despereaux, the spirit, and doubt among other things

well i'm still slacking on the blogging even though i've been on christmas break...family and whatnot is obviously my primary concern compared to that of the internet world...just ask pyper...she hasn't really been played for several months now...we're not going to rehash that awful raid before christmas, i just have to let it go...anywho back to what everyone's here for...

tale of despereaux - 8/10 snaps - wonderful. lots of really great actors in this one as well...example: besides mattthew broderick there was christopher lloyd, dustin hoffman, and emma watson [hermione]. i really enjoyed the different art style. i do NOT suggest it for younger children. i'd guess ages 8 and up maybe. there's a bit of a backstabbing story here even though it resolves itself. i intend to eventually read the book although i also intended to do that for the golden compass but i kept falling asleep reading it [not a good thing for a book mind you]....je t'adore regardless...

doubt - 6.5/10 snaps - spoilers ahead...stop reading if you're planning on viewing...you've been warned. eh. the acting was FANTASTIC. i can't make it bigger than caps although it really needs more. however the movie was not so much...i pretty much figured going in that we wouldn't get the answer to whether or not the priest was abusing the boy which is exactly what happens but i did expect a little more insight so here's what we figured went down. apparently the priest was gay and possibly the boy as well. therefore the priest was the only one that understood the boy but they did end up ousting the priest even though he became the head of another school...i enjoyed the film and it was a bit different from what we normally peruse. meryl streep's performance and amy adam's are pretty unforgettable.

the spirit - 9/10 snaps - HILARIOUS!!! again with the caps right? if you're not a sin city fan not to fret. this film is nothing like it whatsoever. there's still a black/white/color bit going on but it really doesn't affect the film at all to tell you the truth. i cannot recall which scenes were in color and which ones weren't. spoilers ahead. consider yourself warned. i do remember the tie being red and the shoes being white but that's seriously it for me on the color front. i LOVED the names of the women as they were all hilarious...silken floss, sand saref, plaster of paris, etc. scarlett johansson was by far my favorite charachter as silken floss. i really suggest going to see this film. you have to have that insatiable comic bookish appetite on top of a great sense of humor but i really enjoyed this one. i laughed an awful lot. good film. definitely worth a rental if not a trip to the theater.

in other news i received way too much for christmas and all the gifts are lovely. i've received many dvds, video games, and a food processor among other things. i appreciate everything given to me and the fantastic people who gave me those gifts. i'll have to post a pic of the pwnies shirt at some point because it is oh so AWESOME. i really enjoy the holidays and had a fantabulous time with my family and sean's family. i'd like to add a little more about sean's family's christmas but i'm not sure who all reads this so if you want to know - send an e-mail and i'll fill you in - otherwise you're in the dark for now.

i'm off today and tomorrow. woot - part of my christmas break - next week is included, thank god! anywho...have a great day and i hope your holidays were as fruitful as mine.

happy new year!

enjoy the silence...

madagascar 2 and more life

sorry it's been a while and as normal i'm behind on posting. i really haven't had much time to see movies lately or do much of anything to tell you the truth what with finals week and lab finals week, things were just piling up left and right.

madagascar 2 - 8/10 snaps - i enjoyed it more than the first one. very humorous. definitely worth a dvd rental if not a trip to the cinema if it's still playing anywhere...

i thought about bolt a bit more and realize that i felt like i watched toy story all over again but with animals. if you've seen it maybe you can let me know if you felt the same, not that it's really a bad thing, just i'm sure they could've made it a bit more original had disney given it a shot. i'm really looking forward to several movies that are coming out such as harry potter, monsters vs. aliens, desperaux, the spirit, marley & me [as long as they don't ruin the book too incredibly much], amusement, the unborn, star trek [even though i'm not an uber fan], x-men origins: wolverine, alice in wonderland [granted it is set to release in 2010] and even bride wars looks like a fun time...we're definitely going to have a hard time finding the actual physical time to go to these films, at least the most recent onces coming out, but i'm sure we'll work it out somehow. where there's a will there's a way right?

in other more exciting news i got my actual diamond engagement ring which is gorgeous...mad props to sean [love you :*]. and somewhere in there i turned 27. sheesh closer and closer to 30. anywho i'm still loving school although the toll school, teaching, and work is taking is a bit stressful. nevertheless hopefully i've got at least a coupla days of vacation squished into christmas break somewhere. i promised dr. presberg i'd babysit her kids sometime during the break and i don't yet have dates plus i'm holding these make-up exams for biol 301: ecology & evolution. i may or may not be teaching next semester. they're just not exactly sure what they want me to do yet. if i teach i think it will either be biol 102: general bio for science majors again or biol 460: physiology which could prove to be interesting but thoroughly time consuming. i'm taking a unix/linus comp sci course, evolutionary biology, and graduate grant writing/intro to being a phd student course.

sean and i took eros and rukia to get their shots yesterday at one of the vet mobile places and that went pretty well considering it was dark and raining at the time. rukia was a bit nervous but eros just wanted to make friends and sniff everyone's butts. fun times were had and they're both completely inoculated for a whole $28.00. i'm trying to convince sean that both i and the cats need a bunny for christmas but i doubt that's really happening as he has some sort of aversion to rabbits. not like i need a rabbit but i think it would be fun to stir up the current mix of 3 dogs versus the 3 cats.

frostfell is in full effect in eq2 which is wonderful. we completed the heroic quest last night with my mom and dad and everyone got their most excellent fighting baby dragon plushie to put in their house. i spent 25 of the frost coins on the sleeping baby dragon plushie as well. it's so freaking cute! OH I ALMOST FORGOT that i FINALLY have my unicorn mount that i worked 25 hours tradeskilling in game to achieve. he is a most fantastic mount and i've only seen one other person riding one around. i was hoping for the discovery but i did get started on the expansion tradeskilling a bit post release as school/work is of more importance. i did get the discovery on the provisioner book however which made me a happy camper. now i can make some awesome berry charms but only god knows where you find the berries to make it with as they're selling on the broker for 20 some odd plat and i'm not paying that price for 3 to make one item only for a possible server-wide disco.

i'll have to post some pics of the dragon plushies and my unicorn mount. i don't have any great ones yet but i'll work on it. anywho i need to get to editing a website that should have been fixed before now but there's been this shortage of time everywhere.

have a fantastic day/week/month and enjoy the silence...

bolt and all sorts of fun

well let's start out smoothly...

bolt - 8.5/10 snaps - do NOT go see this film in 3d. i did and actually saw maybe two or three bits of the film that were in 3d. a great family film. a definite go see for any pet lover. sean and i both had a fantastic time.

hmm what else. the whole family went to biltmore. search it up if you're not aware of the biltmore phenomenon. biltmore is a castle in nc. it's a castle that's still available for everyone to enjoy. sean and i went on the horseback tour which was so totally excellent! we start out on the ride and the trail guide [ryan] told sean that roman [his horse] was a big fan of chomping grass and if roman decided to graze then sean should yank on the reins and give him a swift kick. well sure enough, 10 mins away from the barn, roman gives grazing a damn good shot. sean yanks up the reins and gives roman a kick to find out that he has magically BROKEN the reins. impressive to say the least. anywho, so then we ride back to the barn where we get a new bridle for sean's horse and begin again on our way. we have a fantastic time and end up in a surrealistic area at some point. we're riding around and there's a small meadow in the middle of these woods. we look at the meadow as we're riding up and notice that there are two deer grazing. how freaking awesome! anywho the deer decide to let us continue on and ignore us as we continue our ride back to the barn.

we've got several pics i'll have to post so that everyone can see what a great time we had!

for now...as always...

enjoy the silence...

role models, max payne, saw v, and life

well as is obvious i'm limited on time and haven't been able to post too incredibly much.

movies worth going to the theaters: role models - 9/10 snaps. hilarious. we're going to make shirts. that's how funny it was. i think you'll enjoy it more if you're of the gaming, d&d, classic rock persuasion.

max payne - 6.5/10 snaps. was a lot more impressive than i thought going in. had a constantine-ish feel but unlike constantine max is apparently high most of the time. doesn't quite follow the game storyline but was entertaining nonetheless.

movies that can wait for video/dvd [do they even make video anymore?] or that are already on dvd: saw v - 5.5/10 snaps. if, as i was informed at the box office, this is part of a series of 8 films, then it reminds me a bit of saw iii which was kinda crummy until you viewed saw iv. let's hope they were telling the truth. there were a lot of questions answered about the others if you're a fan of the films.

madagascar [the first one] - 7/10 snaps. was really quite funny. the penguins were hilarious. lots of references to older stuff that kids would never get so the movie isn't a waste for adults. was a tad bit short for my taste but how long do kids' attention spans last these days anywho?

everquest 2's new expansion came out this week so can anyone guess what we've been doing? the shadow odyssey seems pretty cool but we're quest addicts so since i've personally been maxxed on achievement for about 8 months now we're hitting the rise of kunark zones and finishing up all those quests we refused to do when we hit the max.

sean and i dressed up as hogwarts' students for halloween. we went all out. i'll have to post a picture at some point. oh and obviously we were from the gryffindor house. duh...

teaching the last of my labs for the semester this week. this lab is actually quite fun as we're looking at the effects of alcohol on water fleas and checking out some fresh pig organs. all we have left is the practical the week after thanksgiving. i think i'll miss my students but i suppose next semester i get all new ones...

registered for my courses next semester. taking a unix/linux comp sci course, evolutionary biology, and a grant writing course. i think next semester looks like fun. anywho i'm off to school for the day. have a great one everybody!

enjoy the silence.

biology revisited

if you're of the adult persuasion and enjoy those evil, gross, disturbing things in life then i suggest some reiko.

enjoy the silence.

we cleared protector's realm!

that's right ladies and gentlemen...our measly casual raid force cleared protector's realm last night! huzzah! this was the first night we were able to get past doomcoil [evil mechanical snake of doom - hence the name] and we even managed to finish off the last two encounters which was awesome because i got my first mythical update. i know this means little to nothing to those of you who don't play eq2. let's just say we've come a really long way from running courts. i'm just very excited. also in other eq2 news knights of the shadow dragon now has a guild hall. complete with giant baby dragon of course! anywho i'm off to work my arse off for a guild harvest box and to grade some more biodiversity reports. have a great day everyone.

enjoy the silence!

quarantine and other stuff that has absolutely nothing to do with the movies

good afternoon. i'm not going to apologize anymore as i've already explained that i'm so freaking busy i can't see straight so we'll just get started with the review and move on from there.

quarantine - 8/10 snaps - i was thoroughly impressed with the film, i expected a lot less than what i ended up with. i hate the jumpy camera films [blair witch, cloverfield, etc] but this one didn't make me so motion sick so yay! i think i may like this just a tad bit more than others due to my veterinary science background. when you see the movie you'll understand. i just like being able to figure things out and i especially enjoy turning to sean and going oh but this won't work because in real life you can only do it this way THEN having the character on screen say the same thing verbatim. huzzah for knowledge! anywho. also the film has marin hinkle in it who plays judith in two and a half men which is one of my favorite tv shows. all the actors did really well for a horror. like any other suspense/horror film they make lots of dumb mistakes where you sit there going uh maybe we should barricade ourselves in one room and wait this out or maybe we shouldn't go near that person who bit five other people...for this one, go see it if you like horror/suspense. you can wait for the dvd but i think it'll be much more fun on the big screen. i jumped an awful lot.

other stuff that has absolutely nothing to do with the movies...warning: rant to follow...

/rant_on

i saw a billboard this week that was completely in spanish on jarvis klapman boulevard in west columbia, south carolina. first off, i have absolutely no problem with people immigrating to this country. i just expect them to learn the damn language. it really pisses me off that you can move here and speak spanish and never have to learn english. i don't want to have to learn spanish in an english speaking country so that i can understand a billboard. if i moved to mexico, i would expect that i would have to learn spanish. if i moved to france, i would expect that i would have to learn french. i know lots of people from india and china that live here and THEY have to learn the language. why should it be different for mexicans? proximity? what a load of crap...

it also annoys me that our government wastes tax dollars on putting something in another language for people who moved here who should in my opinion have to learn the language. oh wait you say. the government didn't put up the billboard did they? au contraire [my tiny bit of french in my rant heehee]. the billboard is for a type of medicaid [first choice] which is a government funded insurance policy for people that are well below the poverty line [i only know this because i'm in the health insurance field]. so not only was the billboard put up by our government but it's also offering people who immigrated here health care out of tax payer money. i have an issue with this as well. i work hard and have not had insurance for 4 years because i worked. if i had stayed at home and not made money and not paid taxes i would have qualified for medicaid but my measly paycheck was too much for me to qualify for medicaid yet not enough for me to be able to pay the approximately $150/200 per month for private health insurance. my job just didn't offer any plans [they still don't] and i couldn't find another one that paid as well that did offer benefits. i am finally working two jobs and paying for the mandated student health insurance at usc so that i can teach there yet they won't even file it from their health center [which is also a load of crap as the health insurance requires you to use the health center first before they will even pay for any outside appts so the least they could do is file the claims]. so as i'm sure you can see i'm a bit irked. so here's my outlet in my blog as there really isn't much else i can do except try to evade taxes and end up in prison. sounds like fun [heavy sarcasm]...

anywho. /rant_off

back to work.

enjoy the silence.

eagle eye igor

hello everyone. long time no see. i'm loving life right now but it's insanely busy with teaching, my own studies/research, and working at vista so i'm a bit preoccupied lately. i've actually been on eq2 3 days in the past 7 which is pretty impressive considering my current time constraints. i've found that even though my backpack weighs 25lbs with my laptop in it [oh we've weighed it just to see how hefty it is] that i really should haul it to school everyday because if i have extra time and if i'm caught up on grading i can actually get some writs done for the guild while i'm waiting betwixt classes plus then i get a tad bit of my game fix releasing those oh so necessary to function endorphins. let's get on to the movies. they're both receiving the same score this week.

igor - 5.5/10 snaps - it's funny for us older kids/adults but not as laughable as the emperor's new groove. and if you don't find the emperor's new groove the brightest ray of sunshine on any otherwise cloudy day then i'm very very sorry for you. but cute film even though the ending is obvious from the beginning and the town's king is a direct rip off for the mayor from nightmare before christmas. just in case you missed it before this movie is a tad bit above your average kid's head. we'll quote a woman i saw coming out of the movie with her daughter. woman's blonde offspring, "igor was funny." woman, "i'm pretty sure i got a lot more out of it than you did." eh it made me laugh. if i were you i'd wait till it came out on dvd but would definitely check it out once it did.

eagle eye - 5.5/10 snaps - granted i knew going into this movie what was causing jerry shaw and his accomplice and the however many other people in the film involved to do what they were doing and that kinda jaded me so maybe my score is a bit low but it's one of those leave your brain at the door films and you can enjoy it. the action was exciting. i enjoyed shia labeouf [even though every time i hear his name pronounced it's a completely new experience], michelle monaghan, and billy bob thornton's acting jobs. they were pretty flawless. there's just a lot of moments where you go there's no way in hell this would work out that way but i guess a large sum of movies are like this and i shouldn't be giving this one such a hard time. i do love jurassic park but who sees that happening in reality anytime soon right? if you need an action fix go for it in theaters, otherwise wait for the dvd.

speaking of dvds go pick up iron man this week. i mean it. there's no hesitating here. robert downey jr killed this film. it is FANFREAKINGTASTIC! so again go buy it. i think it's available in around 1.2 hours.

anywho life is good. aurora gets her last heartworm treatments this week and hopefully that's cleared out all of the little bloodsucking fiends. you better bet i've shelled out the money to get everyone else tested and all sorts of treatment.

i hope everyone has a great week.

enjoy the silence.

snake porn

well i originally thought about entertaining you with the story regarding the title of today's blog but i've decided it'll prolly just be better for you to make up a more interesting one all on your own. this was all started by sean finding a baby snake outside our house this am and our capturing it in our attempt to identify it to make sure it was safe to leave outside. we're thinking it's an eastern hognose snake but aren't completely positive. i've decided to call him hamlet since he has the word hog in his name and i'm assuming he's a he, i'll prolly never really know. and as i'm sure you all guessed we went to see burn after reading this weekend with my folks.

burn after reading - 9/10 snaps - 3 words. ha ha ha. i've come to the realization that actors WANT to make movies with the coen brothers because it looks like they have a great time doing such. i suggest going to see it if you have that sarcastic sense of humor required for the coen films. actually i suggest going to see it just to see what george clooney creates in the film. oh i'm hardly able to type i'm laughing so hard. i have to finish downloading no country for old men cause i still have yet to see it /gasp!

eh besides that everything seems to be going well. coming down with another throat sickness but maybe i've squished it already by downing half a gallon of oj yesterday. i'm well enough to work so i'm not too worried about it. i'm going to guess i'm getting it from all these students who keep telling me they are ill. then don't come to class! heehee. i'm loving teaching and getting back into the groove of class. just wish i had some more time for gaming. spore has been great fun. i only have one creature that i came up with and made sean design for me that looks like a cross between a squirrel and mr. snuffleupagus [yes i looked it up for correct spelling]. then we played a little bit at my aunt's house and came up with another creature called the johnavore [ha ha aren't we creative - my brother's name {johnathon} mixed with the word carnivore] that looks like some kinda mosquito with two really tall legs. if you need a spore friend send me your name. mine's nightpyper and sean's is gonei95. sean's on the space stage, i'm about to start the civilian stage [i told you i haven't had time for gaming] plus i want to start back up on knocking out the bleach game on the wii. unfortunately i'm at the stage where i have to play as hanataro yamada and i just think that's going to end badly several times over as he's a healer in the anime, not quite that great a fighter. anywho, back to the daily grind!

enjoy the silence.

hamlet 2 and mirrors

i've gotten back into listening to avril lavigne recently. i think it's because i find it really fun to sing along with, 'i can hardly breathe, you make me want to scream.' anywho. i finally got the chance to go see mirrors last sunday. huzzah!

mirrors - 6.5/10 snaps - there's a little bit in mirrors that's your normal 'this would never happen horror movie jazz' but all in all i enjoyed it a LOT. you do have to take into consideration that i already have a somewhat odd fear of mirrors to begin with but i still think keifer knows better than to sign up for crappy movies so i think others will find this a good film as well. sean started bitching near the end of the film about how it had taken a turn where everything was crap but then the movie redeemed itself [surprising sean] and we'll leave it at that so that you have to go see it if you're interested in knowing anything about the ending. however, i will tell you they killed off amy smart insanely early in the film and i was thoroughly excited to not have a main character make it through to the end of the movie. not to mention they did a really good job on the cg of her death.

hamlet 2 - 7/10 snaps - i thought i would hate this movie. it was a lot funnier and a lot more engaging that i had hoped plus it wasn't nearly as sacrilegious as i had pictured. lots of interesting actors in this one as well...

nothing really stellar about either film. go see them if you're thoroughly interested in either, otherwise wait till they're out on dvd. they're definitely both worth a rent.

in other huge news...sean and i got engaged! the excitement! don't ask about the date cause there isn't one and i'm not getting married until i'm 70lbs thinner. if you'd like to support the quick method of april getting lypo then please e-mail me and we'll discuss where you can send the funds. just kidding. i do find it hilarious that we told our raiding crew in eq2 about it last saturday night and two DIAMOND rods dropped in the shard of hate raid that we were in. coincidence? i think not.

well break time's over so back to work.

enjoy the silence.

babylon ad, death race, postal, and the rocker

oh my here we go. these will be brief as, like always, i am pressed for time so here goes.

babylon ad - 4.5/10 snaps - this movie lost 2 snaps just for the ending so this one's going to have some spoilers. you have been forewarned. i enjoy vin diesel films. not only is he good looking but like bruce willis and kurt russell he tends to look fantastic even when mangled up a bit. his job was to put on the normal diesel tough guy and he does it well. melanie tierry, michelle yeoh, and the rest of the cast also put in great performances. the action scenes in this movie are fun. everything keeps you pretty interested until about the last 30 minutes of the film where apparently mathieu kassovitz [director/screenplay writer] lost his mind. i can deal with the fact that the main character aurora is supposedly this cross of genetically modified organism with artificial intelligence [which they elude to quite bluntly with the "extinct in this era" siberian tigers that are 2nd generation clones], i can deal with the post-apocalyptic earth and everyone fending for themselves, i can see how putting everything on an evil religion made sense to help explain away any reasoning, i can even almost put up with the fact that because she's a gmo/ai hybrid she somehow has all these mysterious magical powers such as being psychic, an empath, automatically knowing an infinite bank of knowledge, and the ability to avoid bodily harm BUT when aurora is mystically pregnant with twins [so we've now moved on to asexual gmo/ai hybrid] and ends up killing off vin so that he can handily dandily be resurrected by her father whose also some walking lab experiment in order to rewind his brain back to when he died to figure out where she's gone and then manages to die in childbirth after amazingly avoiding all sorts of other life-threatening damage is just a bit much. the movie is worth watching when it hits dvd and i only say this if there are alternate endings available. let's hope the new fast & furious film blows us all away to redeem vin just a bit. at least that film has michelle rodriguez.

death race - 8/10 snaps - not many spoilers here. i was thoroughly surprised by this film. i expected it to be total crap. figured i was going to see a b movie and ended up happily entertained. definitely worth a dvd rental. go see it at the theaters if you're a jason statham fan. plus it has inspired me to rent death race 2000 because apparently it's even more fun than the remake.

postal - uhhhh i'll say 7/10 snaps - this film is the only film i've seen by uwe boll that's worth a damn. i can see why it didn't have a huge release in the us [especially here in sc] because wow is it offensive. if you're american, jewish, white, black, muslim, a midget, christian, overweight, handicapped, live in a trailer park, work in a coffee shop, are a policeman, are handicapped, are a child molester, well basically if you're living you will be offended. worth a rent if you can handle the offensiveness. it does have a slew of pretty famous actors such as zack ward, verne troyer, chris coppola, and dave foley plus uwe makes fun of himself as well he should since the majority of his other films are utter crap. not to mention if you need a really great stress reliever the video game is most excellent as you can kill whoever you like and then urinate all over them. it's fairly interesting.

the rocker - 8.5/10 - i really didn't know too much about this one going into it. really enjoyed it. i love the music industry and this story takes a big punch at it. my favorite line in the film was mattie saying, "i mean look at him. it's like abercrombie's making people now!" i think i'll start using that more often. don't you always hate when you see someone who looks like they fell out of the pages of the abercrombie magazine? well now it's just plain laughable. worth a trip to the movies and most definitely worth a rent and/or buy.

other than that not much else going on. staying really busy with the phd work and haven't even had all that much time to game. hopefully monday will allow for a bit of r&r. i did get a fantastic new laptop and here's a link to her gorgeous self. that was christmas coming early so i'm very ecstatic about playing on it. anywho i'm working so everyone have a great holiday weekend and enjoy the silence.

tropic thunder, clone wars, and pineapple express

oy vey! all this graduate school business on top of regular life is taking a large toll on my blogging. i apologize if you ended up stranded with not knowing which movie to go see recently as i haven't posted. i haven't even seen a movie this weekend yet and there were 3 large releases [the house bunny, the rocker, and death race] and a limited one [hamlet 2] that i am somewhat interested in attending on top of still not having seen mirrors [i already have a slight fear of mirrors so i'm sure i'll appreciate this a bit more than the average movie-goer] or henry poole is here [which looks fairly interesting]. time will tell if i end up being able to view any of them at all. i am also going to apologize in advance for the brevity of the reviews. we're working on borrowed time here.

tropic thunder - 8.5/10 snaps - very comical. seeing as how ben stiller was the director and one of the writers i can't see anyone being surprised by this. robert downey jr just seems to always put in a great performance. the rest of the stellar cast did well. i would not take anyone under the age of 17 to this film [eh well maybe 16, depends on the 16 year old i suppose]. a great time for any crude humored fun-loving adult.

pineapple express - 8/10 snaps - also a good humorous film. if you're anti-drugs obviously you should not go see this movie. james franco was by far my favorite character in the film and made for a hilarious stoned weed dealer. again another film i wouldn't take anyone under the age of 17 to see. if you enjoyed superbad and knocked up i think it's safe to say you'll like this one as well but superbad has in my opinion completely surpassed knocked up and pineapple express in its level of comedy and enjoyment value.

i haven't seen many bad movies recently. thank you so much george lucas for creating the load of crap known as star wars: the clone wars which i'll give 1.5/10 snaps. the only reason you're getting over .5 is because i like the clone wars illustration style [apparently most everyone else does not but i am an anime fan so maybe that's why i personally prefer it]. i really enjoyed the shorts that were released on dvd [i think they were originally on cartoon network betwixt other shows] before this film. i fell asleep in this movie at least 5 times, so in a moment where i was actually awake i tried taking a new perspective on it and thinking maybe it's just aimed at kids and i'm not getting it. then i looked around the theater and realized the majority of the kids there were also asleep. it's pretty bad when you put an 8 year old who actually adores characters like jar jar binks to sleep...i don't know if lucas has just gone mad in his old age or what has happened but i think indiana jones and the crystal skull along with this clone wars crud speak for themselves. i'm surprised he actually got actors to voice these parts in all reality. just because someone's made great films in the past doesn't mean they should be allowed to do whatever they want in the future because unfortunately for mr. lucas he's ruining his own brands. i appreciate that the top critics on rotten tomatoes gave the movie 4 out of 100%. i think mr. gleiberman from entertainment weekly says it best, "George Lucas is turning into the enemy of fun." so in my honest opinion i would suggest staying away from this tripe at all costs. do not go see it, do not rent it, do not download it, do not watch it on fox when they air it for the first time for free. you're just better off not having seen it especially if you like the star wars saga [which i do].

in other non-film related news. had a fantabulous time at the baruch marine science laboratory in georgetown with several marine science and biology majors. i drove a boat, i heard about some interesting research projects currently going on, and i climbed to the top of a very scary firetower. there are loads more to be said about the trip but time is not on my side.

graduate school has been very enjoyable thus far. i get to start teaching biology 102 labs next week. i've been to one population genetics course and we didn't really do much besides go over the syllabus but i think it will be a very fun semester. i start my bioinformatics course on monday and cannot wait!

on top of all that had a great set of guild writ raid runs on thursday night with a lot of good friends. wonderful times were had by all even though we were bugged on receiving guild status. i'm still waiting for a reply on the eq2 forums regarding whether or not it was a bug or if the rules have changed somehow.

anywho i'm off to reading, working, and possibly seeing a movie this afternoon. oh and i might be getting my christmas present early as i have need of a laptop.

enjoy the silence!

holy hell

woohoo. i landed the day off from work. oh wait. have i mentioned i'm currently dying of some unbeknownst disease? apparently i have a cold. ick. it is teh uber suck. i cannot breathe (through my nose at least) and speaking most definitely sucks. i just drove to a gas station to get 2 tropicana orange juices for 3 whole damn dollars! booooo!

anywho so in my sick annoying rage i shall post movie reviews...i know you're all happy face now aren't you heehee ^..^

swing vote 8.5/10 snaps - i actually almost cried in this film. it was wonderful. it was feel good, it was insightful, just plain awesome! i heart kelsey grammer. all the acting was just plain wonderful. my only problem with this film is that the audience it is aimed at [lower middle class and below] just won't get it at all and will leave the movie bitching. sean and i adored it. great job kevin costner. way to go! can you tell i'm a bit ill with all these damned compliments?

oh look! here we have a guest review for the mummy: tomb of the dragon emperor [i normally see most every film but this looked like so much shit i could not actually pay for it...ever] by my mother, the biggest brendan fraser fan on the face of the planet - she gives the film 7/10 snaps and all i got when asking about this score was that she got to see brendan fraser with his shirt off and that was worth going to see the film but she and my dad both enjoyed the ENTIRE movie. i have yet to call my dad and verify this.

i'm currently watching grandma's boy on tv and my god i forget what an awesome ass film it is! maybe because i LOVE video games but it's just a good movie. even with all the added in bonus evil you can get with the dvd.

listened to the new shinedown cd that came out in june day before yesterday. half of it is fantastic. half of it is filler shit. i figure half an album being great is a good job on any artist's part so yay for shinedown.

anywho i've drank my oj and am completely pooped so off to bed for my sickly ass. have a great day if you're up and about! oh if you only knew the typos i had while working on this being insanely sick....

as always...enjoy the silence.

-pyper

remy (both of them)

alrighty so i haven't posted in a while. life is just so very busy what with all this exciting grad school business and preparing for that on top of work and obviously my in game eq2/lotro adventures. so i saw the following two movies this week.

the x-files: i want to believe ~ i'll give x-files 5.5/10 snaps. i think the reason it's getting played down as crap by reviewers are that for this film you HAVE to be a fan of the series. there's not really that much to say about the film itself. it was an extended episode of the tv series in all reality. no really alien references. i liked it. it kept me entertained. i enjoyed seeing the characters farther in their lives.

charlie bartlett ~ 8.5/10 for mr. bartlett. first, i in no way see this film as a ferris bueller's day off for this generation. ferris was a free spirit and matthew broderick was all about enjoying life in that film. charlie, played by anton yelchin, is still about enjoying life but unlike ferris doesn't have the at least semi-normal family life at home. his father's in prison though he tends to lie about him a lot and refer to him as being dead in about 65% of the film and his mother is on klonopin and somewhat of an alcoholic who is present in body but absent everywhere else [i really got a royal tenenbaums feel off her from this film]. charlie's story deals more with how screwed up the american family has become and how that effects the kids produced from these families. a lot dealing with mental disease and treatment in a serious manner while still poking a bit of fun. tyler hilton who played murphey bivens put in a fantastic performance as did robert downey jr and hope davis. everyone else in the film was above par as well but how hard is it to play a screwed up teenager in high school when in reality you are or just were a screwed up teenager in high school...food for thought. i really love the tagline for this film too: popularity is a state of mind. so if you don't enjoy teen movies such as 10 things i hate about you, the breakfast club, the new guy, not another teen movie etc, i suggest you stay away because in all probability you won't like this coming of age tale either, but if those are your cup of tea then rent this sucker post haste.

in other news rukia and eros are both negative for heartworms and are now on prevention which is most excellent. aurora had her teeth removed friday and as you saw in the previous post the quote was listed as $200 but we came out at $374 so it's amazing how these prices keep rising from week to week in exponential bounds. i guess at some point i should call the vet out on this bullshit but right now it's just a growing credit card balance that i will resent for years to come but at least my pets will be healthy. aurora now needs to get started on her heartworm treatment which is going to be 12 weeks long and is quoted at about $300 so i'm going to assume $500 to $600 is going to be my upcoming bill.

sean last week was on bower parkway and happened to see a kitten get hit by a car. seeing as how we're alike in a lot of ways, you know...loud, obnoxious, gamer geeks that love animals...he stopped to check on the kitten who is most feral and continues to bite sean on the hand most viciously. so now we have another 10 week kitten [i know, i know...like we need another kitten...] who will at least let you pet her now and pick her up without hissing who lives in a crate in our room until we can get her checked for fiv/felv tomorrow at sunset animal clinic [hmm appears i may be on the verge of not going to grace for much longer, time will tell]. oh and i forgot to mention she's a grey tabby and i have named her remy after some news below that will excite most x-men fans. no pics today, i'd rather wait until she's a bit more calm before shoving a flash in her face. back to remy's rescue story. sean ends up at the emergency room two days later because i get a bit worried this adorable cat may be carrying rabies as she's acting odd and i'm not sure whether it's a) neurological damage from the wreck, b) really scared feral kitten just being a really scared feral kitten, or c) rabid feral kitten. so just to be safe we call doctor's care because well i'd like for sean to keep living at least until i'm the primary beneficiary in the will [just kidding] and doctor's care states to go to the emergency room. so sean heads there and they put him in a room and get all his info and inform dhec that he's been bitten by a wild kitten and then prescribe him some antibiotics for the infection the bite has caused. this is so they can charge him the $500 emergency room fee for a prescription of 10 augmentin. what a rip off. then they inform sean that only dhec has the rabies shots and dhec tells them not to worry if we have the cat because the cat will show signs of rabies before sean dies or we can let them kill the kitten now and dissect her brain to see if she's got rabies. we decide to stay away from the latter option and watch the cat. dhec wants to make sure we have the cat so they make us take her carrier and put it up to a window so they can look in while we're not home. i'm a little confused as to how much you can tell about an animal by looking into a crate from a window but eh whatever. remy appears to be doing better with maybe a broken tail and i'll know more after tomorrow's vet visit.

in other remy news...god bless the brave person who taped the x-men origins: wolverine preview at comic con. if you search for it on google you'll eventually find one that works and you'll know its the one from comic con cause it's all slanted as the brave soul tried to hide whatever recording device they were using. so as the screams from the fans at the con watch wolverine and sabretooth's stories evolve there in all his card throwing, bo staff swinging explosive fury was the man himself...remy lebeau aka gambit. far and away my favorite x-man since i was oh 4 years old and i've been so freaking pissed that he hasn't been included in any of the movies thus far but i'm okay with him not having to share a film with halle berry as storm. while i like halle berry in most roles, i think jada pinkett smith [or is she just jada pinkett now?] would've kicked halle's ass at being storm. but back to gambit the most awesome x-man ever...not only is he hot, he's cajun, he's cool, and he makes being a superhero look fun. okay so my first thoughts were holy hell it's about time, then the logical part of me got to thinking that my favorite pick for the role gambit would've been heath ledger [way before he was ever thought of as the joker, because really...who saw that coming?] who unfortunately is no longer with us. so then i couldn't for the life of me think of another actor who would be HOT enough to pull this off. then i see the man [26 years old] they've picked and i'm a little more at ease. ladies and gentlemen, taylor kitsch. i know nothing about his acting whatsoever so i'm hoping he can also land the hot cajun accent gambit is supposed to bring along with the bad boy attitude. speaking of teen movies from earlier i've been dying to see john tucker must die and he's in the film so away i go to obtain it sometime in the next few weeks. i'll be bubbling over with happiness about this until it finally hits the big screen sometime around may 1st, 2009. and yes i will be at the midnight showing and possibly more showings the following day if he pulls the role off.

we're getting very close to the return of collegiate activity and i am getting more anxious because i just can't wait! i've got 3 quizzes to take and i've taken the first 2 already. you only have to make 80% but i'm getting that ocd vibe that i sometimes get and took them until i made 100. i never made below an 80 but i did get a coupla 86s and 93s. i just feel better seeing the 100. oh well, i learned some interesting things about breeze for powerpoint and am going to try playing with it soon.

well i've gone on for quite awhile but i guess that's what happens when i don't post often. hopefully i'll get some more time to post soon but time apparently is slipping away quicker than it used to so for now...enjoy the silence.

-pyper

ain't that a bitch

well as is life as sean would say...things were looking up, bills were being paid off, and then everything comes crashing down as it inevitably always does. so wednesday i get a phone call and petie [one of my horses] is showing signs of colic again. he had surgery back in 2000 and since then likes to scare the hell out of us with symptoms every year or so of a relapse to make everyone think that he's going to need more surgery which i cannot at this point in time afford. so i head on out in the dark to the crouts [jake, justin, jess, and their parents, donnie and cindy] to see what's going on. petie isn't too bad so i make up a mixture of poo soup [bran, oil, jello mix, brown sugar, purina senior horse feed, water, metamucil, and corn oil] and he eats some of it which is a good sign. i come back thursday and do the same for him for breakfast [6:30am ouch] and dinner and he cleans up all of it. friday i head back out there and he's acting like his normal perky self trying to stick his head in the bucket i mixed everything up in before i could get to his feed bucket. cooper seems to be doing well but a bit thin. i'm going to start taking some beet pulp/molasses mix out to him three times a week to see if that'll bulk him up some.

so friday sean and i take aurora and constantine to the vet. constantine needs a booster vaccine and aurora needs her yearly examination with all the bells and whistles. as we're leaving with our $210.00 bill the vet tech comes out and says we need to go back in the exam room because the vet needs to talk with us. we head back in and they tell us aurora has heart worms. this could have theoretically been prevented had i given her monthly heart worm treatment but my brain decided that she was an indoor dog so what were the chances of her being bitten by a mosquito infected with these little buggers. apparently those chances were higher than i thought. i forgot to mention that aurora decided to eat my lg chocolate one day when she was out at home and we were at work leading to her breaking off a tooth that also needs to be removed which is going to cost $200.00 minimum. i think my vet may be a bit on the pricey side. anywho so now he talks of using this immeticide treatment and hands us a sheet outlining what happens. so basically it's a shot given twice to kill the worms in her heart which will painfully disperse into my dog's lungs once they evacuate the heart and we have to keep her on exercise lockdown for about six to eight weeks. this is no big deal and of course we're going to treat her for them and get the other two dogs checked out but then he goes to tell me the cost is $350.00 for the treatment. two shots and an oral wormer [ivermectin which i give my dogs anyways which is $10 for a 1,000 lb animal] for $350.00 seems a bit much. he tells me the immeticide costs a good bit and that's why the price is so high. well lucky me, i worked for the surgical referral for a few years so i call to see how much the bottle of immeticide runs and turns out it is less than $40.00. yes you heard right, $40.00. so then i think okay well they're assuming i'm the average idiot owner who won't be able to deal with watching my dog in case she ends up passing a clot and they've worked in keeping her at the facility each time she gets a shot just in case something happens. then i'm reminded of how er knowledgeable the staff at the clinic was when i went to get my cat spayed there. they called me three times. the first time they asked if i realized that my cat was declawed. gee really? i had no idea. [heavy sarcasm] are people really this stupid that they don't know if their cat has claws or not? they called me again to ask if i was sure my cat hadn't already been spayed and the second time to ask if she had gone into heat recently to make sure the cat wasn't spayed yet again. so this leaves me a little worried with letting their employees watch my dog when she could possibly need emergency services plus the fact that they are thirty to forty five minutes from the emergency clinic in case such does occur. so i figure you can see my quandary here and once i get rukia and eros tested to see if they are positive this friday i'm going to call jonathan suber at the referral and see if he'll do the shots for me as opposed to having this done at my vet clinic.

in other news there was a huge storm monday and we lost power for 4 hours. when the power came back on we had no cable service. so i call time warner to report my outage and they state they'll set up a work order. i get home tuesday and still no cable. i call time warner and they tell me my work order is scheduled for thursday. i bitch and whine but they won't move the appt any nearer even though they don't show any other outages in my area. what really takes the cake is that my grandfather lost cable, called tuesday morning and it was fixed within 3 hours. so for now i'm being made to watch dvds and read! how dare they not fix my cable. grr.

oh well.

enjoy the silence.

-pyper

the dark knight vs. mamma mia

thursday night we traveled to dutch square to see the dark knight at midnight with some of our friends. i'm going to give it 9/10 snaps. it could have been 10, really. for those of you who haven't seen it yet, do not wait till the end of the credits, there's nothing there and skip the rest of this paragraph and the next if you don't want spoilers. it's definitely theater worthy and being that it brought in over $66 million on its opening day pretty much everyone else agrees. i'm going to stick to what i thought were the worst parts of the film since 85% of the movie was great and i don't have the time to post about 85% of the film. the dark knight had this unfortunate thing i call the ai effect. named for steven spielberg's artificial intelligence: ai. in ai the movie should have ended when david [haley joel osment] ended up in the bottom of the ocean with his lovely teddy bear but instead spielberg decided to throw in aliens just for shits and giggles. this year's batman film had a similar deal going on. they should have stopped the movie with the portion where the joker escapes prison and proceeds to blow up gotham general. but no, christopher nolan decided that they could fit two-face into this film as well. unfortunately for mr. nolan, movies have some sort of time constraint unless you're quentin tarantino.

maybe heath ledger was a bit crazy before he died because he sure as hell did an awesome job acting psychotic. anytime the joker was around, a great scene was unfolding. phenomenal in fact. then you have the rest of the cast...christian bale did well, but in scenes not involving the joker, he just didn't seem as invested in the role of batman/bruce wayne. michael caine, gary oldamn, and morgan freeman were spot on with their roles. maggie gyllenhaal was just plain boring. i really didn't care that they killed her off. i felt no empathy whatsoever. the only pang of sympathy i did experience was for batman for being tricked into rescuing the wrong person. the sad thing is i know she could've done better. i've seen her in other films where she's done wonderfully well such as mona lisa smile and stranger than fiction. aaron eckhart by far gets the award for most awful performance in the dark knight. while eckhart makes for a great harvey dent, he is uber awful as two-face. i guess this could also have to do with my preconceived notion of how two-face would/should act. he needed to be crueller and obsessed with that coin deciding everything for him. and because of the ai effect the movie experienced, there just wasn't enough time to fully explore and build this character because in essence he was ai's aliens. more of an afterthought that would have been better to leave out of this particular film. he needed more time to grow into the role and i think a separate film featuring two-face and possibly another villain from the batman universe would be more appropriate. it doesn't help eckhart either that ledger's job was so wonderful, his seemed even worse in comparison. i fully expected them to kill the joker off at the end seeing as how NO ONE will be able to perform that role as well as ledger did and yet they kept him alive and apparently killed off two-face. i would not be surprised if two-face resurfaces as they never show an actual funeral [the bit at the end could've just been a press conference]. if i could vote on villains for the next batman movie i'd love to see some actual kick-ass women playing harlequin and catwoman [i vote michelle rodriguez and milla jovovich, they did a great job with resident evil].

on friday i again visited dutch square this time with my aunt to see mamma mia. i was actually surprised by how much i enjoyed it. 8/10 snaps. everyone did a great job and it was neat to see colin firth, stellan skarsgard, and pierce brosnan in flamenco dancer outfits. pretty humorous film but definitely more of a chick flick plus you're going to have to enjoy musicals a bit if you're going to see this one as well.

i'm back at work on a saturday so i'm going to get moving so i can get out of here.

enjoy the silence.

-pyper

constantine and the weekend

interesting things happened this weekend. i was very busy. so let's get started.

friday. went and saw hellboy 2 which i'll give 7.5/10. stop reading now and skip to the next paragraph if you haven't seen it unless you don't plan on going to see it. i was kinda peeved at how easily they rid themselves of this damned ancient crown because if it was that easy, really that easy, then the pieces wouldn't have survived all those years and they could've prevented the two elves from perishing in the end. plus it was oh-so-obvious that the princess was going to kill herself from the beginning of the film in order to end the evil prince's reign of terror. other than that i thoroughly enjoyed the film. although apparently sean resembles ron perlman so maybe i'm a bit biased. i thought it was better than the original hellboy. i do think the idea of him [hellboy] having children, especially twins, is a bit frightening.

so friday after hellboy 2 sean has promised i can have a new kitty! so we go to pets inc to see if they have anything we like. sean finds a cute calico kitten that he likes. i'm happy with anything sean likes so we go to the desk to get the paperwork for the kitten. we fill it out. it asks about the other animals we have and then we get to the difficult questions dealing with is your current cat declawed. me being the truthful person i am put yes on the front paws only. more questions. i finally finish [it was really only two pages] and take the papers up to the front desk. the workers take my application and get this look on their faces. one of them comes around the side of the counter and tells me that we can't adopt this kitten because their number one rule at the adoption center is not to allow these cats to ever get declawed. so i say, "i understand" and so does sean and we nod as she says their managers will call us to let us know whether or not we can adopt the next morning while the whole time we both know we'll never get any call whatsoever [and we didn't] on top of me thinking shouldn't spaying and neutering be your first priority but surprise surprise they send animals home completely intact expecting you to go get it done or you forfeit your $125 deposit. we leave and i get all sad and depressed and break out into tears that i'm not good enough to adopt a kitten from pets inc which i volunteered at for years of my life when i was younger back when it was called adopt a pet and lived behind kimbrell's furniture in west columbia. so i finally come to the conclusion that we'll go get a kitten at the shop road animal shelter since it's probably an animal that needs a home more than any of the animals at pets inc and the animals at the shelter are actually healthier than those at pets inc that are being neglected as the staff is too busy being teenagers and just chatting it up and ignoring the smell of urine that pervades their facility. so i chalk it up to fate that that pets inc kitten [they called it gumdrop...ick...] would find a fantastic home and that i am destined to have another at the shelter where i've adopted before and got kairi who now resides with nick in west columbia.

so we decide to go to the animal shelter saturday morning at 9am when the shelter opens because saturday is my dad's birthday and we're going to the village at sandhills to see journey to the center of the earth in 3d and to eat lunch at 10:45am. well we get to the shelter at 8:45am and sit in the car with the windows down listening to all the dogs bark and npr as we wait for them to open. the shelter opens and they have a huge cat room to the right filled with cats running every which way. adorable kittens everywhere! there's a sign on the room that says no entry. so we ask the shelter worker [very interesting accent...we've decided she's either french canadian or german] if we are allowed to see any of them. turns out the room is full of cats passing around some nasty upper respiratory infection so none of them are available for adoption. well i know they have another room with kittens and what they also call the fat cat lounge. so we head into the kitten room and sean goes, "oooh look at the white one!" seeing as how we currently have a black cat, it would be rather cute to get the white one. well so we look at all the kittens and sean can't tear himself away from the tiny white one. he's obviously fallen in love with it. so we go to the front desk and tell them we want to adopt him. turns out he was found earlier in the week at the shell station on north main in columbia. lucky kitty. he's not completely white. the shelter has him marked as a flame point siamese which i suppose could describe his cream color with the tan points on his ears, paws and tail. he's not quite so striking as other flame point siamese colored cats that i have seen but he is gorgeous. so we fill out the paperwork and take him home. he was a whole $68, 8 weeks old, neutered, one round of shots, two ear mite treatments [i'm still working on fixing that], microchipped, negative fiv/felv test, and dewormed. so not only has he thus far turned out to be perfect for our household and fit in great with the corgis and aremis [took her a whole two days to get over the fact that we'd brought another cat home] but he was an even better buy [not that it matters because i would've paid $125 for him anyways]. so sean calls him ghost at first then learns that he's a flame point siamese [at least in color] so we decide to call him blaze. which leads sean to think of hellblazer which obviously leads to us calling him constantine. and that's his name and it shall stay that way because he already has a vet appointment for friday when aurora goes in for her shots so it's already that way in the vet's computer [plus i like the name]. here he is trying to be a keyboard [or a mouse i suppose] on sean's desk.

i know...adorable isn't he? so then we're taking him to my work so that we can leave him there in a crate in the air conditioning while we go to the village at sandhill with the family. i hear a ticking noise as i'm driving to work and ask sean if he hears it too. at first we think it's the motorcycle behind us but then the ticking gets louder and the motorcycle hasn't gotten any closer so i pull over and it turns out my tire had blown out. not just any tire but the brand new one we had to get when there was a carpenter nail that somehow managed to make a hole in my original tire that couldn't be patched because of its location. so we then can't find the jack for yoshi [my silver yaris...yes i know yoshi wasn't silver...the name just fits]. turns out it is under the driver's seat when there is a space for it in the back next to the spare with the arm for the jack as well [go figure]. sean changes the tire once we find the jack [with a helpful 15 minute call to the toyota service department to find out where it was since my user manual had been removed when i refinanced my car at half the interest i had initially several weeks before]. we make it to work just in time to drop off the kitten and head out to the sandhills. here's another picture of constantine cause he's just so cute!

oh and those eyes are currently blue but i'm guessing they're going to change as he ages. anywho journey to the center of the earth in 3d gets a 6/10. not really too much to give away here. i figure most of you have seen one of the other versions of the film or have read the novel. i was somewhat disturbed by how much i could see brendan fraser's nipples poking out in the outline of his sweater/shirt through a lot of the movie. my mother thinks he's the hottest thing ever so she loved the film. i don't know how good it would be if not in 3d because a lot of good parts were made to be much more thrilling in three dimensions. i was preoccupied enough for one and a half hours to give it more than an average of 5. on a sidenote i cannot wait to see bolt in 3d as well! "i eat danger for breakfast!"

we then headed to red robin to eat lunch. i've never eaten there before and it was a nice experience. plus my mom yelled at our waiter, joel, that it was my dad's birthday and they came over and shouted some rhyme really loudly embarrassing him as they should on your birthday. plus he got a free sundae out of the deal. the food was pretty good and i think we all enjoyed the adventure to the outskirts of camden err i think we're now calling it a portion of columbia.

saturday night brought a shard of hate raid. sean got a nice wrist item. we then helped beline, phinneas [dad], singinliz, and fuzzypawz with their epic updates in chardok. dad also won this sweet warg off the queen in chardok with some awesome mage stats on top of his epic update. we had a pretty fun time with several friends.

sunday we headed to work for a bit. sean hadn't worked on saturday so he went in on sunday to make up for it and i worked on reading my biology text, trying to awaken some of this knowledge i supposedly absorbed in high school and college. we had lunch at aunt nita and uncle ed's house in honor of dad's and amanda's [cousin] birthdays. we got dad all 3 resident evil films in blu ray, for amanda i picked out some really pretty jewelry at hand-picked [which now has a location at lexington in that strip with the new target.../cheer...], and i brought jessica [thomas' (amanda's brother, obviously another cousin) girlfriend] one of those ikea fangst closet storage dealies in blue. i have one in teal and i love it. she's moving into a dorm room and she seemed to really like the fangst once she opened it...she even knew what it was, i was somewhat impressed. her birthday was several weeks earlier, but the fangst hadn't shipped in time to make it for her party.

we finally made it home and i promptly passed out while watching tv because i'm having wonderful allergic reactions lately and the benadryl allergy formula makes me sleepy. eh it's been an awfully long post and an awfully quick weekend.

so for now, enjoy the silence.

-pyper

yahtzee reviews lego indiana jones

i really liked this week's zero punctuation of lego indiana jones so here it is. if you'd like to see more, visit yahtzee's videos at the escapist magazine. i enjoyed the psychonauts review an awful lot because i liked psychonauts and yahtzee did too. also, the escapist likes to give some of their other shows some advertising by putting them at the end of yahtzee's videos. once you get to the unforgotten realms portion, yahtzee is finished and that's another one of their random series [oddly enough on their site it was a drawn by pain advertisement, makes me wonder if the adverts change every time you load up the video...hmm...].



enjoy the silence.

-pyper

field trip!

well as you've prolly gathered by now i'm starting back to school in august for my phd. i'm ecstatic and cannot wait! so i get this e-mail the other day telling me there's a coupla extra spots available for this trip to georgetown to the baruch marine laboratory for those of us who aren't in marine biology and would i like to go...of course i'd love to go! so i hastily send back my reply and i currently feel like an excited 5th grader.

"To this end, we cordially invite you to join us Friday, August 15th for this orientation at the Baruch Field Lab. We will provide the transportation, but you will need to bring food for breakfast and lunch, sleeping bag, old shoes, etc."

so i'm off to find me a sleeping bag as the one i have currently is of the 101 dalmatians variety and is being used by my dogs as a bed. jon tells me i ought to buy a viva pinata sleeping bag. i think i'm going to opt for a solid color.

also i've picked up playing lord of the rings online again recently on top of my normal everquest 2 duties. i'm hanging out on the brandywine server as that's the server i was on in beta. i've got two minstrels [pyper and lealwyn] and a loremaster [rawien]. if ever in game feel free to look me up. i'm actually enjoying the slow solo leveling right now [talk to me next week and see if i still feel the same].

enjoy the silence.

-pyper

the death of customer service

having worked in the retail or customer service industry since i was 15 years old [cashier at publix] i have somewhat high standards when it comes to how i'm treated at various locations. i don't expect someone to offer to carry out my groceries or give me something for nothing, i'm just looking for a modicum of courteous behavior from those in any customer oriented job. so in the past six or so years i've had some bad experiences with customer service ranging from best buy to petsmart and everywhere in between. my recent encounters with mcdonalds have led me to want to put them here.

first, you need to know that sean and i go to the same mcdonalds every morning on sunset boulevard in west columbia about 5 minutes from my work. i ALWAYS [look caps, it must be true] order 2 fruit & yogurt parfaits and sean either a. orders nothing, b. orders hotcakes with sausage, or c. orders a sausage biscuit with pancake syrup [apparently he likes syrup on his sausage as i like syrup on my bacon...sweet]. so on july 8th i order 2 parfaits and sean orders a sausage biscuit with pancake syrup. with those wonderful digital screens you can tell up front if they've got your order correct [if they use the screens since half the time they don't] and the person working the cash register put hotcakes up on our order. sean responded saying he just wanted the syrup not the hotcakes and she removed the hotcakes from the screen. we pull up to the first window and pay for our order. we travel to the second window to receive our grub and lo and behold there is no syrup. so he asks for syrup and the employee proceeds to argue with him about it saying that he didn't order it [first off - it doesn't even matter whether or not he ordered it (which he did, i was there) the customer is always right, second - what the hell difference does it make if you give this guy one small pancake syrup anyways?]. so then after sean insists that he ordered the syrup the employee proceeds to tell him it's going to cost him if he wants pancake syrup. he says fine and hands her some change. it then takes about four more attempts to prove he ordered the syrup before she finally goes to get the pancake syrup. we leave to realize there were no spoons and no granola in with my parfaits. i decide we should just go to my work and not go back and start another conflict.

okay so at this point, sean is mad. i'm a little angry but not too upset. why even argue with a customer at all over something so trivial? and why make such a huge deal about pancake syrup when it's doing nothing but making your job harder? maybe she had a bad day at that point or hates her job at mcdonalds or whatever but that's not an excuse for the amount of time and energy wasted not to mention the horrible experience she just provided a customer with. not that we're the end all of customers and mcdonalds everywhere would shut down without us but we are constant return customers and regardless should have been treated with a bit more service and a lot less disrespect.

so let's fast forward to today, july 10th. same mcdonalds. this time i'm ordering just the 2 parfaits. the girl from the magical drive thru voice machine tells us that it'll be $2.14 [which is what 2 parfaits cost with tax]. on this particular morning she did not employ the use of the drive thru screen. alright at this point in the story the mcdonalds' employees are not the only ones at fault here. i will take the blame for not looking at my receipt as i have been conditioned through many years of quick drive thru experiences. i gave sean my debit card. he handed it to the girl at the cash register and she handed it back with the receipt. he pulled forward and i crinkled up the receipt. the receipt had the wrong order on it. i should have looked at it. so we pull up to the next window and the guy standing there says, "sausage, egg, and cheese biscuit?" sean says, "no, we had two parfaits." another employee comes up and she begins to argue with us about how we paid for a sausage, egg, and cheese biscuit [which we did, which is more ($2.35), and i should have looked at the damned receipt] and how we didn't order 2 parfaits. but again why even argue with us over this? why would we lie about what we ordered? i was to the point of using foul language today in the drive thru. i was that mad.

suffice it to say i will not be going back to this particular mcdonalds and i'm sure it won't hurt their business at all. but just as i e-mail companies about when i have a great customer service experience i sure as hell e-mailed them this morning about the bad experiences i've had this week. i just can't wrap my brain around the reasoning behind being so rude to a customer. i would have been fired had i ever acted that way toward a customer at eb games, hollywood video, publix, lazy creek, clemson dining services, or at the surgical referral [i've worked at a lot of jobs that require customer service obviously]. it's not like i haven't been there with a jackass customer before and have wanted to say all sorts of things yet i have held my tongue because i knew that it wouldn't do anything to help me or my current position at the time to argue with a customer or tell them they were wrong [i have explained to many customers why they will never see pokemon or mario on the xbox]. and i would be a bit more sympathetic with the employee if we had been rude and hadn't ordered correctly but we were perfectly normal everyday customers.

off to work with insurance companies for now...

enjoy the silence.

-pyper

you want me to go where?

so in the wonderful world of everquest 2 we're working on the newly released epic weapons [newly released meaning 6 to 8 months ago plus]. i have mine ::grin::, my dad has his [in fact he's almost got his second one], and my mom has hers [which required an incredibly difficult final fight to obtain involving me yelling 3 3 3 at the top of my lungs while at my parents' house followed by my mother and i screaming and jumping up and down]. sean on the other hand does not have his yet. so these epic weapons are all nifty and you typically have to be maxxed out at level 80 to start the quest lines required to obtain your weapon. so for most epic weapons there are these series of difficult kills that requires a group of level 75-80 toons or even a coupla groups depending on mob difficulty...well...sean's starts that way and we kill the two initial mobs. not so bad, we're on our way. the next step for the brigands is a bit ridiculous. you have to obtain 4 robes. the robes drop off mobs that are currently grey to sean's character. when you kill a mob that is grey to you in everquest 2 as with many mmorpgs, you get no loot. therefore the only way to get loot in everquest 2 is to find a lower level toon who will go with you to the zones that said mobs are residing in and mentor to make yourself a lower level and allow the mob to drop loot. we find a guy who's willing to help us with the first named and get him out of the way in sos. the second robe is from a heritage quest that we complete so fantastic! robe 2 out of the way. the third and fourth mobs are in not so easy places to drag a lower level character. so looking at the quest there are alternate ways to obtain the 3rd and 4th robes by clicking two chests in some higher level zones known as karnor's castle and sebilis. so karnor's castle and sebilis are some high end group zones and we decide to hit up karnor's castle first because we've been to the area where eq2i suggests there is a chest. so we get in there and see this guy just run past all the initial mobs which are really nasty high level 73 and 74 ^^^ heroic drolvargs [imagine a werewolf that's in control of himself but extremely angry at the world and wants to kill you for no apparent reason...now you've got a drolvarg and heroic mobs are those meant for a group of six]. so we try it, like idiots, about 5 times. we die about 5 times. so then sean [fievall] realizes he has his god power that will drop all aggro from the group so we attempt the run a 6th time and make it to where the drolvargs keep their riding rhinos which don't hate us and drop all the mobs from the entrance. we then fight our way up the stairs and along the ledge on the outside of the castle slaying drolvargs as we go. we make our way to the hallway with the stairs leading down to the undead spirits that are some other inhabitants of karnors. for some reason these undead are unable to see past invisibility or stealth so fievall invises himself and i use a jaguar totem for stealth. we creep down to xalgoz's lair. he's floating there with his mistmoore emissary both of which can see through our invis. the chest is supposed to be behind xalgoz so in thinking that somehow i can rescue fievall if he is seen i remain in stealth on the stairs in front of xalgoz as fievall goes to sneak around behind him for the chest, hoping not to get close enough for xalgoz to spot him. fievall finally makes it around behind him and spots the small chest. he creeps up and waits for the other floating spirits to move away and quickly opens the chest, retrieving the robe! fievall recasts his invis and makes his way back to the stairs where i immediately cast escape and we're out of the castle with robe in hand.

next we're off to sebilis where the mobs become level 80 and 84^^^ heroic. we get pretty close to where the chest is supposed to be located and are slain several times when we finally give up. more attempts to follow this evening.

eeep! time to get back to work.

enjoy the silence.

-pyper

sunday sunday sunday!

we went to meet tandra [carole] and her husband [tony] at ihop on st. andrews. this is so incredibly totally super cool seeing as how most of the people we play with in game, we don't ever get to meet in person. tony doesn't play but carole and i hang out a lot in game even if she is a fae [heehee]. we had a really great breakfast and saw them off on their way back to florida from their family camping trip in north carolina. i'll post a picture later cause tony took one of the three of us and carole promises to send it to me tomorrow.

wanted 8/10 - finally convinced sean to go see it...actually it was his suggestion, maybe i put something in his lemonless water [he also said i could get a kitten so i obviously drugged him at some point]. anywho. it was great. i'm normally a bit more critical of movies but lately we seem to be on some plateau of sorts where most of the movies i've gone to see have been pretty spectacular or at least entertaining. the action scenes were fantastic. i liked everyone's role in this film; all the performances were well done. i have not read the comic and have heard from those that have read it that there is nothing in the movie that is in the comic except for the mention of one of the character's names so i apologize to those huge fans who were expecting it to be along the comics' lines. but to those fans i'd like to remind them that i have yet to see my favorite x-man [gambit] in any of their films although i did get his actual name [remy lebeau] on a computer screen [yeah i feel he was just a skosh overlooked] so i understand how you can be feeling if you were looking for it to relate a bit more to the comic.

i've dvred the ant bully and still have yet to watch charlie bartlett as i had some killer migraine yesterday and just zonked out on the bed when the power went out in concert to a really nice storm that made the dogs a bit anxious. aurora basically landed on my head as she flew onto the bed to get closer to me.

in other news i'm still behind on reading that bio book and didn't even crack it this weekend which isn't good. joni's out at work this week so rita [mom] and i have to do her job and ours so i'll be working a little more than normal. other than that not much other news.

have a nice day everyone and enjoy the silence.

-pyper

pyper and her bite of the wolf

oh and in case you haven't been to my myspace page to check out some pics of pyper here she is with her bite of the wolf. eh just to tie the comic together with the actual in-game image. i'll take a brighter pic at some point to show it off a little better prolly on sean's comp with the graphics as high as they'll go [they even warn you when you select that option...spooky huh?]. the vines wrapping around the bat'leth are barbed and if you look closely you can see that there's images etched into the actual metal itself. we finally turned the graphics up all the way on sean's new amazing computer and saw that they are wolves which are the warden's natural form so it makes perfect sense. here i am. oh and the shield in the picture is also a badass fabled drop from shard of hate and it emits a black mist with a glowing red orb in the middle mwha ha ha.


enjoy the silence.

-pyper

happy 4th of juliet

hope everyone had a happy 4th. mine was basically spent keeping in touch with my family via cell phone, playing video games, and watching tv. nothing special. i was feeling somewhat lazy. my grandfather (on my mom's side) had a minor stroke on thursday but they were at the beach where he has a house [well we'll call it a house - it's really two trailers stuck together]. so my mother and aunt traveled down to the hospital at the beach and they are still staying there hence the family cell phone convos. granddad is doing fine now so hopefully they'll be headed home today.

of the movies i perused yesterday they were mostly on the adolescent front:

nanny mcphee 5/10 - cute [again cute actually meaning cute and not badass]. great little lesson film for children about misbehaving. i really loved the use of the bright colors. very visual. extremely straightforward. watch it if you're watching it with your kids, otherwise i say pass.

daddy day care 7/10 - funny. it's a geeky kind of funny what with all the comic book and trekkie references. i'm not the hugest star trek fan but even i realized that kid was speaking klingon...maybe that has to do with the warden epic weapon featured in the comic strip below. eh who knows? anywho i like steve zahn, eddie murphy, and jeff garlin in this film. they work well together. not to mention i adore films with anjelica huston. regardless of the role she's playing she always gives a fantastic performance. seeing as how i just recently saw wall-e, it was nice to put a face to the voice of the captain of the cruise ship since i haven't seen that many movies with jeff garlin in them. very entertaining and worth watching with or without the kids.

nothing much else going on this weekend. i'm at work currently [::gasp:: on a saturday!] trying to clean up my desk as i'm starting school shortly and stephanie will need a clean work area when she comes in to take over my position. hopefully i'll get some reading done today and get a chance to watch charlie bartlett as dad burned it for me and i'm still dying to see it. shortly i'll be getting a copy of in bruges which also looks hilarious and unfortunately did not play at any theaters in the greater columbia metropolitan area ::growl::.

have a splendiferous weekend and as always, enjoy the silence.

-pyper

bat'leth by brasse

i found a brasse comic i just had to post. she's a hilarious dwarf that makes some wonderful eq2 comics. myself, being the healing warden that i am, found this one quite humorous. you can go to here to check out some more of her comics. not all of them being eq2 related btw. some are lotro, wow, and other mmorpgs. i really miss how farming used to be in lotro /cry.

enjoy the silence.

-pyper

hancock and some epic eq2

hancock 7/10 - the movie was cute [and when i say cute this time i mean cute...not badass]. it was really short [1.5 hours] and with the digital theater we saw it in the really neat fight scene was so quick you couldn't keep up with it to see what was going on. besides that i really enjoyed it. entertaining enough but still left you wanting some more. some really great scenes. it's one of those films you can see now or wait till it comes out. either way you should prolly give it a go at some point.

last night's eq2 run was great! we went into chardok which is an evil evil zone and finished this horrid wyvern who goes by the name of severclaw. our group consisted of keline [beline's guardian], fievall [sean's brigand], phinneas [dad's necromancer], ritan [mom's conjuror], and fantar [ranger]. so fantar needs severclaw as the last named in his epic. fievall and i have fought severclaw before. the sucker has killed us at least twelve times if not more. well so we start the fight and things are going well. i burn one of my tunare powers that gives me 50% extra heals for 30 seconds and then it wears off. severclaw is down to 50% health and our tank drops. and then mom's pet is magically staying alive tanking the mob and then he goes down and she goes down and dad and his pet go down and fievall has feigned death in the corner. fantar starts kiting the mob around and so i'm basically out of mana but i start rooting the mob. and we're down to 5% of his health remaining and he starts moving so very slowly when he breaks my roots so i'm popping mana stones, necro hearts, and conjurer shards to try to get the teeniest bit of mana to keep at least one of my roots holding him still so fantar can pummel him with arrows. finally, finally i have enough mana to burn him and i cast a fire spell and he goes down! then he promptly respawns about 5 feet from my toon and i scream out of pure fright that he's back but apparently i was far enough away for him not to notice me ::quiet sigh of relief::. so then we evac as golems and di'zoks are repopping all around us and taking notice that we're still there and head down to court of korucust where we get phinneas his update for his epic by killing korucust although the first time we got to cok none of us had a key so we had to go kill the bridge keeper in order to obtain one and then got in no problem. we tried to go back down again and get to beline's [keline's main] epic spot but we weren't able to so we have made plans to go back next wednesday to get his update from the chardok library and the sebilis research area. all in all had a great time and am insanely ecstatic that we got both of those updates.

enjoy the silence.

-pyper

about a boy

about a boy - 8.5/10 - i loved it. it's a given that i like hugh grant regardless of how many hookers he sleeps with [the same goes for charlie sheen] but the whole film was just great. granted i missed the last minute or so due to my dvr cutting it off but just a really nice piece all together. deals with a lot of issues that are typically handled in a rather more serious or flippant way depending on the film. other movies tend to go way over either side of the border when addressing things such as suicide, depression, death, dating, and life in general but about a boy pokes some fun while still showing a sincere effort regarding the somberness of some of the topics. i like british humor a lot too so if you're not a fan avoid the film.

nothing much else going on. i've really got to read this biology book. last night's attempt to read while transmuting ended in another charasis: voes and charasis: maidens run. which in all fairness were actually very nice runs for me as i looted my wayward moon tunic (which i've been dying for) and ::gasp:: my defender of the forest master!!! masters in this game are totally way too expensive to ever afford unless you spend all your time trying to make money and not playing so i was completely ecstatic! wootastic!

anywho nothing much else for now.

enjoy the silence.

-pyper

brokeback, wall-e, and wedding crashers...it almost sounds like you could put them all together somehow...

doh dee doh. so i watched several movies this weekend and have two on my dvr that i've got to finish. let's get started.

wedding crashers 8/10 - i found it hilarious. in some movies the blatant disregard for our morales is a bit much. in this one they found a way to make fun of it and turn it around. i laughed a lot. vince vaughn and owen wilson are a great pair. i also LOVED isla fisher's role in the film. i thought she was fantastic in definitely, maybe though as well playing the part of moi.

wall-e 8.5/10 - really cute. obvious underlying message about not ruining your planet and getting off your ass every once in a while. when we go see these films on the days that they premiere i always enjoy the reactions from the eight billion kids in the theater, especially the one behind us asking if she could have more of her chicken mcnuggets. it was quite an enjoyable experience.

brokeback mountain 7/10 - i was thoroughly surprised by this film. i'm not homophobic or anything, just not a big fan of watching two guys make out or go at it which is what i wrongly assumed would be the majority of the movie. plus apparently millions of women think jake gyllenhaal is sexy or some such. i am completely the opposite and find him rather unattractive. heath ledger on the other hand was immensely adorable and it rather stinks that he passed away earlier this year. the movie rather shows their relationship in a very tasteful manner. eh so the first twenty minutes of the film ennis (ledger) and jack (gyllenhaal) meet and are up in the mountains and do their relationship thing. after that they both get married [to women] and end up having kids. the boys reunite after a four year stint of not being together and ennis' wife sees a most passionate kiss betwixt the two which ultimately sets his marriage into a downward spiral. anywho i could keep going and give a complete synopsis of the events that followed but we'll stop there and leave it at the movie dealing more with the ethics of society and how the homosexual community was treated years ago. it's enlightening and saddening all at the same time. i think it's worth seeing if you have the opportunity.

last night got on eq2 and helped galubot finish up his epic by taking out the dread pirate jones in chelsith. then we ganged up with cara's alt lulla (dirge), an assassin from zealous (eluna's alt i think), galubot (swash), brigon (guardian), and wizairde (coercer) to go run charasis: vault of eternal sleep so brigon could get the last mob for his epic. the run went phenomenally well if i do say so myself and i'm giving myself props for solo healing a less than 40 minute run of the zone. it's safe to say others can do the same but man they kept me on my toes with gal running out there pulling mobs continuously and the falling into holes that happens occassionally (granted i fell into a hole and ended up causing the only death [sorry lulla] that happened the entire run but still). also got my transmuting up to 305 so i'm slowly but surely making my way to that 400 mark.

eh back to work for now. apparently i might go see hancock tonight or tomorrow...

enjoy the silence.

-pyper

eh change and all that nonsense

wow so i found my blog from forever and a day ago in 2003...obviously. it's amazing how your life changes, your views change, your goals change, the people around you change, and how you just literally "grow up." i look at things i worried about then that aren't a big deal now and how things are different in just 5 years and how lots of people i know have had things happen in their lives that are incredibly worse than how my life has turned out. it's amazing how everything changes!

so there are some blog postings that would cover a tad bit of the lapse that can be found at my myspace page if you're in for some movie reviews and light reading about my life.

brief synopsis of what's going on atm. i own a house in lexington, sc. i'm about to start grad school at usc in biology for my phd. i'm dating the man of my dreams who goes by the name sean south. the current animal population is as follows, aurora (corgi), eros (corgi), rukia (catahoula leopard dog mix), aremis (cat), petie (horse), and cooper (horse). a lot of the other animals have new homes. luna unfortunately passed away when she managed to get out of the house a coupla years ago and run straight into the highway in front of my home. my address is on hwy 6 and it's a very dangerous road. sean and i live together and we have a roommate jon. amy and jason got married! my plans are to get through my phd as quickly as possible and start post-doctoral work and hopefully get a teaching position at clemson so i can sell the house in lexington and move back to the area i love so much.

if/when you read this before i was about 40 lbs overweight. well since then i've gotten up to 100 pounds over and now i'm back down to just 80 lbs over so i'm on a diet that i've been sticking with for about 2 weeks now and i exercise at least 4/7 days per week. i don't get to see the horses very often as they're back at jake's place but i'd really like to start riding again. although i think if i do start riding again i would actually like to go bound back into the world of lessons and just let petie and cooper hang out as yard ponies since they seem to enjoy that lifestyle.

i still hate capital letters. i drink way less and can moderate it much better now than before which is most definitely a good thing as getting overly drunk has gotten me into way more trouble than i ever want to be in again. i haven't had a drink in a month and a half as part of a four month stint of not drinking that i'm currently working on.

i'm an everquest 2 addict. i'm quite good at it if i do say so myself. i've graduated from eqoa and moved on to bigger better things. my main is pyper who is a level 80 warden/80 provisioner with 140 aas and is currently working on transmuting skill levels on the crushbone server (previously innothule) if you ever want to play. i play with a great group of people that i love and enjoy spending time with. and i'm sure you all knew i'd end up as a druid in eq2 just like i was in eqoa. i'm a healer through and through.

anywho i'm currently working, sending claims and entering payments for vista psychiatric consultants so i really should get back to the end of the month crud right away.

i hope everyone is having a wonderous day!

enjoy the silence.

-pyper aka ach