Operation Pink Herring

The year of the wedding

I know that 2009 was pretty terrible for a lot of people.  Layoffs, infertility, breakups, unemployment, divorce, you name it: 2009 seemed to have it.  And in filling out this little annual survey doohickey I'm remembering that there were some pretty hugely sucktastic events in there for me, as well.  But, overall, I think 2009 the happiest year of my life.  Am I crazy?  Was our wedding just THAT awesome (be forewarned: this post unintentionally became a bit wedding-heavy)?  Or did the good just outweigh the bad in my little heart of coal?  I'm not sure, but I can't bring myself to say that 2009 was anything but good to me.  Even if we did spend the last few minutes of it chasing our dumb-as-bricks cat across the neighbor's snowy roof. 

Without further adieu, here's the annual New Year's quiz thing! I really enjoy reading the responses people post to this all over the internet.  (2007 and 2008 versions, should you care to look.)

1. What did you do in 2009 that you’d never done before? Rode in an ambulance. Got married. Bought a non-Volkswagen.  Bought a bike of my own.  Made the decision to put a pet to sleep.  Had surgery.  Baked a pumkin pie from scratch.

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year? I never quite got around to making any concrete resolutions this year.  I felt like if I made it through the year without going totally broke or insane and came out married on the other end, then I would have accomplished everything necessary.  And I did, so... I win!

3. Did anyone close to you give birth? No, but I did just learn that the very first of my friends is pregnant. 

4. Did anyone close to you die? My grandmother died, and that was sad even though we weren't particularly close.  And there was also Max, if animals count.  The first week after that was pretty horrific.  I am an old pro at making myself feel bad about things, but I have never felt so completely crushed by guilt as I did in the first few weeks after putting him to sleep. It was... not good.  Honestly, I still don't feel great about it.

5. What countries did you visit? Canada, for our honeymoon.  I was supposed to go to Argentina for work in November, but then I realized that a 14-hour flight three weeks after having knee surgery was probably not a super idea.

6. What would you like to have in 2010 that you lacked in 2009? A new house and new jobs for both of us.  (Dream big, right?) 

7. What dates from 2009 will remain etched upon your memory, and why? July 25th. No special reason. 

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?  I don't want to say "getting married" because that sounds like one of those people who has been sleeping with a pink, glittery wedding binder under her pillow since age six, just waiting to fill in the blanks with a groom's name... but I think that planning and coordinating all the details that went into that day without losing focus of why we were doing it was my biggest achievement.

9. What was your biggest failure? I'm really not sure. Maybe getting so anxious in the final run-up to the wedding.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury? Ugh. Almost a year later, and I still think about that stupid car accidentmultiple times a day.  I spent countless hours (and by "countless" I mean that I have a detailed list I'll be sending to my lawyer) going to a chiropractor, an orthopedic surgeon and a physical therapist and I've managed to get everything back to normal except my stupid, stupid knee.  In case you couldn't tell how I feel about the whole situation: it's stupid.  I still vacillate daily between feeling so lucky that things weren't worse and being really, really angry that I'm still dealing with knee problems (and very well might be for the rest of my life) while that kid who hit us has probably forgotten the whole thing ever happened.   

11. What was the best thing you bought?  Again, it's a tie. Between my wedding ring and my Motorola Droid. My god, I love them both.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration? Joel's. I would be lost without him.  

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?  Kristen Stewart's.

14. Where did most of your money go? The wedding, the mortgage, and our new car.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about? The wedding.

16. What song will always remind you of 2009? Daylight, by Matt and Kim.  And Your Song, by Ewan McGregor, which was our first dance song.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
(a) Happier or Sadder? Happier.
(b) Thinner or Fatter? About the same, again.
(c) Richer or Poorer? Definitely poorer, but we're steadily repairing the wedding-sized hole in our savings. 

18. What do you wish you’d done more of? Sleeping. Reading.

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?  Fretting.  This is the same answer I gave last year, and I'd be willing to bet it will be my answer next year too.

20. How did you spend Christmas in 2009?  We slept in and opened a few gifts from Joel's family in the morning.  Later, we went out for dinner and saw Sherlock Holmes in a sold-out theater.  When we got home around midnight there were parking spaces aplenty, which was a true Christmas miracle.

21. Did you fall in love in 2008?I stayed in love? This question is weird.

22. What was your favorite TV program? Tie, between True Blood and The Vampire Diaries.  Man, I wish I could love the Sookie Stackhouse books, but they are so very awful.

23. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?  I hate lots of people.

24. What was the best book you read? I read a lot of really great books this year and I really can't pick a single favorite.  It's a tie between the Harry Potter series, Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins, Graceling by Kristin Cashore, and The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman.  However, worst book I read is easy: any one of the Sookie Stackhouse books.  I was totally expecting to LOVE those books, since 1. I bordered on obsession over the first season of True Blood, 2. I like vampire shit, in general.  But oh my god.  They are so godawful that I haven't even been able to finish the last three books yet.  Nine.  There are NINE of these books.  I can't leave the last three unread because the unfinished task light will continue blinking in my brain until the day I die, but I'm not sure when I'll muster up the patience to power through. 

25. What was your greatest musical discovery?  Shazam.

26. What did you want and get?  Married.  

27. What did you want and not get?  A winning lotto ticket.

28. What was your favorite film of this year?  Out of loyalty, I'll say New Moon.  But coming in at a very, very close second: Avatar. 

29. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?  I spent my 28th birthday on the couch, feeling pretty miserable (and being smothered by a sympathetic cat).

30. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?  Winning the lottery.

31. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2009? Illegal jeans, Threadless t-shirts, sweater dresses.

32. What kept you sane?  My mom, Joel and my seven thousand excel spreadsheets. 

33. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?  Edward Cullen, as portrayed by Robert Pattinson.  (This is different from Robert Pattinson himself, mind you.) (This answer is exactly copied from last year.  Sigh.  Still true.)
 
34. What political issue stirred you the most? Legalizing gay marriage.

35. Who did you miss? This wasn't for the whole year, but Max.

36. Who was the best new person you met?  Uhhh... I'm drawing a blank.  Did I meet anyone new this year?

37. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2009. Biting your nails doesn't help.

Happy new year, internet.  I already know that 2010 is going to be great, if only because doing math this year is going to be SO much easier.

Annual identity crisis

Today is Joel’s birthday. Ready, everyone? HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JOEL!

One of the very convenient things about Joel’s birthday is that it’s exactly one month and four days before mine, which gives me a handy alarm as to when I should begin mentally preparing myself to turn a new age. I have never liked turning a new number, except for when I was 16 (driver’s license!) and when I was 20 (vodka!). It’s not that I have an Isabella Swan age complex, it’s just that after a whole year I’ve always come to really like the age I’m at. It becomes part of my identity and the new age just sounds… wrong. Oh, there's nothing wrong with the new age, and I'm sure it's a very nice age to be.  It’s just not me.

Some years this identity crisis is worse than others. I remember listening to the radio when I was in college and hearing a news story about a nineteen year old woman. A woman! They should have said a nineteen year old girl! A nineteen year old student! Nineteen is not a woman. I was nineteen, by the way. I don’t think I ever got used to being twenty, but I was OK with twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three and twenty-four. The next three years were bad. Didn’t like anything about twenty-five, six or seven. Twenty-eight, I like. It has a nice ring to it.

Twenty-nine. I actually think I kind of like it! I’ve been feeling quite like an adult recently, if I do say so myself. I am married! We have pets, we own a house! We talk about having children, and not only in that someday in the unimaginable future sense! But I’m still not altogether sure that twenty-nine is me. I have a month and four days to get used to it, and you’d better believe I’ll be saying “Hello, my name is Jennifer and I am twenty-nine” in my head a lot during that time.

[Those of you who don't want to hear any more about that certain time of the day that occurs just before dusk and is also the name of a popular vampire fiction series should wander away right about... now.]

Speaking of things that are age-appropriate (um, yes we were), I have wandered back into Twilight Obsessedville and I cannot find the way out. No, that's not true.  I don't ANT to find it. That’s how you know you have a real problem, right? You recognize your behavior is unacceptable and yet you are unwilling to change it? Well, better Twilight than (my own personal brand of) heroin, right? That’s what I’m telling myself. Relatedly, if you live within 100 miles of Baltimore and are interested in seeing New Moon with me, please let me know. I’ve now been three times and I’ve completely exhausted my pool of willing (and not-so-willing, but coercible) companions. This is a problem. I’d like to see it at least once more. That’s code for as many times as possible, for those of you who do not reside in Obsessedville with me.

I’ve once again found myself struggling to explain just what it is about Twilight that I love so ridiculously much. Some people just don’t get it at all (it's a book about... vampires?); others remain at a normal level of fandom (wait, you already saw this movie?). I just typed out three different attempts at an explanation and they all sound so terrible and trite that I’ll just say this: I guess I’m a romantic at heart? Stephenie Meyer cast a magic spell on the manuscripts? I don’t know.

What I know is that, hello, my name is Jennifer, I am very nearly twenty-nine and I love Twilight.

The New Moon movie verdict, 3am edition

(Er, well, it would have been, except our home computer is currently on the fritz, Blue Screen O' Deathing us every five minutes.)

So, I went to a midnight showing on Thursday. Again. It was worth it, again.

New Moon is my favorite book of the Twilight franchise. The Twilight frachise is my favorite thing ever. So to say that I was a little bit invested in the outcome of the New Moon movie would be an understatement. To say I was nervous about the outcome would be an even bigger one. Not only is this book my favorite, but it’s also the hardest to translate to the screen. There isn’t much action.  Most of the plot occurs within Bella’s head, and Bella – or Kristen Stewart’s portrayal of her -- was my main problem with the Twilight movie. Add to that the cringe-worthy special effects in Twilight, and I was really nervous. If they came up with that horrid glittering nonsense for Edward’s skin, what would a kid morphing into a giant wolf look like? I was hopeful that with the director change and the buy-in of better known actors that some of the problems would be resolved, but boy howdy, I was still really nervous.

My review in a word: Phew.

In a few more words: I loved New Moon. Compared to other, regular movies, it had some problems, yes. But compared with the fiascos in Twilight, it was practically Golden Globe worthy. Overall, it wasn’t perfect, but it was so much better than I’d feared. I really thought it was great. My only regret is that I don’t have friends nearby who’ll go see it ten more times with me.

First of all, a standing ovation for Kristen Stewart. She was so much better in this movie. There was no stuttering! No crazy-eye blinking! That, right there, made the movie so much better than Twilight. Her wardrobe was even better -- in the first movie she was dressed a little too trendily for my liking (I especially hated her fancy cell phone, which she was always talking into on speakerphone). Her wardrobe in this film was perfect. Not dumpy, but not trendy. Just nondescript jeans and t-shirt stuff. BRAVO, Chris Weitz.

I also thought Taylor Lautner did a great job. I am so happy they didn’t pull a casting change with him. I know that we were the only people in the world who watched that Christian Slater secret-spy show before it got canceled after half a season, but Taylor Lautner had a supporting role in that show and he was good. And that was a mainstream show! If Kristen Stewart got to keep her role after an absolutely painful performance in the first film it seemed totally unfair to snatch the Jacob role from Taylor, especially because he didn’t even have more than a few lines in Twilight. Anyway, he was fantastic. Unfortunately Jacob’s teeth were still an unsettling shade of white, and his wig looked, well, like a wig. Fortunately, his haircut occurs about halfway through the film and we have hopefully seen the very last of that stupid toupee.

Other gripes:

• The vamp’s makeup was, again, totally over the top. Rosalie and Alice looked the worst, but all the Cullens looked ridiculously white. That could be toned down by about 70% and the effect would still get across – they’re pale. We know.
• Alice’s wardrobe was horrible. She looked matronly and dowdy. Fail.
• Jasper’s hair looked ridiculous.
• The sunlight-dazzle effect is still here, still the same (that is to say, awful). It only appeared in Bella’s dream, so it would have been easy enough to leave it out altogether if making it look better wasn’t possible. Why, oh why?
• Edward was driving a new car – some sort of black Volvo SUV. What was the point of changing his car, which was in exactly one scene?  And while we're on the topic of cars, why didn't we get to see Jake's Rabbit?
• There were two scenes that were painful for me to watch. The first was the birthday party scene, which had been released months ago in previews and was part of the reason I was so nervous the whole movie was going to suck. The motion of opening the gift was totally fake, the drop of blood falling onto the overly magnified carpet was lame and Jasper’s slow-motion lunge for Bella was lame. Alice running off after Jasper (using the exact line from the book), Carlisle stitching up Bella’s cut: both great. The actual cut: Lame. The second scene was Alice’s vision, in which she sees Bella as a vampire. Bella is wearing a blue dress, as we know she does in Breaking Dawn, but it’s not the right kind of dress (it’s supposed to be an evening gown!) and Edward and Bella are frolicking. In slow motion. It was awful. It reminded me of the horrid flashbacks in Twilight when Edward and Carlisle are wearing those awful tweed caps and vests and everyone looks like they’re straight off the set of Newsies.
• When Bella first sees wolf-Sam in the meadow, the CGI is pretty bad. It seems even worse because of the long, slow look we get as she stares at him. As with all movie monsters, I think this would have worked better if she just got a quick look or a glimpse through the trees. The rest of the CGI was fine. Compared to the special effect disasters in Twilight, it was goddamned fantastic.
• The soundtrack, while pretty good, isn’t on par with the phenomenal music chosen for Twilight. And this, to borrow a term from the Fug Girls, is the nittiest of picks, but I was disappointed that "Undisclosed Desires" wasn’t used off Muse’s new album. I suppose I’m grateful that Chris Weitz knew enough to include a Muse song, but "Undisclosed Desires" has both a tone and lyrics that sound like they were written specifically for New Moon, and instead he used "I Belong To You"? Yet another reason I need to be hired on as an unpaid consultant immediately.  Chris, I CAN HELPZ U. 

Despite the already-high word count, my complaints are really quite minor. They stayed much closer to the book that I would have thought possible, and they did it well.   They kept in several devices and scenes that I expected to be cut, like Bella and Jacob’s age argument and Bella's date night with Mike and Jacob.

More things I particularly loved:

• The translation of the months passing – in the book this was done with blank pages. In the movie version, they instead showed Bella staring out the window in her room as the seasons change. I thought it was beautifully done, and the song they used in this scene ("Possibility" by Lykke Li) was perfect. I won’t lie, I choked up and very nearly cried. (FINE. I cried. Tears fell. Shut it.) That scene… that was New Moon.
• The visions Bella has of Edward were really well done. I didn’t know how they would do this, since in the book he is a voice in her head. The ghosty-Edward worked very well, especially in the cliff-diving scene.
• Jessica. I loved her in the first movie, and she was even better here. Her bubbly, ditzy babbling was perfect. Jessica is one character that I think is far better in the movies than in the books.  Charlie is another.  
• The whole Forks High group of kids was better in this movie. Mike and Ben were both painful to watch in the first film. They just blended into the background here, which is exactly what they’re supposed to do.
• The ending was fantastic. It was perfect.

And that, my fellow vampire nerds, is what I thought about New Moon. Now, if you'll pardon me, I have to go read every other review on the internet, which I've been ardently avoiding so that I could write my own review untainted.

Pack mule, pumpkins

Although I consider myself a relatively seasoned traveler, I’ve never mastered the art of packing.  Depending on my mood right before the trip, I either woefully underpack, telling myself it’s perfectly fine to wear the same sweater for an entire week or I end up lugging a suitcase filled with ridiculous just-in-case items and four potential outfits for every possible type of weather. 

I wish I find some sort of a balance, and before every trip I tell myself that this is going to be the time I get it right.  But instead, I found myself on a train to Boston on Friday with the following items in my suitcase:

• Five (5) books.  Two were being returned to NPW, so I guess effectively I only brought three books with me. Three books for one weekend it totally acceptable. I was halfway through one when I left, so I definitely needed a backup. And what if I didn’t like the backup?
• One (1) Laptop, whose only use was to type up a draft of the post you're reading now. Theoretically, I could have found somewhere with internet at some point and… done work? Checked my email? I am not really sure.
• Two (2) DVDs, which I brought just in case the backup book and the backup’s backup both end up sucking. Plus, the DVDs justified the bringing of the laptop.   I watched neither. 
• Two (2) faux-down coats. OK, a coat was actually a smart move since it’s October and it was Boston and it was SNOWING on Friday, but I probably could have gotten away with just the puffy faux-down coat and left the puffy faux-down vest at home.
• Three (3) pairs of shoes. I actually wore two of the three, so I guess that's actually  not bad. 
• One (1) flat iron, which I have used approximately five times in my entire life and did not use on this trip.
• One (1) hat, in case my hair still looked bad after flat-ironing, I guess.
• Enough travel-sized toiletries to last me a month

If I had to choose one packing personality for the rest of my life, it’d surely be The Underpacker.  At least when I underpack, it makes my return home that much sweeter.  My moisturizer!  My pajamas!  A clean pair of socks!  My toothbrush charger!  They all seem so novel and wondrous.  But if I’m in an overpacking mood right before the trip, I just can’t talk myself out of packing twelve of everything.  I mean, I wouldn’t want NPW to think I’m lame and gross because I wear the same sweater two days in a row! I wouldn’t want to be stuck without a cute pair of shoes if Joel and I are on vacation and decide to go out a fancy dinner! And certainly I need to bring a hairdryer, two hairbrushes AND my flatiron just in case.

I’m thinking of trying out the idea of a packing list for my next trip to see if that helps, but somehow I doubt it.  I think this is just one of those ingrained personality traits, like always being anxious about missing a flight or train.  I mean, if packing and traveling were too easy, there’d be no beauty in coming home.

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So, speaking of Boston, it's lovely!  And so are NPW, Heidi and Janssen and Bart, who I traipsed around New England with this weekend.  I've had the pleasure of meeting both NPW and Heidi before, and Janssen and Bart were exactly as I'd picture them (except Janssen talks faster than I'd imagined.  It's funny what ends up fitting your mental image of someone and what doesn't, isn't it?  I certainly never sat around postulating about the speed of Janssen's speech, but that's what struck me at first.  Heidi tells me that she thinks NPW and I both have accents.  I agree that NPW has an adorable accent when she says "about", but I didn't think Heidi had one at all.  And clearly, I don't have an accent.)  We went on the world's worst ghost tour, which was so bad it was hilarious, we saw the 25,000 pumpkins at the World's Largest Pumpkin Festival, we gossiped and twittered like the nerd maniacs we are.  It almost made me want to move to Boston, except for the whole IT'S REALLY COLD THERE part. 

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Some of my favorite photos from the weekend:

NPW "participating" in our "interactive" "ghost hunt" in Salem, MA.  

Keene Pumpkin Festival in Keene, New Hampshire

 

Best pumpkin there, hands down.

I respect their creativity, even if I don't agree with their lifestyle choices.

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Instead of me moving to Boston, I think instead we should all just pick up and move somewhere more temperate.  Like, say, Hawaii. 

From the What Could Have Been files

Ok, 'fess up, people.  I KNOW I am not the only person watching the Vampire Diaries.  Right?

Am I the only person who is now bordering on completely obsessed with the show?  I look forward to Thursday nights (the fact that Supernatural is on right after is a pretty huge bonus).  I chant KISS KISS KISS at the TV.  I laugh out load and squeal at least once per episode.  OK, clearly I have crossed the border into Obsessedville.  Please, tell me I am not alone here.

But the show also makes me a little bit sad because I can't help thinking this is what the Twilight movie could have been with better acting, writing and casting. Here's to hoping that Chris Weitz is watching and taking notes?  (And see, that's how we can pretend that my still talking about Twilight is even a little bit relevant: New Moon comes out in six weeks!  But there's a tragic side to this story: I will not be able to attend a midnight showing, or even see it the weekend it comes out.  I have to go to a meeting for work.  In... Argentina.  And yes, I am a little bit sad.) 

In other disappointing pop-culture vampire news, I am officially declaring myself done with the Sookie Stackhouse books after #4.  I really thought I'd at least like these books, but I don't.  I hate book-Sookie  and book-Bill.  I'll be the first to admit that Twilight had its own problems, but these books are just SO bad and I can't find a single redeeming factor.  I mean, Edward may have been a tad controlling, yes, but at least he didn't cheat on Sookie and then rape her in a car trunk after she saved him from the Volturi.

But, hey, at least True Blood is awesome.  And we have Thursday nights to look forward to all fall.

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Updated to add:

Right after I published this, Joel emailed me to say:

I saw your post about the show.  Just as an FYI, according to Nielsen ratings, 3.8 million people watch Vamp Diaries compared to 17.4 Million for NCIS: LA, so yes you could be the only one watching the show.

 

Really?  Really?  Now, I like NCIS.  A lot.  I've written before about how I think it's the best police drama this side of Law and Order and should totally bump CSI off the air.  HOWEVER, I am having trouble getting on board with the LA spinoff.  Chris O'Donnell, I like.  LLCool J, I think I like.  The ridiculous "headquarters", the mysterious Gibbs counterpart who supposedly dated Frank Sinatra, the criminal psychologist on staff... a little bit much, guys.  Plus, as Joel points out, there is not even a Naval base in LA. 

So a telepath and a vampire walk into a bar

I was recently introduced to a little-known show -- maybe you've heard of it? -- called True Blood. We borrowed the first season on DVD from my brother and his wife and quickly devolved into watching four or five episodes in a sitting. Love Sookie, love Bill, love the trashy Louisiana setting.

But did anyone else notice the similarities to another popular vampire series?

For instance, Edward Cullen is a vampire who lives among humans in secret. Bill Compton is a vampire who, until recently, lived among humans in secret.

Edward and the Cullens live on animal blood because they are good vamps who don’t kill humans… most of the time. Bill subsists mostly on synthetic True Blood because he's a good vamp who doesn't like killing humans. Most of the time.

Edward is a telepath who can hear everyone’s thoughts... until he meets Bella. Sookie is a telepath who can hear everyone’s thoughts...until she meets Bill.

Edward is irresistibly drawn to Bella because he can’t hear her thoughts, even though she smells so good that he can hardly resist killing her. Sookie is irresistibly drawn to Bill because she can’t hear thoughts, even though he is very, very dangerous.

The Cullens are monitored by Jacob’s pack of werewolves. Bill is monitored by Sookie’s boss, Sam. Who is a werewolf.

The wolves hate all vampires, but Jacob especially hates Edward because he’s in love with Bella. Sam hates all vampires, but he especially resents Bill because he’s in love with Sookie.

Jacob and his pack turn out not to be werewolves after all. They’re just shapeshifters who happen to turn into wolves. Sam turns out to not be a werewolf after all. He's just a shapeshifter who prefers taking the shape of a dog.

Is this all a mighty coincidence? The Sookie Stackhouse books were published before Twilight, but I can't fathom a good Mormon girl like Stephenie Meyer reading them (I'm almost done with Dead Until Dark, and some of the sex scenes would make Emmett Cullen blush.) I mean, I'm not complaining. I love Twilight. I love True Blood (I'm not 100% sold on the books yet). But man, there are a lot of similarities.

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Related: So who else is watching The Vampire Diaries? I heartily approve, both because there was a snippet of a song by MGMT that I love in one scene and because they have my long-lost LOST boyfriend playing a major role. Oh, Boone, how I've missed you ever since that damned plane fell on you in Season One! Plus, they've got a great Wolverine vibe going on with the whole good-brother-just-wants-to-live-life-in-peace-but-bad-brother-won't-have-it-thing.

Film School

Joel's favorite part of this website is the sporadic, neglected movie review portion in the sidebar.  Assuming that 99.5% of you use a feed reader, I'm pretty sure he's the only person that knows it even exists.   Even though we nearly always watch movies sitting side by side in the theater, this is for you sweetie:

X-Men Origins: Wolverine

Rating: three out of four stars

Maybe I missed a lot since I haven't read the comics, but I have seen (and own) all three of the other X-men movies, and I love Wolverine.  Who doesn't love Wolverine?  But somehow, in this, the all-Wolverine-all-the-time installment, our favorite badass sort of came off as... well, as a pussy.   Come on guys, we have Clark Kent already filling the role of the reluctant hero.  Wolverine is supposed to kick ass, take names, and steal your motorcycle. I didn't dig the Ma and Pa Kent wannabes that took him in, and also the actual origins montage at the beginning was way rushed.  But Hugh Jackman spent a fair amount of time naked, so there's that.  And seeing the kid-version of Scott Summers (aka Cyclops) was cool.

Star Trek

Rating: 3.75 out of four stars

Now, that was the level of awesomeness I was expecting from Wolverine.  And dudes, I don't even like Star Trek, really.  So much awesome.  Live long, prosper, etc.  Also: nicely done, Sylar and kudos to Harold (you know, from Harold and Kumar go to White Castle).

Terminator: Salvation

Rating: 3.25 out of four stars.

Would have been four stars if the Christain Bale freakout dance remix had played during the end credits. 

And now let's talk trailers.  Specifically, the one that lured me into watching an entire hour of the MTV movie awards last night.

THE TWILIGHT SAGA: NEW MOON trailer

My first reaction: Oh god no.  The wolves are terrible, Jasper's slow-motion run is terrible, Bella's papercut is terrible oh my god they're ruining everything AGAIN.

But now that I've slept on it and watched the trailer 20 more times online, I don't think the wolves are so bad.  It's unfortunate that they aired a Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince trailer twenty minutes before the New Moon trailer, reminding us all what really good special effects look like, but honestly... the wolves, they're OK.  Considering the sunlight dazzle fiasco and how bad the wolves COULD have been, they look goddamn fantastic.

And then there's Bella.  Or, I should say, Kristen Stewart, because she is the one cast member who continually reminds us that this is  just a movie and she's just an "actress" and none of this is real.  Which, unfortunately, is exactly the opposite of how Iwant to feel when I think of anything Twilight-related.  So, thanks for that, Kristen Stewart, and thank you for your continued attempts to ruin the Twi-universe for me.  Let me ask you this, have you ever had a papercut?  Did you ever toss aside the offending materials and exclaim "ouch!  a papercut!" while drip-dropping blood on your hosts' white carpet?   I hate you more with every passing day.  I pray for a miracle in which you are fired post-haste and all of the New Moon footage is re-shoot using your long-lost identical twin sister who knows what a goddamn papercut looks like and is able to recite lines AND insert the proper emotional responses.  Hint: proper emotional responses do not equal lots of blinking.

Jasper's lame ass slow-motion run at Bella during the birthday scene is disappointing, but is quickly saved by Edward's response.  And so I'm thinking that New Moon will be very similar to Twilight: lots of lame, easily correctable awkwardness and so-so special effects, countered by Robert Pattinson's magical ability to actually transform into Edward Cullen and remind all of us that Edward IS real and life WILL go on.  Except this time, it looks like Edward will have some help: Jacob.  Friends, I love Jacob.  I adore him. I am so, so glad that they didn't pull an actor switch because I really think that Taylor Lautner is capable of BEING Jacob, perhaps as much as Robert Pattinson pulls off Edward.  And since we know that Edward is going to be scarce in New Moon, let's all breathe a hearty sigh of relief over that one.

I am a little bit disappointed that we didn't see anything from Italy, especially since we know they have filmed the piazza scene, but I'll assume there wasn't time to edit and incorporate it into the trailer.  I am anxious to see Dakota Fanning  as Jane and even more so to see a fully edited clip of Edward walking into the sunlight (please please PLEASE let them tone down the dazzle effect), but I guess they need to hold back something to keep us going these next six months. 

In case you didn't suffer through the MTV Movie Awards to catch the first glimpse of the trailer, here's what you missed: 

• The nominations for best male breakout performance pitted Robert Pattinson/Edward (obviously) against Taylor Lautner/Jacob (ridic since Jacob had all of six lines in Twilight) against the kid from The Chronicles of Narnia.  I found it especially satisfying to see the Narnia kid lose, knowing that he lobbied hard to steal the role of Jacob from Taylor Lautner in the Twilight sequels. Eat that, Prince Caspian.

• Edward and Bella won for Best Kiss and Kristen Stewart ruined the moment by being awkward during the acceptance speech

• Robert Pattinson and Cam Gigandet (James) won for best fight

• Kirsten Stewart won Best Female Breakout performance and then dropped her award on the stage on her way out

• When the cast walked out to do the intro for the New Moon trailer, the music playing in the background was Knights of Cydonia by Muse (Stephenie Meyer's favorite band), off the same album as Supermassive Black Hole. I noticed, and I thought it was AWESOME.   

• Twilight won for Best Movie, showing the true force of Twilight fan power.  It beat out Slumdog Millionaire and Batman: The Dark Knight.  I still haven't seen Slumdog, but I know it won about ten million grammies or academy awards or whatever, but I did see The Dark Knight, and even I, a diehard Twilighter, will admit that Dark Knight was a better movie.  I am really, really impressed that Twilight beat it out, knowing that Dark Knight has its own fairly hardcore fanbase.

• Miley Cyrus beat out Paramore for Best Song (Paramour was up for Decode), which was supremely disappoining.

And because Dakota Fanning was first rumored as being in talks about casting for New Moon ten days after I declared that she'd be the perfect Jane, I'm jsut going to throw this out there:  If Starlight by Muse somehow makes its way onto the New Moon soundtrack, that would be really rad. 

Corrections, 2008 Books, Very Bookish!

Two additions to the 2007 book list:

Little Earthquakes by Jennifer Weiner.   This was my second Jennifer Weiner book -- the first was In Her Shoes, which I thought was OK, bordering on blah (I liked the movie much better than the book).  Little Earthquakes was blah bordering on horrible.  I hated all of the characters and spent the entire book wondering in what universe the wife of a professional basketball player and an ex-movie star would be considered average women (as the back of the book billed them).  Hated it.

The Kindness of Strangers by Katrina Kittle.  Very disturbing subject matter (sexual abuse), and I thought it was well done.  In the end I returned the book because I didn't think I'd read it again, but I enjoyed it.

And while we're on the topic of corrections and resolutions... I got out my travel journal to work on finishing our Barcelona photo album and it turns out that Joel proposed on January 22nd, not the 20th.  So January 22nd is the date that will stick in my mind forever.  (This is why I write everything down.)

Oh, and I also met the lovely and fabulous Zandria, Heidi and Liz (whose link I cannot find because I am awesome like that) this year!

Now that we've cleared THAT up, may I present BOOKS OF 2008: THE YEAR OF THE VAMPIRE.

1.  The Washingtonienne by Jessica Cutler.  Terrible, horrible "book".   There might have been a lesson in the dangers of blogging at work somewhere in there, but I was too busy being horrified at what a complete and total whore this girl was to catch it. 

2.  The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck.  Got this at B&N's holiday sale for cheap and liked it very, very much.

3.  The Bridges of Madison County by Robert James Waller.  I wasn't expecting much, but I actually loved this book.  I'm a sucker for a good love story, and I also enjoyed all the photography talk.   I'm glad I read it several years after all the hype, though.

4.  The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan.  It took me forever to finish this book because I'm not so good at reading non-fiction, but it was both fantastic and terrifying.   Ignorance really is bliss when it comes to knowing where our food really comes from, because I can't look at meat the same way now that I know how these poor animals are treated.   I haven't given up meat altogether, but I do exclusively buy organic vegetables now, and I also try to buy local whenever I can and I've switched to homemade and non-toxic cleaning products.  I also gave up soda cold turkey after reading this, although soda isn't discussed in the book at all.  After reading about all the chemicals we ingest every day, I just lost all taste for my formerly beloved Diet Coke.  (Maybe that should have been my greatest accomplishment of 2008!)

5.  The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follet.  I really, really liked it but I didn't love it as much as some people did.  I felt like some of the sex scenes were gratuitously graphic, and the ending was tied up a little too neatly for my tastes.  But those are my only two complaints about a 900+ page book, which I think is pretty high praise.

6.  Twilight by Stephenie Meyer.  I don't think there's anything more I need to say about Twilight.  I don't think I'll ever love another book so much, and that's OK with me.

7.  New Moon by Stephenie Meyer.  My favorite of the four.  LOVE.

8.  Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer.  Love.

9.  Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer.  Started out rough, but I loved it.

10.  The Host by Stephenie Meyer.  It was no Twilight, but I loved it enough to ask for a copy for Christmas.

11.  The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon.  I really struggled to get through this, but I think the transition back to real books after reading nothing but young adult romance novels for three months was more to blame than the book itself.  The language was a little too heavy for me in the beginning, but once I got past that I really enjoyed the story.  

12.  The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins.  Fabulous, wonderful young adult book.  The only gripe I have is the "To be continued" ending.  I can't wait for the rest of the series to come out.

13.  Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling.   Liked it very much and am looking forward to reading the rest of the books and re-watching all of the movies.  I especially loved the Weasley twins - I literally laughed out loud several times due to their antics.   Hermione was SO much more annoying than I remembered from the movie!

I just barely squeaked by in terms of my goal of reading 12 books during the year, which I blame partly on the fact that Omnivore's Dilemma, Ines of My Soul and The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay all took so long... and partly on the fact that I've read each of the Twilight books at least 5 times.

Although I wasn't the least bit sad to quit my book club, since my tastes were obviously quite different from the rest of the group's and I struggled each month with having an assigned book to finish by a certain deadline, I did miss having someone to discuss books with.  That is why I am very excited about RA's latest creation:  Very Bookish, an online sort of book club!  It will be super-awesome because there will be multiple books to choose from each month (so no one will be stuck reading a book they have no interest in) and there will be no hard deadlines.  RA, NPW and I will be discussing The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime, The Hunger Games and Confessions ofa Shopaholicthe first month, respectively.   Here's the description of how it'll work and here's a link to my profile.  There are a lot of great contributers lined up, so stop by if you're so inclined!

Redemption

After a week off (extra time to catch up on some obscure Gilmore Girls reruns at the gym and re-read Eclipse and Midnight Sun), we returned to Pub Quiz last night.

As it turns out, the TWO losing teams got to pick the categories for this week's final round, which... I am pretty sure is a rule they made up when they saw the words "Lolcats" and "Twilight" on my list.   BUT ANYWAY, two of our categories did make the final round cut.

The first round was, again, a visual round... but this time, instead of Country Singers, we had to identify stills from Christmas Movies.   Needless to say, we got all five correct (last time we got ONE right, and that was a giveaway... I mean, I don't even LIKE Johnny Cash, but I still know what he looks like!)

That put us in a tie for first place.  Which was bad, very bad, because the method for breaking ties is a chugging contest.  If it were a chugging contest to see, say, who could pound an entire Nalgene bottle of water the fastest, that would be one thing.  But chugging beer... that's another thing entirely.   Joel argued that I should go, since i have far more experience chugging drinks... and I argued that he should go because I hate beer.  

Joel went.

ANYWAY.   We did reasonably well in the second and third general trivia rounds, and then we CLEANED UP during the fourth round, where you get to wager between 10-50 points on five different categories.   We wagered 50 points (the max) on Gilmore Girls, and 40 points on Comic Books and we both got the answers right in our respective areas of expertise.

That put us in second place going into the final round.  We wagered 50 of our 230 total points....

and....

DUDES, WE TOTALLY WON. 

Clearly we will never be going back again.  I like to go out on a high note. 

Now, here is the real question:Some of you dear readers expressed an interest in the formation of some sort of OPH trivia game... are you still interested in that, or should I spend my entire Christmas break reading Harry Potter instead?  Leave a comment or email me if you want to play, and I'll either start compiling questions and rules, or.... I'll queue up the Tivo and prepare to OD on backlogged episodes of Heroes.

In other news, there are now seven bulbs missing and the entire strand of lights is kaput.  But all I have to do is make it through one more half-day of work before embarking on a glorious four-day weekend... and it's a casual day.  Happy holidays, internet!  Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah and a Happy Casual Day to each and every one of you. 

Pub Quiz Losers

Have you guys ever played one of those pub quiz trivia night things?  I always thought that they looked like fun, but because we are an old couple with three cats and we don't so much go to bars (especially on weeknights), I'd never been to one.

Until last night. 

As it turns out, Joel and I not only suck at trivia, we also suck at making up a cool team name under pressure.  And if we had been engaged in a tie, it would have quickly become apparent that we also suck at drinking Guinness through a straw.  

Thankfully, we didn't have to break any ties... because we were in dead last throughout the entire game.  

We were about to limp home to nurse our bruised egos (Joel and I both HATE to lose, which is probably why we seldom use our Trivial Pursuit set at home) when we were informed that the losing team gets to pick the categories for the next week's final round.

Yeah, we'll see who's calling who a loser next time.

The Twilight movie verdict, having seen it twice now edition

So, there are problems with this movie.  The sunlight-dazzle special effects.  Bella's stuttering that's supposed to seem "real" but just seems stitled.  The awkward scene in the woods where Edward is yelling "as if you could outrun me!"  The spider monkey thing.   The overly pale makeup.

Yes, there are problems.   Annoying problems that could have been easily fixed.

 And people, I just don't care.

The movie is exactly like the series.  I'll admit that pretty much every criticism about the writing and the dialog and the plot holes is absloutely correct.  And I just. don't. care. 

I want to see it again, right now.  I want to see it ten more times.  Every problem the movie had was made more than made up for by Edward.  As Sarah said last night, if there was some way for me to make Edward become real, well... there is not much I wouldn't do.  I'm not necessarily proud of this, there it is.  I'm a sensible, twenty-seven year old woman.  And I am unconditionally and irrevocably in love with a fictional, teenage vampire. 

If you loved the series, you will love the movie, problems and all.

The end.

The Twilight Movie Verdict, 3am edition

The good:

Charlie.  The movie takes him beyond the one-dimensional, dim-witted dad in the book.  He's awkward, but he's funny.  He's great.

Renee.  Ditto.  She's flighty, she's scatterbrained, she texts.  Love it.

Jessica.  So spot on, better than in the book.

Rosalie.  Jesus, what a witch.  She's perfect and she's gorgeous and I love to hate her.

Bella's wardrobe.  Kudos to whoever was in charge of that for making her look like Bella.  I'm sure it was hard to resist the urge to Hollywood her up, bravo.

The necessary Hollywood updates.  Bella's dinosaur, secondhand computer is replaced with a cute Mac laptop and her room looks like a regular teen's room, but not an over-the-top, Hollywood teen's room with thousands of dollars of gadgets and furniture.  Her emails to Renee are replaced with cell phone calls, but there's not a bluetooth in sight.  Her ratty sweats became a nondescript tank top and 3/4 length pajama bottoms.  Perfectly done for the movie. 

The so-so:

Jacob's actor is much better fitting than I thought when I first saw his picture.  To my delight, he actually looks native american, as do Quil, Embry and Billy Black.  One problem: his teeth.  You'll see what I mean.  Other than that, I loved him.  He's not cute, but he's not supposed to be.  If it weren't for the teeth, he'd be perfect.

Kristen Stewart.  Was she just eclipsed (ha!  get it?) by Robert Pattinson?  Or maybe it was the dialog she was forced to work with (more on that in the next section).  Or, maybe, just maybe, I'm just ragingly jealous that she got to kiss Edward Pattinson.   

Stephenie Meyer's cameo.  I doubt anyone who wasn't watching for it would even notice, but I was and I did.  And I just don't see why it was necessary.  I realize it's a vampire flick, but no need to channel M. Night Shamalan.

Use of the soundtrack.  With promise of every song in the exceptional soundtrack being featured in the movie, I had really high hopes.  It's true that portions of each song were in there, somewhere... but the rest of the movie was dead silent.  That works sometimes, if it's done VERY well (think Castaway)... did not work so well here.  Notable exceptions: Supermassive Black Hole for the baseball scene was awesome, the Iron and Wine song at the end made me choke up a little.  Full Moon, played near the beginning, was also used really well. 

The bad:

Tyler is black.  Angela and Eric are Asian.  Completely unecessary and disconcerting attempts to PC-up a story that wasn't un-PC to begin with.  I am pretty sure that the tiny town of Forks, WA isn't exactly diverse and I'm not sure whose idea it was to throw a couple of token minorities into the cast to liven things up, but it was a bad one.  Especially since, of course, the two token Asians are a couple, because whoah, a vampire-human-werewolf love triangle is A-OK, but an interracial high school couple?  No way.  And to add insult to injury, Eric's personality doesn't resemble his character in the book in the slightest.   

The dialog.  Much is lifted from the book, but it didn't need to be.  It certainly wasn't the fantastic writing that made me fall unconditionally and irrevocably in love with Twilight, and they really missed an opportunity to make that better in the movie.

The storyline.  It stuck pretty much exactly to the book, with one notable exception: James's coven is introduced much earlier in the movie.   I can't believe I'm saying this, but I wish they'd taken more liberty with the plot.  You can't cram an entire novel into two hours without making some changes, and we skipped too quickly from wondering who that dreamy boy is to understanding that he's a vampire to being in love to running for our lives.  I'd equate it to Breaking Dawn in that it's not bad, but it could have been GREAT with just some minor, thoughtful changes.

The special effects.  I would have far preferred if the entire sunlight-dazzle effect had been left in the book, where they could be properly left up to the imagination.  That small point wasn't really necessary to the plot, since I think we all know by now that vampires can't go out into sun, and no one really cares WHY, do they?  It worked in the book, it looked like shit in the movie.  The rest of it, which was just a few fast-forward zooms around from Edward, was... eh, ok.  It could have been cut and nothing would have been lost.

"Spider monkey"?  What. the. hell.

But most importantly, the Edward: 

You guys, Edward is so ridiculously smokin' hot that he makes 498 pages of Bella mooning over his perfect, glorious existence seem like a shameful understatement.  Robert Pattinson WAS Edward, and Edward was, impressively, EXACTLY as described in the book (which is to say, absolutely, devastatingly swoonworthy 100% of the time).   

I see that I've got a whole lot more words under the so-so and bad sections, and I think that's more because it's nearly four in the morning (the midnight showing thing was certainly an experience) and because some jackhole ran a red light and nearly killed me on the way home (thank goodness I had that coffee at midnight).  The movie did not suck.  It wasn't as good as the book, but I'm looking forward to seeing it again tomorrow. 

What did you guys think?

As Jessie Spano said, I'm so excited and I'm so scared

Happy National Teenage Vampire Love Day!  I just made that up... catchy, right?  Oh, I know, I know.  It's not officially National Teenage Vampire Love Day until tomorrow, but I'm off to the 12:02 showing (not to be confused with the 12:01 showing, which sold out before I could get tickets) of Twilight showing in about an hour, so let's just start the celebrating early!  I can easily say that I have never, ever been so excited about a movie before.  I am going to brave the hoards of trample-happy teenage girls and stay up way too late.  I'm not going to work tomorrow.  It's a national holiday!  I don't work on national holidays.

I'm not just excited, though.  I'm scared.  Over the past couple of weeks, my rabid anticipation for the Twilight: The Movie had slowly begun to morph into apprehension; ZOMG I CAN'T WAIT has gradually mixed with Crap, what if it sucks?  

There's always risk of disappointment when a book you love dearly (to put it very mildly) is being turned into a movie, but Twilight seems to be one of those stories that is ideally suited for a film adaptation.  When I first saw the cast that had been chosen I was extremely pleased -- the only character that didn't match up with the image in my head was Alice, and when I went back and read the descriptions of her I realized that the casting directors got it right and my brain got her totally wrong -- and the fact that Stephenie Meyer was involved in the casting and filming only made me feel better.  

But as the hype grew and grew, I just got more nervous.  Can any movie live up to these standards?  The TV ads didn't help at all -- holy hell, I'd like to know who approved those things.  Since when do movie trailers banner the release date on the top of the screen?  And why is all the dialog cut in 2-second portions and dubbed into different scenes?   Eek.  What if it sucks?  These ads are making it look like it sucks. WHAT AM I GOING TO DO IF IT SUCKS?

But then I read the MamaPop review, and faith was restored.   And my fellow vampire-lovers, I will let you  know if it was squee-worthy or if it sucked when I get home.  And then I'll sleep for a few hours before I drive down to Richmond tomorrow to see it again with my Twilight BFFs.

Cross your fingers, Internet.  I AM SO EXCITED.  (And so, so scared.)

DEAR TWILIGHT: PLEASE DON'T SUCK!

Thanksgiving, observed

I'm not sure how it began, but over the past few years my family has developed a tradition of moving the traditional Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays.  I think it sprung originally from my brother's angst at trying to find a way to make it to two Thanksgiving dinners on the same day - one at our mom's house, and the other with his fiance's family - but honestly, I can't remember.  It's possible that I just couldn't deal with the thought of battling holiday traffic on the NJ Turnpike and demanded we rearrange the calendar.  

I know that a lot of people would have trouble celebrating Thanksgiving on any date other than the "real" one, but I think moving the holidays is a stroke of sheer genius.  There's no seven-hour backup at the Delaware bridge toll.  There are no hurt feelings over missed holiday visits. And I get to celebrate the holidays with my family AND spend the long holiday weekends at home with my Tivo.

The first instance I can remember of us moving a holiday to suit our needs was Christmas of 2001.  I'd just returned from my semester abroad in Spain and my mom had booked us a family vacation to Hawaii.  The only catch: we were flying on Christmas Day.   Now, it's pretty hard to be upset about going to Hawaii in December, but we all felt a little bit sad about "missing" Christmas while we were stuck on a 12-hour flight.  That is, until my mom declared that we wouldn't be missing Christmas after all - we'd just be celebrating it a day late, on December 26th.  In  Honolulu.  

That was an emergency solution, but it's worked out so well that we've now started scheduling our own dates for Thanksgiving and Christmas whether there's a conflict or not.   We usually keep it pretty close to the real holiday (except for the time my mom moved her birthday from February to June so we could go hiking in Mohonk for her "birthday").  This year, the weekend before Thanksgiving seemed like a logical date to hold our own personal Turkey Day... until I remembered that, uh, I sort of already had plans on November 21st.   So... Thanksgiving is tomorrow for the OPH clan!   I've spent the week baking pies, and tomorrow we'll make what will hopefully be a short and traffic-free drive to my brother's house in NJ for a true holiday feast.   I can't wait.   At best, the holiday lovers among us get to celebrate Thanksgiving twice.  And at worst, those of us who are lacking a bit in the holiday spirit department will get to enjoy a four-day weekend at the end of November at home with nothing to do but watch an ungodly amount of television.  Win-win, if you ask me.

Vamp the vote

Don't forget, people:  there's always the option to write-in your candidate of choice!   

(Photo courtesy of the fabulous heidikins, who came upon this shirt in a Utah mall)

So, what are you all sicker of: hearing about the election, or hearing about my Twilight obsession?  (Don't answer that.)

Happy Halloween!

Joel was a little bit skeptical about our costumes -- he thought no one would be able to tell who we were dressed as.

 

(Annotated version in flickr if you click on the image).

But I think the resemblance is pretty clear, don't you?

An especially Happy Halloween to all my fellow vampire-nerds out there!

Obsessed and unapologetic

When I was hanging out with the fabulous NPW on Saturday, we got to discussing Twilight.   Of course we did.  "I think you may be more into it than I am," Ms. NPDubs remarked, and I had to agree.  I think there are two different types of Twilighters:  there are fans, and then there are The Obsessed. 

Lots of people are fans.  Fans have read one or more of the books and enjoyed them.  They've patiently waited on library request lists and may not have gotten around to reading Breaking Dawn yet.  They are aware that there is a movie coming out and will probably go and see the movie at some point.  They may or may not have heard of Midnight Sun.  

Far fewer fall into the category of The Obsessed.  We went out and bought New Moon within hours of finishing Twilight.  We burned through all four books within a week.  We've called in sick after being up all night reading Breaking Dawn, we've got the Nov. 21 release date marked on our Outlook calendars and we've pre-ordered the movie soundtrack.   We're still heartbroken over the cancellation of Midnight Sun, and we haven't given up hope that Stephenie will reconsider finishing it.

I guess you can tell which group I fall into.  And for all of my fellow Cullen-obsessed fans, here are a few treats to hold you over until November 21.

This MSN video has footage from the beginning of the movie that was new to me...

This clip (courtesy of Sarah, my Twilight-obsessed BFF) has about two seconds of new-to-me footage, from the scene in Port Angeles...

...and there is a new single from the soundtrack up on Stephenie Meyer's website. 

And of course, we all know about the extended HD trailer. 

If you've got any tidbits to add to the list, do share! 

My heart, it is broken (Updated)

Oh, hey!  We're back from Scotland.  We got back on Monday, actually.  Did I forget to tell you guys that?   I also forgot to take a shower yesterday, so please don't be offended.   It's the jetlag!  Jetlag is my blanket excuse for everything.  Jetlag left a huge pile of dirty dishes in my sink!  Jetlag forgot to put the wet laundry in the dryer!  Jetlag is seven days behind on my emails!  Get to work, jetlag!  Someone's got to earn a living around here!  Now go pack for that wedding I'm supposed to be in this weekend!  And then tell me some sweet, delicious lies about how there will be no traffic on the NJ Turnpike tonight!

(Jetlag also makes me abuse the exclamation point!)

So, jetlag and I are working on a write-up of our lovely trip to bonnie Scotland, but at the moment we're too sad to think about anything but the horrible news we received (via email from Sarah) this morning.

Stephenie Meyer is no longer going to publish Midnight Sun.  The short story (the longer story is on her website here) is that somehow, a draft of the first 264 pages was leaked and published on the internet.  It wasn't finished, and Stephenie feels that she can no longer write the rest of the book. 

I know how it feels when I accidentally hit "publish" instead of "save as draft" and Google Reader snatches up a post full of typos and errors before I can take it down, so I can only imagine how devastating it must be to have an unfinished, unedited novel distributed without your permission.  I feel terribly sorry for Stephenie Meyer, and I feel almost as sorry for myself and all the other shameless addicted fans out there.   I haven't felt this heartbroken since I found out that Man vs. Wild was being staged.   I at least felt like I could blame Bear Grylls, though.  I don't blame Stephenie one bit for deciding that she can't finish the book after this, although I do hope that she might change her mind after some time goes by.  After all, she does say  that it's "on hold indefinitely"... not that it's canceled outright.    I'll take what I can get. 

I haven't read the draft.  I'd like to say that I'm not going to read it, but I'm not sure I'll be able to resist the temptation.  Hopefully, the fact that the release date for the Twilight movie has been moved up by three weeks (from December 12 to November 21st) will help.  A little.      

In the meantime, I'm going to do all that I can to turn this dreadful state of affairs around.  I'm planning to relocate myself to Arizona to serve as Stephenie Meyer's personal cheer-er upper.  I'll bring her all the decaf coffee and Sprite she can drink and act out scenes from Twilight when she has writer's block.  I call dibs on playing Alice's parts.  Who wants to be Edward?

Edited to add: If it's any consolation at all, those of you who haven't yet read The Host at least have that to look forward to.  It's very different from Twilight, and by that I mean THERE IS NO EDWARD.  Let me be clear about that: Edward Cullen is not in The Host.  I heard from a reputable source that some people were disappointed and even angry that our favorite marbled-chested immortal never made an appearance in The Host, to which I can only say .... What?  I think the dust jacket makes crystal clear the fact that The Host is a book about bodysnatching aliens taking over the earth, not about conflicted vegetarian vampires falling in love with annoying human girls who totally don't deserve them.  So, yeah, there is no Edward.  But if you liked Twilight, I would highly recommend The Host.  It wasn't as magical for me (meaning I did not neglect every other aspect of my life in order to read during every waking moment, nor did I stay up all night fuming over particular plot developments that I felt taking the plot in the wrong direction), but since The Host is intended for adults, the writing is much better.  Don't worry, there is still a fair amount of gazing into perfect eyes and plenty of burning embraces.  However, the heroine is less annoying than Bella and the love triangle has a better resolution.  So, if you liked Twilight, read The Host.  If you didn't like Twilight, um, don't.  If you're like me and you've already read The Host because you thought you'd still have Midnight Sun to live for... well, you can come over to my house and we'll all cry together.

Breaking Dawn, part deux (spoilers)

I am much more paranoid about spoilers for Breaking Dawn than I was for the other three books, since this one was just released recently and I know that several of you are not done with it. 

So I'm going to add a million lines of filler again....

to make sure that nothing shows up in your reader.....

that would give away anything in the book.

MMMMkay? 

Don't scroll down if you're not finished. 

Ten...

Nine...

Eight...

Seven....

Six...

Five...

Four....

Three....

Two....

ONE......

MAJOR SPOILERS. Do not read this if you haven't read Breaking Dawn!

Ok, let me just say that again.  DO NOT READ THIS POST IF YOU HAVEN'T READ BREAKING DAWN. 

Since adding a jump doesn't seem to work in Google Reader, I'm just going to add a whole lot of filler  here to give all of you who haven't read Breaking Dawn yet a chance to close this window without accidentally seeing anything abut the book.

Seriously.  Go away.  I would feel absolutely terrible if I ruined the book for anyone. 

So... everyone who's not read Breaking Dawn is gone, right?  

Good.  So I can talk about how crazy it is that Victoria actually didn't die, and she comes back and kills Bella and lives happily ever after with Edward!

JUST KIDDING.  She's really dead. 

As far as I know, anyway. 

OK: So I am officially on page 267 of Breaking Dawn, which is halfway through the Jacob section.  If you haven't read that far, don't read the rest.  Seriously.

Eclipse (spoilers)

I finished Eclipse last night, and I re-read the last 80 pages again this morning.  Suffice it to say, I loved it.  Of course.

Things I loved:

• Jacob. I'm still with Edward all the way, but I have to respect Jacob for trying. Dude, I love him. I just love Edward more. Sorry, kid.
• The werewolf-vampire alliance 
• Finding out more about Jasper and Rosalie. I am so impressed at the depth of all their stories, and how different they all are. I loved Rosalie's descriptions of herself as totally vain, and how she's unapologetic. I love everything about Jasper.
• Alice. Enough said. I love her.
• Edward, of course

Things I did not like:

• Bella's continued reluctance to marry Edward.  I meant to talk about this in the last entry about New Moon, but I forgot.  WTF, Bella?  I understand that she doesn't have the best outlook on marriage, especially very young marriage, after her mother's experience.  I get it.   But she's more than willing to become a vampire to be with Edward, and I'm pretty sure that her parents wouldn't approve of THAT.  So why does she care so much that they'll be upset about her getting married at 18?  They'll get over it, eventually.  She goes on and on about how Edward is her life (and I love that, really I do), but then why does she have to stomp all over him by refusing to just get married?  It makes me hate her, but I can't because Edward loves her so much.

My favorite scene by far was the night in the tent, when Jacob and Edward managed to talk without killing each other.   I love their dynamic, and I loved reading their conversation.  I laughed out loud when Edward was being driven crazy by Jacob's thoughts while he was warming Bella up.  God, I love them both.

It's a close call, but I think if I had to choose, I'd still put New Moon as my favorite at this point.  Eclipse had a better plot and much more action, since so much had already been established by the first two books, but New Moon just... shook me.   I hated that Edward wasn't in it, but I think the fact that it was still so good without him makes it my favorite.

What did you all think?  

I'm almost afraid to start Breaking Dawn today because I don't want the series to be over, but I know that I won't be able to help it.  

New Moon - part 2 (spoilers!)

OK, before I start in on the EdwardEdwardEdward, I feel like I should apologize to anyone out there who's either not into the Twilight series, sick of hearing about it, or some combination of the two.  I realize how annoying this might be, and I'm sorry.  Except not really.  Because I love it.

But if you're annoyed, just skip along.  I don't think I'll be able to talk about anything else until I'm done with the last book.  Even then, I make no promises.   Dudes, if you think this is bad, just imagine how Joel feels.

And now, on to The Edward (SPOILERS!!  BE YE FOREWARNED!)

Post #2 of what I assume will be many - New Moon

You guys have no idea how hard it was for me to resist staying up all night to finish New Moon.   My coworker and I made a pilgrimage to Barnes and Noble yesterday at lunch -- which required us borrowing Metro passes and coordinating lunch hours -- when I realized that with the $6 Amazon was charging plus $3.99 for shipping, it would be cheaper to just fork over $10.99 to Barnes and Noble.   Plus, let's be honest: I really could not wait 3-5 days for Amazon to ship this book to me.

(SPOILER ALERT!  SPOILER ALERT!  DON'T READ ANY FURTHER IF YOU HAVEN'T READ NEW MOON) 

Clearing things up

So, blah blah, out of town sooo many weekends blabbity blah, so behind on stuff at home, blah.   You don't care about that.  I don't care about that.

What I DO care about is the fact that I've had The Secret Life of the American Teenager up in my "In My Tivo" sidebar for weeks now, although I hadn't actually seen any of the episodes.  I set up a Season Pass the minute I heard that it was by the makers of Seventh Heaven and that Molly Ringwald was in it, but I didn't actually have time to watch the pilot until this weekend (blah, busy busy, blah).  I am extremely concerned that if any of you actually look at the sidebar, you might have been thinking all this time that I liked the show.  Let me clear that up right now:  Holy fucking disappointment, Batman.  It sure is by the makers of Seventh Heaven, THAT'S for sure.  They've even got the same soundtrack and everything.   But instead of Ashlee Simpson, we've got Molly Ringwald... which is just embarrassing for dear Molly and now half as fun as being able to watch Ashlee Simpson "act".   Instead of Haylie Duff, we have John Schneider, which... ditto.  Sad for John Schneider, not even half as entertaining as Haylie freaking Duff playing a knocked up teenager turned reverend/minister/whatever.   Joel came in when I was halfway through the pilot and he almost started crying when he realized our beloved Johnathan Kent from Smallville was on this show.   And that about sums it up.  I finished the pilot, it was terrible: preachier than Seventh Heaven (I didn't think it was possible either!) and not half as entertaining, plus some rookie casting director made the mistake of casting actors that look like identical twins as the Good Guy and the Bad Guy, and that confused the hell out of me.  In summary, shame on you, Molly and John, the show sucks completely and totally, I deleted the remaining four episodes in my cache without even watching them and I threw up in my mouth when I saw a preview for this week's episode alluding to the fact that Good Guy was apparently going to propose to Knocked Up Protagonist.  So, that's that.  I just needed to clear that up.

Secondly, I started reading Twilight, and I'm in a bit of a quandary.  You see, I somehow managed to completely miss out on the whole Harry Potter craze, and I'm still kicking myself for that, but what's done is done.  However, when I heard about this newfangled "Breaking Dawn" book coming out, fourth in some series that all the kids were raving about, I thought to myself hmmm... maybe I should see what that's all about.  I ordered the first book from the library, about six months later I finally got it, and HOLY HELL, NO ONE TOLD ME THESE BOOKS WERE ABOUT VAMPIRES.  I liked Buffy before liking Buffy was cool (what do you mean, liking Buffy was never cool?), I carried around The Historian for weeks so I could read it during every spare minute, and I am still pissed that they canceled Moonlight, because WTF TV producer dudes, can't you give a show a chance?  IT WAS GETTING BETTER.  I'm a sucker (HAHA) for all things vampire.  I don't know why... I just am.  So basically, this lady writes four books that are the Next Coming of Harry Potter and they're ALSO about vampires, and NO ONE TOLD ME.  Well, that's not true, Isabel told me, and I should have known she was right.  Because Isabel is always right.

So now for the dilemma: I have been staying up all night, talking to my coworkers about it all day, and BRINGING THE BOOK TO WORK so I can read it on my lunch break.  I started it on Sunday, and I'll probably be finished by Thursday, but the library still has New Moon backordered for weeks.  I'm on a tight budget (more blah blah) and I set an Absolutely No Buying Books That's What Libraries Are For rule, but if i don't get a copy of New Moon STAT, I think I might die.   Also, did you realize that the movie does not come out until December?!  What the hell am I supposed to do until then?

Also, I kind of hate these "team" terms, but Edward all the way, dudes.  ALLL the way, if you know what I mean, and I think you do.