreceedented volumes of substance for mockery. And with boring special effects-heavy and/or epic movies, it’s fun to play “So is that CG, a matte painting, or a miniature?,” so I stayed entertained. I did this for parts of Van Helsing, too. :D

So, um. Spoilers.

Things that were obnoxious:

  • Gods, what gods?

  • Cassandra? Who?

  • The Iliad? Was that what we’re basing this movie on? Guh, I haven’t even read the poem and I was wincing. Dude, this wasn’t Troy, it was Achilles: The Movie!

  • Menelaeus killed? Wha?

  • Ten years? Huh?

  • The most godawful day-for-night since Nosferatu.

  • It violated the “hate” rule. Near the beginning of the movie, Agamemnon says something like “Of all the men favored by the gods, I hate him the most,” yet I’ve observed that in nearly all movies in which one character says they hate another character, we’re supposed to like the object of the “hate”. For example, Jurassic Park’s John Hammond says of Ian Malcom “I really really hate that man.” Yet Brad Pitt’s Achilles is entirely unlikeable. I thought of other examples in the theatre as I sat, bored in the first five minutes of action, but I can’t remember at the moment.

  • Gratuitous skin shots. It’s like “let’s see how much of Brad Pitt and Orlando Bloom we can show without actually showing their genitals!” I really didn’t need to see that.

  • Delayed acknowledgement of Andromache. I’ve always felt that in big battle movies and such, if someone’s name isn’t said, then they’re not important enough to be recognized as a character. The scenes with Hector, Andromache, and Astynax came off as flat, because Hector wasn’t granting Andromache and Astynax character recognition. Andromache’s name wasn’t said until the very end, and Astynax’s name was never said at all.

  • PICK. A. SIDE. Are we supposed to be happy or sad that Troy has fallen?

  • Um… is it just me or is the music for the sack of Troy the EXACT SAME MUSIC as Haldir’s death?

    Things that were neat:

  • The CG wasn’t painfully bad. It was actually quite nice.

  • They pronounced “Andromache” right! I wonder if they consulted the same UPenn source we did… UPenn is quite an authority in that area.

  • HAHAHAHAHA Aneas is such a dork!

  • The men are so hairless! This is very funny.

  • Mum says Brad Pitt said in an interview that he thinks this movie will make guys-in-skirts trendy. That would be so wonderful. I wish that were possible. The world needs more kilts, while we’re at it.

  • Did anyone else see the name “Hermione” on the map at the beginning? Yeah, I laughed. In fact, one of Helen’s daughters with Menelaeus is named Hermione. Of course, JKR named her after the Hermione in Shakespeare’s “A Winter’s Tale,” but it was still keen.

    I’ll post pics from dinner tonight (and all the others Chungy and Ashley requested) tomorrow morning. Msleepy. Oh– and Mimi, here is Tanja’s “The Iliad: The Anime” that I was giggling over at dinner.

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    I just realized how hilarious my trip to New York with Rebecca and Tanja is going to be, regarding the time change. I live in Dallas, aka GMT-6. New York is GMT-5. Rebecca lives in Alaska, which is GMT-9. Tanja lives in Sweden, which is GMT+1. One girl will be 4 hours off in one direction, and the other will be 6 hours off in the other. I will be laughing at them.