It's a gorgeous day out. I'm enjoying sitting here in my room, kicking it with a couple new music finds, baskets of folded laundry in front of me while light streams through my window. I have one of the smaller bedrooms in the house, but I specifically chose this one because of the light blue walls. Today proves the merits of that choice especially; the combination of natural light against the shades of my room gives a serenity I don't get from Anna's room or the guest room, both painted a yellow pastel.
Moving on from talking about walls ...
Lately I've been yearning to immerse myself into an experience, something cathartic where I can release all my energies. Creatively, I feel several ideas welling up inside me, ready to spray everywhere if I could just get the bottle top off. Once I follow through on something, I feel like the rest will follow. I'm working on a couple different projects and I've committed a few ideas to paper, but until then, it's a frustrating experience. I want to create something that will at least momentarily prove to myself that my current life pursuits are worthwhile, that I'm more than just a dreamer or a wannabe.
One thing I'm currently stoked for is Baltimore Comic-Con in September. I'm only a casual comics junkie, but
the clincher for me this year is the fact that James Jean will attend as a guest. I'm not nearly as confident in my illustrative/painting abilities (as opposed to design), but if there's any talent in that area to which I aspire, it's this man's. His works exhibit more than a surreality in subject matter, but also a provocative feel for color that simultaneously evokes both a haunting and dazzling quality. If you haven't gotten anything from that, just get this: I. Love. This. Man.
Alright, time to do a few chores, maybe work on aforementioned projects, and hopefully go bookstore trawling. I'll leave you guys with a little funk and British sass. (At least it's not another Voxtrot track. God knows I just want to post their whole discography in hopes that people everywhere would have a fraction of the love I have for this goddamn band.)
By all means, I should be in bed right now, as I'm soooo sleepy and still working the whole "earlyto bed, early to rise" thing in preparation for the internship thing tomorrow. Being the wonderful and obliging girlfriend that I am, however, I'm keeping him company for a little while longer despite it being past my self-assigned 1AM bedtime. *preens*
I actually prefer LJ over Vox if only because LJ feels a lot less ... cluttered. In comparison, Vox features too many navigational bars, too many ads, and just a generally cluttered feel to its interface. I took down alot of my stuff to let my layout breathe a bit, and really, not much there to see. Seriously, though, the google ads at the bottom of the page make me feel dirty. Last whine: comment threads are a bitch to follow. Total disapproval.
I introduce the better Vox: Voxtrot. Voxtrot's an Austin based pop band that I adore, taking influence from New Order and Belle & Sebastian. What's not to love? Their eponymous first album comes out in a week, and with any luck, Sophie and I will fawn over them at their DC show on June 13. They're a hard band to recommend if only for having to choose from so many favorites.
So I open my inbox and Ashly friends me on Vox, and I realize that there are actually people I know on vox. Suspicious. Anyway, I was planning on using this thing as a media consumption blog, basically, but it's kind of hard to care about updating with any kind of regularity. I do update my LJ a bunch, but honestly, you're not missing out on much. I'll give you guys a condensed version of what I've been doing with my life since school let out.
It comes down to this:
- Reading
- Drawing
- Gaming
- Some television
- Wallowing in my own mucus
Seriously, my allergies have banded together to break me down since I've come home. It's not been pleasant, what with my trash can overflowing with tissues and my nose attempting desperately to breathe.
More TV recs for the bored:
son in the family to take care of everything and everyone else. The main draw for me is the total obliviousness of most of the cast. These people do terrible things, and by all rights should be terrible people, but once you start seeing the intentions behind the veil of not-knowing-the-fuck-they're-doing, they're rather endearing. Will Arnett as the lackluster magician and eldest brother Gob is especially amazing. Cameos include Ben Stiller, Amy Poehler, Liza Minelli, and whole lot of other really talented people. All three seasons are available on DVD now, and the series has ended due to Fox being one giant, collective, ignorant slut.
movie star Tracy Jordan to the cast. Tina Fey plays head writer Liz Lemon, the straight man to Jack (Alec Baldwin) and Tracy (Tracy Morgan). Sooo many SNL people, and Rachel Dratch to boot! Though note: Dratch doesn't play who she does in the promo here. They switched her to play several background characters to give the show more of a sketch comedy feel and replaced her with Jane Krakowski of Ally Mcbeal fame for the role of Jenna, the neurotic actress. The show is getting ready for its second season on NBC this fall. Hopefully, the first season DVDs will be out at the end of the summer or during the fall.
I'm a TV junkie; what can I say?
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Hurr, if anyone wants to see my reading list, they can head over to my LibraryThing, but it's rather disorganized at the moment. The current reading list is under the "unread" tag. Right now, I'm working on Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon and Kate Ross's The Devil in Music, the last of her Julian Kestrel series before she died. Cryptonomicon is kind of a TOME about cryptography during WWII and a fictionalized present day. I'm getting through it reaaally slowly, but people tell me the payoff's worth it. The Devil in Music is another one of Ross's murder mysteries, this time revolving around one of the gentry whose obsession with music and unyielding nature leads to his untimely demise. Kate Ross, why are you so amazing but dead? Bleeeeeeeergh! Mystery fans should definitely pick up her books, as Julian Kestrel has got to be one of the most charming amateur detectives in existence.
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I just finished Chocobo Tales and Hotel Dusk: Room 215, both for the DS. Good games, though now I'm out of DS titles to beat and I don't plan on buying anymore for awhile until I feed my bank account a little more. The current plan is to live at my friends' apartment so I can beat my Wind Waker save file. Whoo!
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This past weekend, I went to University of Mary Washington's graduation to see my Sophie and Jo graduate. Eeeeeee, my people are growing up so fast! Newt Gingrich spoke and was appropriately non-political! It was the generic life lessons speech, but it was short, sweet, and I only fell asleep once. Then there's this weekend, when I see my boy and another chunk of my high school kids graduate from UVA, which should be exciting. Man, my graduation's in three years! ... Whoo.
Internship starts next Monday. Wish me luck!
So, cup holders are supposed hold cups, right? Cans apparently don't count, as proven today when I put a coke can in one cup holder and my phone in another, and the latter fell over and poured it's syrupy self over the former while I parked. GOOD JOB, KIM.
Misfortune + idiocy: 3*
Kim + technology: 0
*Things I've somehow wrecked within the past few weeks: My tablet, my powerbook's second AC adapter, my phone. Next: THE INTERNET.
So the real purpose of this post is to get all your contact information for my new phone whenever I get it. PM me on facebook.
I've been keeping online journals since my freshman year of high school, starting with a small blog about my day-to-day life at pitas.com, then moving to livejournal.com and basically camping there ever since then. Livejournal had the large user base, a lot of my friends were using it, but most of all, it has locking functions so that my entries are only viewable to those who I feel comfortable sharing my life with. It's really important to remember that if you're posting to the internet, it's public domaaaain. People can reeeeaaaad iiiiiiiiit. Far too many times have I had people that weren't particularly fond of me read personal shit that I naively tossed out onto the nets, and I've paid for it in humiliation.
Livejournal's had its ups and downs even despite its locking features. I've met a lot of cool people online through fandoms (fan circles/communities for those not in the know) and I've kept in touch to an extent with a lot of people I wouldn't have without the internet. However, the ratio of those I'm close with to those I'm only acquainted with has diminished a lot since I started that journal, so I began writing less openly and much more superficially as my readership changed. Livejournal has the ability to create groups and filters so that you can even further customize who you want to read your entries within your list of friends, but I honestly couldn't be bothered most of the time.
Blogs and online journals serve as a social networking tool on a very superficial level for me, which I'm perfectly comfortable with. Nowadays, I don't even make an attempt at exposing any of my deep, dark, and completely candid feelings. If you really want to get to know me, talk to me, call me, hell, IM works better. (Though I prefer direct interaction so much more. Face to face for the win!) Don't expect too much angst and strife from me, because while I'm truly a brilliant and tortured artist, I've grown to disdain that sort of exposure via blogs.
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With that said, time to get to know me more on a completely superficial basis! I've been watching a lot of television lately. Let's talk television.
I remember back in high school when it was cool not to watch TV. It's better to be too busy with everything BUT television, because everyone knows that all programming is crap. Television is all crappy reality shows and bad sitcoms, the trailer park trash of cinema.
Nowadays, though, I've pretty much fallen in love with TV on DVD. No commercials, lovely quality (usually), and you don't have to wait weekly for episodes! Here are my first loves:
Firefly - Joss Whedon's space western brainchild, and one of the prime examples of brilliant but cancelled television. Even if you're not a huge sci-fi fan, I'm sure you can appreciate quippy dialogue, strong women, and a dysfunctional family of misfits running from the law. And if you love sci-fi, Whedon's done a good job of building his world, a futuristic merging of American and Chinese cultures with a western spin, the last bit well-fitting as the misadventures of Firefly's crew takes place on the outskirts of the solar system where many planets are left to fend for themselves without proper funding, support, and technology from the central government. Whatever, IT WORKS. One-liners are aplenty here, there's lots of gun-slinging, bounty-hunting, BAD CHINESE, and best of all, a somewhat brooding, war-hardened captain who'll shoot you in the face one second and be naked for the ship's success and welfare the next!
Wonderfalls - It's like Joan of Arcadia on a sugar high with a minor head concussion. The cynical protagonist, fresh out of college with a philosophy degree, works at a Niagara Falls souvenir shop and lives in a nicely furnished trailer. Her life is seemingly normal until inanimate animals begin telling her to do things. Lots of seemingly bad and awkward things happen. Then lots of good things happen, and it's okay then, but until that point comes, the episodes are goofy, off-the-wall scenarios that have the poor heroine questioning her sanity. One of my favorite episodes involves a Russian internet fiancee, a 12-year-old intentionally giving himself a black eye, and said 12-year-old setting a car on fire out of his UNDYING LOVE AND RESPECT for the heroine. The colors in this show are also vibrant and reminiscent to that of Amelie, and especially familiar to fans of Veronica Mars, as the cinematographer for Wonderfalls also worked on the first season of VM. I'm a big fan of the visuals. <3
Wonderfalls and Firefly also have a common tie, and that's the fact that they are both shows that were completely screwed over by everyone's favorite network FOX. Firefly's episodes were shown out of order, postponed due to baseball games, and cancelled after the 11th episode when viewership didn't quite meet FOX's expectations. With that kind of programming, it's hard to wonder why. While Firefly's fanbase may wail in justifiable indignation, that's nothing compared to how Wonderfalls didn't even get past its 4th episode! There are 13 in all, if I remember correctly.
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That's enough for tonight. Tomorrow, I go home for an orthodontist appointment to tighten my braces, followed by seeing my boy, having a completely dorky date featuring Final Fantasy Tactics, and attending Clifton Day, the annual town fair! I'll try to take pictures and post them here. KETTLE COOOOORN.
Here are a bunch of thoughts on things I watched before school started up again. (Call them "reviews," if you will, but to take them at all seriously would be, I dunno, funny. At some point, I'll write something up on the terrors that are SciFi channel feature films, aka Adventures in Six-Legged Bestial Necrophilia aka The Downfall of Sean Patrick Flanery. To any new readers on facebook (whoo, syndication!), HALLOOOOOOOOO. Drop a line!
BRICK
THIS MOVIE WAS MADE FOR ME. High school neo-noir murder mystery! Its premise is similar to Veronica Mars in that aspect, except it takes the noir aspect to a greater extreme; while all events take place in a modern high school setting, the dialogue is written completely in the style of 1930s noir. Think Baz Luhrman's Romeo and Juliet, the Vegas retelling with everyone still speaking Shakespeare.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays Brendan, an outsider whose ex-girlfriend suddenly calls him for help after months of not speaking. Three days later, she turns up dead. He investigates to find out what she got herself into and who killed her.
I'll just start off saying that GORDON-LEVITT ROCKED IT. He got the crackling dialogue down without sounding too dry or apathetic, and when in doubt, GO FOR THE SHINS. I loved the fight scenes, and how can you lose when there are SLIDE TACKLES. Brendan's accomplice, The Brain (haha, I gotta say, Arthur anyone?) is the little all-knowing nerd and mommy mommy I wanna take him hooome!
The movie as a whole is ridiculous in how seriously the characters seem to take themselves, but ridiculous in a good way! It's a really funny movie despite the murder mystery storyline, though I've heard people disagree with what I considered "funny" in the movie. (Watch out for the cereal scene! <3333)
KISS KISS BANG BANG
Another neo-noir, except significantly lighter in nature and not as blatant except for the chapters named after Raymond Chandler stories. Robert Downing Jr. narrates as the sketchy but nice-guy protagonist, a petty thief who stumbles upon an acting role, landing himself in LA. Val Kilmer is a CHUBBY, GAY PRIVATE EYE. *WINWINWIN* The two find themselves caught up in a murder mystery, and talk in almost nothing but snarky, witty dialogue. The writing and the leads make this movie, and while it borders on being overly smug in its meta-ness, it's just too charming to resist! Highly recommended.
CASANOVA
I'm starting to see the Heath Ledger charm, yet I'm still not a fanatic. XD It's not a stellar movie by any means, but it's fluffy with cute characters. Casanova, one of the world's greatest lovers, finds himself faced with either being banished from or settling down with a wife. Casanova and the object of his affections were fine and dandy to watch, but Giovanni and Victoria were adorably sexy characters. (I approve of Charlie Cox for Tristan in Stardust!)
I actually need to download the David Tennant version of it. I think it'd be more to my taste.
LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE
GO SEE IT. JUST DO IT DO IT DO IT. This is probably one of my favorite ensemble casts EVAR, as everyone has a frighteningly high endearment factor. Dysfunctional family/road trip movies often suffer from individual gimmicks and cheese cheese cheese, but here, not everyone gets a particularly happy ending (IRONY RUNS RAMPANT LIKE GAZELLES ON THE AFRICAN SAVANNAH), but I was pretty content with the characters' resolutions and very happy with how the script managed to evade the predictable.
The movie also wins for best opening title. They go through brief introductions of the characters, and stop with Steve Carrell's: a suicidal gay Proust scholar. There's a close up on his rather desolate expression looking out the blinds of the hospital room, and the words "LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE" appear by his face.
Jeremy: That's him right there. Little Miss Sunshine.
ALL ABOUT LILY CHOU CHOU
I rather wish I'd written about this after I'd seen it. All I remember is a) pretty, b) cruel schoolchildren, and c) sweet soundtrack. The story mainly follows the friendship and falling out of two boys in junior high, fans of an "eclectic" singer "reminscent of Bjork," Lily Chou Chou. (I use quotes because the resemblance is only slightly there, as the music of the fake jpop star consists of chill, sweet ballads with fairly simplistic production and much less electronic components than you'd think. You can hear it here.) Near death experiences turn one of the boys into a bully and the other becomes his flunkie/victim, who finds comfort in moderating a pretty hardcore Lily Chou Chou fan community. The colors are often vibrant and gorgeous—this movie is EYE CANDY. Seriously, even if I don't completely understand the director's intentions in the film, it's almost worth watching for its visuals and soundtrack.
I hereby decree that I shall expound even more at length about my various fandoms here while also updating with art school shiz and indie poseur-ness. That is, more than in my friends-locked livejournal. BLITHERING FOR EVERYBODY!
