Found via a post on ellorgast's LJ, I felt it was necessary to spread this epic link.

I'M ON A SHIP

If you like the song "I'm On A Boat" and you liked the latest Star Trek movie you need to go to the above link.

I have a hard time of keeping track of movie release dates, so I'm detailing here the movies that I want to see in the near future.

Dragonball Evolution: April 10
Crank 2: High Voltage: April 17
X-Men Origins: Wolverine: May 1
Star Trek: May 8
Angels & Demons: May 15 (maybe, haven't decided if I want to see this for sure)
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince: July 17

Most of these are self explanatory. I know Dragonball has a high chance of being absolutely awful, but I have to see it anyway, cause otherwise I will wonder what I missed. Angels & Demons looks like it could be bad like the National Treasure series, but I liked the trailer for A & D.

Hagane no Renkinjutsushi Fullmetal Alchemist (Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood), the second television adaptation of Hiromu Arakawa's Fullmetal Alchemist dark fantasy manga, will take over Gundam 00's 5:00 p.m. Sunday timeslot starting next week on April 5.

Source

That could not be better timing. Too bad Gundam 00's ending was really disappointing. The second season was so good up until episodes 24 and 25. There's supposed to be a movie next year, and hopefully it will redeem the series finale being so disappointing.

Meanwhile... OMG FULLMETAL ALCHEMIST YAY.

So I was reading the Fullmetal Alchemist manga available at One Manga, when I saw an announcement for a new Fullmetal Alchemist anime. I didn't think much of it at the time for some reason; I guess I thought it was an old announcement referring to the anime that is already out. However, I now realize that this announcement is really recent, and there is going to be a NEW Fullmetal Alchemist anime! That's awesome! I wonder what the plot will be about -- will it continue from where the movie left off, or will it try to go back to the original manga plot? (The anime and manga plots are a lot different.)

I'm not sure how many people still reading this watch Naruto: Shippuden. I'm currently in love with the new opening song called "Blue Bird" (YES I AM SO PREDICTABLE). Let's rehash the lyrics real quickly.

habataitara modorenai to itte
mezashita no wa aoi aoi ano sora

kanashimi wa mada oboerarezu
setsunasa wa ima tsukami hajimeta
anata e to idaku kono kanjou mo
ima kotoba ni kawatteku

michi naru sekai no yume kara mezamete
kono hane wo hiroge tobitatsu

habataitara modorenai to itte
mezashita no wa aoi aoi ano sora

tsukinuketara mitsukaru to shitte
furikiru hodo
aoi aoi ano sora
aoi aoi ano sora
aoi aoi ano sora

English translation:

You said if you could fly, you'd never come back down.
You only have eyes for that blue, blue sky.

You've yet to learn what sadness is,
and are just now grasping what pain is like.
Even the feelings I have for you
must be expressed with words.

As you awake from a dream into an unknown world,
spread your wings, and take flight!

You said if you could fly, you'd never come back down.
You only have eyes for that blue, blue sky.

You know if you can just make it through, you'll find what you seek.
So keep trying to break free,
to that blue, blue sky.
To that blue, blue sky.
To that blue, blue sky!

So I was listening to this song "on repeat," and I started thinking about the lyrics. Who is it from the point of view of, and who are they singing to? Is Naruto singing to Sasuke, or is Sasuke singing to Naruto? Or is it some rando singing to Naruto?

I like the idea of Sasuke only having eyes for the sky, but that could be my fandom for him talking. It might be hard to reconcile only having a heart for revenge with only having eyes for the sky, though. If you stretch it, you could think of them both as one and the same... maybe. Alright, so maybe this one is a stretch.

Let's consider the song is about Naruto, then. Does Naruto only have eyes for the sky? He's always looking ahead into the future and towards his goals of rescuing Sasuke and becoming Hokage. I suppose if you think of the sky as "goals," you could say that Naruto has eyes for the sky. But then again, Sasuke's revenge is also a goal.

There's also another important line in this song. "You've yet to learn what sadness is, and are just now grasping what pain is like." This really sounds like Sasuke speaking to Naruto. Sasuke has always been the one who says that he knows sadness and pain the best because he lost everything, and Sasuke says that Naruto doesn't know anything, because Naruto was alone from the beginning.

Alright, so I guess my current theory is that the song is Sasuke speaking to Naruto, even though I wish it were the other way around. (I want Sasuke to be the blue bird.... *cough*) Any other thoughts on this?

The encoding of the Gundam 00 episode 22 that I watched was really bad. :( I would get a couple of frames of video that were fine, and then in the next five seconds the screen would be replaced with a white screen or blocks of pixellated blobs. It's a shame because the episode was pretty good. At least the sound was intact. I'll have to download a better version when one is posted.

Okay, I'll be perfectly honest, I posted because I wanted to post with my new icon. /shame

( Don't click this link if you haven't seen the episode preview for Naruto Shippuuden 17 at the end of 16 )

I wasn't really sure where to link the image, so I picked the link that seems to have the most thorough write-up on the topic. Basically, LiveJournal is mass suspending any LiveJournals and communities that have illegal sexual activities listed in their interests, including incest, pedophilia, lolita, yaoi, and others. LiveJournal appears to not be investigating said journals or communities before they are suspended, as legitimate journals and communities have been victims of this mass banning.

Such journals and communities include people who have been victims of said illegal sexual activities, because they have those activities listed in their interests in an attempt to find others who are victims. Also, many fandom communities have been deleted because they list yaoi, lolita, or others in their interests list, because they are fans of media that include such things in the media, but the fans do not necessarily support the activities themselves. Communities about the novel Lolita have been banned, and I am under the impression that this novel is about a character who discovers that lolita is immoral (correct me if I am wrong).

I find the whole matter saddening and I hope LiveJournal reverses their stance, and restores legitimate accounts to be unbanned.

I am doing this to make me think and to make me post about something other than WoW :P.

The Challenge: Assemble a superteam from your various fandoms.
Your team must consist of the following:
(1) Team Leader
(1) Warrior
(1) Smartypants
(1) Hottie
(1) Comic Relief

All your superteam members must be from DIFFERENT fandoms.

Leader: Aino Minako, of Bishoujo Senshi Sailormoon. Nothing says tough love like making your underling sing karaoke.
Warrior: Al, from Fullmetal Alchemist. With a suit of armor and good combat skills, that says "tank" to me.
Brains of the Outfit: Ishida Uryuu, of Bleach. Who else could fill a spot in a team of super-powered people without having superpowers?
Hottie: Arthas, of Warcraft. I wanted to stick him in here somehow, and he is hawt. I can also see Minako trying to win his heart, and him completely ignoring her.
Comic Relief: Pippin, of Lord of the Rings. This one was hard, because I am not really drawn to comic-relief characters, but I suppose Pippin can fulfill that role.

I thought I would make a separate post to explain why I like these characters since it took me so long to do so. To recap for the newcomers, I posted a list of fandoms, you guys guessed my favorite character from each one.

1. Bishoujo Senshi Sailormoon - Aino Minako. I have fangirled over her countless times, but I'll try to recap here. I love her because she puts on a happy face and is great fun to be with, even though she is hurting inside. I love her devotion to both Usagi and her dream to be an idol (or her actual idol-dom as in the live action). I dunno, she just has this essence about her that I love and that I am drawn to. She used to be the anime character that I thought I was most like, I'm not sure about that anymore, but we definitely share a lot of common traits.

2. Fruits Basket - Honda Tohru. Tohru! I love how she always says the right things. I love how she's such a great friend to everyone. I love how she sees the good in everyone. I love the way how she lets people walk all over her and she never gets mad. I think her cluelessness is cute. I love how she's always smiling. And I'm sorry, but I love how she keeps her problems to herself in an effort to keep everyone happy. That is so something I would do. Other people's happiness are more important to her than her own, and I can so empathize with that.

3. Tenkuu no Escaflowne - Dryden Fassa. Eeee, I love Dryden. I love how he doesn't take himself seriously. I love his general outlook on life. From when we first see him "Mermaids belong in the sea, and they should be smiling," you can really tell he respects life and doesn't consider himself higher than anyone else. Even if he is a little egotistical sometimes, but I think that's part of how he doesn't take himself seriously. I also love how he's a pacifist. He wanted to solve problems with economic sanctions instead of war. He's my hero. *_*

4. Hagane no Renkinjutsushi - Ed. It took me awhile to figure out which Hagaren character was my favorite. In the end, I'm not sure why I didn't figure it out sooner. I love Ed, he reminds me of me a little bit. He has a little bit of a guilt complex because it was his idea to try and use alchemy to bring back his mom, so he feels totally responsible for Al's fate and is trying so hard to get his body back. I can empathize with guilt, very easily :P. I also love how Ed really doesn't like the idea of killing people. I guess this would be an obvious one since he is only 15 and 15-year-olds usually aren't known for liking killing people, but who knows. I also love how, despite everything, you don't see Ed moping a whole lot. He often has that cheesy grin on his face. I love him.

5. Lord of the Rings - Gandalf. Augh, I love Gandalf. I love his personality. He's someone you can count on, he's responsible, he has wisdom of someone who has been around a loooong time, and he's even got a sense of humor to boot. He's freaking cool cause he's a wizard and he can do cool things with fireworks and his staff. Flame of Undun! I wish Gandalf were my grandad.

6. Rurouni Kenshin - Kenshin. Kenshin is an interesting character. I love how his atonement is living in and of itself, because death would be a far easier way out. I love how he smiles and makes those funny "oro?" sounds at just the right times. I love his philosophy on most things and I love how he gets awesome lines. I love how he helps people. Also, when he shows his Battousai side, that really fascinates me. There's an episode I like to play over and over but I won't say which one so as to not spoil. It's at the beginning of the Kyoto arc though. Oh!! And I LOVE how Kenshin is a pacifist. ^___^ Pacifists rock!

7. .hack//SIGN - Tsukasa. Tsukasa is an interesting deviation from the kind of character I usually like. He's not happy at all most of the time. In fact, he's quite dreary. But he fascinates me because of his conflict. I love watching him through the series as he has to learn that in order to return to the real world, he has to want to go there. And I can empathize with not wanting to return to the real world. Oh, how I can empathize, especially if you compare "The World" with just the internet in general.

8. Hellsing - Integral. Integral is kickbutt. You listen to her, do what she says, and everything will go smoothly. Don't cross her. She's just cool *_*. I also love her backstory and how she didn't become who she is now that easily. She used to be a scared little kid, too.

9. Kannazuki no Miko - Himeko. Again, another character that reminds me of me. Her personality, the things she says, the things she does, everything. She's cute, too. And the way she assumes everything is her fault reminds me of me *shifts eyes*.

10. Maria-sama ga Miteru - Shimako. She's gorgeous, but that's not why I love her. I am actually having a hard time remembering why I love her so much at the moment, though. I do have good reasoning, I swear! It's just been awhile since I've seen this show.

11. Card Captor Sakura - Yue. Yue!! Wings. Wings. WINGS!!! *coughs* Um, besides that, I love how he's so devoted to his masters (both of them). And as usual I'm intrigued by the whole separate personality thing. That kind of thing just really fascinates me for some reason.

12. Read or Die OAV - Yomiko. She's cute, she's a bookworm, and she can save the world. What more can you ask for?

13. Gundam Wing - Zechs Merquise. Oooh, it's been awhile since I've seen GW. But I vaguely remember loving how he fights for what he believes in, even if it's in the wrong way. And I love how he cares of his sister, even if from afar. And he's gooood looking, too.

14. Azumanga Daioh - Sakaki. Sakaki is so cute, even if her affection for cats is a little misplaced. I love how she wants to be little and cute even though she's so cool looking *_*. Plus she really does have a cute personality. I love how she doodles little cats everywhere.

15. Megatokyo - Erika. Yes, this is a change. Miho finally got annoying to me with her "Oooh look at me I'm so mysterious! Keep guessing about me and I still won't tell you anything!" Argh. Erika, on the other hand, is cool. You mess with her, you get something broken. I love how she takes care of Kimiko. And in recent events, I like seeing the more fragile side of Erika. I can't help it, I have a weakness for angst. I love it.

I was deeply remiss in leaving out two more of my favorite characters from this meme, so I'm including them in this post.

16. Gankutsuou - Eugenie. Eugenie is so cool! Even though she belongs to a noble family, she doesn't care about that. She wants to travel the world as a piano player. That's freaking awesome. She also wants to break away from her family, and I can really empathize with that. Her affection for Albert is also really cute, even if she denies it.

17. Phantom of the Opera - The Phantom. Even if he's a killer, he is a dark and tortured soul. It's no wonder he's the way he is with how everyone has treated him because of his face. I want to give him a big hug. I also love how he's such a creative artist. Some of his music may be a little dark, yes, but just listen to "Music of the Night." Augh. It's so gorgeous. You gotta love someone who can write something that beautiful. Phantom just needs some love, that's all he really needs.

Whew! Done. I ended up writing a whole lot more than just one sentence per character.

[cloned from A Bird's Melody]

I'm a sheep. Baaaaah. I'm going to use the original version of the meme that I saw pop up last night and not the one I've seen going around today cause I think it's more fun.

a. Post a list of 15 fandoms.
b. Have your friends list guess your favourite character from each one.
c. When guessed, bold the line, include the character name, and write a sentence about why you like that character.

This is gonna be soooo easy :P. I'm very vocal about the characters I love. Note that these are current favorites, not characters that were my favorite in the past but have changed recently.

1. Bishoujo Senshi Sailormoon - Aino Minako, guessed by Rachan. Not like I haven't waxed poetic about her a gazillion times :P.
2. Fruits Basket - Honda Tohru, guessed by Rachan.
3. Tenkuu no Escaflowne - Dryden Fassa, guessed by Rachan.
4. Hagane no Renkinjutsushi - Ed, guessed by Rachan.
5. Lord of the Rings - Gandalf, guessed by Rachan.
6. Rurouni Kenshin - Kenshin, guessed by Josh.
7. .hack//SIGN - Tsukasa, guessed by Rachan.
8. Hellsing - Integral, guessed by Rachan.
9. Kannazuki no Miko - Himeko, guessed by Rachan.
10. Maria-sama ga Miteru - Shimako, guessed by Rachan.
11. Card Captor Sakura - Yue, guessed by Nate.
12. Read or Die OAV - Yomiko, guessed by Rachan.
13. Gundam Wing - Zechs Merquise, guessed by Vorlon.
14. Azumanga Daioh - Sakaki, guessed by Rachan.
15. Megatokyo - Erika, guessed by Ken.

[Edited] I'll write up why I like these characters later, I've gotta run off to a quiz now.

[cloned from A Bird's Melody]

Aaaugh, I haven't posted in forever again. This really bothers me, for several reasons. One, I like to try and post everyday, and that isn't happening. Two, I write because I like to practice my writing. Three, I write so I can keep my life organized and so I can remember what on earth is going on in my life, because I'm liable to forget otherwise, and also so other people know what's going on in my life. And so on and so forth. And then I go and don't post for a week. Oops!

Though it's hard to write about what's going on in my life when there's really not much going on. Well, there's classes, but posts about my classes are boring. And then there's my job hunt, I do need to post about that. And then there's the Fullmetal Alchemist PS2 game and Starcraft, but how much can you really say about beating enemies up? Though I should write a review of the FMA game once I've beaten it. That will take awhile, though. @_@

And then there's the thing of me wanting very badly to talk about series I freaking love, well, really Hagaren, but how many people really want to listen to me talk about Hagaren over and over? Yes, Rachan, I know you do want to ;). The thing is, I'd kinda like to get involved in a Hagaren forum, but knowing the general fandom, there won't be very many interesting discussions. It'll be just mostly inane chat. Le sigh.

And then there's posts about spiritual matters. Looks like we're going to be doing some very interesting topics in Bible study in the coming weeks, so I should have lots of fodder :D.

So yea. For now, I need to fill out job applications. Thinking of blog topics comes later. This is Pam, signing out. :D

[cloned from A Bird's Melody]

Everyone needs to go see the new Phantom of the Opera movie. While I still prefer the musical version, the movie is a nice inexpensive way to see the story.

Story time! :D I first really became aware of Phantom of the Opera when my high school's chorus performed an Andrew Lloyd Webber song medley. I forget which year we first performed it, it could have been my freshman or sophomore year. I went to see it performed on Broadway during the spring of my junior year. Shortly thereafter Joe and I performed the title song, "Phantom of the Opera," at John Carroll's spring fair during a theater show thingie, the actual name of which is escaping me.

Oi, anyway, like anyone but me cares about that. The point is is that I've been a Phantom fan for quite some time. I found out it was getting movie-ized a little late, but I was super pleased when I found out. I've always wanted to be able to watch Phantom on DVD or the like, and not have to pay out the wazoo and travel to New York everytime I wanna see it. So now that it's a movie, I can buy the DVD, and Pam is happy. :D

Why do I like Phantom so much? Well, it's probably a combination of the story and the music. Wow, am I predictable. I like the story because it's kind of like Beauty and the Beast, and I adore the Phantom's character. I feel for him so much and I think he's 100 times better than Raoul. Yes, he kills people... but he's been driven to madness, he's never been shown love, it's no wonder he kills people, he doesn't know any other way to live. I just want to give him a hug so bad. And the music, aiyah, I love the music. It's gorgeous. The lyrics are awesome, too, if you go back in my weblog you'll see I quote the lyrics sometimes. They're so beautiful and poetic and I love them so much.

As for the movie adaptation, it was pretty good. You can't really go wrong with the Phantom story unless you change it, and they didn't change the basic story. They changed some minor elements, but I didn't notice or really care about those. The music, well, Christine's actress and Raoul's actor did well, but I didn't like the Phantom's actor's singing. I'm hoping I will like his singing a bit better upon a rewatch. Maybe I was just extra picky about him because he is my favorite character, after all. But his voice just seemed so raspy and not beautiful like an Angel of Music should be. The imagery in the movie was really beautiful, especially in the "Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again" scene. Augh, the graveyard was beautiful. *_*

So I'm looking forward to seeing the movie again. I already ordered the soundtrack. And I will get it on DVD when it comes out. Oh yes. Everyone should see this movie.

[cloned from A Bird's Melody]

General fandom merchandise that I own. For your general information and entertainment. Personally, I think it's fun to look at what people own. It gives you a general idea of their tastes.

[cloned from A Bird's Melody]

So apparently someone already bought me stuff off my wish list already via my Amazon.com wish list. I know this because Mom IMed me to let me know I had packages waiting, and they had a Amazon.com return label. So I checked my Amazon orders and I had no recent orders, then I checked the purchased items on my wish list and there were two. Now, since I had the address on my wish list set to be my Maryland one (silly me), the packages got sent to MD and not to where I am in VA. So I can't open the packages to find out who sent them. If you'd like to take credit, please, let me know who you are :D. I'm really appreciative! I can't wait to get home and open them. The gifts were The Mists of Avalon and the Haibane Renmei soundtrack, by the way. I will fangirl appropriately when I actually get home to open the packages. Oh, and I fixed the address on my Amazon.com wish list.

I have a problem. You see, I adore taking screencaps from anime episodes and other things I adore (PGSM, LOTR). But when I try to take screencaps, I end up getting distracted by whatever I'm screencapping and I watch the scene/episode/movie and completely forget about the screencaps themselves. x_x

This happened with Maria-sama ga Miteru tonight. I was taking screencaps of Shimako, because I've decided she's my favorite character and I wanted to make an icon of her. But I ended up watching the episodes instead of taking screencaps.

Doing something for fun and then getting distracted by something else fun. The story of my life.

So I finally got to play Dance Dance Revolution Extreme on my pad today. It's been awhile since I danced on the dance pad. I could definitely tell because I did pretty poorly on the songs. No, don't ask me what songs I played because I don't remember. ^_^; I played six songs on Standard and I was fairly worn out by that point. What I really need to do is practice more. If I could just practice regularly, I could get better.

So I have a plan. Currently I maintain an anime list keeping track of how many series I've watched. It encourages me to watch and finish more anime. I'm thinking that if I keep a chart of all my scores on all the songs, it will encourage me to play DDR more. I've actually kept a sort of list in the past with Konamix, but if it's online where people can access it, it will make it more competitve for me and I'll have more of a drive to improve my scores.

Besides, I'll get exercise while I'm at it. ^_^

I am rejoicing, for two items that I have been coveting have finally found their way into my greedy little hands. Firstly, yesterday the Escaflowne box came in the mail from Dani (as well as the Eva movies). Waiiiiii!!!! I have been longing for this box for like two whole years now. I kept trying to get it at the conventions, but none of the vendors would sell me just the box when I already owned the DVDs. But now that I have it, it is myyy precioussss. Pam is a scary woman when it comes to her boxes. She loves her boxes. Yesssss. And it's Escaflowne, which just makes it more precious.

The Box
Closer up
Even more close
A side of The Box
The back of The Box
The other side of The Box
One last look at The Box

Then today, my Firefox shirt finally came. Yahoo! Apparently they're discontinuing the version I got, so I'm very pleased I got it before it got discontinued. Mine says "take back the web" and the new one says "getfirefox.com." Take back the web is so better. Even if it did take three freaking weeks to get here. Every day I was like "I wonder if my shirt's here yet?!" but it was never here until today. Such a treat to come home to. I know what I'm wearing tomorrow to class!

The Shirt
Different smile
Yosh!

After looking at these pictures, I noticed you couldn't see the entire shirt too well. So here are the above poses retaken.

The Entire Shirt
And another one
Yosh x 2!

^_____^ So happy. Mine mine mine mine mine.

Yellow is my favorite color.

Most of you know this. It's plastered all over my website, my AIM messages, my bedclothes, my towels. It's on the clothes I wear. Yellow is my trademark color. When you see yellow, you might think of me.

It wasn't always this way. I used to be very fickle about favorite colors. First it was purple for awhile, then green, then blue... well, I don't remember the exact order, but it would change about every 2-3 years or so. And then I entered high school and started watching Sailormoon and my favorite character, Sailorvenus, her trademark color was yellow, or orange. And I found that it became my favorite color.

Honestly, I was expecting my favorite color to change with the wind like it always had. But it hasn't. Six years and still going strong, yellow is still my favorite color. And it's not a normal color like blue to have as a favorite color, either. It's yellow. No one's favorite color is yellow. But it's mine.

And it's not just because it's Sailorvenus's color that yellow is my favorite color, either. I just love the color itself. I look at a nice pale yellow and it evokes happiness, warmth, love. It's the color of sunshine. Sunshine is warm. I love the sunshine. I don't like to wear sunglasses because I don't want to block the sunlight. I bask in it.

Yellow is the color of happiness.

( cut for spoilers )