Alright, I'm back from my Trip to Virginia. Hope that you all had a great holiday, whatever it may have been. Back to my regularly scheduled life.

The trip wasn't bad, and I liked seeing all my relatives again, but I really don't like traveling for the holidays. Dealing with crazy drivers in other states drives me nuts. I have to deal with the idiots around my area of the world, and they're bad enough. You get near the capital, and it goes from bad to AAAHHHH!!!! THIS IS MY LANE, NOT YOUR'S!!!!! Although my family's lucky that I didn't leap out of the car and attempt to egg the White House (Most of you should know how I feel about Bush).


I went to go see a few movies too:

Walk Hard: A fluff parody that I would only recommends seeing if you have both (1) seen Walk the Line and (2) laugh uproariously at fart jokes. I have a feeling that the audience is fairly small. It was funny, but I'd say that I probably couldn't sit through it again. In all honesty, it felt like a Mad TV skit that went on far too long. If you're looking for a movie that would be funnier with alcohol, you don't have to look further. I have a theory that a couple beers or a few shots of bourbon could make that movie funny again. Can't really recommend it to anyone though.

Sweeny Todd: Fantasitc movie. Johnny Depp and Helena Boham-Carter both do fantastic jobs, and surprisingly, so does Sancha Baron Cohen and Alan Rickman (who knew they could sing?). But this adaptation was a great accomplishment, a great tribute to the stage play, and presents a bizzare view of the world that only Tim Burton can create. Loved every second of it. Go see it. Now. Go on, I'll wait...
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...There, you see? Good, wasn't it?



I'd like to take a moment of your time to discuss presents for Christmas. I have to say, that my mother, for all her attempts, has trouble with video games. Now, she doesn't have any problems with any other types of items, but when it comes to games, she has an abnormally difficult time with things. I'm beginning to think that she does it on purpose. She, in the past, has bought the wrong game entirely (nothing says Mortal Kombat like Primal Rage), the right game for the wrong system (no...I need Halo for the PC, I don't even OWN a X-BOX), but now, she's topped her past accomplishments. I received Super Mario Galaxy for the Wii for Christmas this year. Which is great, it's what I asked for, there's only one system that it's on, so we have the right system. All good right? Except...It's in Spanish. That's right, Spanish. She bought the wrong language. I laughed about that for a long time. I don't blame her for it, because she's not really into that scene, I just find it amusing. I love my mother, but I think she doesn't check what she's buying sometimes...

So to all who are buying games for your friends, family, whatever; please check the box, otherwise you might find you have bought the wrong thing.

been a bit of time hasn't it?

Anyway. I've spent the last week in my room, with only minimal contact with the outside world. Finished my finals, and they went about as well as could be expected, since the only class in which my grades suffered was the one that I already knew about.

Went to go see I am Legend on Sunday. For the most part, the movie wasn't bad, but the fact that they were basing it off of a book made me pretty pissed off. Sure, Will Smith actually had an incredible role that he played, but the story was one of a completely different nature. They took out most of the storyline, and the whole replacing vampires with mindless mutants? They failed horribly in keeping with the original story. It was a good movie, but the fact that they claimed that it was based off the book? Truly, this was an epic failure on their part.

The rest of my week has been spent writing, reading the Mistborn books (fabulous by the way, Brandon Sanderson now has my approval for the upcoming Memory of Light completion) and watching movies and anime. That's just about it. I'll try to post sometime in the next week, but I can't say for certain, because I'll be traveling to Virgina for the Holidays.

You know, sometimes things happen that make me positively giddy with excitement. Today, when I learned that Robert Jordan's last book Memory of Light was going to be finished, filled me with glee. You know, back in September, I despaired that this series would ever be finished, and we'd never learn what happened to the characters that were so important to all of us. I'll be the first to admit that Wheel of Time was one of the first fantasy series beside Lord of the Rings that I read when I was a lot younger. But we have a new author, Brandon Sanderson,picked by Harriet herself.

My only problem with the man is that I haven't read anything by him yet. I've seen them on the bookshelves, but I never got around to picking them up, even amongst rave reviews. Needless to say, once finals are over, this guy is going to the bookstore and getting the three novels he's published so far.

I'm not too worried though, since Harriet (RJ's wife, for those who don't know) picked him herself. Harriet, besides being married to the man, was also the editor for all 11 novels. Not to mention she still has all of RJ's notes, which by all accounts are fairly extensive.

Back to studying. Bah.

It's that time again, that wonderful time that every college student has nightmares about. Finals. Such a simple word, yet it carries such dark and forbidding connotations that fills each of us with dread. We lose sleep (not that I sleep much anyway), worry ourselves sick, get headaches, indigestion, and all sorts of fun complications from these tests. Ugh.

I took my Japanese final today, but that's one exam that I wasn't so worried about. Next up is re-editing two papers (poetry WHHHHHHYYYY??!?!!), then to prepare for Biology and my other English class. Although for the English class (my lit course, not my writing one) it really doesn't matter what I do, as I'm failing that class anyway. It was quite a shock this year, because all my other English classes were very high (I may have one B, but I believe the rest are A's, although I'd have to check my transcript to be sure). And now this grade which I don't believe I can get out of with even a D. I'll probably retake it sometime in the future.

Oh well, such is life.

Good luck to all those taking these lovely exams.

A notice for today. I'm back, and I am no longer going to just use this place for writing excerpts, but for everything. Reviews, thoughts, this will be a regular blog. I'll still include writings, but I'm going to use as a blog should be.

Two quick reviews:

The Golden Compass: Don't, I repeat, DO NOT go see this movie. I can't believe someone messed the book up so badly. In today's age of incredible Fantasy movies (Lord of the Rings, Narnia, a few others) Chris Weitz manages to kill it. He killed it dead. He messed up not only the interpretation, but left out a huge portion of the book. He also decided that the original order of the story (you know, the one that got the book proclaimed the last masterpiece of the 20th century?) wasn't good enough. He destroyed characters, ripped out plot points, and left out the original ending entirely. Oh, it was very pretty to look at, and the designers are absolutely brilliant when it came to creating the world, but the story was butchered. It reminded me of an anime that America got a hold of and screwed up (One Piece anyone?). Don't support the man. I don't want to see what he does with The Subtle Knife or The Amber Spyglass.

No Country for Old Men: One word. Brilliant. I couldn't believe that I hadn't seen this movie before now. I was floored. The original word by Cormic McCarthy was a great book, and to see it come to life was amazing. The Cohen brothers made a masterpiece, each character well thought out, each scene crafted with care, you could feel the intensity of the characters through the screen. All three characters were at once so different, yet so similar, it gave me the creeps. And I don't creep easily. The only difference between them was how far they had sunk into madness. A dark masterwork, the movie gave me chills at the end. I don't think I can say much more, or I'll give everything away. But it ranks in my top movies as of now. Go see this.

It's hard to believe that both these movies are book adaptions, but the quality and care given to the movies is so vastly different.

That's all for now, I'm going to try to update this thing with a regular basis, so anyone who reads this, more content will be coming.