Volunteer, Advocate, Trekker.

Well, I had an eventful enough Black Friday I think. Didn't partake in any late night shopping lines, stayed up late after my friend Danielle's Thanksgiving Wedding to play Uncharted 2 into the wee hours of the morning instead. (Favorite PS3 series, by the way!) Almost bought this for $19.95; did NOT buy this for $76.96. In the afternoon, Panda and I went shopping out at South Park Mall -- haha, managed to spend the whole afternoon there and only bought one thing between the two of us. I got Tomb Raider 2: The Cradle of Life on DVD for a wopping $3! Almost bought some awesome dress clothes from H&M , but they weren't priced correctly and I wasn't about to pay Express standard prices on Black Friday. Then we went and saw Wreck It Ralph , which actually was better than I was expecting! I kinda hoped that the internet rumor I heard about GlaDOS from Portal being in it was true -- but it didn't take long for the logic of the in-movie universe to effectiv...

So last night I was watching the Marx Brothers movie "The Big Store." I *LOVE* the Marx Brothers, I have since I was very young and watched the movies with my dad -- and I'd like to think I got my sense of humor from my dad, because we used to watch all the old comedies like Gene Wilder and the Marx Brothers. And Mom's sense of humor is just awful. But anyway. My new DVD rack! Can you spot the Marx Bros. collection? Wow. Didn't know I had so many DVDs until they were stacked up to almost my height. So things you should know: The Marx Brothers, if you don't know, were like *THE* Comedian group of the like, late 1920s through mid-1940s. Their quick variety of humor (three brothers, Harpo, Cheeko and Groucho -- Groucho being my favorite) played in all kinds of different settings, one parodying Casablanca, another set in preparing for an Opera, this particular one was set in a Department Store that was going through financial trouble of some kind (in 1941.)...

Haha, I remember when I saw The Muppets (2011) in theaters -- which by the way is an OUTSTANDING movie, definitely on my list of movies to buy on DVD -- there is a scene talking to a TV producer about what is and isn't popular these days (producer played by Rashina Jones .) The chart has 100 little icons on it, and I remember thinking "haha, one day I'll freeze frame that and identify all the little jokes. Today I did. It's not complete though, because upon reading the title: " Key Demographic Analysis of Top 100 Things in Pop Culture " (Subtitle: Ranked in Order of Relative Popularity .) Then at the bottom of the chart, if you look closely, it reads: " Updated.... 4th week of June of the current Year... ", subtitled: " Prepared by the Research & Analysis Department of CDE Television... " Gonna have to click that for the most detail. I ran out of room to draw lines, and I don't think I could make out every single image, bu...

Well the other day I signed up for some stupid Blockbuster program: which means I get even more free movies sent to me, more than I have time to watch as a matter of fact. Well, per my interest in movies about magic , I found this "The Worst Witch: The Movie" film that I had never heard of before so I decided to rent it and watch it this Saturday morning when I plan to catch up on my rough week's piling up of work to do. First, the movie stars Fairuza Balk -- star of "Return to Oz" , "The Craft," and other things. First, I'd like to note that I always confuse the names "Fairuza Balk" with "Veruca Salt" -- the bad egg from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory . I can't help but notice that her characters are all the same. Dorothy from Return to Oz could just as easily have been a witch - in fact, Glinda even asks her in the original Wizard of Oz if she's a good witch or a bad witch! But let's take a moment to ...

So I'm watching Willy Wonka on ABC Family, and I have a number of questions or comments that I feel the need to share with someone, and I've already blown up twitter enough. Let me just say that back in like, 1996 my Dad VHS recorded Willy Wonka on TV and he, David, and I watched it like a million times. He strongly, perhaps strangely, emphasized that I take away Wonka's message of "anything you want to do it, want to change the world, there's nothing to it..." But that's a story for another time. My first observation: it is not Christmas at any point in this movie, why is it a 25 Days of Christmas movie???? I thought maybe he gets the candy bar for Christmas, but no, it's his Birthday. Everything I learned about how candy is made comes from the opening credits of this movie. Where does this movie take place??? I know the director intentionally wanted it to seem like it "could be anywhere" - Europe or America, but it kinda bothers me....

So my day has been jumping whiplash-style from awful to awesome. My morning went well, I got up early to get a haircut, workout with Aubree from ASG (who, as a former ROTC member, had an intense workout routine!) Also went to American Eagle to get a new hoodie I wanted, but they took over half an hour in the back looking for it. I'm glad they were able to find it, and they were generally pretty nice about it, except I was kinda left just wandering around. But in the end I paid 10$ less than I was hoping, and 20$ less than I was expecting! Anyway, did a bunch of ASG stuff, Circle K meeting which I was just annoyed with everyone at because I had to defend their behavior to Wooster which I really wasn't expecting to have to do, but then got Starbucks with Patsy and all was better because of an awesome phone call I had making political connections! The rest of my night was spent relaxing, catching up on the DVDs I've been meaning to watch, and finally going back and watchin...

(retroactive back-blogging) Even though it's been [it was] my day to relax, I've been pretty stressed for a number of different reasons. Mom is a few of the reasons. And she insisted on asking me a dozen times to go see Lion King in 3D with her, and figuring this would be my last chance to see it in theaters  -- I finally gave in. Annoying-ness aside, I haven't watched Lion King (paying attention) in like 15+ years - and I didn't really remember most of it, enough of it to appreciate seeing it again. After the previews for bad upcoming movies, there were several things I learned: 1. Scar is Jafar. It's like the exact same character. I had to google to confirm they're not the same voice actor (their not - Scar is Jeremy Irons, Jafar is Jonathan Freeman.) The whole story is really just Aladdin had Jasmine been a boy. 2. James Earl Jones has the most epic voice in history. Seriously, he is like the best narrator in history. In fact, I think he is the voi...

Phew, after a busy weekend of Circle K's Fall Rally - had a fun day in Garfield shopping at Pat Katan's, Parma Town Mall and Best Buy. Started with a 10$ Best Buy gift certificate, and ended up buying a Mystery Science Theater 3000 DVD (The Gamera Collection of 5 movies), a double-Scooby Doo 1 & 2 Blu-ray and a tape measure. (Thinking of buying a PS3 since my laptop's bluray player is kinda annoying.) So long story short, I spent a bit more than I'd hoped -- hehe. Got home around 10, now I'm watching a Gamera movie before bed and class in the morning at 8:50a. Oh boy, Gamera is an old Japanese movie series... similar to Godzilla. Except he's a turtle... who's arms and legs can turn into jet rockets. And he seems to have a friendship with this kid, Kenny. In regards to MST3K history though, these 5 movies in the series represent a period when it went from a cheesy local TV show to a new level of better writing in the 1993 season. So I def look forwar...

So the list of movies I have to watch for one reason or another has been growing and the list of movies I've been watching has screeched to a halt - so since I have a last day to myself before hell week, I think I'm going to take most of today to watch some of these movies (and of course, critique them.) Hm, interesting juxtaposition in the movie poster of white and black. Subtle racial themes!? The first movie on my list is "Obsessed" starring Beyoncé and Ali Larter (who played Niki Sanders , and her various alter egos on Heroes.) They actually advertised it back when Heroes was on, and for some reason it stuck out in my head last time I was at Blockbuster trying to find a movie -which was um, a fair number of weeks ago. So I got to get this watched and returned. The Plot: Beyoncé and this guy have a perfect marriage, newborn, and a new house - but there's this hot blonde temp at work (Ali Larter) who is clearly trying to seduce Mr. Beyoncé. And not norma...

Woah, BUSY night at work! (Which means I haven't been able to get much else done.) The residence hall I'm working at has had quite a night, I can't get too detailed because I take confidentiality pretty seriously, but I think it's safe to share that two of our residents went to the hospital (give or take), both from the second floor. Then a shower on the second floor started flooding, and two residents had to be temporarily relocated. Whaaaaaat is going on on the second floor? The RA's nicknamed the whole night's crisis: "The head, the finger and the flood." But after that, I took care of some emails about the Garfield House for mom, and looked over an essay for Sarah, and did some Circle K work. Now I hope to get to catch up on some of the MOUNTAINS of homework due in April x_X Website of the Day: Not so much a website, but a Twitter account. So a very poisonous snake is missing from/inside the Reptile House of the Bronx Zoo - and this somehow...

Phew, busy week. So I thought with my Birthday being this weekend, I would throw out a few really simple Birthday gifts people could get me ya know with their spare money lying around! :D So with my move into the condo, I'm trying to organize the family's things, especially setting up an organized system for our DVDs. And I've realized recently, that I don't own many DVDs that aren't seasons of TV shows (because back in 2005 and earlier we went through a phase of buying lots of TV shows on DVD.) Well, there's a lot of movies you could probably find for like, 6$ that I also would like. As a rule, I do enjoy me some special edition DVDs or even Blu-Ray (even though my laptop is the only Blu-Ray player we got.) Still, why not prepare for the future! Especially since our house has 2 high def TVs. But, Here's a few! 1. " Minority Report ". This is one of my favorite movies. I really love movies that display the future in a realistic way, especially ...

Haha, top two favorite Disney movies? Beauty and the Beast , and Bedknobs and Broomsticks . But Bedknobs and Broomsticks doesn't get nearly as much fanfare as a lot of other awesome Disney movies, like Mary Poppins or The Sound of Music . In fact there's like nothing about it on the internet, unfortunately. So I thought I'd share a few of the Spells of Astoroth for all the internet to enjoy! Here's a bit of the cover. Haha, I wish I had a book that seemed centuries upon centuries old! Even if it was just aged that way. Today, at my elementary school - there was a video that showed how to make Ancient Egyptian papyrus. Yeah, gonna do that someday! The other page they show. Haha, anyone who has seen the movie will tell you they do not say the most famous of Astoroth's spells in his book. For some reason you have to get the accompanying comic book published centuries later? To fly a Broom: Clasp the broom with both hands. Take an easy, graceful, sideways pos...

Surprised? I know I'm not - lol. First time I saw them I assumed you couldn't remove toxins through the skin of the foot. And if you *were* going to remove toxins through skin, why the hell would you do it through your foot? That where the thickest calluses is -- these toxins would have to find their way through more skin than anywhere else on the body. I mean, how are you going to sell us this - the same people willing to buy the PedEgg feet-cheese-grater because we know that skin is so dead!? Haha, I just noticed that I didn't mention: I didn't learn this by first hand experience, it was on an AOL news article saying the FTC was fining them 14 million dollars and removing their TV ads for misrepresenting their product. Haha, Googling -- all that comes up is "real or hoax?" not even an official site. Apparently 20/20 did a hoax segment about them. "Kinoki" by the way, means "Tree Sap" in Japanese. Oh here's an official (quote un...

So interesting weekend. Saturday night, Patsy, Kat, Brit, Sarah and I went and saw The Social Network . Hm. That was an interesting movie. It was a good drama, the plot was definitely interesting... but it's been advertised a bit more as a comedy than I would say. Having seen it, I hereby pronounce it "okay." If I could go back, I'd be okay renting it rather than seeing it in theaters. Having read the movie's Wikipedia article on the other hand, the reviewers apparently love it -- but what do they know. They're all giving it full scores (five out of five stars, 4 out of 4 thumb-ups, etc.) and calling it "the movie of the year." Um, I certainly hope not. It had its good parts, but it was pretty boring. (Movie-actors on the left, Real folk on the right! Cite: This Blog .) Reminds me of "The Exorcism of Emily Rose" -- which was promoted as a horror/scary movie about an exorcism, but actually more closely resembled an episode of Law & O...

Wow, what an active Memorial Day weekend :D First, Friday we had Patsy & Ritz' going-away-to-camp party at our house! Which I gotta say, was by far the most successful party this (half of the) house has ever held! Had a good number of people, and I would say the crazy was for the most part well within acceptable tollerances. (at least until I went to bed at 3 something, after which I'm told it got significantly crazier. But I won't blog about things I wasn't present for.) Except that apparently an ambulance was called for a diabetic emergency, and some were up literally all night!? Well, the best thing to come out pretty much was -- oh! And Patsy met her soul mate, a guy who loves Boy Meets World, makes random references to Pokemon, and is getting a job/doing an internship at Disney World!? Ahahaha, oh Patsy. Right, but pretty much the best thing to come out of the night was the discovery that there are MORE "literal music videos" out there! I totally saw...

1. Pick 20 of your favorite movies. 2. Go to IMDB and find a quote from each movie. 3. Post them in a note for everyone to guess. 4. Strike it out when someone guesses correctly, and put who guessed and the movie. 5. NO GOOGLING/using IMDB search functions. That's cheating and it ruins the 1. They can sing, they can dance, after all miss, this is France! And a dinner 'ere is never second best! 2. Computer... Computer? Hello Computer? ...ah, Keyboard, how quaint. 3. Move your big toe. 4. Since my customary farewell would appear oddly self serving, I shall simply say Good Luck. 5. But Look What Happened to the COOK! 6. Sit grandma, bad grandma, don't eat the kitty! 7. No - I promised I wouldn't go *buy* Ouija board. I borrowed one. 8. It just be raining black people in New York. 9. I don't believe in suicide, but if you'd like to try it, it might cheer me up to watch. 10. I always wanted to do that. 11. They're not Chinese, they're not fighting, they...

So I went and saw Paranormal Activity tonight! n.n which is awesome cause I really wanted to, and we were kinda late so we were incredibly lucky to get the awesome seats we did (courtesy of Sarah's lucky ring.) This pic, I found on the internet, was actually part of a prop used in the movie I guess that I thought was kinda cool. I love movie/tv show prop kind of things! This is Michah (Meeka) and Katie, two innocent young twenty somethings who have nothing better to do with their time than hunt the ghost/"paranormal creature thing" that haunts them at night between the hours of 2 and 4 am. That movie was SCARE-Y at a few certain parts, but overall even, I liked it. And the public appeal is crazy! Like every showing is selling out, good thing I bought those tickets ahead of time (at Sarah's suggestion.) Quotes from working the desk: So I'm working tonight 4-8, and there's a black girl and a white girl discussing stuff that ya know, black people and white ...

So the search for a costume continues, but the Pokemon theme is proving popular! Patsy bought her Pikachu costume today for less than 5 bucks (it was pretty impressive actually, its gonna look cool.) But for me, the most convincing image I'd try to emulate so far would have to be This One of a Sandslash. Upcoming Movie of the Day: "Paranormal Activity" . So this film was made on a budget of 15,000$ (where as, "Couples Retreat" for example was made on a budget of 60 million dollars.) But all the reviews for it are RIDICULOUSLY awesome. Like, this is what Horror movies are supposed to be. Not serial killers like Michael Myers and Jason, freaky shi* that f**ks with your mind and makes you scared to go to bed at night!!! Well "Paranormal Activity" is documentary style (similar to The Blaire Witch Project) follows a couple that thinks their house might be haunted. Well, if the videos meme-cramming the internet of audience members jumping like I've nev...

Rather than take advantage of the fact I get to sleep ridiculously in tomorrow morning, I am staying up late doing stupid things on the interweb :? So ...Saturday night, saw Angels & Demons with Kayla and Sarah in the Student Union theater, and it was actually an awesome movie! Good suspense, writing, dialogue, acting, idea, effects! It is ten times better, IMO, than the recent Harry Potter and Transformers combined. (Both combined, btw, would probably be about 3 days long...) The plot twists even had me going "Wow!" and they made sense too! My favorite part about it was that it actually promote the Catholic church, without doing so in a preachy way. I cannot IMAGINE why any catholic would boycott this film, or make any fuss expect tell everyone to go see it -- this film did more to promote the Catholic church than the church has done in my lifetime. In an age when most people of rational thought question the larger churches only to be scorned for doing so, most people I...

rofl. That is my quote of the day. I'll explain later. (Wow, Ron looks pi$$ed.) UGH, Harry Potter 6 sucked dragonballz. (haha, note the pun...) It was like 3 hours long and NOTHING HAPPENED. I almost fell asleep, most of the people I went with did. I am a fan of the HP series and I thought it was horrible. There was almost action at like 2 points, but then there wasn't. The climax was dull and predictable. Very disapointing. On the brightside, the lead up was more interesting. Me, Danielle, Sarah, (no, not the ones your thinking of) 'Puma', James and Jin-sik took the bus down town to the Lotte-mart Cinema. (Puma being his western name, haha, when Koreans pick western names it cracks me up. See Also: Van De Kamp.) We first got food at a *gulp* dog restaurant :( yes, its true, dog meat is a Korean delicacy. But modern people almost never eat it, its more of an older people thing. Danielle, Sarah, Puma and James agreed to try some, me and Jin-sik chickened out (haha, anoth...