Where I Waste My Time These Days

Other than on a bench in the park near Mira's house, reading Diana Wynne Jones books, and offline, with my Sims 2 game, here are some of my current Internet distractions:

• Sporcle.com, especially the Harry Potter, geography, and baby names sections.
• Netflix, where I am currently watching the third season of Veronica Mars and plan to watch either Doctor Who or Firefly next. Also Blade Runner, which I have heard is a must-see for all nerds (I think I am losing nerd points for every minute I've not watched it yet, actually), but I am hesitant about, because it's a sci-fi movie that was made in the '80s. You know what else was a sci-fi movie from the '80s? Tremors (well, okay, it was made in 1990, but close enough). Although I love Star Wars, so I probably shouldn't knock sci-fi from the '80s too much.
• Mark Watches Avatar. He's about to start Book Three tomorrow. I can't wait to see what he thinks of SPOILER! Or when SPOILER tells SPOILER to SPOILER, and SPOILERS the Gaang. Basically, everything about my favorite adorkable SPOILER, SPOILER! If you've seen the series, you know what I'm talking about.
• YouTube, for Vlogbrothers, Scooby-Doo: Mystery Incorporated, and, as of today, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. Shut up, it's kind of adorable and it helps me relive my childhood, because five-year-old me would have been on it in two seconds flat. Well, I've seen the first four episodes, anyway. Not sure if I'll be quite as focused on it as some of the bronies in my dorm. (Term first heard on Wait Wait Don't Tell Me, but I knew the answer to this week's "Bluff the Listener" game almost immediately because I practically live on the Internet).
• TV Tropes, because duh.
• Leaky and MuggleNet, as always.
• NPR.org. I'm searching for a good liberal political blog, as I'm in the process of breaking up with the Huffington Post. They are pretty up-to-date, but I loathe their screaming headlines and sensationalism. I like Salon all right, but I do get fed up with them sometimes, I guess because I still really like President Obama. DailyKos is okay, but I want something that's a little more respectful to religious people. I know there are Christians that make everyone else look bad, but I promise there are sane, non-bigoted Christians who try to practice their faith in a way that emulates the example of Jesus Christ. You know, loving your neighbor as yourself, looking after the needy, all that jazz.
• Pottermore, even though there are still only two owls and a signature there. I like going to the countdown and watching it tick down when I'm really bored. Gah. Get here more quickly, Thursday.
• For the lulz, Reasoning with Vampires, anything by Cleolinda, Hyperbole and a Half, and the "Blog" of "Unnecessary" Quotation Marks.

That's about it. If you have a site you think I've neglected to mention that I should be wasting time on, let me know. I have no homework until August. :D
 

A Few Good Days

Other than the stream of job rejections that have been flowing in. Oh real life, why must you be so infused with the power of the dark side?

Monday was incredibly nice outside (80+ degrees), with tastier than usual vegan options at the dining halls for my Lent challenge and interesting lectures in all my classes. Work and training for the Latino Peer Mentorship Program also went well. I watched Gilmore Girls (and forgot to update my blog, oops) and finished all my homework well before bedtime. I believe this can be counted as a day of win.

Today French was bearable, there was a great discussion in African-American Political Thought, and Mark posted his first Avatar: The Last Airbender review. It did rain, but there was definitely some lightning along with it, which is completely acceptable anytime but three in the morning. Also, I have discovered the site Reasoning with Vampires, which eviscerates Twilight in such a glorious and satisfying manner. Example: When exposing Bella Swan for the whiny, manipulative brat she is, the site's owner gives us this little gem: "Deceiver, dissembler, your trousers are alight." Ahahaha.

On that note, I think I shall post my discussion question on Collab and enjoy a luxurious night of sleep which will NOT be interrupted by the blaring of my alarm clock at 8:30 in the morning. And to think that I used to be a morning person! College, what have you done to me?

Schadenfreude and the Hunger Games Movie

Lionsgate announced today that Josh Hutcherson and Liam Hemsworth will play Peeta and Gale, respectively, in the film adaptation of The Hunger Games. Jennifer Lawrence, as revealed a few weeks ago, will play Katniss.

Sunburns and Sequels: A Story in Photographs

Today was my last day of work. Tear. I accompanied some of the Upward Bound students and instructors to Knott's Soak City in Palm Springs. I was really tired. Also, I forgot to put on sunscreen. Normally this is not a problem; while I don't really look Puerto Rican, I do have my mom's melanin. Boricua Wonder Shield, activate!

Well, darn. Guess that didn't work.

Curses! You have failed me for the last time, Boricua Wonder Shield!

Anyway, getting sunburnt kind of bummed me out. This is what happens when you wade around the wave pool at the water park in direct sunlight on an 100+ degree day, I guess, but my Puerto Rican powers rarely desert me in my time of need. Added to which we got back to IVC an hour later than we'd planned, and I still had to drive home in my dad's old manual transmission truck. I learned to drive on that thing, so I have no problems with stick shifts in general. We have owned that particular truck, however, since just before Joshua was born, and it is starting to show its age. First gear is especially unreliable; half the time it'll jump out of gear just as I'm trying to get going again after being stopped at a light, which is even more fun than it sounds when there are a bunch of impatient drivers behind you who are already annoyed because you actually go the speed limit.

Okay, cue forlorn Aida.

Sad pandas.

What could possibly cheer me up on a day like this?

That did the trick!

For the uninitiated, way back in ye olde 2009, a theatre group at the University of Michigan (known as StarKidPotter online) performed an affectionate musical parody of the Harry Potter series, cleverly titled A Very Potter Musical. That summer, they posted video of their play on YouTube. Somehow, the Harry Potter fansites found out about it, and, as a veteran of HP fandom, I can say from experience that once it's linked to on a major HP fansite, make sure you have a good server, or be prepared for a blue screen of death from thousands upon thousands of dedicated HP fans all headed for your site at once. If it's on YouTube, expect to get approximately 87 zillion more views. Case in point? See the Vlogbrothers. DFTBA!

Long story short, A Very Potter Musical became an overnight Internet sensation. It was hilarious, if occasionally a bit juvenile, the songs were catchy, the lyrics were solid, there was a surprising amount of content from the books considering it adapted many of the series' plotlines for a three-hour play, and Bonnie Gruesen's hair was far more Hermione-ish than Emma Watson's ever was. It was silly, but it was meant to be silly. It was also very much a play for college students, by college students, though the acting was great across the board. I loved it immediately, even if there were some aspects I didn't care for (their Dumbledore, for one. Also the one-sided Draco/Hermione, because what??? It did mostly follow the canon pairings, including Ron/Hermione (OTP yay), for what it's worth.)

Then, in January, the StarKidPotter team announced a sequel to their show was in the works. It was performed in Ann Arbor this past May, but it wouldn't go online until July 23. I waited impatiently for news, then kind of forgot about it.

So, when I logged onto my favorite HP news site, The Leaky Cauldron, what did I see but an announcement hailing the release of A Very Potter Sequel on YouTube. Joy! 

Small confession to make: I may or may not have used some poetic license in the telling of this story, because I may or may not have been up until 4 o'clock this morning devouring this musical in one sitting, right away, the moment I found out it was online. Well, what can I say? I like my new Potter experiences to be in the middle of the night. Minds out of the gutter, please. I am just a midnight-release type of gal. No, you are not allowed to follow that accidental double entendre through to its logical conclusion. Grow up, won't you? 

I jest, I jest. But if you're in the mood for first-class musical parody, and you don't mind fleeting profanity and sometimes slightly offensive humor, you're in for a treat!

Here is the video that started it all: A Very Potter Musical, Act One, Part One.

And here is the just released sequel, starting with A Very Potter Sequel, Act One, Part One.

Enjoy! My thoughts on the sequel will come tomorrow. I'm still too full of squee to write a coherent review.

On the Animation Age Ghetto

Last night as I sat down in the living room with my mom, she asked me what I'd been sent from Netflix lately. 

"Oh, you know," I said. "The next disc of Gilmore Girls, A Bug's Life, and Coraline."

"What's Coraline?" she asked.

"It's this movie that came out a couple years ago. It's based on a book. It's about this girl, and it's animated..." I trailed off. I've never read Coraline, and I'm waiting until Jackie gets back from Notre Dame to watch it with her, so I don't really know much about it. 

My mom made a face and turned back to Practical Magic on the television.

"Hey, what's wrong with animation?" I said. "It's just a medium used to tell a story. "

She shrugged. "I prefer my stories to be told with real people," she said.

"But that's the wrong attitude to have," I insisted. "Very serious stories can be presented through animation. We had to watch Persepolis in my French class this year. It's about a girl growing up during the Iranian Revolution, Mami!"

My mom shrugged again. I sighed, crossed my legs, and watched the rest of Practical Magic with her. (Did you know that Abbey Bartlet is Gracie Hart's aunt? And also that she went by Rizzo when she was young? The wonders never cease.)

This conversation with my mom does raise an important point, though. Don't get me wrong, I love her dearly, but she's certainly not alone in this line of thinking. The prevailing view is that somehow animation is inherently less valid than live action, perhaps even childish. This, my friends, is known as the Animation Age Ghetto. You can find a very good post on it here, as well as the TV Tropes article I've also linked to above. I admit that I am somewhat biased; except for a brief period when I was roughly twelve to fourteen (and tended to buy into the animation-is-for-kids ridiculousness), I've always loved animation as a storytelling device. If you've talked to me more than a few times, you should know that I absolutely swear by Pixar Animation Studios and I've recently become obsessed with Avatar: The Last Airbender (not to be confused with that terrible movie that came out two weeks ago. I'm talking about the Nickelodeon television series). But if you've seen any episode of A:TLA or anything produced by Pixar, you should also know that the animation-as-childish argument has no merit.

I dare you to find anything more touching and heartbreaking than this sequence from Up, for example. Or tell me that this scene from The Incredibles isn't just as dramatic as the most recent live-action blockbluster. Or say that this clip from The Lion King is an example of subpar, childish storytelling.

Now, if you genuinely just don't care for the medium of animation, that's your preference and there's nothing I can do to convince you otherwise. At the risk of seeming a hypocrite, I generally don't care for anime; the storylines are usually very strange and the art style does nothing for me. Why does that girl have blue hair and no one comments on it? If her hair is actually supposed to be black, why isn't it colored black? It's kind of like Fauvism in that respect - why are the mountains pink? I don't get it! But I digress.

Still, even if you dislike a medium, you can't dismiss its storytelling qualities. Richie watches enough anime for me to know that much of it is incredibly complex, character-driven, and immersive (and not, as Dragonball Z would lead me to believe, full of people shouting at each other over a split-screen). The same goes for animation. You may not care for the look of a character or the physics-defying way that she moves, but you can't deny that she has a well-developed arc, if her creators have done their job correctly. Nothing about a story is less meaningful just because it happens to be told through hand-drawn or computer-generated characters rather than actors in costume. Sometimes, in fact, the story works much better in that format! Can you imagine a live-action Ratatouille? No, I didn't think so. How about one of my absolute favorite songs, "Colors of the Wind" from Pocahontas (as anyone who lived remotely nearby me in Brown should know)? Would it have been a better piece of filmmaking with actors frolicking in the woods?

And speaking of Pocahontas, I seem to recall that James Cameron's Avatar is currently the highest-grossing movie of all time. I'm pretty sure that about 90% of that film was computer animated. So why is it taken more seriously by the general moviegoing public than, say, WALL-E, which had a far more original storyline? Why is it okay for adult fanboys to rave over FernGully with Smurfs, but Finding Nemo is dismissed with a handwave as "just for kids"?

Animation is just as valid a form of storytelling as live action. If you don't believe me, watch these clips from a Best Picture nominee we all know and love (the last link is the movie's ending, but I think I can safely say we've all seen it). How is that not just as worthy of an Oscar as Slumdog Millionaire or Forrest Gump?