mercury23's annoying obsessions

Top 5 "Saving Private Ryan" Characters

2009-06-09T20:35:00.001-07:00

5. Private James Ryan

Portrayed by: Matt Damon
Favorite moment: Private Ryan tells Captain Miller about the last night he and his three brothers were together. It's so touching and Matt Damon's acting is brilliant.

4. Private Daniel Jackson

Portrayed by: Barry Pepper
Favorite moment: Jackson snipes another sniper through the scope. AMAZING.

3. Medic Irwin Wade

Portrayed by: Giovanni Ribisi
Favorite moment: Wade's story, told in the church, about how he was only able to talk to his mother at night when she got off work. Another touching scene acted brilliantly.

2. Captain John Miller

Portrayed by: Tom Hanks
Favorite moment: Captain Miller, in order to stop a fight between two of his men, finally reveals details about his life before the war.

1. Corporal Timothy Upham

Portrayed by: Jeremy Davies
Favorite moment: Without being too spoilery, my favorite Upham moment is ... Upham's heroic and brave act at the end of the film. If you've seen the movie, you should know what I'm talking about.

Where have I been?!?!?!

2009-05-17T21:04:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted here in ..... FIVE MONTHS.

Wow.

Why, yes, of course I have obsessions. In decreasing order, here they are.

1. James Dean
2. WWII and other military knowledge

And there they are. So I will discuss them, in increasing order. See what I did there? I switched orders. I'm a trickster.

So, where did this WWII and other military knowledge thing come from? Three words: Saving Private Ryan. That film is included in this obsession. But yes, I am obsessed with obtaining knowledge about military history, specifically WWII because, so far, it is my favorite war to learn about. I do not encourage war, I do not even like that it exists. I just think some of the things involved are fascinating. My favorite thing right now is ranks. I also like medals. I also like ... WEAPONS. Aaaaahhhhh! I don't want to use them, I just enjoy learning about them. And, in sort of a WWII-related note, I am learning German. This is in addition to the Japanese class I took last semester and the one I am taking next semester. So I'm WWII-ing it up, yo. I have a woodlands camo jacket I got at an army surplus store. I also have a marksman badge and a sharpshooter badge with grenade, pistol, and M-203 bars. I have corporal stripes (double chevron, what what) that I need my mommy to sew on ... hey, she's better at it than I am. I also have what I thought was a corporal badge, but it's really a sergeant badge. Sigh. Those military badges and their confusing use of negative space. So, until my corporal stripes are sewn on, I'm a sergeant. Yes, I'm waiting to be demoted a rank ... corporals are the best! Especially this one: http://www.sproe.com/u/upham.html

Now, James Dean - my number one these days. This one came from a series of lists I am doing on my other Blogspot blog. I am compiling top 5 lists of "hotties" of each decade from the '50s to the '00s in different categories. The first category was film actors, and - before I'd even seen any of his films - James Dean won for the 1950s. It was a landslide victory, too. James was one of the best looking people ever to walk the planet. Not only that, he was one of the most talented people ever. I don't want to be sad now, so I am going to continue talking about happy things. I have now seen all three of his big films and they are all amazing. Rebel Without a Cause is my favorite, but I love East of Eden and Giant too. Libraries have been very helpful with this obsession. I borrowed two of his films from them (Giant came on TV) and I also borrowed a great big book that has helped me learn all about him. It features TONS of amazing photos, including several from his childhood (he was a very cute kid). I have spent money on this obsession, but not too much (so far). I bought a James Dean poster for about $12. It is amazing. Today I bought an $8 jigsaw puzzle that, when completed, will be a picture of him. So that's exciting. My dad bought me a tin sign that has a painting of him on it. It cost $7. So I have some nice James Dean pics in my room now. I think this is more than an obsession. That is all I have to say about that.

So there we go. Obsessions!

Dual

2008-12-20T21:41:00.000-08:00

I haven't posted about the latest episode of Heroes yet because my best friend forgot to watch it on Monday night and I didn't want to spoil him. I waited too long to write about it here and so much has happened since then, so I don't think I could write a great recap/review of it ... not that my recaps/reviews are ever anything close to great. But it would just be a bit difficult to do that now, almost a week later. So I'll just mention a few things.

- I am sad that it was the last episode of the year becaue I love Heroes.
- Sylar might be dead and I am very worried and upset, I don't care what anyone says.
- I don't feel bad about being worried and upset about Sylar's maybe-death, even if he was being super evil when it happened. I can't help that I love him and I can't help that my love makes me think in crazy ways sometimes.
- I am so so SO glad Peter got his power back. Now I don't have to worry as much about him. I hope.
- I don't love Nathan as much now as I used to. In fact, I'm pretty angry at him right now.
- I understand that Sylar was being super evil to her and her loved ones, but I'm still a little mad at Claire for maybe-killing Sylar. And it's not just because of my incredible love for Sylar. It's also because Sylar is one of the main reasons season three has been awesome (yes it has been awesome, I don't care what anyone says).
- I like Ando's power. I am glad he and Daphne were able to save Hiro.

Buffy survey

2008-12-14T15:09:00.000-08:00

I found a non-spoilery Buffy survey! It was a big risk to look for it, but I couldn't help it. Sorry. But it's a good one and it's non-spoilery, so it's okay!! I decided to put it in my obsessions journal because I am obsessed with this show.
Here it is:

Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Who's your favorite Buffy character?: It's a tie between Spike and Xander! I really can't pick between them.
What's your favorite Buffy season?: I don't want to decide until I've finished six and seven ...
What's your least favorite Buffy season?: I don't want to decide until I've finished six and seven ...
Who was your favorite Buffy Big Bad?: Spike! He is still calling himself Big Bad sometimes, you know ...
Who is your favorite Buffy beau?: Hmmmm. Angel. Spike doesn't count (at least, not yet ...) because she was just using him.
Oz or Tara?: Ooooo. I don't know! I like them both so much!
Angel or Spike?: I love them both, but I know my answer is Spike.
Cordelia or Anya?: Hmmm. I actually really like Anya now, so I am picking her. But I do like Cordelia too.
What's your favorite song from Once more with feeling?: Rest In Peace. I love them all, though! That was a fun episode! I am listening to the soundtrack right now ...
Before Dawn or after Dawn?: Hmmm. Dawn really bothered me when she first came around but she's not so bad anymore so ... I don't want to say until I finish six and seven, though.
Angel or Angelus?: Angel! Angelus is scary! Angel is wonderful!! Duh. That was easy.
If you could be any Buffy character, who would it be?: I would be Buffy! For so many reasons (aside from the multiple deaths thing).
If you could date any Buffy character, who would it be?: Well. Xander or Spike, of course. Either one would be fine.
Faith or Buffy?: Buffy, definitely!!

Our Father

2008-12-08T19:04:00.000-08:00

Tonight's episode of Heroes was all kinds of crazy. I took notes on it again, so I will do this blog the same way I did last week ... I like doing it that way. So here goes.

- At the beginning of the episode, we saw Hiro and Claire back in time watching Hiro's daddy give baby Claire to her daddy. Hiro only knew a couple of funny phrases in English and it made me laugh, haha. He heard past-Hiro and Hiro's daddy talking about Hiro's mommy, and he wanted to see her. He went into the building to see her. Hiro's mommy was about to die and it seemed as if she knew all about the catalyst. She wanted it to be Hiro, but Hiro's daddy wanted it to be Claire. Then we found out Hiro's mommy had healing powers ... she saved a dove from dying. Interesting!

- Sylar was still on that beach in Costa Verde with Elle's body. He was talking to Arthur on the phone and said he wouldn't help Arthur or anyone anymore. He also had a new list of people he wants to kill and take powers from, Sue Landers being one of them. Sylar is scary again. I kind of like it, haha. I mean, I was hoping he would start to be a good guy and help Peter out ... but scary Sylar is still awesome Sylar. It's kinda like going back to 1st season Sylar ... and it's exciting, okay? Anyway, he burned Elle's body. It was crazy.

- Peter was already out of Haiti. I knew I was making that out to be more than it was, haha. I was glad he was home, though, and not the sex slave of a scary Haitian. Ahem. Peter was with his mommy and the non-scary Haitian. Peter's mommy told him to kill his daddy, Arthur. Uh oh!

- Nathan was back at Pinehearst with Arthur and Tracy. He wanted to take over Pinehearst. At first Arthur didn't agree to it, but after Tracy expressed that she thought it was a good idea, Arthur allowed it. What is going to happen to Nathan now?! I liked him better when he was in the scary Haitian jungle. Sigh. Anyway, Pinehearst is gonna give the Marines superpowers. Aaaahhhh! This could be good ... or scary.

- Sixteen years in the past, Claire was trying to help ... herself. She even changed her own diaper, which I thought was really crazy. Almost as crazy as when Marty McFly went back to 1885 and his great-grandfather, who was a baby at the time, peed on him. Anyway, I knew that when Claire decided to help her mommy out, something crazy would happen. You aren't supposed to meet your own family when you go back in time! Claire obviously hasn't seen what happened to Marty McFly when he interfered with his parents in 1955. Sigh.

- Sylar was being all creepy in Sue Landers's office, and on her birthday! Poor Sue. This might be the worst birthday ever. It's up there with Buffy Summers's 17th birthday for sure. Anyway. Sylar killed Sue and took her lie detecting powers. It was an awesome scene. I loved when Sue's coworkers came in and found Sylar over Sue's dead body, covered in her blood. Sylar is awesome. Even if he did kill 4 people at once. Did he really kill those other 3? Is he crazy enough to kill people who might not have powers?! Maybe. He sure did have a LOT of blood on him ... but that's for later.

- The Marines are gonna get superpowers! That's the only note I had for that part. That one Marine really wanted to be something more than human. It's making me think it could be a good thing, but Marines have a lot of power ... with the added superpowers, what if they decide to go crazy?!

- Matt, Daphne, and Ando are in Manhattan. Well, Daphne ran them there, and Ando didn't really like it, haha. They went to the messenger service to get Isaac's sketchbook ... so I guess the comic book store guys are done for the season? Sigh. I really liked them. Anyway, the messenger dude took off with the sketchbook, but Daphne ran after him and got him. Yay!

- Uh oh ... 10-year-old Hiro wasn't good at cooking. Haha. He overheard his parents talking about him ... his daddy wasn't being very nice. Hiro's mommy was being nice to him, though. I liked Hiro's mommy.

- Back at Claire's past apartment, Noah showed up while big Claire was talking to baby Claire. Noah was acting strangely. He knew Claire wasn't really Bonnie, but he didn't know she was Claire, either. He was scaring me! After the commercial break, big Claire managed to convince Noah not to take the call that would end up making baby Claire the catalyst. It was a nice scene!

- Hiro made waffles! He loves him some waffles, haha. Hiro's mommy thought she recognized him, so he told her who he was and what had happened to her. She healed his memories! Yay! This scene made me happy, but then it made me sad. Hiro convinced his mommy to make him the catalyst. After she did that, she died. I had only known her less than an hour and I was so sad! I guess it's because I already liked her, combined with how much I like Hiro and how sad he was. Poor Hiro ...

- Peter was on his way to kill his daddy! Aaaaaahhhhhh! Could he muster up enough courage?!

- Sylar was covered in blood on the elevator. That scene was amazing. I love Sylar. It reminded me of that scene from Spider-Man 2 when Spidey was on the elevator with Hal Sparks ... only creepier.

- Matt, Daphne, and Ando got to see the 9th Wonders sketches. Hiro was lost in time! That's what it was all about! Uh oh!

- Arthur showed up 16 years ago on the roof with Hiro and Claire. I was scared! And I was right to be scared, because Arthur took the catalyst from Hiro and then took his powers. Then he threw him off the building! Then Arthur sent Claire back to the future, I guess. I thought Hiro was dead (which would be so bad!) but he was clinging for his life to a flagpole! Aaaaahhhhh!!!

- By looking at Isaac's sketches, Matt, Daphne, and Ando knew that Hiro was in trouble and that Arthur had the catalyst. Ando wanted to go get time traveling abilities from the formula in order to go back in time and save Hiro! Aaaahhhh!!! I am screaming a lot in this recap. That last one was a scream of excitement, by the way.

- Arthur put the catalyst into the serum! Uh oh! "Ready to change the world?" he asked. This episode was so crazy!

- This is when they showed a commercial of Milo talking about how you can go to the Heroes page on nbc.com to find all sorts of cool stuff. I made a note on my paper that says, "Milo is a hottie! Hahaha. I (heart) him." This is true. I really liked Peter's hair in this episode, by the way ... hehe.

- Peter was going to kill his daddy for real!! I was excited and scared!! Aaaaaaahhhhh!!!!

- They were getting ready to test the serum on a marine ...

- Arthur found Peter outside the lab. Peter was ready to shoot!! Aaaaahhhh!!!

- Scaly Mohinder injected the formula into that Marine! The Marine started shaking and going crazy. What was going on?!

- The Haitian had been holding Arthur's powers off, but he was having trouble because of Arthur's strength. Peter shot at Arthur! The bullet stopped! Things went crazy and Peter's face was cut! Sylar caused the craziness!!! He stopped the bullet so he could ask if Arthur was really his father. Arthur said yes, but since Sylar is now a lie detector, he knew it was a lie. Sigh. Sylar is not a Petrelli. So he said to Peter something like, "Peter, you're not a killer. But I am." And he telekinetically shot the bullet right through Arthur's head. Game over! Then Sylar did NOT kill Peter because he no longer had anything he needed. Whew.

- The Marine had super strength and went crazy. Uh oh!!

And that's the end. I loved that episode! Next Monday is the last episode of 2008. Uh oh! It is going to be crazy stuff, I am sure. If it's crazier than this episode, I might go really crazy. Anyway ...

Bye!

The Eclipse: Part 2

2008-12-02T15:21:00.000-08:00

I took my own notes on last night's episode of Heroes, so I don't have to rely on EW's reviewer to spark my memory. I did read that review, though, and it angered me ... not because they didn't like the episode (again), but because they spent a whole page getting my hopes up, making me think they liked the episode and then it turned out it was a trick. Sigh. Mean people make me mad.

Now, on to my recap and review.

I think I'll just do bullet points today. And I will just go in sequence of the episode instead of trying to order things a different way. I'm just lazy today. Actually, I'm tired. I tried to take a nap, but it was too cold to get comfortable. So I ended up here. Now. My recap and review.

- Peter and the Haitian were still in the jungle. Peter was worried about Nathan, who was still with the scary Haitian people. I was worried about Nathan too! I was also worried about Peter, but my worry for him would only escalate throughout the episode.

- Claire's mommy rushed her to the hospital where we all discovered that Claire's entire system was infected from her gunshot wound because she had never been sick ... only the doctors and nurses didn't know that Claire had never been sick so they suspected foul play. Or something.

- Gabriel and Elle didn't seem to be in HRG's gun's sights anymore. They were still in the house, gettin' it on on the floor. And that was a poem. Anyway, why did HRG wait to shoot at them? Did he enjoy watching them do it? Maybe HRG is a perv. Haha. At least the tender scene between Gabriel and Elle kind of made me understand their sudden "love." They both wanted to just be normal since their powers were gone, I guess. Anyway, HRG shot Elle in the leg. Ouchies.

- Nathan was chained up in a shack-y place with some Haitian girls. Nathan speaks French beautifully, but I was so scared for him in that place! Scary Haitians are scary! My note for this scene says, "Peter must save him!!" Hmmm ...

- Mohinder was researching the cause of the mysterious disappearance of everyone's powers (and his own scaly-ness). He couldn't figure it out, despite Flint's ... scary presence. And then Arthur came in and suggested Mohinder needed "proper motivation" ... hmmm ...

- HRG was hunting the half-clad Sylar and Elle while, meanwhile, Claire was dying. I didn't think HRG was concerned enough about Claire. He cared more about revenge than actually being with Claire, who was in bad condition. Tsk tsk.

- Matt was confused about Daphne's leg braces, but she kindly explained to him (and us) that before she developed her speedy powers, she had debilitating cerebral palsy. As a side note during this scene, I realized I'm liking Daphne more than I did when she first showed up. That's good!

- Mohinder had a bogus serum for Flint, who wasn't falling for that crap ... until Mohinder knocked him silly and made a break for it. Haha! Now it's off to see Nikki - I mean Maya. Gosh, for a second I lapsed into season three of Lost. When does Maya get buried alive? Sorry, sorry, I'm just kidding ......

- Hiro was buying up all the comics! "Best. Day. Ever." Haha, little Hiro is funny. I still want him to grow up. Sigh.

- Gabriel, who had (sadly) managed to find a t-shirt, was administering emergency supermarket first aid on Elle's leg injury. They left a trail of blood that HRG would undoubtedly follow (instead of tending to his dying Claire Bear). Gabriel wanted to split up, but Elle didn't want to. Uh oh.

- Back to Haiti! Peter and the Haitian (am I supposed to know his name yet?) saved the Haitian girl that was going to be sold by the scary scary Haitian (yes, two 'scary's). Yay! Peter wants to be heroic even without his powers and he is doing such a good job.

- I don't know the comic book dudes' names ... so I will call them Breckin Meyer and Seth Green. Sound good? Anyway, Breckin Meyer was trying to help Hiro and Ando out, suggesting that all the powers would come back when the eclipse ended, but Seth Green was not having it. He didn't believe in any of that stuff; he thought he was being Punk'd! And then poor little Hiro hid in the back room because he didn't want to grow up. Sigh.

- Nathan was still chained up in Haiti! I was so scared! But Peter came to save him and I was so happy! I love Peter. He was so heroic in last night's episode. I was so proud of him. Hehe.

- Back to the hospital, where Claire was still dying and looking really bad. The makeup department did well to make Hayden look so bad. The police came in to talk to Claire's mommy, but Claire went all shaky and scary, so the doctors came running. Uh oh!

- Back to the Gabriel and Elle saga. HRG was still following them, even though Claire was dying. Gabriel threw Elle in the elevator and sent her away, screaming, so he could be so brave and fight HRG. The dramatic cut-ins of Claire's surgery were perfect because I was already thinking, "Geez, Noah, your Claire Bear is dying." That just made it all the more obvious that this dude had his priorities all askew. Even so, he slit Gabriel's throat and ran away. I was scared for a little while because Gabriel looked pretty dang dead, what with the blood and everything ... but then I just put my faith in the whole powers-return-when-the-eclipse-ends theory.

- Claire died. But then the eclipse ended and her powers came back so she came gasping back to life. I kinda figured that would happen, but I was still waiting with bated breath. It was intense!

- Daphne's powers came back as well and she ran away into the corn field to talk to Ray the Scarecrow. There was a sweet moment in which Matt, whose powers had also returned, told Daphne she was a hero and could set things right with her daddy. So she did. Awwwww.

- Now comes a scary part. Peter versus the scary Haitians. He went crazy, shooting at them so much! I was so scared, but I still managed to notice how insanely hot Peter looked during this scene. I mean, he always looks insanely hot (duh), but I've never seen him going that crazy, shooting an automatic rifle with such gusto. Haha. Peter is a hottie!! Sorry. I got shallow for a second. Anyway, Peter surrendered to the scary Haitians, but the good Haitian and Nathan (that sort of rhymes) helped him out. Nathan was being so awesome, flying at that scary scary Haitian and slamming him into that car. Then the good Haitian killed his brother, the scary scary Haitian. How did he do that?

- Mohinder headed to Maya's place. He knocked on the door, but then realized he was scaly again ... so he ran away. Poor Mohinder. He just can't catch a break. At least he didn't wrap Maya up in a sticky web.

- Hiro was still so upset about growing up. Seth Green was still acting like he didn't believe that Hiro really had powers and all, but I knew that he so did believe. He was helping out Hiro by giving him a motivational speech. It was great. Then Hiro came out and said his thanks. Breckin Meyer discovered that Hiro needed to take Claire back to the moment when Kaito Nakamura gave baby Claire to HRG in order to get his memories back, so Hiro teleported away. Seth Green said, "Best. Day. Ever." and I was laughing and smiling.

- HRG finally showed up to see Claire ... at home ... after she had died and all. She was so mad at him. I would be too. Mean daddy. HRG got mad too and ran downstairs. Claire followed. Sylar, who was most definitely alive, and Elle busted up the joint. Elle was electrocuting Claire's mommy, Sylar telekinetically threw HRG against the wall and was choking him and such. It was craziness. HRG told Sylar he wasn't really a Petrelli (my notes say, "Gabriel isn't a Petrelli????!?!?"), but Elle says that's a lie. HRG was being so mean. I guess his mean-ness was justified, but I was still annoyed by it. I can't help it. Then Hiro appeared, then disappeared with Sylar. Then Hiro appeared again and disappeared with Elle. Then Hiro appeared once again and disappeared with Claire. The whole scene was pretty crazy, haha.

- Back in the comic shop, everyone was wondering, "Where is Hiro?" The only note I took about this part was that I LOVED Seth Green's speech about the bike messenger who supposedly possesses one last posthumous issue of 9th Wonders. It was a great speech. I hope those comic book dudes are around for at least one more episode. Or more. Haha.

- Back in Haiti, there was a heartwarming brothers moment. I seem to remember hoping those Petrelli brothers would hug it out, but I also seem to remember being disappointed that they didn't. Am I remembering correctly? Anyway, Nathan was talking about going back to Pinehearst in an attempt to save the world from genocide and other scary things. But then he said he was leaving Peter in Haiti. My note about that says, and I quote, "He is leaving Peter in Haiti?!?!?!!!!???" I was upset. He made it seem easy for Peter to get home, talking to the embassy and such ... but Haiti is still a scary place and I love Peter so I am scared.

- Mohinder was back at Pinehearst and Arthur called him "desperate, angry, and weak." And while it's kinda true, I still feel sorry for poor Mohinder. I want old, normal Mohinder back!

- Sylar and Elle ended up on a beach somewhere (at least Hiro left them somewhere pretty). Sylar wanted to know if HRG was really lying about his parents, and Elle assured him that HRG was, in fact, a big fat liar. So they started making out. Sigh. But! Then Sylar went all crazy and sliced open Elle's head. I assume she is dead, and I am afraid to share my thoughts about this occasion. I mean, it's not like I was jumping for joy, but ... well, maybe I hopped. However, I was more excited about another interesting character turn for Sylar, so don't get too upset, Elle-fans.

- Finally, Hiro took Claire to see what happened when HRG first got her. She was very confused, and that's where it left off. I am ready to see why she needed to see that and how it will help get Hiro back to his own age.

I believe week after next brings the last episode of volume three. I got the new Heroes magazine today, and it said there will be a seven week hiatus before the beginning of volume four. Sigh. I guess that will give me more time to catch up on Buffy the Vampire Slayer! I have to find a bright side ...

Until next week ... or whenever I have some obsession to blog about ... Bye!

The Eclipse: Part 1

2008-11-25T20:11:00.000-08:00

I'm not even gonna talk about the Heroes-hating reviewers this time.

I thought last night's episode was very exciting and intense and it left me scared for my favorite characters.

- Peter is stuck in Haiti with one moderately scary Haitian.
- Sylar is in the sights of Noah's gun.
- Claire is in the hospital dying.
- Hiro is still ten years old, but he and Ando are in a comic book store in Kansas with Seth Green! So that's not as scary.
- Nathan is stuck in Haiti with a bunch of really scary Haitians.

Lots of crazy stuff was going on. There was also a solar eclipse, just like waaaaaay back at the beginning of the series when everybody realized their powers. Now this new eclipse comes and everyone loses their powers. It is just crazy stuff.

I was seriously hoping that the eclipse would take powers from the people who had powers, but give them back to the people whose powers had been taken away ... because I wanted Peter to get his powers back. But then I thought that that wouldn't be nearly as much fun as it sounds because (I assume) he would only get his original power back, which is to absorb the powers of others, and there would be no other powers to absorb. Sigh.

Let's see, who do I want to talk about? ... let's talk about ... well, I was just talking about Peter, so let's talk about him. I usually save him for last or second-to-last, but I've just been talking about him, so why not? He and Nathan flew off to Haiti to get that crazy Haitian to help them with crazy Arthur Petrelli and his scary powers. On the way there, however, the eclipse came and they fell in the water. Lucky thing that they were over water in Haiti, because landing in the sea wouldn't have been as fortunate. So there they were in the jungle, and it was really dark, and they were both soaking wet, and so I say that it could have been worse. Haha.
They started arguing about family issues, which was a scene that I liked. I thought Milo's acting was amazing in that scene. Of course, I think it's always amazing, but I think that scene in particular should have made some haters reconsider. Anyway, the Haitian showed up, and then his brother and a bunch of scary Haitians with guns showed up, chased them all around, and got Nathan. I am scared for him! Peter is still stuck in the jungle. I am scared for him too!

Hmmm. Let's talk about Hiro and Matt and Daphne now. Matt needed to find Hiro to help him out. Hiro needed to find Matt to help him out. So Hiro showed up at Matt's apartment right when it was needed the most. And Hiro really had to go to the bathroom. And I laughed, hahahaha. Anyway, Daphne was freaked out because Hiro was supposed to be her and Matt's only hope, but he was so childish, so she ran swiftly away to her house in Kansas. Hiro teleported himself and Matt and Ando there. Matt tried to get inside, he wasn't allowed, Hiro threw some corn at him (haha), Matt went back to the house, Hiro and Ando walked away. Here's where the story splits. I'll take Matt's path first.
Matt got into Daphne's house by professing his love for her again. Then he discovered that her legs were useless without her powers! That was very shocking for me. I didn't expect that. I liked how they revealed it, too. It was very suspenseful.
Hiro took Ando to the nearest comic book store because it was new comic day! Yay! And Seth Green worked at the store (actually, a character he was playing worked there, yes I know the difference between TV and real life), which was exciting! Yay! So they got the new 9th Wonders, which will tell them what to do. I wonder what it will say?

Next I will talk about Mohinder. That won't take long. He was very scaly ... or flaky ... or whatever. And it was scary. So he wrapped himself up in his spidery webbing stuff and was stuck to the wall. Then the eclipse came and he woke up, slipped out of the cocoony thing, and was no longer scaly! But he couldn't celebrate for long because Flint and Arthur wanted him to find out how to give the powers back. Uh oh. Poor Mohinder. At least there's the possibility he will be nice, normal Mohinder for a little while.

Now I will talk about Claire. Angela was telling her that she needed to lay low, since she's the catalyst and all. Claire didn't want to! She wants to fight. But then Noah showed up and he took her to that empty house to train. He made her hit him with a stick, but she wasn't very good at it. So she had to practice on the column. I thought she would get a splinter or something so she would realize that her powers were gone sooner. But she did not. I guess they weren't gone as soon as I thought or something. You'd think she'd notice pain from swinging those sticks around! I guess that proves that her powers were still there!
Anyway. She started swinging the stick at Noah again and she yelled at him for being gone all the time. Then Sylar and Elle bust in to shoot up the joint! Uh oh! Noah dislocated Sylar's shoulder, but I didn't catch that at first. I knew something had popped, but I was going, "What? Huh? What broke?? Arm? Back? What? No!!!!" It was very scary. I am so used to Sylar and Peter being invincible so now things are so scary for me! Anyway, there was fighting and a lot of excitement. Elle took a shot at Noah, but Claire - thinking she was still invincible - dove in front of the bullet. She blocked her daddy, but got shot and it hurt like a motha'!
After disabling both Sylar and Elle, Noah grabbed Claire and ran home with her. He didn't want Claire's mommy to call 911, which I thought was crazy at first, but then I understood his reasoning. Claire was in a lot of pain, but she kind of liked it. I guess I understand that, too. After Claire was all bandaged up, Noah left (I will talk about him more in a second). Claire's mommy went to check on her and found her bleeding and unresponsive. Uh oh! She called 911. Good choice. Next week looks like it will be so scary for Claire. Probably very intense. I do not believe she will die. It would be crazy if she did. But I think they're gonna make me think she is gonna die.

Next I will talk about ... Sylar and Elle. Elle was still teaching Sylar how to shoot electricity at the beginning of the episode. Then Arthur came in to send him to get Claire. Elle ended up going too. I think Arthur only let her go because he had drawn a picture of her and Sylar making out. Anyway, they left. They went to rent a car. While Sylar was outside being a hottie and talking to Arthur on the phone, Elle told the rental car dude that Sylar is a serial killer. Which is kinda true, but she didn't have to do that. I think the point of that was to help Sylar embrace his inner bad guy. But she really didn't have to do that. It didn't seem to cause too much trouble in the end. I mean, either they talked rental car guy out of shooting Sylar or Sylar killed him, because they got a car. Then they busted up Noah and Claire's training joint, which I've already talked about.
After Noah and Claire left, Elle was trying to pop Sylar's shoulder back into the socket. I thought Zachary's screaming during that scene was awesome. He's such a wonderful actor. I love him. Anyway. The shoulder was fixed. Sylar could not move the gun telekinetically! But he was happy not to have that crazy hunger anymore. Elle felt bad for making Sylar a monster, so he kissed her. That hurt me, but I knew it was gonna happen because of Arthur's drawing, so it could have been worse.
Anyway, while those two were making out in front of the window, Noah was aiming a really big gun with a really big scope right at them, and I don't know which one he is trying to shoot! Or, rather, which one he is trying to shoot first. So I am scared.

I am ready for next week's episode. The preview focused on Claire, and even though that will be a really tense story line, I really hope there's a lot of Peter in the episode (he needs to get out of the jungle!) and a lot of Sylar (he needs to not get shot!). And I want to find out what is going on with Nathan. And I want to see about Hiro in that comic book shop because Seth Green needs more than just one little line. So I am ready!

Bye!

It's Coming

2008-11-18T15:42:00.000-08:00

It's Coming!!!!!!!!!

I thought last night's Heroes was amazing. I seem to think that of every episode, and I seem to be the only one. I think Entertainment Weekly's reviewer liked it a bit more than they have liked the last few. Rickey of rickey.org either hated it so much he didn't even bother to review it, or he's been too busy with all of the exciting David Cook album release day stuff to worry about it. I'm guessing it's a little bit of both.

I did love it, though. And I found another recap written by someone else who didn't hate the episode! Thank you, TV Squad!

Let's see. I'll talk about Matt's story line first. It was my least favorite, but I didn't hate it. He found Angela Petrelli lying in a hospital bed, catatonic and thinking craziness. Daphne ran off to "get a nurse" (AKA go rat on Matt to Arthur Petrelli). Of course, she came back nurse-less, so Matt had to get inside Angela's head and save her! That was actually very creepy stuff, the inside-Angela's-head scenes. Anyway, while in there, Matt found Angela handcuffed to a chair, put there by Arthur so she couldn't meddle up in his business. Then Daphne showed up and stabbed Matt! But it wasn't really Daphne. It was Arthur, camouflaged as creepy-Daphne! Aaaaahh! Then real Daphne came in and she and Matt had a touching "I love you" moment, which was a little strange, but still sweet. And then they got out of Angela's head, Angela was free, and more crazy stuff happened but I will talk about it later because it overlaps with other story lines.

Hmmm. Then there's Mohinder's little story line, which I liked a little better than Matt's because it had a really creepy guy that Mohinder and Arthur had used as a guinea pig for the power-giving serum of doom. Turns out that they need a catalyst - a human! - to complete the serum. Dum dum dum! (Dramatic music.)

I'll talk about Nathan's story line next. He went to see his daddy, mean old Arthur Petrelli. When Arthur told Nathan to give him a hug, I yelled "Noooooooooo!" at the screen. Because the last time a Petrelli son hugged Daddy P., bad things happened. And I love me some Petrelli sons, so I want to protect them. And guess what? Nathan listened to me! It's because he knew what happened to Peter. Nathan's smart like that - he's not a senator for nothin'. So he was talking to Mr. Petrelli, who pulled the whole "Join me, son, and we can rule the universe together" on him. Seriously, this dude is running out of sons. Haha. So Nathan went flying away to save the day (woohoo!) and Tracy went back in to talk to Arthur. It seems she's gonna help him by trying to get Nathan to be on his side. Uh oh. Don't do it, Nathan! He's crazy!!!

Okay. Next I will talk about ... Hiro! Whose story line I finally liked! Before he was trying to get Nathan to help him rule the universe, Arthur was in Africa, taking the last 18 years of Hiro's life away from him - not his powers, as I'd presumed last week. So Hiro was a ten-year-old, which was pretty darn funny. It's a little sad, though, because he basically has to start anew and he has no recollection of all the adventures he's been on ... but it still made for some funny TV. It reminded me of season one, when Hiro was everyone's favorite, when he was just figuring out his power. Only this time, he used his power to cause all sorts of mayhem. After teleporting from Africa to a bowling alley in Japan (because they sold his favorite waffles there, and that's what he was thinking about when Ando squinted his eyes for him, haha), Ando helped Hiro re-learn his power. Then Hiro went crazy, squirting ketchup on chairs and tying shoelaces together, just going crazy. And I laughed. Then he and Ando teleported to a comic book shop, where they found a new issue of 9th Wonders. But ... how? Meesta Eesaac is dead! Did Meesta Afreecan Eesaac carry on the comic before he was decapitated or what?! I am confused. Anyway, Ando was trying to convince Hiro that the comic would tell them what to do next, but Hiro was so not buying it. It's a little frustrating ... but Hiro's story line was still more entertaining than it has been in a while.

My second favorite story line was ... Peter and Claire's. It might have been my favorite if it hadn't been for ... Claire. I'm sorry. I still like her, but the whole, "I'm the defensive player of the year" and jumping out of the window thing ... though it accomplished what she wanted to do, I wasn't crazy about that part. And then in the sewer when Peter was trying to protect her and she just wouldn't listen to him ... I am REALLY glad that she was trying to protect Peter because I was worried about his powerless-ness, but still ... if she'd just listened to him, she could have saved them both a little trouble, you know what I mean? The part where Peter broke the gas line so Flint's flames would backfire on him was awesome, though, so I guess it was okay. Peter was trying to help Claire not become a killer, though - she did kill future-Peter in the future, you know - and she wasn't having it. Sigh. Listen to your uncle, Claire! Haha. Okay, so Peter and Claire ended up in Angela's hospital room - after Matt got all up in Peter's face for sending him to Africa (it wasn't Peter, it was future-Peter!!). Angela told them all about the serum and the missing catalyst and it's a person and Kaito Nakamura was the only person who knew who it was. I thought right then, "Oh, it's gonna be Claire" and then Claire took the long way to say that, but she said it. And I thought, "Okay, a little predictable, but it makes sense."
But then Entertainment Weekly's reviewer brought up a good point. They said,

Claire thinks that because Sylar told her she was special she's the catalyst. Isn't it just like her to think the world revolves around her? That whole ''save the cheerleader'' business must've gone to her head. (Me, I think it's Ando. He's the only straight-up human left on the show, and he's the only person that Kaito would've known that no one else did.)

I think it would be more interesting if it was Ando, and it does make a little more sense than if it was Claire. We shall see. Oh, and I didn't really agree with the "isn't it just like her to think the world revolves around her" part.

Finally, my favorite story line - just barely, but still my favorite. Sylar and Elle. I was mad at first because Elle was zapping the crap out of Sylar - electricity was coming out of his eyes, for crying out loud. I got a little reward for having to sit through that madness, for Elle's electricity zapped the shirts right off of Sylar's back (and front). So there was a shirtless Sylar and I was happy. He forgave Elle for making him a monster and said that she needed to forgive herself - not before she took out all her frustration on him. He didn't ask her to forgive him for killing her daddy, which I thought was a really great choice for him. Then Sylar learned to take a power without killing for it! And then Elle was trying to teach Sylar to use his new electricity powers, which was "aww, sweet" and all, but seriously? She went from "ARRRRRGGGGGHHHHHH YOU KILLED MY DADDY!!!!!!!!! NOW YOU DIE!!!!!!!!!!" to "Oh, let me show you how it's done" *wink wink* just like that? I'm not buying it, writers. I thought it was way too sudden. There should have been more tension there, you know?! And I'm not saying this because I'm anti-Sylar/Elle relationship (sorry, I am, I have to be honest). I'm just saying it because that's what I was thinking while I was watching it. I was REALLY hoping they wouldn't kiss - and they didn't, at least not on screen. If they had, then it wouldn't have been believeable at all. Sorry. Other than the way it ended, I really enjoyed that story line. And Entertainment Weekly kinda agreed with me! Kinda. Yay!

Actually ... Sylar was all shirtless ... and he's a total hottie ... so maybe that's why Elle was all "Oooh la la, let me show you how it's done" because she finally realized how hot he was after he took away her pain ... I mean, I guess I can't really blame her. But still. Too soon!

Okay, that's it for now. My dinner is ready. Bye!

Villains

2008-11-11T17:51:00.000-08:00

Image left: Google image search "emo hair"

Image right: Google image search "Peter Petrelli"

Sigh. Once again, everyone is being mean to Heroes. And by "everyone," I mean Rickey and EW. They just don't even know.

I happened to love this week's episode. And it's not just because Peter had his season one hair back, it's also because it was an awesome episode. It explained a whole lot and answered some questions. I do not agree with some people who believe it was unnecessary.

Hiro takes his spirit walk and we get to see what was going on with the villains 12 to 18 months prior to present time on the show. Pretty much all that happens to Hiro is that his eyes go all smoky and he falls over a few times, so his story line doesn't really pan out like I was hoping it would yet, but the end of the episode was certainly interesting. Hiro comes out of his spirit walk and then he and Ando find Meesta Afreecan Eesaac sans head. Then they find the head. And then Arthur Petrelli finds Hiro and (presumably) takes his powers. That was a crazy ending and I am very much ready to see what happens to Hiro next time.

Hmmm. Now let's talk about ... Claire's mommy Meredith. We find out that orange-flame-girl Meredith and blue-flame-boy Flint are siblings, which means Flint is Claire's uncle, which means yet another character can be linked to the Petrelli clan. Fun! Meredith and Flint rob a convenience store. Flint is stupid (apparently). Eric Roberts is also there and gets Meredith in order to train her to be an agent for the Company.

After Meredith and Eric Roberts (I know his name is Thompson) nab metal fist man (crazy power, by the way), Mer finds Flint has been locked up in the Company's prison place, so she busts him out and they run away to a freight train. Well, Eric Roberts hops the same train and a fight ensues.

Flint escapes the train, there is a little more fighting, and then Mer sets the train car ablaze before she and Eric Roberts jump out. And then the train explodes! And guess where they end up?! Odessa! And guess who runs into the burning train to save people?! Claire!! Her mommy exploded that train that she ran into in season one. I just love things like that. It reminds me of the Back To The Future movies, how everything is connected and intertwined. Oh, Eric Roberts ends up feeling sorry for Meredith because she was talking about how her baby, Claire, had died in a fire, but Eric Roberts knows that's not what really happened, so he lets Mer go. So that's that story line. I liked it.

Now let's talk about ... hmm. I'll save my favorite story for last, so now we will talk about Arthur Petrelli. If Peter had been in this episode more, this might have been my favorite story line. Haha. This was the part where I got to see Peter and his awesome hair! Not for long, but still, it was there and it looked great. So. Back before he was REALLY scary, Arthur Petrelli held lavish parties. Linderman attended at least one of these parties, the one that was on the show last night. Arthur Petrelli was still scary back then, apparently, because he got Linderman to hire someone to run Nathan off the road - another question answered! We saw this in season one, the crash that crippled Nathan's wife, Heidi. So now we know Linderman was behind it, but Arthur was REALLY behind it.

But why did Nathan's daddy want that to happen? Because Nathan was the assistant district attorney investigating Linderman and Arthur didn't want Nathan uncovering all the super secret, scary Linderman-Petrelli connections!

That's not all of Arthur's mean-ness for this episode. He also plays crazy mind games with his wife, Angela, messing up her memories and altering her thoughts and stuff so that she agrees that Nathan has to die! Uh oh! But Linderman ends up helping her out by repairing the parts of her mind that Arthur had altered.

So Angela loves Nathan enough to kill her husband, because that's what she did. Well, she tried to. She poisons his Italian lentil soup and has the Haitian there so Arthur can't do anything about anything! Then Arthur keels over and Angela orders the Haitian to take the body to the incinerator post haste! But there's one problem! Nathan comes to visit and finds his daddy lying on the floor, still breathing, and calls 911.

Here's another question answered: Arthur played mind games with the doctor and got him to tell Angela that Arthur was dead when he really wasn't! So that's why everyone thought he was dead but he was hanging out at Pinehearst! Crazy stuff. Then there's a nice scene with Nathan and Peter at the funeral. Poor Petrelli boys. If only they knew what was going on ...

Now, my favorite story line! Gabriel!! He totally wasn't Sylar in this episode. Well, not until the end. His story line starts out with him in his clock shop, holding what?! A noose! Uh oh. He was very upset that he killed that guy, Davis, to get his telepathy powers, so he was going to commit suicide. And he really went through with it! He was hanging from the ceiling with the rope around his neck and everything, but he didn't die. Guess who saved him? Elle. She zaps the rope, it breaks, and Gabriel falls to the floor.

(Random side note: I just wrote a story about a character named Gabriel, and there was another character that called him "Gabe-y Baby" every time she spoke to or about him. I seriously almost just called Gabriel Gray "Gabe-y Baby." Geez.)

So I liked Elle a little more in this episode. At first, I didn't know if I was going to like her because, even though she zapped the rope (though she told Gabriel that it just broke), she was working with Noah Bennet to get Gabriel because he was one of those dangerous folk - a villain. But she ended up liking him and wanting to help him rather than help Noah! But her job is to help Noah so she is so confused!

She bakes Gabriel a peach pie. Another question answered: Gabriel's favorite pie variety is peach. Yay! Gabriel shows Elle his power - the telepathy one, not the head slicing one - and she is VERY excited. Well, she was acting that way.

Anyway, Gabriel and Elle become best buddies! They cook and stuff! But Noah is not interested in ziti. He wants Elle to get Gabriel to transform into a villain so he can be studied. That is not very nice.

Elle finds Gabriel's piece of paper that has the names of other "people like him." He is very defensive of that paper. He throws it in the garbage! But Elle secretly gets it out of the trash and brings it to Noah. They then get another dude with powers to visit Gabriel. It's a dude named Trevor that can ... shoot invisible bullets? It was pretty cool.

But Gabriel gets REALLY mad when Elle tells him that she stole his paper. He slices Trevor's head and Noah watches on the secret camera monitors. Question: how did they get all of those secret cameras into Gabriel's apartment? Maybe I missed something. Anyway, Elle was really mad at Noah for making Gabriel be a villain. And I kind of liked Elle for that episode.

Alright, so that's that. I love Peter Petrelli! I love Gabriel Petrelli! Yay Heroes!

Bye!

Close to obsession, at least.

2008-11-03T19:22:00.000-08:00

I love this photo. Not only is Nicholas Brendon insanely smokin' hot here (um, when is he not?), but Sarah Michelle Gellar's hair looks like my hair when I was a hobbit for Halloween. But my love for this photo is mostly caused by Xander. Mmmm, Xander.

Haha. I'm crazy.

Anyway, I'm writing a story for creative writing class. It's my big final project. The main character is named Gabriel - as in Gabriel ~~Gray~~ Petrelli, as in Sylar, from Heroes, but also because it's a Biblical name and my story has Biblical undertones (it's called Plague). Gabriel's brother is named ... can you guess??? Nope, it's not Peter or Nathan. I thought that would be a little too much like stealing, haha. Gabriel's brother is named Nicholas! I don't know if I'm gonna reveal their last name or not, but if I do, it's gonna be Alexander. Clever me, huh? I figured that I gave my hamster the first name Pippin and the middle name Milo, so I needed to give a little love to my other obsessions with this story.

Uh oh! Am I obsessed with Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Xander/ Nicholas Brendon?! I don't know!!!!!!!

Eris Quod Sum

2008-10-28T15:44:00.001-07:00

That picture came from rickey.org ... I like his screencaps this week, but I cannot agree with his review. At all. He pretty much hated last night's episode - actually, he just said that it "sucked" and that it was "awful" ... which basically means he hated it. I, on the other hand, loved it (yes, bolded and italicized). I'm thinking it may have had something to do with all the Peter/Sylar wonderfulness, but I don't know. Maybe, you know, it was just an amazing episode.

Entertainment Weekly's reviewer also hated it (geez), but I'm gonna use that review to make sure I don't leave anything out of my review.

I'm gonna try and talk about the episode not in the order things happened, but in the order of how I liked each story line, ending with my favorite story line. So first is my least favorite.

Hiro and Ando were still in Africa, hanging out with "Meesta Afreecan Eesaac." By the way, has Meesta Afreecan Eesaac been named yet? I mean, have they revealed his real name? I don't remember. For now I'll call him MAE for short. Anyway, Hiro and Ando were with MAE talking about how Hiro might go about saving all the people in MAE's future-paintings. It's not that I disliked this story line, it just didn't really go anywhere last night. Hiro ate some ground up root with hyena crap and fell into a spirit walk trance-y state, trapped for at least the next two weeks. That seems like it could lead to some interesting-ness ... but since it was just some set up for now, it was my least favorite story line.

The next two story lines were tied.
First I'll talk about Mohinder/Maya/Nathan/Tracy/HRG/Meredith's part. I miss the old Mohinder. Scary Mohinder is really going crazy. Now he's looking to Pinehearst for help. He's already tried Primatech, now he's trying the other team. He is just very confused and I want sane, in-control, honest, non-scary Mohinder back!! One good thing came of this story line: Maya doesn't have her powers anymore; now she can quit whining about it and go home. Sorry - I was never a Maya fan. Anyway, Mohinder wants Arthur to figure out how to take the side effects of his powers away without taking his powers. Come on, Mohinder, just let him take everything and you go back to being awesome! Sigh.
Nathan and Tracy were trying to save the webbed up people in Mohinder's loft, but one of the webbies struck back. HRG showed up just in time to stun the webbie. Meredith was with him. Everyone was a bit confused, especially Tracy. There was more Nathan awesomeness later, but I'll get to that soon.

The story line tied with that is the Matt/Daphne part. Arthur wanted Daphne to kill Matt, but she didn't want to. Maury, Matt's daddy, didn't want her to either. So Arthur killed Maury and sent Daphne to kill Matt. Daphne almost did it, too, but couldn't. So they devised a plan to trick everyone into thinking they were dead ... only I didn't seem to catch on like everyone else did. I was pretty shocked when Knox killed Daphne and Matt - especially when he killed Matt by punching a hole clear through him. Turns out Matt was manipulating Knox into thinking he had killed them, so it wasn't as shocking after all, but still ... I actually didn't see that coming. I probably wasn't thinking straight - my emotions were going crazy throughout the whole episode ... but I'll get to most of that later.

My next-to-favorite story line involved my third favorite character and one of my least favorite characters: Claire and Elle, respectively. I was not the most excited kid in the world when I saw the lights flashing in Claire's house because I knew who was behind that. And there she was, Elle, with malfunctioning powers. Uh oh! I thought one of the most awesome scenes in the whole episode was when Elle shocked Claire and Claire had that evil smirk because the shock had no effect on her since she can't feel pain anymore. Turns out Elle wanted Claire's help for her malfunctioning powers. So they went on their way to Pinehearst because they'd heard that someone there could help them. There was the scene on the plane where Elle got too riled up and almost short circuited the plane into a horrible crash ... but Claire took the electricity so it wouldn't mess up the plane and all was well. I thought that was pretty intense and pretty cool. They finally reached Pinehearst, but because of something crazy (which I will talk about in a sec), Claire decided not to seek that company's help ... but Elle went on in to have her powers removed.

Finally, my favorite story line of the whole episode: The Petrelli Saga! Peter was having dreams about his father, how he was supposed to be dead, how there had been a funeral and everything. Then Peter woke up, handcuffed to a gurney! Poor Peter. His daddy came in the room, and Peter yelled at him, which was one of my favorite parts. Angry Peter is awesome. And intense. Mmmmmm.
Sylar, meanwhile was still in a coma. But then his mommy, Angela, came to him in some vision and told him he had to save Peter (which made me so excited). So Sylar had a sequence of telekinetic awesomeness (which made me squeal with delight, especially when that door was ripped open), went to tell his mommy goodbye, and left for Pinehearst.
Back to Peter. Arthur came in Peter's room, and then something exciting happened. Peter had escaped the gurney by breaking it somehow! And he was charging at his dad with the gurney rail, ready to attack! More squealing from me! However, Arthur telekinetically stopped Peter from attacking him. Boo. And then Arthur had Peter strapped back to the gurney and carted away to be Mohinder's lab rat. I was very scared!
Mohinder was about to inject Peter with an experimental serum - and knowing Mohinder's past experiences with experimental sera ... well, I wasn't too excited. I know it was technically Arthur's serum, but I don't trust him very much either. Just when Mohinder was about to stick Peter with that needle, here comes Sylar to save the day! I was so excited! He helped Peter out of the gurney, caused some telekinetic chaos, and was just all-around awesome. But then Mohinder went crazy and started bashing Sylar's head into the floor. Boo. Meanwhile, Peter escaped. Sylar, however, wasn't so lucky.
While Peter was sneaking around the Pinehearst building, Sylar was hanging in midair, being lectured by his father. Poor Sylar must be so confused about his parents! Is it right of me to say "poor Sylar"? I mean, he's not technically been revealed as a good guy yet ... but I think he's getting there. Anyway, Arthur basically told Sylar that Angela is bad and Sylar should listen to his father ... that they should join together to save the world ... blah blah blah. Arthur has problems. He wants one of his sons to join him on the dark side, but he doesn't seem to care which one. He's just using them or something.
Peter snuck back to save Sylar, and I was so excited! But then Sylar turned mean again and telekinetically threw Peter out of the window! I was so scared! Turns out, though, that something suspicious slowed Peter's fall down so that he was hurt when he hit the ground, but not as bad as you would expect from a seven story fall. I'm thinking - and really, really hoping - that it really was Sylar's doings. Maybe Sylar's got a plan, and he's just cooperating with Arthur to get on his good side while he's really just working undercover to help Peter get his powers back so they can work together to defeat Arthur and his Pinehearst craziness.
Claire was there when Peter hit the ground - that is what made her change her mind about Pinehearst, when Peter told her what goes on in there. She took him home. Then Nathan showed up. Peter told Nathan that their daddy was still alive, but Nathan just couldn't believe it. He was there when Arthur died - he was the one that told Peter than Arthur died! So he was confused. But then he got all awesome and ready to fight. So maybe all three Petrelli brothers can work together to defeat their mean, mean daddy! That would be fun. I love me some Petrelli brothers.

Anyway, I think season three is awesome so far. I don't know what everyone else is on, thinking it isn't a good season and that Heroes needs some help. I had so much fun watching last night's episode. I was cheering and jeering and squealing and screaming and going crazy. It was very entertaining. I am so sad that I have to wait TWO WEEKS for the next episode. Oh! But here's some excitement for the next episode: it's a flashback and Peter has his old hairstyle!!! Haha, it's the little things that matter, I tell you. But I am excited to see what happened before they all became Heroes and villains. It seems Sylar and Elle will be in cahoots somehow. Hmmm. I am just very excited. Two weeks! Aaaaahhhh!

Heroes

2008-10-21T17:32:00.000-07:00

I want to talk about last night's episode of Heroes.

It was crazy.

I really liked it! The end scared me, but I'll talk about that later.

By the way, I am using rickey.org's review as a guide so I don't forget to talk about anything.

Alright.

Peter, Nathan, and Sylar's daddy killed Adam. I was just thinking about how attractive Adam is - er, was - when Mr. Petrelli killed him, or rather took his power away, which killed him. That scene was just crazy, the way he just disintegrated. Mr. Petrelli's power is really scary ... but I'll talk about that later.

Whew. Ando is not dead. I'm glad Hiro used his power to go back in time and fix it so that it would just be an illusion. I'm not sure what Hiro's got up his sleeve about joining with the bad guys in order to save the world ... I do know that Hiro and Ando's trip to Africa provided some of the funniest moments in the episode. My favorite line in the whole episode was probably Hiro's "Meesta Afreecan Eesaac?" (If I typed it the way it's really spelled, you couldn't get the whole effect of it). I laughed so loud at that, my dad's curiousity was piqued from the other room and he put his TV on NBC just in time to see Mr. African Isaac conk Hiro on the head with the shovel. All the shovel hitting - specifically Hiro's reactions to that - was funny too. I'm glad Hiro and Ando finally just snuck up on the African dude the old fashioned way. I wonder what will happen with them next week ...

Claire's story line was really scary this week. Puppetman was creepy. I didn't like him. The Russian roulette game with the gun and the two mommies was scary, too. I am glad Claire didn't have to shoot one of her mommies. I kinda guessed Claire would end up getting shot, but it was still exciting for me, especially when she got up and knocked Puppetman out. I know Puppetman has a name, but I don't really remember it at the moment and I don't feel like looking it up. And I'm sure Puppetman is technically two words, but I like typing it as one word better, sorta like Batman but scarier. Anyway, they took care of him. He won't be so creepy anymore! That is good.

I'm sorta starting to like Matt better than I have ... I think his turtle is helping him out. His airport-waiting story last night was a little dull, but I'm sure it's building up to something a lot more interesting. He had a future vision and now he wants to fix what he saw ... that's gotta bring up some interesting stuff in the long run. So right now it's sort of a transition stage, which has happened a lot in this show so far but it always yields exciting results.

Mohinder is going crazy. He's been so scary lately! I thought he was going to get better after Tracy and Nathan told him about Dr. Zimmerman and all. I thought he was actually trying to help Tracy and Nathan. But no. He's still crazy and a little evil. Sigh. I miss the old Mohinder, the old Mohinder I used to like more than I like Sylar.

Speaking of Sylar, he was helping Peter out last night! I was excited for the two of them to work together, even though Sylar's still pretty scary. Peter was not as excited as I was. I understand why. Sylar is supposed to be Peter's nemesis, but now they know they have the same mommy so it's all a little weird. So yeah, I understand why Peter was mad at Sylar (but I was oh so happy that Sylar took Peter out of the coma). Then they went to see their mommy and Peter was still mad. And then Peter beat the crap out of Sylar and put him in a coma. Oh Peter. Normally, Sylar in a coma would be a good thing, no matter how hot he is. But Peter, I believe Sylar really was trying to help you! And now he is in a coma. Sigh. But Peter's so wonderful (and gorgeous), I'd rather have Sylar in a coma than him, so I guess it's a sacrifice I'm willing to make. Besides, I have a feeling Sylar's coma won't last too long.

So Peter ran away and went to see his daddy. Only he didn't know he was going to see his daddy. He was all, "Dad? You're supposed to be dead!" And Mr. Petrelli was all, "But I'm not, son. Now give Daddy a hug." And I was all, "DON'T DO IT PETER! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!" But he did it anyway. Mr. Petrelli took all of Peter's powers away and I am very sad.

Rickey.org did help me find a possible bright side to this, though. Rickey said,

Peter’s power-loss is a nice “reset” switch. I think that when he regains his abilities, it will only be his original ability which is to copy powers via proximity. But he has to “start again from scratch”. This is good so he doesn’t have Sylar’s awful hunger anymore. Just my theory.

And my best friend, known as otherhero around here, theorizes that Sylar will help Peter get his power back. So, that would mean that there could be more Peter/Sylar scenes in the future, which would make me very happy. Also, Rickey's theory would mean that Peter won't be scary anymore, which would also make me very happy.

I would still be a little sad if Peter had to start from scratch absorbing powers. But maybe that's why they introduced another character that could paint the future, since Meesta Eesaac (haha) is dead. And maybe if Nathan stays in trouble a while, they will bring West back and Peter can absorb his flying power! Hey, I can dream. But I do like Nathan a lot, so I don't want him in trouble for long.

Ooooh, I just thought of something. I hope Peter doesn't run into Mohinder after he gets his power back ... I don't want Peter to start molting and spinning webs. Ugh. Maybe before Peter gets his power back, he can escape from his father (who apparently grounds him - with handcuffs - next week) and go be awesome and help Mohinder somehow ... how? I don't know. But it would be ideal for Peter not to absorb Mohinder's defective power but still be a hero and be responsible for making Mohinder super-likeable again. And then Peter can team up with Sylar and they can be super brothers and go get Peter's power back. And then Peter can refrain from absorbing Sylar's power, but then help him learn to control it somehow so they can be good guys together!

I'm not so good at theorizing, but I am good at dreaming. Haha.

Well, that's all for that. This was a fun post! I'll try to do this every week, or at least as much as I can.

Bye!

Guess what?

2008-10-09T21:21:00.001-07:00

I borrowed Heroes season 2 from my best friend today! Yay! I'm closer to knowing what is going on! Yay! I just finished the first episode. It was so crazy. Everyone was all, "Peter's dead Peter's dead Peter's dead." And I was saying, "No he's not no he's not no he's not." And then he shows up in a box in Ireland and he is more confused than I am. Which is saying something ... because I am very confused.

I'm ready for the next chapter!

Oh, I enjoyed the whole episode, by the way. It was very interesting and exciting and confusing. In other words, it was awesome. Yay!

I'll get to the next chapter in a minute. First, I'm gonna post another video because this is a fun obsession during which to do that. So. Here you go. It's called "Milo Ventimiglia: Before The Golden Globes." This is interesting stuff right here. Check it out.

There are so many of these videos ... which is good ... because I'm a little insane.

Oh, one more thing. I totally ate at the Milo's fast food place again today. No, it's not because I'm a total mental case (though, honestly, I'm not far off). It's just because it's so freaking good. And inexpensive, which is nice when you're unemployed.

Still obsessed.

2008-10-08T19:29:00.000-07:00

Almost 24 hours after my last post ... still obsessed. My family got tonight's dinner from a fast food restaurant called Milo's (maybe THE best fast food restaurant ever; I've loved it since I was a kid). Not so long ago, my favorite Milo was the awesome dog in the Jim Carrey movie, "The Mask", and that's who I would think about at the Milo's restaurant sometimes. But I was only half- or quarter-thinking of that doggy at Milo's tonight. That doggy has become my second favorite Milo. Poor doggy. I still love you, doggy! That doggy's probably dead now, since that movie was released 14 years ago ... awwww! Now I'm sad!! I should post a picture of that doggy, to honor him. Here:

I had to make a screencap from a video in order to have a good picture of that doggy. Isn't he cute?

Look what I found in my Google image search for "Milo The Mask":

So I'm gonna embed another awsome video here. That should cheer me up after thinking about how poor Milo doggy probably isn't around anymore (awwwww Milo!!!). Do you think people are mad when you embed their videos on blogs? They'd turn off the embed feature on their video if they didn't want you to do it, wouldn't they? I think so. Anyway, that was just a random thought I had that traveled from my brain, down my arms, into my fingers, through the keyboard and onto the screen. Crazy stuff, my brain.

Ahem.

Video! Videos are nice when you're obsessed. I watched this one last night. It is very entertaining.

I think this video is reversed somehow ... left is right and right is left sort of thing. I think only the beginning is, though. Hmm.

I am ready to watch season 2 of Heroes so I can start watching season 3 of Heroes!! I think I get to start watching season 2 this weekend. Man, I almost started watching Heroes back when it first premiered. I had seen the commercials for weeks and I was very interested. But it came on at the same time as some other show I watched with my parents, so I wasn't able to start watching it. I saw maybe 2 scenes during the commercials of whatever show I was watching ... I remember which 2 scenes! The part where Ando wants Hiro to teleport into the women's restroom and the part where Claire sticks her hand in the garbage disposal. See? I was interested back then! But now I am so behind everyone else. You know what I think? I become so obsessed because I feel like an inferior fan when I get started on things so late. I have to catch up quick so I can feel like a true fan, so I totally immerse myself in things. Of course, it doesn't always work that way ... I mean, I became obsessed with David Cook pretty quickly ... there wasn't much catch up involved there, if any at all ... I am just grasping for excuses for my behavior, and I can't seem to get any to be true. I think I just have issues. Sigh.

That's what this blog is for. To have a place to exhibit my issues without annoying people who want to read normal things on my other blog.

...

Sigh.

Because I'm Obsessed And Can't Watch Videos With Possible Heroes Spoilers In Them

2008-10-07T21:37:00.000-07:00

Milo Ventimiglia and his friends make very random, very entertaining videos. I decided to post one to share the awesomeness with those of you who haven't had the pleasure of finding these videos on Youtube.

Possible new obsession(s)?

2008-09-29T21:27:00.000-07:00

I could become obsessed with the show Heroes. I was introduced to it this weekend, and I find it pretty much amazing. There is definite obsession potential here.

There could be obsession potential with Milo Venimiglia, but I don't know yet. We'll see how that works out.

I was also introduced to other awesome shows this weekend, including Joan of Arcadia and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Will I become obsessed with those? We shall see.

That is all. Bye!

--------------------------------

EDIT (10/8/08)

As of ... probably right after I first posted this post ... I am very obsessed with Heroes and very obsessed with Milo Ventimiglia. You can probably deduce that from the posts following this one.

Newest Obsession(s)

2008-09-14T13:40:00.001-07:00

PIPPIN!

I love Pippin Took. And I'm a little obsessed with Lord of the Rings because of Pippin. But I keep going around quoting Pippin just for the fun of it ... things like "What about second breakfast?" I've been talking about second breakfast all day, even though I had but one breakfast. But I called lunch second breakfast because first breakfast was so small. Yep. I love Pippin. He is a wonderful singer. I love all 4 of those hobbits, really.

I also talk like Smeagol sometimes ... it is a fun thing to do.

I am a little bit obsessed with Billy Boyd as well, but the only role I've seen him play is Pippin. I've watched Youtube videos of him from the LOTR special features and stuff that I don't think I have on my DVDs ... so my Dominic Monaghan obsession is coming back, too! Yay LOTR! Dom and Billy are so great. Speaking of Dom ... I need to watch Lost ... episodes from when Charlie was actually still alive, you know.

I am still obsessed with U2. I'm just not going as crazy as far as spending money on U2 stuff goes. I really really really want all the U2 albums and DVDs that I don't have, but I'm learning to keep my money saved up ... since my mom's making me buy my own gas and all. I guess I can wait for Christmas for more U2 albums and DVDs. But I'm still listening to U2 more than anything else.

Since I've been trying to save my money, all my recent actor obsessions - like Christian Bale, Mark Wahlberg, and Leonardo DiCaprio - have sort of cooled down ... it takes more money to keep up an actor obsession because I can't watch movies all day long like I can listen to music all day long. I need more and more movies to keep an actor obsession going. But I still love all my actor obsessions that are sort of on the down low right now. Perhaps if I ever get a job, I can go a little crazier.

And I've sort of been obsessively reading The Da Vinci Code the past couple days. I stayed up till almost 3:00AM reading it last night. I'm not really obsessed with it, it's just a really good book. Now I see what all the hype was about ...

I need to get obsessive about my homework ... after I get obsessive about those two errands my mom wants me to run. Ugh. Bye.

Actor Obsessions: A History

2008-08-23T19:21:00.000-07:00

Like I told you before, I'm gonna explain these actor obsessions I've had. I'll try to put them in chronological order ... okay ... here ...

1. Daniel Radcliffe - I was in 6th grade when Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone came out in theaters. I became instantly obsessed with Daniel Radcliffe. Actually, I felt as if I was IN LOVE with him. He's pretty much the same age I am, so that was good ... I mean, when I was younger, most of the big stars that I liked were much older. You know, all the teeny bopper musicians and such. So it was cool to have an extremely popular movie star my own age. Still is. I still am in love with him! Yay!

2. Al Pacino - This one began in 9th grade. My dad allowed me to watch The Godfather. The star in the movie was actually Marlon Brando, but I noticed Al Pacino. I mean, I REALLY noticed him. I decided I wanted to see Scarface. Soon thereafter, Scarface came on TV, and since it was censored, I was allowed to see it. The rest is history.

3. Jake Gyllenhaal - It wasn't until late 11th grade when my next big actor obsession began. It all started after I saw Brokeback Mountain. The star in the movie was actually Heath Ledger, who I thought was absolutely brilliant. I ended up falling in love with Jake Gyllenhaal ... and I ended up spending a lot of money to see as many of his films as possible.

4. Joaquin Phoenix - This one began during the summer after 11th grade. I decided to watch Signs one night ... and I ended up watching it 4 times in one week. But it wasn't until a little bit later, while I was in Gatlinburg, that I watched Signs again and decided I loved that actor that played Mel Gibson's character's brother. Then I saw as many of Joaquin's movies as I could; a lot of money was spent once again. Obsessions are expensive.

5. Dominic Monaghan - Early in my senior year, my best friend started telling me about "Lost." I had never watched it, but I was very interested in everything my friend had to say about it. Before I even saw the show, I decided I liked the character Charlie. I finally got to watch the show in October. Then I knew I loved Dominic Monaghan. There isn't as much Dominic material to spend money on. I did rent all three Lord of the Rings films and decided they didn't show that little hobbit, Merry, nearly enough. I count this as an obsession because I spent a lot of time watching Youtube videos of interviews of Dominic to make up for the lack of movies.

6. Jim Carrey - Since I was about 5 years old, I was a big fan of Jim Carrey. My family and I saw Dumb & Dumber, The Mask, Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls, The Cable Guy, and Batman Forever in theaters just because of him. My love of him was renewed when I saw The Number 23 in theaters. Most people thought that wasn't a good film, but I loved it. Then I watched all those wonderful films of his again, and I watched as much "In Living Color" as I could. It was a big obsession in 2007. I was going crazy.

7. Edward Norton - Near the end of senior year, I watched most of Fight Club on television. I decided I liked it. A lot. When it came on TV again a few weeks later, I watched the whole thing. And I liked it even more. But I didn't fall in love with the "big star" of the film, Brad Pitt. I loved Edward Norton. And so, as with the rest of these actors, I watched as many Edward Norton films as I could. That's how I do things. I wish I'd been able to see The Incredible Hulk in theaters!!

8. Steve Carell - Around the beginning of my freshman year of college, my best friend introduced me to another TV show: "The Office." And thus began another actor obsession: Steve Carell. Actually, I wanted to make sure I REALLY loved him before I went spending all my money on his films. I'd wanted to see Dan In Real Life before I even saw "The Office", so I went to see it with my father when there was a sneak preview showing of it a week before it premiered. I loved it, and I loved Steve Carell. And I saw Dan In Real Life two more times in theaters. Now I've seen all the movies in which he Steve Carell the main star. I still need to see the movies in which he is just a minor character ...

9. Mark Wahlberg - You know how it was The Number 23, a movie that many considered a flop, that made me realize how much I LOVED Jim Carrey? Well, another horror movie considered a flop by many made me fall in love with Mark Wahlberg. The Happening! I loved it! I don't see what everyone's problem with it was! Maybe it wasn't as SHOCKING as Shyamalan's other films, like The Sixth Sense. But I did love it. And I thought Mark Wahlberg was great. His character was a really good leader AND he provided a little comic relief in a mostly intense movie. This obsession is still going strong. I saw The Departed because of him. And other films. Like Planet of the Apes. Which I loved, no matter what you think.

10. Christian Bale - I'd decided I wanted to see The Dark Knight, but I wanted to see Batman Begins first. FX showed Batman Begins on TV one day, so I watched it. And the obsession happened pretty much instantly. And it's still going. I've seen The Prestige and The Machinist and American Psycho and The Dark Knight, of course. I want to see more!!

11. Leonardo DiCaprio - When I first saw Titanic way back when it was still new, I loved Leo! But it wasn't until I saw Titanic on TNT several weeks ago that I realized I STILL love Leo! Yay! I already owned The Aviator on DVD, so I watched it. And I had recently seen The Departed. And I bought Titanic and The Basketball Diaries. So this one is still going, too.

Honorable Mentions:

- Tobey Maguire - I've loved him in all three Spider-Man films. But those films and Pleasantville are the only movies of his I've seen. I mean, If I was REALLY obsessed with him, I would have at least seen Seabiscuit ...
- Daniel Craig - He's the best James Bond ever. Casino Royale is one of my favorite movies ever. I saw Munich and Road To Perdition, but I don't consider this a real obsession because I didn't spend an extraordinary amount of money or time on him. I still love him and I am eagerly awaiting Quantum of Solace!
- Jude Law - I'd always found him attractive, but I didn't decide I loved him until I saw The Holiday. I saw Road To Perdition and Closer, but ... you know, it's the same thing with Daniel Craig. He didn't rule my entire life for any extended period of time. So it's not a real obsession.
- John Krasinski - I actually fell in love with this "Office" actor before Steve Carell, but it was more difficult to become obsessed with him because his body of work isn't as extensive. But I still love him! I need to see Leatherheads ...
- Topher Grace - Yes, I am obsessed with "That '70s Show," and Eric is one of my favorite characters, but the only other thing I've seen Topher Grace in is Spider-Man 3. Oh! I did see In Good Company, but that was ages ago ... I barely even remember it ... perhaps I should see it again soon.
- Ashton Kutcher - Kelso's my other favorite "That '70s Show" character, but ... I don't think I've seen any of Ashton's films. I only saw part of Just Married yesterday morning. I'm going to watch The Butterfly Effect on FX Monday night. And my mom and I are planning to rent What Happens In Vegas on Tuesday night. So maybe a full-fledged obsession is in the near future.

I hope this didn't bore you to death. Bye!

Whoa

2008-08-21T19:08:00.001-07:00

I haven't posted here in a loooooooooooong time. Not since my dad's birthday, right when I got home from the mountains. Wow.

I am obsessed with a few things right now. Still obsessed with U2. My David Cook obsession has resurfaced a bit since I saw him in concert this past Monday! My Michael Johns obsession has resurfaced for the same reason! I am obsessed with Batman and Christian Bale. I am also a bit obsessed with That '70s Show. I don't know if I'm technically obsessed with Mark Wahlberg and Leonardo DiCaprio, but they're certainly around the top of my list of current interests. Lots of exciting things.

Too bad school has to interfere with all my fun these days.

I have this post planned for this blog in which I will talk about all the actors I have been obsessed with and how I became obsessed with them. I did that for musicians/bands, so I figured I'd do that with actors too.

I'm gonna post in my other blog because I have some non-obsession related things about which to rant. Bye!

Obsessive Update

2008-07-06T21:32:00.000-07:00

I just got back from a nice, long, amazingly wonderful Gatlinburg/Pigeon Forge/ Sevierville, TN vacation this evening ... my vacation started June 26th, so I was gone a long time. It was great! Anyway, while on the trip, I developed a few new obsessions. I am definitely obsessed with Batman. There were a lot of Batman related things in Gatlinburg, and I was so excited every time I saw that stuff. I colored in my Batman coloring book during the whole trip - yes, I colored. It's no problem for an adult to enjoy a coloring book. It's quite fun. My first night on vacation, I watched Batman Begins, sort of. I watched the last half first and the first half second, which was weird, but still fun.

Which brings me to my next new obsession. Christian Bale! It's not a full-fledged obsession yet, as I haven't had the chance to see any of his other movies ... but soon I will make a trip to Blockbuster and make the obsession official!

Speaking of Blockbuster, I could use it to help my last new obsession. Mark Wahlberg! I watched The Italian Job while I was on vacation. Edward Norton and Mark Wahlberg in the same movie! Yay! Anyway, I love him.

Oh, and the U2 obsession is definitely still going strong. Sigh. I need a LOT more money.

Celebration!

2008-06-18T15:02:00.000-07:00

I have finally gotten around to posting a picture of my poster! Here it is, hanging on my wall looking so wonderful and amazing. I love it.

The title of this post is "Celebration!" for two reasons. One: I am celebrating my poster. And the second one is ... I am celebrating Paul McCartney's birthday today! He has been an obsession of mine, so this belongs in this blog. Happy Birthday to Paul!!

Hello Hello ...

2008-06-10T16:36:00.000-07:00

Just wanted to tell you some stuff.

First of all, I changed the color scheme of this blog. It's sort of based off of U2's album "How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb" and the U2 iPod and all that ... red and black exciting colors.

Secondly, I made a purchase on eBay today. Crazy, right? Well. I couldn't help it. I just searched for things with the the "Buy It Now" feature so I didn't have to mess with nerve wracking auctions. I found a U2 poster for $11.99 with free shipping. It's 24" x 36" and it's in brand new condition. The seller has nothing but positive feedback and all of the feedback comments mention how fast the items were delivered. So I am feeling really good about this. Normally, I would feel guilty about spending money so spontaneously, but I feel good about this. I would post a picture of the poster, but for some reason all the formatting options are gone. I don't know what that's all about. No italics or bolds or pictures or anything. I could give you a link. One moment .... aha, here you go:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v233/HyeneHyene/U2poster.jpg?t=1213141407

The picture on the poster is from Decmber 1979 ... so Bono and Adam are my age (19) in this picture, and Edge and Larry are 18. I'm excited, especially since the seller gets the items delivered quickly. You know how impatient I can get (remember when I was waiting for my book?). I haven't told my mom that I bought it yet. I'm not going to tell her. I'm just going to hang it on my wall when it gets here and see if she ever notices. I do have a place for it on my wall, by the way. It's going to require the sacrifice of one of my Scarface posters, but I have so many of those (five of them, actually), I can spare one. And it's not like I'll actually sacrifice the Scarface poster. I'll probably hang it up downstairs in the studio. I'm going to take one Scarface poster off my door, move another Scarface poster to that door, and put the U2 poster on the wall where the non-sacrificed Scarface poster once was.

I bought an iTunes giftcard today. I bought another U2 live EP. Now I have 99 U2 songs. If I can just decide on ONE MORE SONG to buy, I will have 100! Or I can wait until I get a bunch of money and buy all their CDs that I don't already have! You know, their first three albums are being re-released as special remastered editions. I think that is happening in July? I think. So maybe I can buy those when I have money. And their manager said in an interview recently that the new album could be released in late October. Excitement abounds!

Oh, more excitement! I saw a U2 music video on TV today for the first time since my obsession began! There was a show on Fuse called "Video Yearbook" and U2's video for "Elevation" was on it. It was the last video they showed, so if there was an order to the videos ... then it was #1. I'm not sure they show them in any order. But I can pretend. "Elevation" is number one! It's an awesome video.

Any more exciting news? I feel like I'm neglecting David Cook. I still love him! But, like I've said, it's really hard to maintain Idol obsessions once the season's over. I still visit the American Idol forums and websites all the time, so I keep up on all my DC news. Once the tour starts and more news comes out, and then his album comes out ... then I'm sure I'll be going DC crazy all over again. I kinda feel silly for sending him fanmail, by the way. I mean, I feel silly because of the type of fanmail I sent him, especially the stupid necklace I made for him. Geez, what a loser I am. Haha. I'm not even going to tell myself he liked that one. But I hope he liked the drawing I sent him. I worked a lot harder on that than I did on the necklace!

Well, I think Im done for now. I hope the formatting options are back next time I blog! I miss italics!

U2DVDs&MP3s

2008-06-07T19:32:00.000-07:00

Hey.

I got two new U2 DVDs yesterday. I will tell you about them now.

The first one is called Classic Albums: The Joshua Tree. It's part of a series of DVDs in which the bands and the producers and engineers and all go back into the studio and listen to all the different tracks of all the different songs on the classic album and then talk about writing and recording the songs. At least, that's what this one was about. The DVD was made in 1999, but it also had footage of the music videos from The Joshua Tree and from different live performances between 1987 and 1998ish (I estimate but do not know for sure). It was very nice!

The other one is Rattle and Hum, which, if you remember two and three posts ago, I tried to win in an eBay auction along with another U2 DVD. Well, now I have Rattle and Hum. I watched it last night. It is wonderful! The visuals are stunning (I almost said something very shallow, but I will refrain from that ... for now). Most of the film is in black & white - it looks amazing. The parts that are in color look amazing as well! But the black & white concert footage with the lighting and all is great. It's not just a concert, remember? It's a film with documentary footage from behind the scenes of the tour and other documentary sorts of things. It's all so great. It made me want to be in a band and play music for thousands of people more than I've ever wanted.

After I watched the first DVD, I came in here and purchased 4 U2 songs. You think I am crazy. But I got 4 that I won't be able to get on CD, so it's okay. The first one is called "Sweetest Thing." The music video for that song was at the end of the Joshua Tree DVD I got, and it was, indeed, sweet. So I just had to buy the song. The other three are actually an EP called Exclusive. It's exclusively on iTunes, you see? And it's wonderful. It has an acoustic version of "Stuck In A Moment You Can't Get Out Of," and live versions of "I Will Follow" and "Beautiful Day." Wonderful.

I guess that's all for now. Bye.

I Found It!

2008-06-03T13:49:00.000-07:00

I may have lost my eBay auction ... but I found something pretty exciting. And it was free. And it was in my own basement. Sure, it was just one song. But it was free!

You wanna know what it was?

I found my Batman Forever soundtrack.
Guess what track number one is?!

U2 - "Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me"

I feel a little better.

Now I have 91 U2 songs. I want to hit 100 soon.

iTunes is so tempting.

Real CDs are better.
Because they come with booklets.
Which have pictures.
And lyrics.

Plus, I just like collecting CDs.

PS - U2 has a new CD coming out this fall.
New CD = New tour?! Let's hope so.
And let's hope they come somewhere close to here.
Because ... you know me ... I will find a way to go.

I Lost It

2008-06-03T11:28:00.001-07:00

I lost the eBay auction. With less than I minute left, it looked like I was going to win. But some (expletive expletive expletive) bid a (expletive) quarter more than I had with about 2 (expletive expletive) seconds left. (Expletive)!

Sigh. I guess it's for the best. I had to raise my bid to $2.50 because some other (expletive) was trying to steal my DVDs. So that would have made the total cost $7.00 ... which is still a deal ... but probably a little more than I can afford to spend just yet. Which is really pitiful. But I wanted those U2 DVDs so (expletive) much!

I censored this post because, if I hadn't, all my anger in the profane words I could have used would have caused your eyes to bleed.

Impulse Bidding

2008-06-02T20:18:00.000-07:00

I just bid on something on eBay. Someone is selling 2 U2 concert DVDs for $0.99 plus $4.50 shipping and handling. I have memorized this price because it is such a good deal. But I did this so spontaneously! I will tell you about the 2 DVDs I will get should I win the auction, and then you will see why I am SO excited.

The first one is called "U2 Vertigo Tour 2005: Live from Chicago" and it seems wonderful. I looked it up on Barnes & Noble's website. The list price there is $19.99! See?! I'm getting a good deal already! I read the set list. There are only 3 songs on it that I don't have on my iTunes library. Pretty exciting, huh? And all the songs on it that I do have, I absolutely love. So! Excitement!
http://video.barnesandnoble.com/DVD/U2-Vertigo-Tour-2005-Live-from-Chicago/U2/e/602498746448/?itm=4

The second one is called "Rattle and Hum" and it's actually a documentary of the tour to promote The Joshua Tree ... which you know is an album I love very much. I read all about this documentary in U2 By U2, which made me really really really want it. So I really hope I win this auction. Its list price for "Rattle and Hum" on Barnes & Noble's website is $9.99 ... so these DVDs are really worth over $30 ... you know, with tax and all. And I don't have $30. I don't even technically have $0.99 plus $4.50 shipping and handling. But I'm managing.
http://video.barnesandnoble.com/DVD/U2-Rattle-and-Hum/U2/e/097363222842/?itm=3

The auction ends in just under 15 hours. It's pretty nerve wracking. Oh, eBay ... so fun, yet so dangerous. Money! It's Crazy.

New Music

2008-05-30T19:00:00.000-07:00

With all those new albums I got yesterday, I feel sort of like reviewing them all like I did for The Joshua Tree ...

But I'll save that for later. (I heard your sigh of relief).

I just bought nine new songs! I hear you now, saying, "What?! You got 5 new U2 albums yesterday!! How can you buy nine of their songs today?!" The thing is, none of them are U2 songs! Not technically, anyway. You are saying, "If they aren't U2, then why are you typing about them on this particular blog?!" Because I might be obsessed with iTunes shopping. Not really. But I think this belongs here.

All nine of my new songs appear on my iTunes library when you search for Paul McCartney, but not all of them are Paul McCartney. Am I confusing you greatly? Then I'll just tell you what they are.

Seven are actually Paul McCartney songs. They're songs that my dad has on records, but since our record player is a piece of crap, it's hard for me to listen to them often. They are:

1. "Monkberry Moon Delight" from Ram
2. "Dear Boy" from Ram
3. "Picasso's Last Words (Drink To Me)" from Band On The Run
4. "Nineteen Hundred and Eighty Five" from Band On The Run
5. "Here Today" from Tug Of War
6. "The Pound Is Sinking" from Tug Of War
7. "Wanderlust" from Tug Of War

The other two are NOT U2 songs ... they are Beatles songs sung by Bono! Yay! From the Across The Universe soundtrack.

1. "I Am The Walrus"
2. "Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds"

I watched Bono's scene from that movie yesterday and then again today because I was showing it to my dad. I like it! It almost makes me want to watch the whole movie again. Almost. Actually, it wasn't a horrible movie. I just prefer the originals of all Beatles songs. Most of the ones in that movie are done very well. Most, not all. There are some that really bugged me. I really liked "I Am The Walrus," even back before I fell in love with Bono. I liked "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" and "With A Little Help From My Friends." I liked pretty much everything that the characters Jude and Max did. I HATED Sadie. And I didn't really care for Prudence, either. Or Lucy, really. Of course, now Dr. Robert is my favorite character. :)

I just went on my other blog and found my post about Across The Universe. Quote of interest from that post: "The appearances of Bono, Joe Cocker, Eddie Izzard, and Salma Hayek were pretty cool." I totally mentioned Bono first. I think I've always had a thing for him.

I think now I will play some online bingo. Then I might go watch a movie, but I don't know. When I was sifting through my blog, looking for that Across The Universe post, I read a bunch of posts from my Steve Carell obsession time. It kind of made me want to watch The 40-Year-Old Virgin. Or Dan In Real Life maybe! I don't know. I'll see how I feel in a little while.

Bye!

A post

2008-05-29T21:14:00.000-07:00

I am having trouble thinking of titles.

Anyway. I basically wanted to tell you that when I left the house this morning, I had 36 U2 songs in my iTunes Library. Now I have 90 U2 songs in my iTunes library. It's amazing!

My best friend and I spent some hours together today. He burned me a U2 live album, Under A Blood Red Sky. Wonderfulness! Then, near the end of our adventures today, we wound up at a Coconuts store, where they had a fantastic deal on used CDs: buy three, get one free. I got All That You Can't Leave Behind, The Unforgettable Fire, How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb, and Achtung Baby ... all for just over $18. It's all wonderfulness. I am a happy kid.

Update

2008-05-28T14:18:00.001-07:00

I haven't posted in a while, so I thought I'd update you on my obsessed state of mind.

My dad says I've been cheating on David Cook with Bono. Sigh. It's just so difficult to maintain an American Idol obsession once the season is over. I know, David won and he's been everywhere on TV lately. But it's mostly morning shows that I sleep through. And I know the videos are online ... but I just have a hard time keeping up. A U2 obsession is just easier to maintain because there's 30 years of material there for me to collect. And I've been reading that wonderful book. I'm almost finished, a fact which is depressing me! It's just SO good! It makes me laugh, it makes me cry. It's just great.

David Cook is breaking records already. He's got something like 17 songs in the Hot 100 singles chart, I think. That's an AMAZING thing. And he's had the number one song on iTunes for the past week. I am very happy! I'd help him keep the high standings on the charts by purchasing more of his music, but I already have all of his songs. Haha. He's releasing an album this fall, which I will either purchase or get for Christmas. I hope I can just buy it - I'm not sure I could wait for Christmas.

I bought three new U2 songs today. I've been trying to hold out to get an actual CD, All That You Can't Leave Behind. But each day I don't have that album, I die a little. Haha. So, to keep myself from expiring, I bought 2 more songs from that album. I bought "Walk On" and "Kite." Now I have 5 of the 11 songs there, so I will buy no more until I get the actual CD. Then I bought the song "Lemon" from the album Zooropa. I didn't have any songs from that album yet, so there's that. Now I believe I have at least one song from each of their studio albums. Here's the rundown:

I have ...
2 songs from Boy
1 song from October
2 songs from War
1 song from The Unforgettable Fire
11 songs from The Joshua Tree (the entire album)
3 songs from Rattle and Hum
3 songs from Achtung Baby
1 song from Zooropa
2 songs from Pop
5 songs from All That You Can't Leave Behind
1 song from How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb
1 song from The Saints Are Coming (Live) single

And then I also have 3 songs from The Joshua Tree that I bought before I got the actual CD ... so I have those songs twice each. I need more songs! I don't feel like a true fanatic, only having 1 or 2 or 3 songs from most of their albums. I need to start selling crap on eBay. Then I might get some money to buy some stuff.

Well. I have work to do. Work for which I will be paid no money, just experience. Bye.

Obsession History

2008-05-21T09:57:00.000-07:00

Last night, my two current obsessions sort of aligned in a David Cook performance of U2's "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" that has given me chills each time I've watched/listened to it. In fact, all three of David's performances last night gave me chills, for three different reasons. He was amazing last night, and yet he was treated horribly by the 2 male judges.

To take my mind off the stressful results show that's looming several hours ahead, I'm gonna give you a run down of all my major MUSIC obsessions: what they were, when they were, how they came about, and what sorts of crazy things I did while under the influence of whatever it was at the time. Why just music? It's hard for me to think of when all my actor and TV show obsessions happen because they all overlap the music obsessions, which were really more major. So, in there with all these music obsessions were obsessions with Al Pacino, Jake Gyllenhaal, Joaquin Phoenix, Jim Carrey, Edward Norton, Steve Carell, Mindfreak/Criss Angel, Lost, and The Office.

I'm going to start off by explaining something. By contemplating all my past and present obsessions, I think I've realized why I get so obsessed with things. It's because I know that, eventually, I'll probably somewhat "get over" whatever it is with which I am obsessed. At the time of an obsession, I truly believe that I will always be obsessed with whatever it is. That isn't fact. So I just enjoy my obsessions to the extreme while I have them because I never know when a new one will strike. I have a guilt problem, okay?!

Alright. I'll do this in chronological order.

What: The Beatles
When: 1998 - ????
How: My dad was a Beatle freak growing up - still is, sort of - and his Beatles fandom rubbed off on me. He'd always tried to get me to listen to them, but it wasn't until he taught me their song "For No One" on piano that I felt the need for my own Beatles CDs. I got my first one, Revolver, for Easter when I was 9 years old. Now I have ... a lot of Beatles CDs. I don't know when, exactly, this obsession stopped. It was one of my less extreme obsessions, so it's hard to put an end date on it. That said, it was most certainly an obsession.

What: Country music
When: Nov. 2004 - Oct. 2005
How: My dad, again. He was trying to help me become more open-minded by forcing me to listen to one style of music, country, that I had absolutely shunned without really giving it a chance. Turns out some of it isn't so bad. Yes, this obsession lasted almost a year. And I got really annoying during it. On my livejournal, I started using the word "y'all" a lot. Sure, I use that in normal conversation quite a bit (being from Alabama, how could I not?). But it's just really awkward to go out of your way to use it on a blog. During this obsession, I listened to the radio, alternating between the 3 main country stations we get around here. My dad bought me Keith Urban's Golden Road album. Then Christmas arrived and I got some more country CDs: Horse Of A Different Color by Big & Rich, Be Here by Keith Urban, and When The Sun Goes Down by Kenny Chesney. My TV was also permanently set on GAC. I'm not nearly as crazy about country music now as I was then, but I'm grateful that I became more open-minded because of this obsession. I still love my main 5 or 6 country artists, I'm just not as INSANE as I used to be. Y'all.

What: Queen
When: Oct. 2005 - May. 2006
How: I'd always really liked Bohemian Rhapsody, and when I seriously thought about it, I had memories of Queen songs going way back into my childhood. I'd always heard Queen, but I'd never really listened. Then, a mini-obsession happened earlier in 2005: Constantine Maroulis. My first American Idol love performed Bohemian Rhapsody on the show to rave reviews. I started listening to classic rock radio stations, trying desperately to hear that song. I heard a few other Queen songs during this quest, but no Bohemian Rhapsody. I mentioned to my dad that I wanted a Queen greatest hits album, so what did Dad do? He brought me 2 Queen greatest hits albums from the store-room of used CDs (he works on jukeboxes, so he gets free used CDs). I listened to them endlessly. Then I collected 3 more Queen albums - Dad brought me A Kind of Magic, I bought The Miracle at a used CD store, and a good friend of mine gave me A Night At The Opera for Christmas. The obsession was HUGE by Christmas, but my parents already had bought all my presents, so that didn't help my obsession. My birthday came a month and a half later, and almost all I got that year was Queen-related. The money I got for my birthday was spent on more Queen CDs. My mom surprised me by buying me a Queen poster for no reason, and then I started collecting Queen pictures off the internet to complete what I now call my Queen shrine - a gallery of Queen on the wall in my room. On April 1, 2006 I started painting the nails on my left hand black to honor Freddie Mercury. I don't know if this obsession necessarily flat out ended in May of 2006, because it was a pretty extreme obsession. But the next one started in May, so that's what I'm going with. Oh, by the way - I only lack ONE Queen CD before I have all of their studio albums. So close!!

What: Red Hot Chili Peppers
When: May 2006 - Fall 2006
How: Dani California was released in April or May of 2006. Whenever it happened, the video was on HEAVY rotation. And I decided I LOVED it. So I asked my dad (he always seems to be so helpful in these obsessions) if he had any RHCP CDs. He happened to have a used copy of Californication in his car, so he let me have it. That happened on the day we were leaving for a weekend at the lake. I listened to Californication all weekend. Later in May, I purchased their new double album, Stadium Arcadium. I was officially in love. I had always sort of liked the Chili Peppers anyway - my brother was a fan, and when I was younger I used to listen to a lot of his music with him. So I knew all of the hits. Anyway, that was the summer of the Chili Peppers. I collected CDs and books all summer - somehow convincing my parents to spend a good deal of our vacation money on my Chili Pepper obsession while we were in Tennessee. I used a black Sharpie to draw a RHCP tattoo on my wrist to match the one Anthony Kiedis and John Frusciante have (they might all have one like that ... I can't remember). Anyway. I would maintain that tattoo, darkening it when it started to fade. That was pretty extreme. At least I didn't get a real tattoo! My mom would have killed me. I can't remember exactly when this obsession stopped. My next one started in Fall of 2006, so that'll have to do.

What: Morrissey/The Smiths
When: Fall 2006 (Octoberish?) - February 2007, May 2007 - September 2007
How: We got a new computer. On this new computer, we were able to have iTunes. My brother put a bunch of his music on the iTunes library. That included all his Morrissey and Smiths CDs. I'd heard my brother talking about Morrissey and The Smiths, but I'd never heard them before. So I decided to give them a listen. I fell in love with Morrissey's voice immediately. I borrowed my brother's Morrissey concert DVD. It was amazing - he is one captivating man. On that DVD was a documentary about slaughterhouses and how horribly animals are treated. I became a vegetarian for a while, but I've scaled back to just a non-beef/pork eater. I haven't eaten beef since I watched that documentary way back in October of 2006. I've eaten very little pork since then - Mom force-fed me ham on Easter of 2007. Sheesh. I should have stood up to her and just had cereal or something! Anyway. My eating habits were the most extreme thing about this obsession. I really just listened to Morrissey and Smiths music nonstop to feed this obsession. It took a brief hiatus for my next obsession, but came back for the summer (in which I saw Morrissey in concert!! July 19th!!) and lasted till the next obsession took hold. (Hey - my dad had nothing to do with this obsession! Crazy!)

What: Blake Lewis
When: February 2007 - May 2007, July 2007, December 2007
How: American Idol. Blake was the first Idol contestant to be considered one of my full-fledged obsessions. With my new iTunes library, I was able to download all his performances for myself and listen to them over and over and over, nonstop. I also got all his videos to put on the iPod I got for Christmas of 2006. With all the voting and Idol-y goodness from February-May of 2007, Blake consumed my life. After the finale, it was difficult to find Blake-ness to feed my obsession, so I went back into my Morrissey obsession. Then, on July 12 I got to see Blake (and 9 of his Idol friends) in concert, so I listened to Blake a good deal during the time leading up to the concert. He was AMAZING in concert, by the way. My obsession resurfaced a bit when Blake released his debut album, Audio Day Dream, in December of last year, and I listened to little else for a pretty long while. But it was still difficult to maintain this obsession without Blake on TV twice every week ... and with the public's refusal to acknowledge the awesomeness of ADD.

What: Michael Jackson
When: August 2007 - November 2007
How: On a whim, I bought Michael Jackson's greatest hits album. I'd always liked the Thriller album, so I figured I would like this. I ended up listening to little else for 3 and a half months. I bought the DVD that went with the greatest hits album, the one with all the music videos. I watched a bunch of videos on Youtube. It was a short obsession, but I was definitely obsessed.

What: Green Day
When: November 2007 - February 2008
How: I'd had the American Idiot album since my birthday in February of last year, and I'd listened to it several times, but with all the other obsessions of that time ... you know. Anyway, one day I decided to listen to something other than Michael Jackson on the way to school. I picked the American Idiot album. It was almost Thanksgiving by that time. I listened to nothing else while we were in Mississippi for Thanksgiving. All I listened to in the car and during any free time I had away from the family during all the Thanksgiving stuff was that American Idiot album. I started listening to the Dookie album as well, and then my brother gave me his copy of Nimrod. It was just a Green Day love fest for a few months. I still love them, and I'm happy to see they've got new music (even if they're masquerading under another name). I need to get that album. I am REALLY ready for the next true Green Day studio album. REALLY.

What: David Cook
When: February 2008 - present
How: He wasn't my absolute favorite American Idol season 7-er from the get go. When I first saw it, I thought his audition was one of the few good ones they actually showed. It wasn't until he performed "Happy Together" that he became my second favorite (behind Michael Johns). After "Hello," he and Johns were basically tied for my favorite. I was in love with both of those guys (still am). Then David performed "Eleanor Rigby" (which, coincidentally, just came on my iTunes, which has all my 42 of my Cookie songs playing on random). That's when he became my absolute favorite. And then I just became consumed with David. I think if Michael had lasted longer than he did (which he DEFINITELY should have), I might have been OBSESSED with him as well. Tonight's the finale of season 7. I really hope Cookie wins. And I really hope I don't have as hard a time maintaining this obsession post-Idol as I did with Blake ...

What: U2
When: April 2008 - present
How: I'd always heard U2, I'd just never listened. But I'd always sort of wanted to listen. It wasn't until I got some iTunes giftcards that I got a real chance. I bought 9 songs in one spree, 5 of which were U2 songs. Those are the ones that went on heavy rotation on my iTunes and iPod. Then I just kept buying more U2 music on iTunes. Then I bought that U2 Go Home: Live from Slane Castle DVD (which I watched TWICE IN A ROW last night while voting 4 straight hours for David Cook - talk about 2 extreme obsessions). Then I bought an actual U2 CD, The Joshua Tree. Then I got that awesome U2 book, U2 By U2. And I am completely obsessed. I watch Youtube videos, look at pictures, read my book, watch my DVD, listen to all 33 U2 songs that I now have, and try desperately to figure out ways to get more money to buy more actual U2 CDs so I can feel more like a true fan. I need more than 33 songs!!! I think this is going to be the summer of U2. I'm just fully enjoying this U2 love fest while I can. I have a feeling it will last a while, though ...

Well. That's that. Hope it enlightened you?

Is this too good to be true?!

2008-05-19T17:34:00.000-07:00

Did I really just read an American Idol spoiler that says David Cook is singing U2's "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" tomorrow night on the final performance episode of season 7? Seriously?! Should I just die of happiness right now or wait for it to happen tomorrow night? I think I'll wait. Wow. I'm afraid this is too good to be true.

I don't know whether I want Cookie to totally reinvent the song or if I want him to stay pretty true to the original ... because that's a pretty amazing song ... but Cookie reinvents things so well ... but I don't think that song needs reinventing ... but maybe Cookie has a certain way he wants to do the song that would blow us all away ... but really, I think any way he does the song will blow us away because he's talented enough to just sing it straight and be amazing ... oh dear ... I'm so excited.

Now, if only he performed something with U2 on Wednesday's grand finale results show ...

Keep dreaming, right? I'll settle for just the song. Tomorrow evening!

A MELDING OF MY TWO OBSESSIONS! I think I might cry.

(Tears of joy, of course).

I will update you on my mental and physical health after the show tomorrow.

Lazing on a Sunday Afternoon

2008-05-18T13:55:00.000-07:00

The title of this post not only describes perfectly what it is I am doing, but it's also the title of a Queen song. I used to be overly obsessed with Queen. That "phase" may be over, but I still consider Queen - tied with The Beatles - as my favorite band. I used to consider the Red Hot Chili Peppers tied as my favorite as well ... and I still LOVE them, don't get me wrong. I just think that I'm not entirely crazy about their very early material, where it was pretty explicit and also included a lot of rapping ... I do consider Anthony Kiedis my favorite rapper, I just haven't listened to the early RHCP albums as much as I've listened to everything they've done from about 1991 till the present. I could also include 1989 in that, I think. Basically, everything they've done since John Frusciante joined the band, including the stuff they did with Dave Navarro. There's no doubt that Hillel Slovak had major contributions to the band's sound - he was a big influence on John Frusciante, afterall. I just think that the stuff they did once Fru joined the band has been ... better, musically. I mean, they started focusing more on melodies and harmonies and all the little details that have made them as amazing and awesome as they are today. Get what I mean? So they're pretty close behind The Beatles and Queen as far as my ranking for favorite music goes.

There was an article on the People Magazine website about Bono's birthday party last weekend. The headline was something like, "Brad Pitt helps Bono celebrate his 48th birthday in Monaco" and there was a picture of Brad Pitt included with the article. And Pitt was mentioned a total of 2 times in the article, which was otherwise about the very nice birthday celebration Bono's wife had arranged for him. So I was a little miffed about that article. Well. The Cannes Film Festival is/was going on this past week, and Bono was there Friday, I believe. People Magazine's website actually had a picture of him from the festival. Aren't you proud of them? I was too. MSNBC's website had the same picture. I was very happy!

I really need some money. I really really really want to buy U2's "All That You Can't Leave Behind" album, the actual CD. There are 2 songs from that album on the Slane Castle concert DVD that I REALLY want (that I don't already have, because I have most of the songs on that DVD), but I don't want to buy them on iTunes because then I'd have most of that album, and then if I bought the CD I'd already have most of the songs and I don't really want that. Do you understand? But I REALLY want that album. And I have a total of five dollars. Actually, I might have a few more than that, if I count the money in my piggy bank ... yes, I actually have a piggy bank. Anyway. If I can ever sell my cousin's Batman stuff on eBay, I would get half the money from that. But did you know it costs 15 cents per item you list on eBay? I didn't know that either. I discussed a solution with my parents this afternoon. We should open a bank account in my name to attach to my PayPal account. Then we can deposit about $50 to take care of the eBay fees. Once the Batman stuff starts selling (if it does, and I really hope it does), we can transfer the PayPal account money to the bank account. Then I can withdraw my cousin's half of the Batman money to give to him and use a debit card to spend whatever money I have in the account. Then I can buy my CD. It will take a long time, though, so I guess that's something I have to look forward to. I would also like the buy the Making of The Joshua Tree DVD ... that would be wonderful. That's another $10 I don't have yet. And then I want every other U2 album there ever was. Even the one I saw on some countdown of "Bad Albums by Good Bands" because you never know if you will like something until you hear it. And I already have 2 songs off the U2 album that was on that list, and I pretty much am in love with both of them. So take that, whoever made that list. You don't know anything.

You should never trust other people's opinions and you should always try things out for yourself. I'd read in several places that Queen's "Hot Space" album wasn't very good, but I bought it anyway and I love it. Al Pacino's new movie, "88 Minutes," has gotten HORRIBLE reviews, but I'm gonna see it anyway ... when it comes out on DVD. Because I could absolutely love it. Like Jake Gyllenhaal's film "Bubble Boy." A bunch of reviews said it was just silly or even stupid. But I watched it and I think it's pretty freaking hilarious. So never trust other people's opinions. You can value opinions and take them into consideration when choosing something or whatever, but don't just trust that someone is right about something. You could always have different feelings.

The American Idol finale is this week. I'm sort of bittersweet about this. After this week, I will no longer be able to see David Cook on TV twice every week. Sure, if he wins he will be on several magazine covers and probably on several talk shows or whatever. And then there's the concert all the way in August. But it's just not going to be the same. I'm starting to get nervous about this finale. That Archuleta kid is gonna be some tough competition. I really really really want Cook to win. And he actually has a chance. This is the first time since season 2 that we truly don't know who's gonna win (at least that's what I've read, although I thought the season 5 finale was pretty intense). I just really want David Cook to win. He really wants to win. I don't know of any true David Cook fan who says it will be better for him not to win so he'll have more "creative control" over his album. There are some news reports that mention that, and there's some non-Cook fans on forums who have mentioned that. But all the true David Cook fans REALLY want him to win. I think the production company won't try to change his sound for his first album. They already think he's the most marketable contestant this season. So I don't think there will be any "creative control" problems if he wins. It's gonna be an intense finale. And I have to vote for 4 hours Tuesday night, which will be very intense. Wow.

Okay, this post is long enough. Bye!

UPS gives me U2

2008-05-16T12:37:00.000-07:00

UPS was right on time! Yay yay yay yay! Look at this.

I tried to get a picture of myself with the book, as solid proof that it is, indeed, mine ... but that photoshoot didn't turn out so well. This photo shows the book sitting in the chair which is currently occupied by me. That'll have to be close enough. I've already looked at all the pictures. I figured I could do that so that they won't really distract me as much when I'm trying to read the book later. I am ready to learn so much! It's wonderful!

Tonight I actually have plans - with real people that I've actually met! So, since I'll have to get ready for those plans soon, I'm gonna go from here now. Just wanted to post that celebratory post I told you about before. I've got my book! Yay!

Bye!

Thursday Boredness

2008-05-15T13:42:00.000-07:00

I keep coming back to this blog just to look at those pictures on my last post.

Haha!

Hey, guess what?! David Cook is one of the final 2 contestants on American Idol this season! Yay! I really want him to win. I mean, seriously. You don't even know how bad I want him to win. You just don't even know!!! Vote for COOK Tuesday night! Vote vote vote!! VOTE!!!

-----------

In the hopes that UPS would deliver my U2 book a day early, I've been peeking out of the windows all day today. Haha. I'm so freaking anxious! I want that book now. I got a new cell phone several months ago, and UPS said it would take 2 or 3 days to get here, but it was here the morning after it was ordered. So ... it could happen again! I'm just too excited and I don't have anything better to do until good TV comes on tonight. Today is going very slow. It's a good thing I slept relatively late today, or else today would have been REALLY slow.

I know what I can do! I had this idea last night. I can go to the iTunes store and buy all the bonus Joshua Tree tracks I didn't get with my copy of the album because I couldn't afford the super special 2 disc edition ... oh, and then I can update my iPod for all my new music and then listen to it and play a video game. That should pass the time. I bought 2 new U2 songs last night: "Staring At The Sun" and "New Years Day." I'm trying to buy songs from albums from which I don't already have many songs, because (eventually) I plan to buy all of U2's albums on actual CDs. I figure buying all those bonus Joshua Tree songs will be the wisest way to spend my iTunes money, since I'd have to buy the whole album that I already have in order to get them on an actual CD. It's logical, right? Anyway. That's what I'm gonna do.

I'll probably have a celebratory post here once I get my book, so look out for that.

Bye!

EDIT: Uh oh. Turns out the "bonus Joshua Tree songs" are actually a 14 track disc 2 ... and I don't know if I want to spend $14 right now ... I might wait till I get another iTunes card for that. Hmm. Well. I guess I'll just go play that video game. Bye!

Jawlines?

2008-05-14T14:51:00.001-07:00

I'm noticing jawlines these days. My two current loves have the best:

It's curious ... I've never thought much about jawlines before. I actually noticed Bono's first. Then I noticed David's in my screencaps last night. Wonderful!

I'm odd. I just dedicated a blog post to jawlines.

The Joshua Tree

2008-05-13T12:37:00.000-07:00

I used to do "CD Reviews" on my old blog. Really it's just my opinions about songs on CDs that I get. Actually, it's just me gushing about how much I love each song. But I wanna try doing that for U2's "The Joshua Tree" anyway, since it's so wonderful. Gosh, I love this new blog. I feel so free!

WARNING: This post contains extreme fangirly-ness and music-freak-ness. Because I've become a fangirly music freak, as opposed to the normal music freak I used to be (yeah, right).

Let us begin, shall we?

1. Where The Streets Have No Name - I like the intro. It's really nice. On the "U2 Go Home" Slane Castle concert DVD from 2001, I LOVE how they transitioned from All I Want Is You to this song. It was genius and it made me stop breathing for a little while. That's how wonderful it was. Interesting fact: my uncle's band played this song with Bono back in the day when U2 happened to go in a bar where my uncle's band was playing. When exactly? I can't remember. But yeah. My uncle's apparently met Bono. And I guess maybe the rest of the band too. I'm very jealous. Sigh. ANYWAY. The song! It's wonderful! I love the bass line, especially near the beginning when it slides up an octave. The guitar is pure Edge - instantly recognizable.
I love all the details of Bono's vocals here. I don't really know what I mean either. Well. Yeah, I mean all the little things he adds between the words and at the ends of phrases and whatnot. There are many textures to his voice in this song. God, I sound like Paula Abdul now ... okay. How about we move to the next song, huh?

2. I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For - What a voice! I try - I really try - to successfully sing along with this song ... but only about the first verse, first chorus, and half of the second verse work. And then I fail. Miserably. Because only the original can do this well. This music video is actually my favorite U2 music video right now. It's so simple - they're just walking around Vegas. But it makes me happy. Especially the part at the end where Bono gets on the front of that car and looks through the windshield at the (I'm guessing bewildered?) people within. It's a pretty incredible music video, I must say.

3. With Or Without You - I think this is pretty much the perfect song. The lyrics are amazing, yet so simple. The singing: *faints*. The instrumentation: *faints again*. I love the structure of this song (among other things, but I thought I'd quit fainting for a second). I love how it starts out very mellow and ... *faints* ouch. Ahem. And then it builds up ... it's just very nice. There's a performance of this song from 2001 that I found on Youtube ... about which I should stop talking now ... don't want to faint again. Anyway. The reason for my loss of all coherent thoughts about this song is, quite simply, the amazingness of this perfect song. It's become one of my favorite songs of all time. It reduces me to a fainting, rambling mess.

4. Bullet The Blue Sky - Well. I might lose coherent-ness for this one too. I'll try not to. The "U2 Go Home" performance of this one was AMAZING. You'd have to see it to know what I mean (ahem, link: http://youtube.com/watch?v=t4LJFSCgxvk). I love the spotlight action in that video. I also love the speaking part in the song, especially the "one hundred, two hundred" part, in both the original version and that live version. I love the differences between the speaking parts in those two versions. I just generally love the groove of the song. Great rhythms, great guitar riffs. Great great song.

5. Running To Stand Still - Poetry. This song is beautiful. I've just been sitting here listening to it, not typing, for the first half of the song. It's captivating. I can't tear myself away from it to type about it. Absolutely captivating.

6. Red Hill Mining Town - I like how the rhythm changes after the intro. Very cool. And I love the melody! The chorus is amazing. Vocals! Don't make me faint again, Bono. It's just not fair. I've fallen off this chair enough today. He sings with so much passion. I love it. The ending's very nice too.

7. In God's Country - Another one with a very nice melody. And this one has very nice harmonies in the chorus, too! I like the mood of this song ... with the reverb on the vocals and all ... geez. Song after song on this album. They're all so great! That one was too short, though! I was enjoying it so much and then it ended. Well. It's a good thing I own the album so I can listen to it whenever I want.

8. Trip Through Your Wires - I think this is one of my very favorites on this album. The harmonica is wonderful. Melodies and harmonies are wonderful. It's just a nice song. Honestly, I'm trying to say valuable things about these songs, not just, "I LOVE IT" but ... sometimes I can't be a technical music critic. I just love this song. Why? Because it's wonderful. Deal with it ... *Faints* This album should come with a warning.

9. One Tree Hill - I'm not going to be able to finish this post. Why am I so light-headed and faint-y? I'm thinking it's mostly due to this incredible voice ... but really ... the whole of this music is just Great. It's just genuinely great music. This is another song with a great melody. The instrumentation is great, too. I love the refrain at the end. Very gospel-y. This whole album is sort of gospel-y, right? Very nice. And all the songs have such awesome hooks. I love great songwriting.

10. Exit - Uh oh. This is another captivating one. I can't type for listening. ... ... Yeah. I'm thinking this is one of my favorites on this album too. And it's difficult to pick favorites. It's a very rhythm-driven song. I love it.

11. Mothers Of The Disappeared - This is sort of an odd sounding song. I love it! It's very pretty. I just read up on the story behind this song. It's actually very sad. I need to listen closer to the lyrics. It is sad, but it is very pretty.

This post took me almost 3 hours! Geez! I kept getting sidetracked, and I am ashamed. But I finished. Now I'm gonna start the album over. Haha. I love it!!

Oh, and one last thing. It's U2 related, so I can stick it in this post. I got e-mails this morning from Barnes & Noble and UPS saying my book's been shipped! I just checked UPS, and it says my book's on its way. It was in Edison, NJ a couple of hours ago. This is so exciting. If you don't know what book it is, here's a link to it: http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbninquiry.asp?EAN=9780641860799&x=07181305

Okay. That's all. Bye!

Explaining Stuff 2 U

2008-05-13T10:51:00.000-07:00

I took this from my other blog to decrease the annoying-ness:

This is going to be a long, rambly entry. You have been warned.

I know I get overly obsessed about stuff. I don't know why. I just do. And then I just can't get enough. But I'm glad I have 2 big obsessions at the present time. When I was only focused on David Cook for a while, I spent too much time going from "Idol" site to "Idol" site to "Idol" site, going crazy when nothing was updated. And when all the new David info would run out for the day, I would have nothing to do. So then I got iTunes gift cards and I decided to buy a bunch of songs. U2, Oasis, Nirvana, Eagles, other random things. And for some reason, U2 stuck.

It really wasn't as sudden an obsession as it seemed. I've kind of had U2 in the back of my mind for a while. I've always sort of liked some of their songs. I'd been hearing their stuff forever, I'd just never really listened. For example, I remember once when I was at the dentist, "Beautiful Day" came on the radio while I was waiting to get a tooth pulled, and it cheered me up. And then a few months ago when there was the "Greatest Grammy Performances Ever" countdown thing on TV that was so exciting because Green Day's performance of "American Idiot" was named the greatest Grammy performance ever, U2's performance of "Beautiful Day" was named one of the best Grammy performances ever and I remember commenting that "That's a REALLY good song." So I'd wanted that song for a while. I bought it, and I also bought a few of their other greatest hits.

This obsession is so similar to my Queen obsession from a few years ago. It's kinda scary. I mean, think about it ... it's a band that's been in the back of my mind for a while. I started off with a few of their greatest hits. I fell in love with the singer's voice, then I fell in love with the singer. Now the snowball effect has begun. Unfortunately, I don't have a birthday coming up to feed my U2 obsession like I had for my Queen obsession. I bought my first actual U2 CD today - an actual physical copy of the album, not digital - "The Joshua Tree." There's a book that I want, too, and I can actually afford it! On Barnes & Noble's website, they've got bargain copies of the hardback edition of "U2 By U2": List price is $60.80, online price is $9.98. I have ten extra dollars, but I don't have a credit card. Hopefully my mom will let me use hers ...

There's something about U2's music ... that just draws me in. You know how sometimes when you get albums by even your most favorite artists and there are some songs you could listen to a million times but then there are some that you kind of zone out during or even skip to get to the ones you could listen to a million times? Maybe you don't. Well. Anyway. I was afraid that when I watched that U2 DVD I have or listened to "The Joshua Tree" I would zone out during the songs I wasn't familiar with. It just doesn't happen with this group. On every Queen album I own, I can think of at least one song that I wouldn't feel too bad skipping (not that there's many ... probably just the one per album). I don't know. The Beatles have songs I wouldn't feel too terribly bad skipping. Red Hot Chili Peppers have quite a few songs I wouldn't feel bad skipping (sorry, RHCP, but some of the earlier stuff is a little much for me - I still love you guys to death). Morrissey, yeah ... a few. Green Day? A few. And it's not that I would feel bad skipping U2 songs, it's just ... I don't feel the need. Maybe I just love all the songs equally. And maybe after the obsession cools down, I'll get in the habit of skipping - this could just be the obsession's influence. I just don't know.

So, basically, I have seen the forecast of the U2 storm, and the outlook is that this will be my most intense obsession with a band since Queen. I started talking really strangely and ... "proper" on my livejournal when I was obsessed with Queen, trying to imitate Freddie. So. If you sense a bit of an Irish dialect around here in the coming weeks ...

or Midwestern American dialect (if there is such a thing) if the David Cook obsession becomes the really influential one ...

then you know why.

I kid, I kid. I promise I won't get any more annoying than I already am.

(OR WILL I? NOW THAT I HAVE THIS NEW SPACE!!)

Anyway, I'm gonna go see if my mom will let me borrow the credit card to buy this insanely discounted book of awesomeness ... because I think I can figure out how to enter the card type and the card number and the expiration date and the security code by myself ... I mean, I figured it out when I paid for the American Idol songwriting competition ... which cost the same as this book and amounted to waaaaaay less than this book will ... I will use this book waaaaaaay more than I will use that song ... . . . . . . . .

UPDATE: Mom let me use her card to get the U2 book! AND she even gave me my $10 back because I'm about to spend all my money on an American Idol concert ticket and she didn't want me to be flat broke! So she bought me a present! And it should be here in only a few days! Finally - something to expect in the mail.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (Shriek of excitement)

Introduction

2008-05-13T10:46:00.000-07:00

Hi.

I already have a blog here at mercury23.blogspot.com, but I've noticed that when I am overly obsessed with something/someone like I am now, that blog gets rather annoying. So. I created this space for myself to be as annoying and fangirly and crazy and obsessed as I wanna be. This is my free space.

Just to let you know, my current obsessions are David Cook and U2/Bono. So. Expect lots of that.

I'm gonna go grab my most recent annoying-ness from my other blog and move it here.

Bye.