Summer Abridged

Sadly summer has ended and for a summer-in-review I have compiled a list of the best quotes to come from this summer. Let me know if there are some good ones missing and I will add them.

“Now we have to pass that asshole who yelled that my tire was flat.”
“I’m sorry I called you an asshole.”


“My hand was on fire today.”


“I BEAT ANDY!”


“Do your part, be water smart


“Oh no. The label on the neck of the bottle is gone.”


“I almost died this morning.”


“If my last name was “Do” I would name my son “Ski.”
“If my last name was “Do” I would name my son “Cocka-doodle.”


“Where is she going after this?”
“Home.”
“Where is he going after this?”
“Home.”
“Where are we going after this?”
“Home.”
“Okay, stop asking!”


“Holy Shit! Taki-Mushrooms!”


“Who’s that guy? Oh, it’s Lana.”


“…Katarina Smirnoff and Savage Garden.”


“This isn’t Red Hot, its Kevin Walker.”


“This should come with a pack of Rolaids.”


“And this is a glass of bile.”


“Hey I got a text! It’s from Will!”
“You want to get out of here?”


“Bad kitty.”


“…drink saki out of her ass in front of my grandmother.”


“BRUNO!”


“Look at that downstairs mustache.”


“When gay men have sex they do it anally and sometimes there’s bleeding.”


“Are you still master of your domain?”
“Are you still a virgin?”


“Stop yelling into the speaker.”


“Go fork a bee!”


“Poop licker!”


“We’re here for the gang bang.”


“That says you have really big hands in brail.”

LOST-Catch Up

I haven't blogged about LOST in a couple weeks.
In last weeks episode, Sawyer and Kate gave wounded Young Ben to Richard Alpert. Alpert says he can help him and an Other tells Alpert, "Ellie and Charles won't be happy." Charles is of course Charles Widmore who we know was at one time the leader of the Others until Ben kicked him off the Island, and who we met in the past. Ellie would be the young British girl that we met in the 50's. So are Ellie and Charles married? Faraday said that he thought she looked familiar. My thought: Ellie is Eloise Hawking. It would explain her connection to the Others. But, could there be any chance that Faraday, son of Eloise Hawking, and Penny, daughter of Charles Widmore, could be siblings? There are three different last names involved, but maybe thats a diversion.
Again, where are Rose and Bernard and Vincent? And with that, what has happened to Faraday, and will Desmond come back? How are Sun and Lapidus going to get to 1977?

25 Must See Movies

Yahoo has released a list of the 100 movies to see before you die. I have not seen every movie on the list, but I think that is my new summer goal. But as I read through their list I thought that I should make my own list. Well, I didn’t want to write a list of 100 movies, so I decided I would do 25.

There are some movies I think everyone should see before they die: The Godfather, The Graduate, Citizen Kane, basically I think Yahoo did a good job. But those films are not included on the Andy Green list. Its not that I don’t think those films are good, because they are. But I wouldn’t bring those on a desert island with me.

In no particular order

Shawshank Redemption

Dances with Wolves

Field of Dreams

Fargo

V for Vendetta

No Country for Old Men

Batman

Pee Wee’s Big Adventure

Seven

Army of Darkness

Dead Poet Society

Planet of the Apes (1968)

Back to the Future

Ghostbusters

Toy Story

Shaun of the Dead

Apocalypse Now

Duck Soup

Tropic Thunder

Ed Wood

Pulp Fiction

Star Wars

Jurassic Park

The Silence of the Lambs

Young Frankenstein

LOST-3/4-La Fleur

This week we finally got to see a little bit of the four-toed statue. Upon further inspection, and an idea from Erin Knoble, the statue looks like on of the Egyptian gods, either Anubis or Osiris. It makes sense, seeing that there are hieroglyphs on the temple, and the mysterious wall that Ben pushes to control the smoke monster, and the countdown sequence in the Swan station. I think it is Anubis, who happens to be the Egyptian god of the afterlife.
What happened to Bernard, Rose, and Vincent? As far as we know they survived the flaming arrow attack, but Vincent's leash was found by Sawyer before they found the Indian canoes. I understand Rose and Bernard chilling on the beach during the time flashes, but I don't believe they've been sitting around for three years. Sawyer has two weeks to find the rest of his crew according to Horace, does that mean he will go to the beach to pick up Rose and Bernard? Will we just see them at the Dharma barracks with no explanation, acting as if they've been there all along with the rest of the Losties?
I don't think the young girl with red hair is Charlotte. When Daniel saw her it was 1974, and according to Ben in season 4 Charlotte was not born until 1979.
I think that the 316 flight that crashed on the Hydra Island is still in 2008. In 1974-77, the Hydra station would be full of Dharma staffers and polar bears. So where does that leave Locke, Ben, Lapidus, maybe Sun, and the rest of the red shirts that are currently on it?

Gitmo

I read a headline today that read, “U.S. government vows not to use “waterboarding.”

It is sad that our world has come to that. We need to announce that we no longer endorse torture. Torture. Isn’t there something in the Geneva Convention that tells us we can’t torture people? Does the fact that we were attacked eight years ago give us the right to drown America’s moral values? We have a Patriot Act that basically ignores the freedoms given to us by the Constitution and embraces the future given to us by George Orwell.

There are people out there that are upset about the fact that the Obama Administration is shutting down Guantanamo Bay. Guantanamo Bay is a detention facility in Cuba were we store Afghanistan and Iraq citizens that we assume are terrorists. Now, if there was an island off the coast of Iraq were American citizens were taken after being drug out of their houses in the middle of the night, then were tortured by simulated drowning, held without trial, and forced to watch guards rip pages out the Bible that were then flushed down a toilet: do you think American’s would be angry about this and want this stopped? What gives us the right?

Organic Frosted Flakes

Drew Matzen has a box of organic Frosted Flakes.

I’ll pause for a moment to let that sink in.

Drew Matzen has a box of organic Frosted Flakes. That means someone was thinking, “You know, I like these Frosted Flakes, but they are just so unhealthy for you. I’ll make them from all organic material, that way they will be healthy and I won’t feel shameful when I eat breakfast.” First of all, when I think of a healthy breakfast I never think of cereal. I don’t care what cereal you are eating. I don’t care if it is oat flakes laced with calcium and Vitamin D, chunks of shredded fiber, two scoops of raisons, with low fat Vitamin C milk. The fact is, you are eating a bowl of cereal. It’s the same bowl of cereal that is advertised by a flamboyant tiger. Even if you’re eating Kix, which are Kid tested and Mother approved, you still sprinkle sugar on the top. And then drink the sugar infested milk at the end.

Sidenote: I would never put sugar into a glass of milk if I was just regularly drinking a glass of milk. But when I get to the bottom of a bowl of Rice Krispies where I have ten granules of sugar for every Krispie, I am lapping up that milk. Or the poser chocolate milk at the bottom of Count Chocula. Never would I think about making chocolate milk by place crisped rice into it. But when it’s at the bottom of the cereal bowl, man.

Back to the point. If you wanted to eat a healthy Frosted Flake, you would eat a Corn Flake. Because, honestly, all a Frosted Flake is, is a sugar coated Corn Flake. Now, the very few times I’ve ever eaten a bowl of Corn Flakes, I’ve sprinkled sugar on. Basically making homemade Frosted Flakes, with better tasting milk at the end.

Now, I asked Drew Matzen why he was in possession of a box of organic Frosted Flakes. His reason was, “Because they’re good.” I tried one of the organic Frosted Flakes. It was exactly the same as a regular Frosted Flake. So this is how I believe organic Frosted Flakes came into existence:

Two guys are sitting at a table with a bowl of Frosted Flakes. First guy says, “What are selling this crap for, like, five dollars a box? How can we make it ten dollars a box without doing anything different?” The second guy says, “We can write ‘Organic’ on the box.” “Done!”

I want to see the organic cartoon tiger that’s going to advertise this crap.

To be perfectly honest, I really have a hard time recalling when the last time I had a bowl of cereal was. I don’t understand why the cartoon leprechaun and cartoon rabbit are not allowed to eat their cereals, but the coco puff bird and the smacks frog need their cereal like a meth addict begging for a fix. The rabbit doesn’t even get to eat his own yogurt. I want to meet the genius who discovered that if you mix Coco Puffs and Peanut Butter Crunch, you can package it as Reese’s Puffs. I think if I was to get back to eating cereal, I would go for either Smacks or Corn Puffs, or the Rice Krispie Treat cereal. A bowl of cereal cannot replace a good plate of scrambled eggs and bacon. But you can't advertise bacon and eggs with a flamboyant cartoon tiger with an annoying catch phrase.

LOST-2/26-The Life and Death of Jeremy Benthem

Hello my name is Terry O'Quinn and this is the episode I am submitting to the Emmy committee.
This episode throws another twist into a long ranging battle between Ben Linus and Charles Widmore. On one hand, I want to trust Charles Widmore and believe that Ben Linus is the villain. Ben helped lead the purge against Dharma, Widmore says Ben tricked him into leaving, and as we see at the end it see at the end, the Island does not want Ben back. It could make sense that Widmore wants to protect the Island and Ben is making it very difficult. But I really want to believe Ben. I want to believe that Ben is the good guy. I want to believe that Ben is trying his hardest to do the right thing and keep the Island safe. But who to believe!?
Ben kills Abaddon in a Pulp Fiction "I just shot Marvin in the face"-esque killing. Ben also kills Locke in a "Luca Brasi sleeps with the fishes"-esque killing. Now something I found interesting is that Ben didn't seem like he wanted to kill Locke into Locke told him that Jin was still alive. Ben only needs one person to want to go back to the Island to get the others, is telling Sun about Jin his plan? And does Ben believe if he gets the people back to the Island instead of Locke he can take his place as leader again?
Whats up with the new castaways/red shirts on the Hydra Island. I knew Hydra would come into to play again, but it seems that the Oceanic 6 landed in the seventies with an active Dharma Initiative. Why is the Hydra island deserted? And did the Dharma folk see the plane crash? A plane crash that looks as if the plane just lightly sat down on the Island. And Lapidus took the flight manifest and took off with a woman. What woman? Could it be Sun? Does the Island realize that Sun left her child in Korea and Jin wants her to stay safe.
I read next weeks press release and it said that Horace Godspeed would be returning, so I want to repeat my thoughts that Charlotte is Horace's daughter.

Oscars 2008

I mean, The Slumdog Millionaire Show with special guest Kate Winslet.
Lets first talk about the winners. Unfortionately I haven't been able to see most of this years nominees so I was going in with a little bit of haze. Last years winner, No Country for Old Men, is now one of my favorite movies. Slumdog pulled through all night long. I guess that wasn't much of a surprise. Another award that wasn't much of a surprise was Heath Ledger for Best Supporting Actor. I was probley one of the few people in America who was not rooting for Heath Ledger. Personally I wanted Robert Downey Jr. for Tropic Thunder. Not that Ledger didn't do a good job, but I think if he wouldn't have died there would not have been so much attention on his performance. I think that the best performance in Dark Knight came from Gary Oldman as Commissioner Gordon. One of the only upsets of the night was Sean Penn winning over Mickey Rourke. I think Mickey really wanted that award, but I don't think that Mickey felt he deserved it. Sean Penn always seems like he has a sense of arrogance.
Of the performance aspects of the night, I thought Hugh Jackman was a good host. He wasn't a comedian, I would have rather had Ricky Gervais or even Conan O'Brien. But the Recession musical at the beginning was good. Jackman knows how to entertain a crowd. But the lack of humor throughout the night made Tina Fey, Steve Martin, and Ben Stiller funnier. I really enjoyed the Pineapple Express minifilm. One of the more interesting changes was how the awards were presented. Instead of last year's Best Supporting Actor giving out the award for Best Supporting Actress, five former Best Supporting Actresses did. That allowed us to see Chris Walken's horrible haircut that looked like a baby Koala Bear was attached to the base of his head. It also allowed Robert DeNiro, Ben Kingsley, Anthony Hopkins and Micheal Douglas to share the same stage with a very misplaced and awkward Adrian Brody. But one of the best shots of the night was Mickey Rourke with Edward Cullen on his left and Tina Fey on his right.

LOST-2-18-316

What I like about Lost is that just when you think you've got it, it throw in one of those episodes where you go: Wait, what?
So the Oceanic Six need to go back to the Island and what helps them do that? Daniel's mom and giant Pendulum in a Dharma station under a Los Angeles church. Of course Jack is on board and he is in possession of Locke's body(who is now wearing Christian's shoes.) Something has happened to Aaron and now Kate is on board. Sun comes to the airport not seeming to worried about her baby in Korea. Hurley has somehow gotten out of jail, has a guitar, and is reading a copy of Y the Last Man (Whose author Brian K. Vaughn is a writer on the show.) And somehow Sayid is under arrest and also on the flight. Oh, and whose driving this plane to Guam, a clean shaven Frank Lapidous. At the last minute a bruised and bloodied Ben rushes on to the plane. He said that before he left he had to fulfill a promise to an old friend which I believe was supposed to be killing Penny. Looks like he didn't make it that far. There is a blinding white flash, Jack, Kate, and Hurley find themselves on the Island, and then a Dharma van drives up and out comes Jin, in a Dharma uniform.
Here's one problem I have. Mrs. Hawking made it seem that the Island is constantly moving. But if that is the case, how could the Freighter have found it? How could Micheal get back to the states after following the proper coordinates? How could Alpert and Mr. Friendly make trips back to the states to talk to Juliet/Locke/Micheal? And if the Island is constantly moving through time, how could the Arrow station with the video cameras work? How could been have footage of the 2004 World Series?

• What has happened to Aaron and where is he?
• Why did Sayid get arrested and why is Hurley out of jail with full knowledge of the way back to the Island?
• Who beat the hell out of Ben?
• Where are the other castaways after the plane crash, and did the plane crash? Will we soon see Ben, Sun, Sayid, Lapidus, and maybe that Arab guy on the Island?
• What year is the Island on, and why is Jin working for Dharma? Is it the same reason Faraday was with Dharma in the season premier?

One thing that the constant shifting through time would explain is the food Dharma food drop off in the earlier seasons.

And one thing Erin Knoble pointed out to me is that in the Lighthouse there was a series of numbers counting down similar to the one in the hatch. Could there be other hatches around the world? And is that why that man in the institution was repeating the numbers?

My Ideal Finale Episode of Late Night

This Friday is the finale episode of Late Night with Conan OBrien.

Of course Conan will be taking over as the host of the Tonight Show, but it will not be the same as the current Late Show. I have put together a finale I think will be worthy of Conan’s last fifteen years on Late Night.

It starts out with a play on his first opening scene where he sits on a bench and leans over telling someone that it is his last show and then ends up leading a crowd down the street. The crowd then gets distracted by David Lee Roth.

Conan comes out to do his monologue. He jumps around the stage, purrs like a cat, and does the string dance. He says that it is going to be a good show tonight, that he says that every night, but tonight he is telling the truth. Instead of doing jokes about recent events, he reflects on the last fifteen years. He jokes about how he was not a good host at the beginning. He says something offensive and leads the audience in, “I’ma gonna go to Hell when I die, (clap clap).” He brings out the a parade of the best of the Late Night Characters: Pimpbot 5000, Coked-up Werewolf, Preparation H Raymond, Masturbating Bear, Vomiting Kermit, Jewbacca, Evil Puppy, Peirre Bernard’s Recliner of Rage, the World’s Fastest Baby Jesus, Raccoon with a jetpack, the worlds tallest dachshund, the FedEx Pope, and a final moment with Triumph the Insult Comic Dog. Then, Frankenstein will waste a minute of our time.

Conan will decide to look into the future and the surprise guest will be Andy Richtor. Andy then stays on to be the first quest. They reminisce about the show and then take the desk for a drive.

The second guest is Al Roker, who makes a comment about how many times he has been on the show. Mr. T also comes out during the interview. Abe Vigoda and James Lipton also make cameo appearances.

The musical guest is Radiohead who plays Creep(the first musical guest)

Conan then thanks the writers and crew as the band, Joel, Andy, and all the characters join him on stage.

LOST-2/11-This Place is Death

With Rousseau and her science expedition team comes the return of the Smoke Monster. Like always we don't learn anything new about the monster, but we do know that it was what caused the severing of Montand's arm. And that it lives under a temple. I'm hoping that Charlotte's death in this episode is final. I have never been a fan of hers.
But one of the more interesting happenings of this episode is Christian Shepard. Is Christian Jacob? He lives in Jacob's Cabin. He gives Locke orders with authority. He knows what he is doing with the Island. One of my theories since season one is has been Christian is the leader of the Others, and the show really does nothing to disprove it.
Another theory of mine is that Charlotte's father is Horace Godspeed.
And the big reveal this week wasn't all that big. It was pretty safe to assume that Mrs. Hawking was Faraday's mom. (Did anyone notice that her full name is Eloise Hawking, and the time traveling rat's name was Eloise.) I am excited to see how they find the Island.

• Does Locke leaving stop the time traveling, or just the Constant Sickness?
• Does Frank Lapidus have to go back to the Island too?
• Will Locke's leg heal as he leaves the Island?

LOST-2/4-The Little Prince

I have a theory about the "Nose-Bleed-Constant-Sickness", but it might have some faults. First, Desmond gets the constant sickness when leaving the island last season, and it was cured by finding a constant within Penny. Now, Charlotte has the constant sickness, Miles had a nose bleed, and Juliet had a nose bleed. Okay, so my theory is that the time you get the sickness depends on the length of time you lived on the Island. Desmond had lived on the Island for three years, Juliet came to the island around 2002. Desmond landed on the island around 2001. He started the sickness right after starting the time travel. Juliet is just starting to get it.
Now, that leaves Miles and Charlotte. Charlotte stated at the end of the last season that she always wondered where she came from, suggesting she came from the island. Miles has shown no signs that he is from the island, but Locke said something to him suggesting he was. Now, Miles is Asian, and Marvin Candle is Asian, and we saw that Marvin Candle had a baby on the island in the the first episode of this season. Could Miles be the son of Marvin Candle? He has a psychic power, maybe the power stems from the island.
Now the flaw with that theory is Minikowski. Minikowski had the constant sickness on the freighter and it killed him. But, Minikowski might have been an Other at one point. Maybe we will run into him while the Castaways are floating around time as an Other.

• What happens to Bernard, Rose, and Vincent when the time changes. When the time changed to Aaron's birth, did They run into each other from the past, or do they hide out, or are they at some different point on the island.
• How does Sawyer's gun travel through time with them?
• Who brought the canoes to the island?
• I want to go back and see if there is any time that Rousseau gave Jin a "you look familiar" look.
• Rousseau had sad her crew was taken out by a sickness. What kind of sickness was it, and will the castaways witness this.
• Is Widmore sending the assassins to take down the Oceanic 6?
  

LOST-1/29-Jughead

With this episode of LOST, it seems the writers are taking some time to flush out the history of the Island, which I think is needed and gives the writers two more seasons to get the Oceanic 6 back to the Island.
I finally thought of where I've seen Charlotte before:

• Remember when Jack and Sayid were in the Hatch in Season 2, and Sayid said that the last time he had seen something covered in so much cement was Chernobyl? Now the is an H-Bomb on the Island that needs to be covered in cement to stop it from exploding. Coincidence?
• I find it funny that Desmond named his son after Charlie.
• With the revelation that Widmore was once an Other, it brings up the questions of what happened that made him leave? What happened that made him want to kill all the other Others? Numerous questions.
• I also find it funny that the Others refer to themselves as "Others."
• Desmond has to go to Los Angeles to find Faraday's mom. Who is in Los Angeles? Mrs. Hawking.
• Now that we are again showed that Alpert is ageless, I want to know if he has four toes. I wonder if the time-travelers will be brought back to the time where the four-toed statue is still standing.
  
• Does future Alpert remember running into Locke and Faraday, and if he does, why has he not said anything?
  

Twilight part 3

Spoilers On

Well, this morning I finished Breaking Dawn.
You know how the movie Alien was good, and Predator was good, and Alien vs. Predator was entertaining, but in Alien vs. Predator 2 there was the hybrid Alien/Predator and the movie was crap. Well, in Breaking Dawn there is a hybrid human/vampire, and though I was not a fan of the character, it was not hokey and made the story interesting. In this book, Bella marries Edward and gets what she has wanted since the first book: immortality as a vampire.
The book does something real interesting and tells about three hundred pages from Jacob's point of view, and though I didn't think I would like that, it made me feel better about Jacob, and I would have rather watched Bella's pregnancy from Jacob's perspective then hear about it from Bella's.
I am not a fan of the imprinting on toddlers. I don't think it is necessary, though it made Jacob's story more interesting.
Now, say you are watching Return of the King, and all the Riders of Rohan and the armies of Gondor all line all and are all ready to fight the forces of Mordor. You are super pumped for an epic battle with lots of death and destruction. And then Aaragorn and Gandolf go and talk Sauron out of fighting. That is how Breaking Dawn ends. All the build up for no battle.
But none the less I did enjoy the book and the entire Twilight series. I can't say I have a favorite book, just favorite moments. On of those moments being the gathering of all of the vampires from around the world. That was great.

Scorpion Woman

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/3689592.stm

So, if you read this article, you will find that a woman in Malaysia has beaten the world record for living with scorpions.

A) There was already a record for living with scorpions.
B)Someone beat it
C) The original record setter took it back

I don't think I could ever be that desperate for fame. Honestly, who comes up with this?

LOST-1/21-Because You Left/The Lie

Holy Crap! What a great way to start of the second to last season of LOST. Starting off with Dr. Marvin Candle filming a Dharma video sometime in the past, we see Daniel Faraday working for Dharma. Let the gigantic Mind-F^^k begin.

• The Oceanic Survivors and the science team from the freighter are traveling through various points in time on the island. Alpert and the rest of the Others do not travel through time, but Alpert realizes that Locke is, and gives him a compass that seems to be the one from when Alpert gave Locke a Buddist Test.
• Lawyers appear at Kate's house in 2007 to take blood samples from both her and Aaron. This causes her to leave and go find Sun. Who sent the lawyers to Kate's house?
• Jack and Ben need to get everyone from the island back to the island. Kate and Sun are now together, though it appears they are under watch of Charles Widmore. Hurley and Sayid are together, but Sayid took a couple of darts to the back and is now a vegetable. Hurley is accused of murdering three people, and instead of going with Ben and making things easy, he gives himself over to the LAPD.
• Faraday finds the past Desmond, and tells him he needs to find his mother at Oxford. Desmond wakes up in the future, now remembering this, and tells Penny they need to go to Oxford.
• Dr. Candle lives on the island in the past, and he seems to have a healthy baby with an alive wife.
• Best line: "Why is there a dead Pakistani on my couch?"
• Hurley spills the beans to his mom about the island, and she tells him she believes him.
• Ben is told he has 70 hours to bring the Oceanic 6 back to the island. Is the show now going to be like 24 set in real time?
• The woman who tells Ben he has 70 hours is the woman who sold Desmond his engagement ring from the episode where Desmond was flashing in and out of time.
  

Twilight 2

Spoilers On

So I enjoyed Twilight and its sequel, New Moon. Eclipse, the third in the series, was the obvious next book. Where Twilight deals with Bella’s relationship with Edward and New Moon deals with Edward’s absence and Bella’s friendship with Jacob, Eclipse deals with the confrontation of the two. Of course, Edward is a vampire and Jacob is a werewolf, and they happen to be mortal enemies. By now, Edward and Bella are madly in love and Bella wants to become a vampire. Jacob’s friendship with Bella has made Jacob fall in love her. And, of course, an evil vampire named Victoria has developed an army of young vampires to raid the town of Forks and kill Bella.

Now, the story line did not bother me. I enjoyed the build-up to the battle and for the most part the battle itself.

What bothered me was the way that Jacob turned out. Jacob is in love with Bella, but Bella made it clear that she was in love with Edward. Jacob wasn’t about to take “no” for an answer. His actions are borderline assault. After forcing her to kiss him, and then getting into her sleeping bag, he tells her that if she does not choose him he will run into the battle and have himself killed.

Now, two things bug me:

A) Edward did not rip Jacobs jaw off and then force him to choke on it.

B) Bella, still loving Edward, played with Jacob’s emotions and basically gave him the idea that she could leave Edward and choose him.

As much as I grew to hate Jacob, I really started to dislike Bella. Actually, I really hate Bella. I feel she is begging for constant attention and companionship. And it is annoying. Even though Jacob is turning into a sexual deviant, she still needs his friendship and does not want to let him go.

Now, I used to think Edward was creepy and controlling, and now I feel that Edward is very classy. He should have every right to rip off Jacob’s arm and beat him to death with it, but he stays calm and collective. Even though Bella is too eager to lose her virginity (which Meyer goes out of her way to not say by name), Edward sticks to his morals and holds off her advances, making deals of his own to hold off Bella’s need to become a vampire.

I still enjoyed the book itself, but I was not a fan of the character development.

Twilight

Twilight.

When my cousin got married this summer in St. Louis, I decided to walk over to the Borders across from our hotel around 11:00 at night. I knew Border stores were open late, but I thing had not crossed my mind. It was August seventh, and at midnight the fourth book in the Twilight series, Breaking Dawn, was to be released. To get to the Graphic Novel section I had to adventure through the different covens of high school girls dressed all in black, camped out so they could be the first to read the newest adventure of Edward and Bella. I knew the feeling from the Harry Potter days. I picked up a couple copies of New Avengers, used my Borders Rewards card, and started on my way out, hoping that I would not have my blood drained by the floor full of vampire wannabe’s. An older worker with a bag full of buttons caught my attention. He was handing out buttons to the campers that read, “I was bitten by Breaking Dawn.” I snuck into the crowd of girls and was handed a button. As I walked out with my button, I told myself that I would not read Twilight. I would not be sucked into the cult.

That was August 7^th, 2008.

January 7^th 2009 I drank the Kool Aid and started reading Twilight. It is now January 13^th, almost a week later, and I just finished New Moon.

What happened to me? I am now halfway through this tale of Vampires that I promised myself that I would not read. Because they are actually good. Of course the books have faults, but still. The first thing I like is how Stephanie Meyer has taken the myth of the Vampire and the Werewolf and made them more real-life. Gone are the crosses and coffins, garlic, wooden stakes, bats, full moons, and as far as I can tell, silver bullets. The same basic myths apply. The Vampires are basically immortal. They drink blood and are “undead.” Beside the mythology, the book is well written. Meyer captures emotion very well. The story is a love story and every emotion is very descriptive. But, even though the emotion is captured well, other story elements were fast and not as drawn out. It might just be me, but the fight scenes and chase sequences could use a lot more detail. And it seemed that characters were thrown into sudden peril. Were it seems it most books the amount of danger gradually builds; in Twilight it seems that everyone is hopping around la la la and then you turn the page and they are racing the clock for their lives.

Even with its faults I have found myself given my full attention to this book. I want to know what will happen to Edward and Bella, and now Jacob. But with the first book about her falling for a vampire, and the second almost falling for a werewolf, I am half expecting the third to involve a trip to Egypt to met the Mummy, and then running into Frankenstein’s monster. That would cover all the Universal movie monsters. But seriously, I am finding myself excited to pick up the third book, when just five months ago I had sworn myself off of them completely. I have drunk the Twilight Kool Aid, and I like it.

Mannequin

I recently acquired the coolest thing ever: a mannequin from Steve and Berry's. The Steve and Berry's in the Quad Cities is going out of business, and Aaron Wells and I both picked up mannequin's. In order to get mannequin's that we could bring home day of, we had to follow one of the workers into a back room full of mannequin's that was like Jefferey Dahmer's basement. An arm there, a torso there. As we were leaving, Aaron carrying the top of a female mannequin, myself carrying the top of a male, a small boy was being lead by his mother. He asked, "Mommy, what are they doing with those?" She replied, "That's none of our business now, is it honey?"
The mannequin is now in the window of my dorm room, dressed. Every now and again it startles me or scares the crap out of me. Sometimes I catch it's reflection in my TV like the alien at the end of Signs.