152 insights into my soul

Heh, had this amusing dream where I met Karen Gillan at a bar, and we hit it off, and she took me back to her place. Just to talk! But in the dream she was married to Jason Bateman, who caught us and thought we were having an affair. So he like dumps her and she's all sad and needs comforting, but alas, then I wake up.

But speaking of Karen Gillan, with it being a new year, I guess I should do a list of my top 10 (its too much effort to come up with more than 10) favorite babes of 2014. I say favorite, because there's too many expectations from saying "hottest", because then people are all, how could you rank x over y and all that jazz. At least by saying favorite, I'm indicating the list it totally subjective.

1) Barbara Palvin: still my favorite current supermodel. Pretty face, gorgeous lips, banging body (she is a Victoria's Secret model, after all), and you know how I like that brown hair/blue eyes combo.

2) Karen Gillan: Glad to see she still had a somewhat busy schedule post-Doctor Who. And looking totally hot in all the projects I'd seen her in in 2014. She was great in A Touch of Cloth, and of course Selfie. Still the most disappointing cancellation of this season. I'll miss her as Eliza Dooley strutting around in all those cute outfits looking all hott. Heh, even as a bald, blue alien cyborg in Guardians of the Galaxy, she was still smoking.

3) Nina Dobrev: My favorite Canadian vampire. A perfect combination of sexy and cute.

4) Alexandra Daddario- Who cares if her eyes are like, really, really blue that they're almost alien? As I said above, dark hair/blue eyes is my favorite. Plus, that one scene in True Detective is friggin awesome.

5) Evangeline Lilly: My favorite Canadian elf. She is like ridiculously pretty as Tauriel in the Hobbit movies. Too bad they made her character less kick-ass in the last movie.

6) Shay Mitchell: My favorite Candian Lesbian and Liar. Pretty and fit and you know how being part Flip always makes a girl slightly hotter in my book.

7) Shelley Hennig: From witch to were-coyote, she was a great addition to the already gorgeous ladies of Teen Wolf. I mean, it was sad to see Crystal Reed go, but they replaced her with not one, but two hotties in Shelley and Arden Cho.

8) Amy Acker: The girl who shares my exact birthdate, she's awesome on PoI. I mean, its always great when Amy plays the bad girl. Like she looks so sweet and innocent, and it works when she plays adorkable nerds like Fred, but somehow she becomes 1000x sexier when she's not playing the good girl role. But yeah, Root is bad ass, and is one half of one of my favorite OTPs.

9) Sarah Shahi: The other half of the aforementioned OTP. Shaw is a bad-ass in her own right, and I love her tough girl attitude. Shoot (or Raw, if you prefer) make quite the ass-kicking pair on PoI.

10) Anna Kendrick: Again, the brown hair/blue eyes thing. And, her being weird and dorky in real life amplifies her cuteness. Plus, she can sing, which is always a plus! Ah can't wait for Pitch Perfect 2.

Finally saw Joss Whedon's "Much Ado About Nothing". Its a cute little movie, and Amy Acker looks mad cute, as per usual. Lots of people from Whedon stuff- besides Wesley and Fred, there's Coulson, Castle, Topher, Simon Tam, Reed Diamond, Tom Lenk, as well as Chrissy Seaver, Finn's mom, the kid from Gladiator (what the hell, he's like grown up now!) and whichever of Garfunkel and Oates that's not on Raising Hope. (is it confusing to mix characters names with actors names when listing? Or saying Castle, instead of saying roles Nathan Fillion had in actual Whedon productions, like Mal or Captain Hammer?)

I'm not familiar with the play, nor the movie from the 90s, but I hear its pretty true to the source (despite taking place in modern times), with one supposedly subtle change, but more than that later. Since they talk in that old English style, I had a little trouble following. Like Nathan Fillion is playing Dogberry, who in the original play uses a lot of malapropisms. And like I caught some of them, but I have no idea if there were some I just failed to pick up on because they're talking all Shakespearean and shit.

But I got the gist of the movie, even if there were some dialogue I found hard to understand. Benedict (Alexis Denisof) and Beatrice (Amy Acker) hate each other, but some of their insults, I was all, "what the hell are they talking about?" And then their friends think they are way too obsessed with each other, and with nothing else to do, decide to trick them into falling in love with each other. Here's the change I hear that was subtly introduced in the beginning of the movie- Benedict and Beatrice had a former dalliance, but I guess it ended badly, which is why they're always insulting each other? Whereas in the original work, I guess they just hated each other? It was totally cute how dorky they got when they thought the other was in love with them. And then in the end, with the scheme revealed, even though they totally are in love with each other now, they still try to deny it, but thankfully finally admit their feelings.

But I guess the overarching story was that Don Pedro (Reed Diamond), Claudio (Fran Kranz), Benedict, and Don Pedro's brother, Don John (Sean Maher) visit Leonato's (Clark Gregg) villa, whereupon Claudio falls in love with Leonato's daughter Hero (Jillian Morgese). And all the while Benedict and Beatrice (who is Leonato's niece) talk shit about each other. Claudio asks for Hero's hand in marriage, and as I said previously, out of boredom since they apparently don't have anything better to do before the wedding, the rest of them decide to get Beatrice and Benedict together.

Well, Don John has other plans. He wants to ruin the wedding, so he sends his man Borachio (Spencer Treat Clark) to bang Hero's maid Margaret (Ashley Johnson) in Hero's room, while wearing one of her dresses. And Don John's all, "Oh, your betrothed is a slut! Don't believe me, spy on her window tonight!" So they do and Claudio and Don Pedro are livid. So Claudio for some reason the best way to handle it is to go through with the ceremony, but then publicly embarrass her. Like he's all weird and awkward, and everyone thinks its some sort of weird joke, but then he goes to Leonato, "Take your whore daughter back, because she's a whore!" She faints over the whole deal and Claudio and Don Pedro take their leave

And what the frick, I suppose it was olden times, but instead of believing his daughter, since Don Pedro and Claudio are men of honor and thus would never make something up (or be wrong!?), he's basically, I wish you were dead for bringing shame upon the family. Its like, screw these dicks! You're going to believe them over your daughter? And you wish her dead?! Eventually he relents, but still! In any case, the priest is all, "She should pretend to be dead and then if Claudio really loves her, he'll feel totally bad!"

Meanwhile some constables happen upon Borachio telling Conrade (Riki Lindhome) the scheme, so they arrest them and Dogberry and Verges (Tom Lenk) get the whole story and tell Don Pedro. Meanwhile, Beatrice is all, "if you really love me, you'll kill Claudio for slandering my kinswoman!" to Benedict. At first he's all, "That's crazy, plus, he's my friend!" but eventually he acquiesces because he does love her. Which is kinda disturbing for a romantic comedy- "Oh, this guy totally humiliated my cousin! Hey, guy who I used to hate but now love, if you want to prove you love me (and show that you're a real man!), you'll kill your friend!" But I guess that was more acceptable back then or something?

And its like, after Don Pedro finds out the truth, there's no scene where they tell B&B what happened! He did like challenge his friend, and its good he was all, "I shall duel you on the morrow!" because one could have killed the other, making this romantic comedy take like a dark and tragic turn. But yeah, when Don Pedro and Claudio go to see Leonato after Benedict's challenge, since he revealed Hero is dead, he's all, "See, you were tricked by your brother schemes! Thanks for killing my daughter, dicks!" So they're all wanting to do anything to make up for it. Leonato is all, "If you want to make up for it, you'll marry my other niece whom you have not met and no one has ever mentioned up to this point (but is really Hero in disguise)!"

Claudio agrees, and on the day of, they're all, "Gotcha! Even though you publicly shamed my daughter, the fact that you were willing to force yourself into an arrange marriage makes everything alright!" And then Benedict and Beatrice wait for the other to make some big overture to the other and ask the other to reveal their love, but they're both being stubborn asses, so the rest of the gang have to show them letters the other wrote talking about how in lurve they are with each other! So its two weddings!

But like I said, despite me knocking some parts of the story, I did enjoy it.

Thing that has blown my mind for today: Jeremy Renner was Penn on Angel! So ND was making a comment about not realizing Hawkeye was in the new Bourne movie. So I decided to imdb him to see what the first thing I saw him in- I was thinking 28 Weeks Later, but SWAT was before that. But as it turns out, it was Angel! What the frick, and that's one of my favorite episodes too! It was the ep where Kate first finds out about Angel- someone has been killing people, and they think its Angel at first, but they eventually figure out its some random protege he had when he apparently wasn't hanging out with Darla, Spike, and Drusilla (and that random couple from the 3rd season premiere who they acted like had a history with Angelus and Darla). But I digress, I just thought the ep was cool, because on the show (and BtVS) up to that point, they've only shown regular people (not counting Slayer and friends) being attacked by vamps. I just thought it was interesting to see him stroll into the police station and wipe the floor with everyone there to showcase how dangerous vamps really are.

But I digress again, like I said, thinking about it now, that totally was Jeremy Renner! It just blows my mind he was doing random guest spots on Angel. But I guess everyone has to get their start somewhere. Amusingly enough, he's not the only person from MI:4 to randomly appear on Angel, lest we forget before Sawyer was on Lost, he was a random vampire who Angel dusts in the pilot for Angel.

Oh, Renner was also in an ep of Time of Your Life, which as I think I posted about a few months ago, I totally forgot existed. Time of Your Life being the JLH-centered spinoff of Party of Five (pgv('What the hell is Party of Five?!')). Once I started recalling it, I remembered that Jennifer Garner was on it after Felicity but before Alias. But I had no recollection of Pauly Perrette being on it. I mean, its hard to imagine her as anything but Abby on NCIS.

Hmm, so in addition to releasing the songs the Friday before, now the show has started releasing some of the performances from the next ep on youtube? Its odd that Fox does the stupid 8 day delay for non-Dish/non Hulu-plus subscribers on all their shows, but they're fine with releasing the actual musical numbers beforehand? I guess they're trying to generate buzz. In any case, here's Brit doing Beyonce's "Run the World":



For one thing, just like when Rachel did Rihanna's "Take a Bow" way back in season one, this is one of those songs where I prefer Glee's version to the original. Though that seems to be the case with a lot of the more Urban music they do. Also, as I've said countless times before, HeMo looks infinitely hotter with her hair down. And finally, how the hell does Kurt have a chance in hell of winning the election after this? The chyx feel all empowered, and the dudes are mesmerized by the hotness.

Speaking of hotness. decided to try my hand at a "Hottest list". I've always found it very difficult to narrow things down to a certain number. But decided to just sit down and look at a list of all the TV shows I watch regularly, the music I listen to, the movies I've seen, other "hottest lists" and first grab all the ladies I liked on those, then take that list and whittle it down to 50 by choosing the ones I felt more strongly towards.

I don't want to say its a "50 hottest chyx list", perhaps it would be more accurate to call it my top 50 favorite hottest chyx: (in no particular order, because its hard enough shortening the list to just 50. Having to order them to would be un-possible!) ( under the cut )

I was too lazy to actually link to pics. If you're reading this, you have access to the net. If you're curious what one of them looks like, google it yourself! In any case, I put their ages next to them just to help me with seeing trends.

And what trends did I find? Well, I have a definite preference for brunettes- of the 50, 33 are dark haired, with only 10 blonds and 7 redheads. And it should be no surprise I favor the snowflakes- 44/50 are white, with the last 6 being equally split between Latina and Asian. Of course, I didn't count Alexis Bledel as Hispanic, even though she actually is, despite her fair skin and blue eyes. Odette Yustman might actually count as Hispanic also. But chyx like Selena Gomez and Kristin Kreuk are practically snowflakes so the numbers are nebulous.

Age-wise, only 2 are under 20 (but still over 18), with 27 in their 20s, 20 in their 30s, and 1 in her 40s. (Hmm, I wonder if I plotted it out, would it look like a bell curve?) It should be no surprise that 43 of them are younger than me, but hey 7 older, that's not too bad. Though I guess 29 of them were playing high school age characters when they first came to my attention. (Although I shouldn't really count Evangeline Lily, because I first had the hots for her on Lost, and it was only later that I found out she was an extra in Freddy vs Jason. But technically, the first thing I saw her in, she was playing a HS-er)

A comment by propace on FB sparked a convo about top TV characters one would want to bang. I've had a similar list on here before, but if its just want to do, I think my choices would change. I'd also have trouble settling on number one. So let's make it top 10, in no particular order:

1) Faith Lehane from Buffy/Angel
2) Saffron (yeah, I know that's not her real name, and Browncoats prefer referring to her as "Yosafbridge", but Saffron sounds hotter) from Firefly
3) Kate Austen from Lost
4) Starbuck from BSG (Kara Thrace, not Face from the A-Team!)
5) Remy "13" Hadley from House
6) Cerie Xerox from 30 Rock
7) Julie Taylor from Friday Night Lights (possibly in a threesome with her similarly lusciously melon-ed mother Tami)
8) Rory Gilmore from Gilmore Girls (again, possibly in a threesome with her blue-eyed, brunette mother, Lorelai, which I know breaks my similar heights/different hair rule, but I'm willing to make an exception)
9) Katherine Pierce (or I guess Elena Gilbert, though I'd prefer the vamp over her human doppleganger because I assume she'd be more naughty!) from Vampire Diaries
10) Santana Lopez from Glee (which would automatically include Brittany given their relationship)

Anyways, that convo sparked another convo about what TV characters would you actually want to date (surprisingly not started by me) but that list would go:

1) Blair Waldorf from Gossip Girl
2) Rachel Berry from Glee
3) Annie Edison from Community
4) Taylor Townsend from the OC
5) Summer Roberts from the OC
6) Chloe O'Brian from 24 (Ida know, I've always been strangely attracted to her)
7) Chloe Sullivan from Smallville (I'd put the similar Veronica Mars, but she can be such a huge bitch at times, and not in the way I like!)
8) Elle Bishop from Heroes. (I know, isn't that a more insane and bitchier Kristen Bell character than the aforementioned Veronica Mars? What can I say, I'm a sucker for hot, broken girls)
9) Winifred Burkle from Angel
10) Adrianna Tate-Duncan from 90210

Is it odd that a good portion of my "want to do" list are sociopaths and/or killers, and my "deeper connection" list is mostly full of neurotics and weirdos, many of which have deep seated emotional and psychological issues?

Damn C-note or zarathrustra94 who mentioned that line during dinner last night at Vreny's Biergarten (which was pretty good, if I ever go back there again, methinks I should try their sausage platter), now I can't get it out of my head. Speaking of, I did not realize they were making a sequel to Family Guy's Blue Harvest parody of Star Wars, this one covering Empire and called "Something Something Something Dark Side", according to this hidden teaser off the Blue Harvest DVD. Apparently the chicken will be Boba Fett? Makes sense since Peter is Han Solo.

Hmm, saw the latest SCIV news. (Fighter's Generation's Soul Calibur IV page seems to have a lot of good pics) For one thing, the new character creation characters look way better than they did in SCIII, on par with the normal characters. I knew they added armor breaks (i.e., take enough hits and parts of your armor get destroyed, and you start taking more damage from hits), but apparently they have special criticals now (you can briefly see some animations in the 1-up preview for the game, though not well, as the developers didn't want 1-Up spoiling the full animations). Basically, under special sitches you can do a one hit auto kill move, like fatalities in MK, but done during a match. Basically, you have to make a gauge of yours turn glowy blue, while making the enemy's glow red, which is done by going full out offense while they turtle. Once you're blue and he's red, hit all four buttons and it auto kills them.

The concept is cool, and they say it penalizes people who utilize a turtle type style, but honestly, I think it penalizes intermediate players the most- sucky n00bs don't block, because they don't know how (so you'll prolly kill them outright instead of being able to get these special criticals off on them) and expert players do dodges and guard impacts instead of straight up blocking. I guess it encourages middle of the ground players to utilize the more advanced techniques that they might not normally use against people of their caliber or lower, since its unnecessary.

Other video game blather, "why mgs4 is frickin' weird edition":

- Emotional bullets

- Getting to do photoshoots with the Beauty and Beasts squad outside of their suits- Screaming Mantis, Raging Raven, Laughing Octopus, and Crying Wolf. And apparently, if you play a certain song on Snake's I-pod, you can make them do a j-pop dance.

Though why the frick does Snake have an I-pod? Nico having a cellphone in GTAIV makes sense, you shouldn't be listening to tunes whilst sneaking around a hostile battlefield!

Owel, yesterday clevemire posted a link to this cheesy rock ballad quiz. I of course, would be remiss if I didn't get 10 out of 10 (which I did), given 8 of those songs are on my mp3 player playlist, and the other 2 are played all the time on the radio stations I listen to you. But I started taking a bunch of the other quizzes on the site. Even though I hadn't played a super mario brothers game on any system more powerful than the snes, I did get 100% on the Super Mario Brothers Villain or Obscure Dinosaur quiz. Of course, the names of Super Mario Brothers enemies is one of those things stored in that head for some frakkin reason. But there are some interesting quizzes on there.

Oh, read the latest ish of Angel. They're finally through with the flashbacks, though I still find the plot confusing as hell. But there are two extremely hysterical Joss Whedon references in this issue (one involving a certain line from the first X-men movie, and one poking fun at a popular mantra of Joss Whedon fans).

You know what I could never get into, cracker jacks. I dunno, I guess I'm just not too keen caramel coated popcorn. I like my popcorn like my women- covered in hot butter! Ha, I keed, I keed! I think I'm like having a manic episode right now, since I thought that last sentence was so frackin funny! And is it "fracking" or "frakking"? I've always spelt it the latter way.

Anyhoo, its been a quiet night, so I've been watching videos on youtube. I forgot another great song for karaoke-ing: "She Drives Me Crazy" by Fine Young Cannibals. I mean, its awesome because you don't even have to know the words, that lead singer dude (who played Xavier St. Cloud on Highlander, and weird, Roger Daltrey played a recurring immortal character also, like what's with all the frontmen? Though I guess two is not a lot. Sorry, I'm babbling now, so I digress) was almost indecipherable anyways, so you can just make a bunch of funny noises and no one would notice the difference. Actually, I seem to remember back in the days when I used to drink, this song came on during some party and hopping on the table and singing along just like that. What the hell was wrong with me back then? Though I guess that's actually fine compared to getting plastered at the parentals' 25th and hopping on one of the tables pretending to surf when "Wipe Out" came on. (And wait, why the hell was that song playing at a wedding anniversary?) Thankfully, being a good Catholic wedding celebration, everyone was nicely toasted anyways so I don't think people really noticed me. But I digress yet again.

Which kinda brings me to another cool thing about the song, besides being an awesome song to karaoke or sing along to, its also cool for a little air guitar! Just like Boston's "More Than a Feeling"! You can't not air guitar when singing along to those songs! Its like not doing the robot when hearing Styx's "Mr Roboto"! Ooh, new idea for a poll:

[Poll #945655]

Anyways, Angel is on right now, its the ep where Fred's parents first show up after she gets back from Pylea. Her dad is of course played by the Bullit, who was also the father of Leonardo DiCaprio's character on Growing Pains. Strangely enough, on Growing Pains, I seem to remember the Bullit having fathered a whole bunch of kids also. Anyhoo, I only mention this ep because I could've sworn he once referred to Fred as "Peanut" in one of the few eps of Angel he was on, but I can't find any evidence of the sort. I guess its limited that nickname's limited to mini-Coop (though both are skinny 5'7" brunettes)

Wow, the Smallville and Angel finales were insane. But with those two done with, I guess all I have left to watch is Alias and 24 next week and then the TV season is over! What ever will I do?

( Its Smallville, but are they sure they didn't think they were showing the Angel finale? )

( That's the end? )

Owel, after work yesterday, went to Oxford, picked up some comics, and pussied out, yet again.

Wednesday night telly:

( Paris bound! )

( Vampire fun in Rome! Or, the Angel and Spike comedy hour. )

( Back to Chino! And secret lovechilds that never were. )

Hmm, the Friends finale is tonigt, got to remember to PVR that. I wonder if Ross is gonna ask Rachel to stay, or is he gonna fly off to Paris with her? But he's tenured! And Ben's in NY. At least that's the excuse he gave Emily all those yearsa ago. Of course, when's the last time we saw him? But Rachel's job is in Paris. She can't be a housewife, because that's the whole reason she didn't marry Barry way back in the first ep! Perhaps "Ron" (or whatever wrong name Rachel's boss gave him) will give Rachel's boss at Ralph Lauren another dinosaur egg.

I'm so tired, I didn't even watch my tape of the O.C. kast night. Only watched the PVRed Smallville and Angel since that's something the roomie also watches. But why wasn't I watching it live, you ask? Because I went to dinner with the roomie and psyched_out amd his wifey at the Woodfire Grill. One of the good things to come out of having lived with Krug and Scott is the food benefits. I mean I regularly get awesome home cooking at home due to the roomie's skill in the kitchen. And both he and Scott are all into trying new restaurants so my lazy ass gets to try out places I'd be too well, lazy, to ssek out on my own. Or also not adventurous to try if it were just me.

It was pretty awesome. Lots of appetizers. One of the ones we got was the Olive Oil tasting, where they provided three kinds of olive oil for bread dipping. Krug and Scott like one, I can't remember which one that was though (the french or spanish?) while Sato and I preferred the thick, unfiltered one (I'm pretty sure the guy said it was made in greece) I had a chorizo and jamon pizza, which tasted awesome, and I traded half a slice for a piece of Krug's salmon. It was lightly cooked, served medium rare, and was also quite tasty. Then for desert we got the selection of 5 cheeses, which were all very strong, and I got a chocolate truffle cake with caramel ice cream and Krug got some sort of strawberry napoleon thing. All in all, it was a great meal.

Anyways, got home, watched the PVRed Smallville and Angel as quickly as possible so I could get to bed, as I've been feeling really crappy from lack of sleep all week. And I wanted to be somewhat fresh for today because there'll be newsies coming around taking photos for some article they're doing on high technology.

And now for some TV commentary:

( the truth will set you free )

( the prodigal son returns )

Lots to do today, there's work, then laundry and I still have an ep of OC to see. Finishing off some books and transcribing my story for DA:V from my head to hard copy. Thst should be interesting. Oh, and I also need to see the next two eps of thst Gunslinger Girl DVD I rented from Oxford. Looks pretty interesting so far.