Good lord, DVDs. Does anyone remember when I received a fairly large shipment towards the beginning of the summer and predicted that that shipment would carry me through August? Yeah, what a load of crap that was -- I must've purchased 20-30 DVDs since then. WHY? I've still got at least a hundred movies I haven't watched, yet I keep buying more. It's insane. This week I bought seven. The week before that I bought four, one of which was a budget set containing six films. I think I bought two or three the week before that. IT MAKES NO SENSE I TELL YOU. I haven't even watched all of the movies I picked up during my last two trips to NYC.

On the plus side, these purchases haven't been terribly expensive -- I may have bought seven DVDs this week, but the most expensive of them, House of Flying Daggers, was $6.99. Gamera (GAM-OOH-LA!) was a buck. Still, it's gotten to the point that I bought a couple more DVD storage booklets, one of which has been designated as a queue for all of the movies I haven't watched. (You know how people use Netflix? Well, I call that booklet Wesflix.) I had intended to use the other one to house only the movies I despise, but much to my surprise I don't actually own enough movies that I dislike on that level to fill an entire booklet. (more...)

...or is she goth? I'm not entirely sure these days, and the abundance of contradictory answers floating around on the Internet isn't exactly helping me to resolve the issue. (This link was kinda funny, though. Also, the post takes its title from Hope Is Emo. Amusing.) At any rate, I love it when girls tuck their hair behind their ears. The skunk top and purple eyeshadow slash lipstick combo don't hurt either. :9~~~

And I watched a rather fantastic horror movie starring one of the great genre actors on Friday night. Then, last night, I watched a really terrible one with a girl obviously cast for her looks. One was a classic 1970s horror film that is getting a 2006 remake, the other was the 2006 remake of a classic 1970s horror film. Any guesses which was the better film? (Bonus points if you can guess the actual titles.) More on the lesser of the two later.

So I was doing some "research" for my memoir and I happened to come across this flash thingy that will let you make your own Mr. Men and Little Miss character. Here's the one I made:

Yep. In other news, I made a bunch more images for the random image script thingy. I wasn't planning to make so many -- I've generally tried to keep it to one or two images per film -- but I kinda got carried away looking through these screencap folders of mine. (more...)

Like the topic says, I upgraded the site to WordPress 2.02 tonight. Looks exactly the same from the outside, but inside it's got lots of new stuff, I guess. More secure and whatnot. I've already had to make a few changes to the template due to differences and anticipate having to make even more in the near future (ugh). My internal control panel looks quite a bit different, too -- like it might take some getting used to. But change is good, right?

Anyway, to commemorate the WordPress upgrade, I've added a few new random images to the sidebar block that links to my DVD collection. I'd intended to add the nice even number of eight, but apparently there was one sitting around that I'd forgotten to add previously, bringing the grand total of new images to nine (with twenty-three in all). Not that you pay much attention to it, of course. Anyway, here are the images -- bonus points if you can guess the films/shows they're from. 🙂

All for now, then -- until next time! 😀

So at the request of TAB, I watched the new "Doctor Who" show on the SciFi Channel last night. I look forward to reading his review of the new show -- I'm curious about how it compares to the old version -- but I can't say I found anything to be terribly interesting about these eps. I suspect that the show's appeal for a lot of people will be based upon its connection to the old show and the simple fact that it is science fiction, but when I get into scifi -- or anime, or horror, or anything really -- it's not just for the sake of the genre, but for more the more substantial stuff. I really dug the neat alternate Earths to which they traveled in "Sliders", for example, but that would've meant diddly without complex, likable characters and a pleasant group dynamic. Buffy worked not only because of the interesting life metaphors presented in her battles with the undead, but also, again, because of likable characters and the group dynamic (until the latter two seasons, which is one of the reasons that they pretty much sucked). People have recently expressed surprise at my affection for the earlier seasons of "Dawson's Creek" -- but given that it was largely founded upon (again!) likable characters and the group dynamic, it's really not all that shocking. Same deal with "Teen Titans", Ninja Turtles, X-Men (at least in the comics and the cartoons; the lack of these elements in the live action movies is one reason that they've been such disappointments), etc., etc. Hell, in addition to the batshit insanity, the interplay between characters was even central to the appeal of "Pee-wee's Playhouse" .

Anyway, with the new Dr. Who, you get a goofy dude making Pee-wee faces and a displaced girl with a connection to each other that is shallow at best (yeah, I know, first episodes and all, but even the depiction of the bonding efforts between the two was extremely superficial) and situations that aren't terribly different from stuff I've seen before. Mindless mannequins might as well be zombies (and next week's episode actually features zombies, so whoop-dee-doo), and processions of wacky aliens making passing references to current pop culture is pretty standard fare even in popular scifi. Maybe "Battlestar Galactica" deals with "deep, philosophical questions" (I kinda doubt that, and seeing as how it would cost me in the neighborhood of $40 to find out I doubt that I will anytime soon...), but this Dr. Who seems like pure conceptiovisual geekery. Which is to say that people will simply get off on the wacky visuals and the idea of this guy traveling to alternate universes, because that's pretty much all the show has going for it thus far. Maybe things will change as the series progresses, but these initial episodes lead me to doubt it.

Speaking of things I doubt, following the parenthetical link in the first paragraph (or just clicking here) will take you to an article in which I explain why I doubt that X3 will be worth watching at all. Scary-Crayon has been plugged. All for now -- ja ne, minna-san!