Today was just not a good day to get any work done. So I caught up on some TV and played a little CoH.

I've decided to give up on The O.C. next season. Now, of all the teen soap operas out there, I think it's the best cuz it's got a certain tongue-in-cheekiness as well as Adam Brody (though even he goes a little overboard sometimes). I gave up on One Tree Hill a long time ago, cuz not only did I not have the time, but the stories were getting absolutely unbelievably inane.

Anyway, I'm giving up on The O.C. because it is scheduled on the same night as Alias, so Alias wins out. Just as well. I should be paring down my TV-watching, though I see watching cartoons as "research." Seriously, I swear!

I say this because over the weekend, Tivo erased last week's episode of The O.C., and I still had enough shows to catch up on.

I accidentally tuned in to MTV's My Life (Translated), and it was a fascinating show, mainly because how the host's life so mirrored my own, and yet it doesn't. But it's true, there is no show out there for bicultural kids, and it's wacky and weird to everyone else, yet makes perfect sense to millions out there. Sigh. I wonder if I ever have to move to a foreign country where I don't know the language and work really hard and sacrifice to pin all my hopes on my kids... well, I wonder if I could ever handle that. Hmm....

The part that really hit me was the part where her mom said that she had no life, that her life was to live for her kids. It really reminded me of my mom. I think now that we are all out of college (well, at least we all have college degrees) and out of the house, she's gotten better at focusing on herself and my dad, but I know that she still worries, far too much, because her life had been 100% for the kids while we were growing up, and it's still about 70% for us (though dwindling due to middle-age mellowness), and that can be just hellish on the kids. Sigh. I mean, I wouldn't be where I am if my parents hadn't pushed me as hard as they did. But on the other hand, I might not be so... like my mom, if they hadn't pushed me like they did. Sigh.

You feel old when it takes you two days to recover from a midnight showing of Revenge of the Sith.

So what did I think of the movie? Well, I argued with Whateley for what seemed like hours on how he thought the movie was awesome and I thought the movie was just plain... okay. Good but not great. Well, it had some great moments, but overall... well, I wasn't disappointed cuz I came in with low expectations, but the bad acting and directing and writing just got me a little down. But the story is good. Now, how is that possible, you say? Well, the overall story, the 6-part arc, if you will, is a fascinating tale of the hero's journey, and the complexity of the story sets up this amazing universe where nothing is like us, yet it's so believable that it could exist long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away.

But... with dialogue like "Yipee!" coming out of young Anakin's mouth as he was about to leave the only family he knew... well, that's bad writing.

Watching Project Greenlight this season, it just showed the importance of test screenings. I mean, it might have resulted in too many leaks to the public, maybe even a camcorder bootleg, but still, then they could've gotten better feedback than Lucas' yesmen.

Anyway, I will proceed to give my thoughts on it, so if you haven't seen it, then stop reading now.













The Good:
Well, it's the story we've been waiting for. How did Anakin become bad? We saw a hint of it in AofC when he killed all those Sand People in revenge for his mother (by the say, so Padme's willing to marry the guy who massacred a tribe of Sand People, but she's shocked when he massacred the Jedi Temple?), and this story just continued that by magnifying the path he was going. Palpatine was actually an excellent manipulator, and you can see how he did corrupt Anakin. His fight scene with Mace was reflective of the fight scene at the end of RotJ. I even liked Padme's outfits, though she changes clothes more often than Cher at her concerts. That outfit at the end, where she runs after Anakin... it's so 70's it's cool.

Ewan MacGregor did an excellent job acting with a bad script, and you can see his love for Anakin and his hurt when Anakin goes bad. A true Jedi to the core, the emotions he shows are subtle, breaking out the full force only at the end, to show a gradual building. My acting teacher would have been proud.

And the best part of all? One word: YODA. Man, he is so damn cool. And so cute! Thinking on it, though, he was so powerful, yet not powerful enough to defeat Palpatine, he could've acted better, shown more of the struggle. Cuz you barely see him break a sweat. Maybe if he had some bruises or cuts....


The Bad:
I actually liked the fight sequences, although there were too many. I mean, he probably could've cut down the fight sequences by about ten or twenty minutes and added that much more in character development. Like I said, there were a lot lacking in the character development department. He put so much thought into the creatures, the worlds, even the friggin' technology, that it seemed like he neglected the most basic necessity of a movie, which is a character's motivation. I mean, if you look at the character arc of every person over the entire trilogy, there is a definite arc, a change, a slope. But over the course of just the one movie, it's so shallow, that it's virtually flat. Like looking at a portion of a circle and seeing a flat line.

I argued that Anakin's turn was a little abrupt. Whateley argued that it was obvious. Eh.



The Ugly:

Hayden Christenson's acting. Period.

My sleep pattern's wack. Erg. But what else is new?

I admit, I waste a lot of time. I'm always complaining of not having time to do homework, sleep, do chores, etc, but in reality, it's one of those, well, I-could-make-the-time-if-I-worked-at-it kind of deals. Like today, after bowing out of work early, I rushed home to eat a hurried meal, do some more agonizing frustrations on the animation scene for the club advisor, grabbed my stuff and went to class, where I worked on revising my storyboard but didn't get a chance to show it to the teacher (who also is the advisor). But I showed him my roach run, got some feedback, and basically, this scene will HAUNT ME FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE. Argh!

So after I came home, I basically crashed (I only got an hour of sleep the night before), and woke up in time to pick up Dave from class and eat dinner. But then, I could've done work, but it was just disheartening to do so, so instead I caught up on reading blogs, read some articles, even watched last week's Enterprise. But now, I gotta go to bed cuz I have to work at 10:30 tomorrow morning. It's gonna be a full day, cuz it's a long shift and there's a Siggraph meeting afterwards that I want to go to. I haven't been in a long time, and I paid for that membership, dagnabit!

I guess I should post pictures of Falcon Girl's new outfits. Her classic costume has remained the same, but I changed her "spy suit" into a workout ensemble, and updated her formal dress into something classier (read: not slutty). Like I said, I'll post pictures later, but my graphics card sucks, so the quality won't be so nice. I suppose I can always get Whateley to take screenshots for me. :)

I don't know when I can work on a drawing for the Falcon Duo, but I'll get to it one of these days. If anything, it will give me a chance to practice painting with Photoshop. Though it would be nicer with a Wacom tablet. I've been eye-ing the Intuos 6x8 (though 9x12 would be even better). Sigh. The things I would get if I had money.

That tanker character. And yes, that's a panda on her shoulder. I tweaked her physique to make her look tougher but also with bigger boobs. She is loosely based on Starfire of "Teen Titans" though more the cartoon version than the comic book. 

Y'know what, Whateley, I will admit it. I am a massage-chair whore.

To better explain, there's a Brookstone nearby where I work, and after my shift, I like to go there and sit in the massage chair. Cuz frankly, I've had a hard day and I need the massage. Better than me asking the various people in my life, including Whateley.

I've been so busy with too much work, not enough sleep, and tons of animations I gotta do. But what do I do instead? The latest issue of City of Heroes goes live and I log on for hours to tweak the costumes of my various heroes. Argh. It was like, as someone stated, a "comic book convention" at the tailors. I will post the pics, but the qualities of them are so-so.

Okay, off to shower then school.

Too many hours at work. Sigh, but I can use the money....

In regard to my family finances, perhaps God is finally answering our prayers.

I had dinner with the family tonight. Dinner with my aunt's last Sunday. Both times I was asked when I will graduate. Last I checked, I already did. But no, I know what they mean.

Boy am I getting sick of the question, "So when will you be done with school?"

Maybe that's why I like City of Heroes so much. I don't have to worry about getting a real job in a virtual world. I just have to fight the bad guys.