orbit

saw Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life this weekend.

^________________________^

(the following probably contains spoilers. be warned.)

i <3 Mme. Jolie. <3 <3 <3. and i <3ed the first movie quite a bit---besides the fact that it's her, the movie itself was (i thought) quite good for a video game movie. honestly. and i still am incredibly impressed with the amount of work that Mme. Jolie herself put into learning how to do things so that she could do most of her own stunts. i cannot stress enough how much i love it when people do stuff like that. it's just so cool. *^^*

the second movie was at least as good (if not better) than the first. i'm starting to lean towards it being better, mostly because the pacing seemed a little better this time around. and although i had my suspension of disbelief switch firmly turned on in preparation, there were still moments (the unlocking of the orb in the apartment in Taipei, ahem) where i was left going, "...and they'd have had the means of doing this back then? O.O;;" but overall, much fun was had.

the chara of Terry Sheridan was okay. more fun than i'd have expected, but they didn't seem to entirely gel at first. worked really well towards the end, though. and Jonathan Reiss (Ciar?n Hinds) looked (at first glance, not looking v. closely) a bit much like...Hans Gruber from Die Hard. just a teeny bit. (Spaz thought he looked like someone too, although i don't think that's who and he'll probably say he thinks i'm on a lot of crack once he reads this. XDXD) [now there's a concept. Jolie and Rickman in the same movie. as nemeses. 'scuse me while my entire body's blood supply rushes out my nose with absolutely no warning. *.*;;;;]

Spaz was particularly taken with the way the nighttime scenes in Kilamanjaro were shot. at one point (and neither of us talks during movies, as a general rule), he leaned over and excitedly whispered, "...THAT'S what night should look like on film!" and it did look quite convincing.

CG work was not too shabby, which was a relief---i can't say how many times lately i've seen things where people have obviously been exercising their new toys and really shouldn't have; the results have just looked like utter crap. and things like Starship Troopers (both the Paul Verhoeven movie and also Roughnecks: the Starship Troopers Chronicles animated TV series) have proven solidly that it CAN be done and done WELL---regardless of what else you might think of either. so that was nice, too. i think that a large part of the particular scene i'm thinking of's looking so good is that it took place at night, but i'm not complaining at all. they did what they had to to make it look less flashily unbelievable, and i appreciate that.

if you're someone who'd enjoy this, and you haven't seen it yet, i heartily advise going.

<3 <3 <3 <3 <3

</jolie fangirling>

run, run, as fast as you can...

apparently, there's to be an Initial D CCG released here. meant to coincide with the official release of IniD Third Stage here. wonder if it's planned theatrically? i know that it's being premiered at BAAF this year (probably dubbed, i'd imagine). oi. i have no idea how either will do here, although i do know the CCG game rankles if only for the usage of the "Americanised" names. (they couldn't even be horribly punny! come ON! Takumi became "Tak," and no thought of at least spelling it "Tach"? --;; i kid because it hurts. oh yes. XD)

also, check out the Makkinen and Solberg editions of the Autobots' Smokescreen.

oooh. ^-^ more than meets the eye, indeed.

oh my...

no matter what you may have heard about it, i'm afraid nothing is adequate preparation for the spectacularly awful and misguided trainwreck that is Pink Lady and Jeff. O.O;;

Trio was showing an episode last night (the Blondie episode, in fact...and was that Florence Henderson? O.O;;), of which i probably caught 10-15 minutes. but even that was enough to make me sit there and go O.O;;;; and "...wow" every few seconds or so.

i will never, ever understand what had to be imbibed to get multiple people thinking this show was a good idea. ever. apparently there's a box set, too.

oh dear. o.O;;

changed the locks when you came back from hollywood

the DMC Back To Mine compilations are a really brilliant idea.

and look what's new...Underworld does one.

excellent. ^^

and another thing...

after having run around with these headphones for almost a month now, i feel confident in offering some sort of opinion.

for one, Sumy and others might be interested to know that unfortunately yes, one can hear what someone else is listening to while that someone else is wearing these. but only if they're listening to it rather loudly, and are surrounded by rather quiet conditions. on a crowded bus or walking down busy streets, probably not. but they are audible from outside.

inside, they sound quite nice---particularly for headphones of the semi-cheap, non-studio-monitor-can variety. they're quite comfortable to wear, too---and unlike earbuds, the foam pads aren't quite so easy to lose. nor is there that nasty earwax problem to contend with. they're also about twice as much as most earbuds i've seen (excepting the Fontopia Anniversary ones i got awhile ago for use with my ear monitor, but those are meant to be noise reducing, so they're a bit more spensive, unfortunately. ^^;;;), but i would say they're worth it so far. we'll have to see how long they last, however. ^^ the quality of the sound is quite good---much better than i'd have expected. so that's something, at least. one could spend $20 in far worse ways. ^^

lost time, the making up of

so far, it seems i've been filling my summer up with DWJ books i hadn't read when i was younger. (which isn't to say that what i read when i was younger was a waste of time, but i'm still rather amazed i completely missed out on DWJ when i was younger. and had more time to read. ah, for those glorious days of taking out 20+ books at once from my local library...^^;;;)

anyrate, here's what i've read recently:

Castle in the Air
Deep Secret
A Sudden Wild Magic
The Dark Lord of Derkholm

and i've just now started off the Dalemark Quartet with Cart and Cwidder (which i note that Meril has also read recently ^^). previous to that, i'd only read Howl's Moving Castle and A Tale of Time City.

suggestions as to what to read next, after i finish off the Dalemark Quartet?

the lunatics on the track go round and round...

F1 this year has been nuts. and nothing moreso than Silverstone earlier today. XD while i'm still not entirely sure how i feel about how the rules have changed so drastically for this season, i will say that it does seem they've had their desired effect---to shake up the grid and make F1 more exciting again.

today, however, was not really an example of that.

today was more an example of exemplary driving skill. and teams working. and, y'know, another complete nutter jumping the fence and running round on the race line off of Hangar Straight. all in a day's work, really.

absolutely phenomenal.

(now if only ickle Mikey's car had broken. XD)

the people that you meet each day...

had a visitor stop by earlier on in the evening. took me quite by surprise as i went to uncover the grill for dinner.

wish i'd gotten a better picture, but this is one of the bunnies we see around pretty regularly, i think. rather bigger than most around here, though. we left some food out for the bunny after it ran to the next yard; hope s/he finds it if s/he comes back. ^^

(there's always the romaine, i suppose...XD)

the birds in your garden

skipped into 57th St. Books in a thoroughly great mood yesterday afternoon, on the way home from work. skipped out again quickly, as i decided i really oughtn't be spending money, but not before skimming amusedly through Alexander Theroux's The Strange Case of Edward Gorey. shall have to scoop it up at a later time.

everything's growing really well; repotted the basil this morning (it's a house-basil, not an outdoor-basil---although i really ought to plant a few outdoors as well) and put the remaining dusty millers out by the strawberry. i cannot believe the asparagus---it had completely disappeared a few weeks ago, only to return (and quite tall) this week. O.O;; very strange. anyway, here's some more photos...and ones of the celosia plumosa and dusty millers we planted around the tree out front.

here's our aloe, which has grown beyond all reason. there's actually three in this pot. we need to get more pots and separate them---i really think they're out to take over our kitchen. o.o;;

and here's our cute little basil, which i swear grows an average of a whole inch every day. put it this way---i watered it yesterday, and today i repotted it. by the time i repotted it this morning, there were roots sticking out of the hole at the bottom of the pot. roots that hadn't been there when i watered it yesterday. O.O;;;

here's one of the four chocolate peppers we've got. these were looking pretty sad when i took them out to plant them a couple of weekends ago, but they've perked up quite nicely. they really like where they're planted. ^-^

one of the early girl imp tomatoes. isn't it cute and...impish? XD

the romaine is doing quite nicely, too---although i'm convinced something's going to come through the fence and eat it before it's fully grown. i hope if something does, it's at least the neighbourhood bunny collective. there's at least two wandering around here---and a whole bunch more i've seen by other houses and by the train station around here. i hope they leave some for Diesel, though. speaking of which, what i really ought to try growing is kale. that's her absolute favourite. ^^

finally, here's what we did around the tree out front last weekend. they've shifted a bit since then; we had some fairly violent storms, and the celosia plumosa don't really bend very well, so they got moved around a bit. still nice, though. as always, click the thumbnail to view it quite a bit larger...

nameless, faceless, run them down

nearly forgot, but shouldn't have. we saw 28 Days Later this weekend, too.

and i advise you to go see it.

but not if you're stuck in a theatre with people who don't realise that while it's perfectly fine to not like any movie they've gone to see, it's not perfectly fine to ruin the experience for everyone else around them.

one day, i will dump an entire fountain machine of soda on someone's head. possibly several someones. and you won't be able to say i didn't warn you. honestly. >P

(also, i keep forgetting to mention, but Fi and others might be interested to know that the USPS now has Audrey Hepburn stamps available for purchase. ^^)

we're falling in, so let's swim

got woke up this morning by rather violent storms outside and hail battering against our windows. it's calmed down quite a bit now, but it's always alarming when one looks outside one's window and sees the trees in their yard bouncing. XD i just hope the plants are okay. we were busybusybusy this weekend. here's some of what we did.

here's the biggest part of our garden. i <3 the little rosemary tree. XD

didn't think we'd get strawberries this year; thought it was far too late in the season, and they don't really like summer much. we'll see how these do. that is, if they're really strawberries at all---in this photo (and particularly in the full-sized version, which you can view by clicking on the thumbnail), they kinda look like some sort of creepy alien life form...^-^

there's also some really neat flowers we planted around the tree out front. celosia plumosa, and some other things. haven't taken pictures of them yet, however, but i will soon. ^^

we also saw this really neat old 1936 Buick coupe, complete with rumble seat in the back. the little steps lead up to the handle on the trunk, and that door folds down to provide extra passenger seating.

there was also a Ford GT40. a real one. it was quite amazing. Spaz took loads of photos of it. here's the only part of it you'd be likely to see on the road, unless of course it got caught up at a stoplight...

(there was also much parentage this weekend. aieeeeeee. o.o;;;; no photos of that, however. call it generosity. XD)

the moon is out, the stars invite

wish i could've got better shots of it, but out by my house right now, the moon looks remarkably similar to this:

it's really a gorgeous night out. hope everyone's enjoying it.

(my neighbours probably completely think me a loon now for going out and taking pictures of the moon, but it's nothing they probably didn't already think before. as they've made abundantly clear. don't really mind, though---used to it by now. XD)

tomoyotastic weekend

finally, about a week and a half after the fact, i'm posting up the photos from Sarah and Eric's baby shower. this way, this way---don't crowd each other...and as always, click on the thumbnails to see larger versions of each photo.

...and here's the lovely pair now. ^^

amongst those also in attendence were Dale...

...Sarah and Caleigh's Nanny and mum...

...Jean, Dale's sister (who i'd gone to high school with, and despite meeting both of them around that time, i didn't figure out they were related until last year...^^;;;)...

...Eric's stepmom, Jeanie...

...some other relatives (apologies for not being able to name them)...

...Mike (foreground)...

...and, er, some girl and Caleigh.

the lucky three amassed quite a pile of tribute.

and lo, everyone felt quite...er...

thanks to Sarah's friend Scott, the baby's already got his glow-in-the-dark quota filled!

Sarah's Nanny made a bunch of absolutely stunning clothes, which all matched with this blanket she'd made:

someone else made them a lovely blankie, too:

sometimes, i wish i had a bib this dashing...

this is the outfit meant to make the baby look just like his daddy. it's allegedly about a zillion times more effective with the baby Chuck Taylors and little baseball cap that hadn't yet arrived when this set was unwrapped, but it's still pretty funny seeing him hold it. XD

we gave them toys. including the wigglin', shakin' monkey, which was awfully difficult to part with:

there was also the really neatly textured fishie toy:

which then begged a very important question: do you like Caleigh better with the fishie...

...or without?

Jean videotaped all the action, and Scott watched...

...as Lambchop attacked!

and in the end, it was in fact little Lambchop who conquered all!

what a party indeed. XD

b-day of DOOM

the weather yesterday was certainly encouraging. oh yes. although i s'pose it's a good thing we weren't anywhere near Indianapolis. O.O;;; a little Cessna crashed right next to the train tracks near my house, though. and funnel clouds were forming over Spaz' head at some job he was at. yay erfday! XD

there's part of how we spent yesterday evening. (and Spaz would like to note that no, that's not a subwoofer. XD) there was also car pr0n er, automotive enthusiast g33kdom featuring Tsuchiya Keiichi and Bill Bickard (yes, he of the Iron Chef English dub fame) in the form of Best Motoring International Vol.5, featuring an Impreza STi Spec-C vs. a LanEvoVII. amongst other things. total car pr0n. it was great.

and on Tsuchiya's racing suit in this video, there is a rather large Atlus patch. oho. XD

(still have to fiddle with the photos from the party a couple weekends ago. oh, and the STi got broken in this weekend and there's photos of that, too. all in good time, my friends. of which i have none, but that's beside the point. XD)

s is for saru!

...but oddly, not Saruman. XD

Spaz has a birthday today. Daimkeeki and homemade pizza for all! ^-^

*throws confetti*

(and now home again, home again, jiggedyjig...)

dale does wild!

er, well, with the rest of Swek, of course.

although there aren't photos, and we unfortunately didn't bootleg ourselves, thanks to Ronald L. and the lovely people at Soulcrash Studios, there's video footage of our exploits at Acen 2003. should you be interested, you can check out newly digitised versions here, although be warned: the files are zipped, but they're still around 7MB each.

enjoy. ^^

bwahahahah

have been watching the old Twilight Zone marathon that's been on SciFi the past couple of days. haven't watched all of it, but it's mostly much more worth watching (or at least having on while doing other stuff) than anything else on. this morning, they played an episode i've seen before but which Spaz didn't recall---"Once Upon A Time."

it involves a time-travel helmet, and travel by one man from the 1890s to, er, whenever it was that this episode was made (not sure what year, exactly). the scenes in the 1890s were done to look like a silent film, which was really cool.

and i thought the gentleman doing the time travelling looked familiar, but i couldn't quite place him. both times i've seen this ep.

this time, i saw the ending credits. and felt really silly upon realising that yep, that's Buster Keaton. XDXDXD (i think they're doing another festival of his films at Doc this summer, IIRC...)

i've been having more car dreams lately, too. last night's involved me winning a Ford Focus ZX3 somehow. lots of weird stuff had been done to it---i think there was a Cosworth wing on it, too. which can probably entirely be blamed on this absolutely mental modded Mini City in last month's issue of Mini Magazine, which this 16 year old kid had gotten a few years before he was going to be able to drive it, and had been working on restoring with his uncle and his dad. amongst other things, he stuck a Cosworth wing on it, crafted a custom dash out of MDF when he decided he didn't like any of the ready-made ones he was finding, and also used a Red Bull can as an ignition coil. XDXDXD

oi. it's funny, yo. XDXD

magic in the mix

if ever the idea crosses your mind that hey, Klass powdered horchata mix is a good idea, i really do hope you'll come to your senses and realise it's otherwise without actually having spent money on it. granted, the little packets are quite cheap (around $.35 each, IIRC), but really---they ought to pay you to take the stuff away.

however, the same can fortunately not be said of Klass' mango drink mix. although i still probably wouldn't recommend concocting the drink as instructed on the back of the package.

instead, yesterday i decided to make some sort of smoothie-like concoction as i had a bunch of apricots that were just on point of being so ripe as to be nearly bad. pitted them, and into the food processor they went (we've got a blender, but it's too wussy for drinkish things, including the crushing of ice. XD). added copious amounts of ice, a bit of ice water, the Klass mango drink envelope, and some raw sugar.

...WOW.

although it still didn't bowl me over as much as this thing Gigi's calls an Apple-Mango Kiss. which is none other than a smoothie made with a mango, green tea, and just a bit of granny smith apple. i swear, the apple makes the mango taste more...mangoey. amazing. i need to get some mangos and apples so i can attempt to recreate it.

a bit like cold baby food, but oh so good. ^^

all quiet on the Diesel front

have i mentioned that i <3 my camera? ^^

which also calls to mind that i really should play with the photos taken last weekend and perhaps put them somewhere so that not only can Sarah and Caleigh see them (since they were actually there, and it was Sarah's party, besides), but so that others might be entertained as well.

and i will. oh yes, i will.

just not...now. ^^

*halos*

Mlle. Sparkuru!

Keito-chan wrote me the sweetest e-mail talking of how she made salad kaek for her family last night and it went over really well---so well, in fact, that apparently they ate so much they couldn't finish dinner. i'm so excited; this totally made my day. ^-^

have also got a nice big pot of the lovely jasmine tea Fi gave me, and it's a gorgeous day out...

...yay vacation! ^^