The Rabbit Hole

Folks, we have come around to that time of the year again, when we all* partake in the juggernaut that is THE MAY MOVIE.

Unless you've been ignoring my posts for over a year, you'll know that the 2012 MAY MOVIE is The Avengers. This movie is going to be huge. Huger than any other MAY MOVIE I think we've ever seen. Let me think...The Mummy Returns, Spider-Man, X-Men 2, Van Helsing, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Mission: Impossible III, Spider-Man 3, Iron Man, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Iron Man 2, Thor...gee, there sure are a lot of members of the Avengers in that list, but I think it's safe to say a movie with ALL OF THEM** is going to be bigger than any of the movies with any of them individually***.

The movie is going to be a bit later this year, probably starting after 8 pm, with more details to come. Right now, only the AMC Empire 25 at 42nd Street and the AMC at Kip's Bay have movie times available. I'll give it until Thursday at the latest and then call this. Just be aware that since this is most likely the HUGEST MAY MOVIE OF ALL TIME**** that we will probably have to get there, like, an hour early to wait on the line.

Keep your eyes on this space for updates! Excelsior!

* - some, very dedicated or very demented few
** - except for Wolverine and Spider-Man
*** - which is, of course, a guarantee that the film will be even better than all the others put together
**** - at least until Marvel finds a way to get the X-Men and Spider-Man franchises back into its power and puts Wolverine and Spidey in the sequel, Avengers 2: The Search For All of TrinityVixen's Money

I dropped my clothes off to do the ol' wash-and-fold last weekend and haven't had time to retrieve them. So when I wanted to look somewhat nice (but not too nice because I have to work) for my birthday, I was looking at slim pickings for an outfit. I threw together an old green tank top, a new white skirt I got from Target but had yet to find time to wear, the surplus blazer I nabbed upstate in case my interviewin' suit didn't work out, and--FINALLY!--my black-and-white striped pumps that I got, no joke, more than 10 years ago from Hot Topic and have never found occasion to wear. I've gotten lots of compliments from my lab on the shoes alone, but I apparently put together an outfit gud when I don't have much choice. Lesson for the future perhaps.

Short skirts and high heels make me feel reeeeeeally girly, so I'm trying not to prance today. Especially since I officially turn decrepit, as fairest let me know in an e-mail this morning. Too old for prancing. Not too old to go get a pepsi and stick a straw in it and giggle, I hope, because that's what Imma gonna do. Peace, y'all!

I have never bought a lottery ticket in my life. I have gotten (but never purchased myself) scratch-off cards, which are a hoot, especially the crossword-style ones. Someone just came around to collect $1 for people to buy into what promises to be a disgusting payout in some lottery game. I pitched in. Why not? Solidarity. Plus, as I told the woman collecting, I've already spent about $6 on sodas I can't drink for class. When I told that my project was swabbing cans of soda from various vendors to check what microbes are growing on them, she made the same face that, well, just about everyone has since I started telling people about this project.

I also learned there's a west coast-east coast difference in drinking soda, whereby east coasters all use straws and west coasters don't. Anyone want to verify that? I know I drink with straws, but that's for a variety of practical and stupid reasons (I can get at every last drop of soda that way; it doesn't stain my teeth as badly; I don't have to put my mouth on the dirty fucking can; I just like straws, etc. etc.) I didn't used to growing up, from what I can remember. Although, there was that time a family friend's daughter scared the crap out of me and told me to never drink dark sodas or to look in the can before drinking first because one time this friend she knew drank a soda and there was a bee in it and she got stung in the mouth and and and...

I was a very gullible kid. Of course, I believed every word of this. To this day, I don't eat hamburgers at any fast food joints because my brother scared me off of them as a kid by saying that they spat on their hands when they made the patties at McDonald's and that old rats were ground into the meat. I always ate chicken after that. (He tried to scare me off that, too, by saying chicken nuggets were rat heads, but at that point my hunger overtook my caution, and I had to eat something.) I realize now that a) McDonald's doesn't make its own patties and b) there are probably worse things in them than rats, but it's something that's stuck.

Wow, that was a whole post about nothing. Have a good weekend everybody!

Sigh, the backlash against the ending of Mass Effect 3 continues apace. Apparently, there's real enough protest that somebody has raised $70k in protest. Thank God, gamers are not entirely useless and they've donated it to Child's Play. (Spoiler warning: they talk about the ending, but not in detail.) If you're going to raise a ruckus that only makes you look like an idiot, by all means, at least donate the reward of that ruckus to somebody who'll be more grateful for games than you are. Suck it up and deal. Unlike just about every movie trilogy I could name, this game ended on a cohesive note, and its ending is not inappropriate for the tenor of the series. Why it should be sunshine and rainbows (Krogan! Made me a cake!) in order for it to be "good" is beyond me. God for-fucking-bid these people should get their way. They want the "Hollywood" ending, according to that article. I'll take what BioWare puts out over any Hollywood ending. Last I checked, movie-goers weren't thrilled about the Disney-fication of every goddamned thing.

In short, look at all the fucks BioWare doesn't give 'cause you didn't get a blowjob from the ending of their game. The game is actually really good, and aside from Vega, full of aliens to wuff. Well, it's full of humans to boink, too, as this comic accurately lampoons. And while I'm collecting all my favorite webcomics on this subject: THIS. I know why it's there. But it still sucked ass to wait through.

I took Thursday and Friday off last week because I was sick.
( Slight TMI, but not horrid. )

The best that can be said about this weekend is that I apparently visibly lost weight (according to my coworker, who met me coming in this morning). I think this is the universe's twisted way of telling me it granted my wish--I had joked, when my roommate wellgull was suffering the same pains last week and not eating or retaining when he did eat, that I should be so lucky to have that right before my brother's wedding. Oops. I'm back at work today. I slept through the whole night, which is the first time in days, which is nice, but because I napped while waiting for Uncharted 2 to download all its updates, I had trouble getting to sleep early. Point is, I'm in great shape to get my things packed, my room tidied, and my lab report written up (the thing that takes me, routinely, 7 hours to do when it's not two labs worth of material) by Wednesday night. Great shape.

::drops dead::

So I ordered three things--two things, really, one of which I ordered two of--from one of our vendors, all of which could fit comfortably inside a small index card box. One item had to be frozen, so it arrived on dry ice separately from the other item (of which there was a quantity of two). The non-frozen items arrived in a box with slots that can accommodate twelve of those items, which is pretty wasteful, in terms of space.

The frozen item, however, wins the "You really needed a box that big?" prize as the frozen item is the size of a box of paper clips, and it arrived in a box of dry ice--filled with dry ice, mind--that was 1'x1.5'x2'. You could have comfortably fit a frozen head in the same box. (Not that I ship frozen heads. Much.)

Our charge for this shipping: $23. Their charge for materials: God only knows. Wow.

How else can explain inexplicably forgetting not one, but two appointments today? I hit the snooze button extra times this morning only to have to rush around my apartment in whirl of teeth-brushing, cat-feeding, lunch-packing madness because I forgot I had a doctor's appointment at 9:30. Which I was fifteen minutes late for despite taking a cab up to work. The only good news about that is that because I was late, my appointment started almost right away, as opposed to making me wait fifteen-twenty minutes like they usually do.

I set about making a hundred plans for after work, mostly involving getting my ass back on the exercise bike after going to the grocery store (I think it's been, like, two weeks since last I set foot in one). Which will all have to wait now, seeing as I promised weeks ago to catch up with an old high school friend for dinner. At least she texted me today, or I'd have left her hanging wherever. I need to remember to put these things in my calendar. Although I'm pretty sure that I did put the doctor's appointment in my calendar, and I forgot it anyway, and if I could remember things well enough I to put them in the calendar, I wouldn't need the calendar in the first place.

Okay, so maybe I can't stay up until 4 am playing Mass Effect without consequences. Duly noted. Hey, brain, how do we feel about staying up all night/morning playing House of the Dead: Overkill? Surely, that can't be as bad.

It is my roommate's birthday, so I (and Leonard Nimoy's head) wish him all the very bestest. Today, you may pun in peace, and we all just have to let it happen because it's your day. Here's to someone with whom I have tremendous fun, whether playing board games with (or against, ha ha ha) or just generally shooting the shit about which personages of historical importance we think are Templars. (I still don't get it: if Hamilton is a Templar, and Burr is an Assassin, what the hell is Jefferson?) Here's to someone who reads the maddening forwards I send and sends back pictures of kitties. Here's so a man who geeks out about politics with me and who beats the harder parts of games while I watch so I don't have to!

Have a great one! Happy Birthday <lj user="wellgull">!

I have probably 20 bottles of lotion/shower gel at home, but I couldn't resist another sale at Bath & Body Works because I've discovered that I really like the body creams (less greasy, more moisture-retaining, and therefore better for all-over use than their lotions) and that I use up a lot of it quickly. So I wanted some more of the scent I really like right now (Be Enchanted), so I ordered some more (and some other things to make up for free shipping, of course). One of the travel-size lotions I bought (I'm crossing fingers that I have a lot of traveling to do for interviews and thus need such things) opened up a little in the packaging. I didn't lose a ton of it, but it was still pretty annoying. I've written to ask them to give me some site credit at least (it would cost more to ship back than it's worth). I know, I know, somebody call the waaaaaaahmbulance.

Other things bothering me today: I was looking at pre-orders for Mass Effect 3, and it seems like the best deal, vis a vis bonuses, is GameStop, which makes me feel incredibly gross. I hate giving them money for a pre-order, only because it's an inconvenience to go to the store (versus having Amazon ship it to me by release date) and it would be rewarding their business model whereby they harass you to pre-order shit every time you ring something up. I may be spared having to go there for the pre-order, though, as it seems they may be sold out. I looked into extras with other retailers, and they're average. Honestly, just the bonuses from the Collector's Edition should be enough. I would have plunked down money with--of all retailers--Best Buy right away as they gave out bonus Reward Zone points and $5 off if you pre-ordered. However, this was only for the standard version. Which is ridiculous. I will probably just go with Amazon again.

I also do not approve of using voice commands through the Kinect to play Mass Effect 3. I am heartened to see that Penny Arcade agrees with me. It's not faster--speaking commands is not going to be faster than clicking around a command wheel unless you're reaaaaaally clumsy with that wheel. The potential for error, too, is one that would prevent me from utilizing that command structure. Not to mention that you'd have to have other people being quiet for it to work, wouldn't you? On top of that, I'm sure my roommates don't want to hear the dirty, dirty things I would be whispering in Garrus' ears...

At last! I come to the list of movies that were so bad they were AWESOME. Included in this list is one that was slightly less shitmazing (TM glvalentine) but that was no less a fun outing with awesome people who took the mickey out of it SO HARD to make up for it. That's what you get when you try to rewrite Greek history around a bunch of people who were force-fed that shit in their freshman year!


( Brilliant movies don't have to be GOOD. )