152 insights into my soul

I kinda appreciate Ariana Grande covering the oldies:



"Gimme Some Lovin", geez, that prolly came out possibly even before her parents were born! (Well, 1966) Heh, but I'll always think of Gimme Some Lovin as that song that dude Tito C went to high school with played as he bombed made up Middle Eastern country in Iron Eagle. But hearing her stuff, she's definitely a talented singer. I love the cover she did of Drake's "Take Care" with Andre from Victorious, and I thought she and her brother covering Suddenly Seymour at that music camp was cute. And her musical impressions are pretty impressive!. Like her Britney and Shakira impressions are uncanny! Like I said, I think its cool she covers songs from the 60s all the way to now.

She's the best singer on the Victorious cast. Actually, Liz Gillies is also better than Victoria Justice, but I suppose Victoria is the title character, which is why she got most of the songs. In any case, it is surprising they're canceling that show, but not too surprising. For one, it seemed to show on a whim. Like who doesn't show their show weekly, but instead randomly?! But then, given the rumors of the Sam spinoff after Icarly was canceled, they should have been suspicious when there was word of Cat being on it as well. Its like, why the hell would they port her over off of Victorious if there wasn't a big shakeup going on?!

Speaking of, I saw the other day Ali on PLL is only 16?! No freakin way! I mean, the rest of the girls on the cast are in their early to mid 20s, and given Ali seemed more mature then the rest of them, I figured she was around that age also. But I suppose her character was supposed to seem more worldly and experienced than the rest of the Liars, so maybe that's what threw me off. But apparently she was only 14 when the show started? My mind is blown!

Anyways, looking at the fall schedule, the network TV schedule looks better this year:

Sundays: OUAT at 8pm, Family Guy and American Dad from 9-10.

Mondays: There's HIMYM and Bones at 8pm, then Hawaii Five-O and Castle at 10pm. That kinda annoying there's nothing at 9pm though. Well, Gossip Girl, but I'm still really pissed over the Dair thing, so like I said, the series ended for me when Dan and Blair walked off the MET steps and into the sunset.

Tuesdays: NCIS and Hart of Dixie at 8pm, and New Girl, Happy Endings, and Don't Trust the B in the 9pm to 10pm range.

Wednesdays: Apparently, since nothing is up against Arrow, I'll give it a chance. Particularly since the Huntress chick looks kinda hot. 9pm has Criminal Minds, SVU, Modern Family, and Supernatural (when is this show going to get canceled?!).

Thursdays: 30 Rock and Vampire Diaries at 8pm, I may give Last Resort a chance. 9pm is Glee, Person of Interest, The Office and Parks and Rec. I might give Beauty and the Beast a chance, mostly for KK and Nicole Anderson (you know how I feel about American actresses I find out are Filipina/Part Filipina, somehow they got hotter to me)

Fridays: Community at 830, then Fringe and Nikita at 9pm.

So all in all, a lighter schedule than previous years. Thursday's still heavy but nowhere near as heavy as last year. Not as many schedule conflicts, and nothing past 10pm on any of the networks except for Monday. Of course, this schedule isn't counting cable shows, which will fill in a lot of those 10pm slots.

Do you know what really grinds my gears? People who get the bag person at the grocery to take their bags out to their cars when they don't need help. I mean, if you're elderly, or handicapped, or have a bunch of kids to wrangle, sure. But ooh, picking up a bag from a cart and carrying it a couple of feet to your car trunk, really difficult! Meanwhile, it slows down the line for everyone else, because the cashier has to also do the bagging. I mean, you can do bagging too, but then when its time to pay, you have to find a good stopping point so you can go up to the card reader to slide your card and wot-not and its all very inefficient.

I just don't see why some able-bodied adult person not busy trying to make sure their brats don't run into traffic need to take away an employee from their bagging duties to do something they can easily do themselves! Who do they think they effin are? The friggin Queen of the world?!

Ah, so Miranda's dad in ME3 is indeed voice by Widmore. I mean, I was sure it was him, he has a pretty distinct voice, but I just hadn't gotten confirmation until now.

Favorite song of the moment: Fun.'s "Some Nights". Surprisingly, I did not hear this off of some teen drama I watched (though I'm surprised it has not been used on a show yet, it sounds perfect as the ending song to an ep). In any case, I haven't had feels instantly evoked in me by a song since Mika's "We Are Golden". "We Are Young" is the song that's getting all the airplay and is in commercials and Glee and stuff, but I like "Some Nights" better.

Other recent albums I've bought in the last month: (albums I've bought recently, none of these albums are all that recent)

"Leavetaking", Peter Bradley Adams
"Tug of War", Carly Rae Jespen
"Young Love", Mat Kearney
"Manners", Passion Pit

And just so people don't think my tumblr is all glee/faberry reblogs with a dash of Dair, I have been posting some photosets again, of such hotties as Nina Dobrev, Danielle Panabaker, Minka Kelly, Sara Jean Underwood (and friends), and The girls of Sucker Punch.

So apparently the First Annual tumblr TV awards are going on right now. So in the best ship categories its down to 5 couples: Faberry and Britanna from Glee, Sherlock and Watson on Sherlock, Dean and Cas from Supernatural, and Dair from Gossip Girl. Like this year's E!-online poll, only one of the finalists is a straight couple, but the rest are same-sex. Which is an interesting trend. Is it that people who vote in such polls (or are vocal about "shipping") tend to favor same-sex couplings?

And is it a sign that the world is more accepting of homosexuality, or that those that are accepting have cornered modern media? Of course, another data point is of those 4 same sex couples, only 1 of those (Santana and Brittany) are an actual gay couple. The rest are non-canon. And among those three, only in the Sherlock/Watson case did the show have characters outright ask them, "Are you guys gay for each other?" The other two couplings are just supposed subtext and only in the minds of some viewers.

The finalists in the other categories that are still open: ( under a cut )

It looks like voting has either ended on the other categories (or hasn't entered final voting)

TV commentary:

Gossip Girl- After the depressing turn of events on last week's Glee before the hiatus, I'm really glad Gossip Girl is going in to the break on a happy note (well, at least for Dair, who cares about anyone else?).

But before we get into that, I totally had a feeling CeCe knew the truth and was going to leave something big to Ivy (I didn't realize she was going to leave everything though). Is it me, or was Ivy kicking Lily out of the apartment a bluff? It seemed like she was telling them to leave in the hopes that Lily would be all, "but we have nowhere to go", and then Ivy would be able to reluctantly yet magnanimously offer to let her stay. And then with them stuck under the same roof with her, she would be able to mend fences, because it seems like she really does care for them. But then Rufus has to be all, "Eh, we have an apartment in Brooklyn!" Which I'm sure Dan and Blair will be thrilled with (but more on that later!)

Also, as soon as William showed up, that he was going to be Lola's dad. Ha, so Serena and real Charlie aren't just cousins, they're half-sisters!

And Georgina, feeling she went out on a high note, is ceding the Gossip Girl title to Serena? I guess we'll have to wait until the break to see if she accepts it.

Finally, onto the good stuff, the Dair. So while Georgina is busy at the wake, she leaves the GG stuff to Phillip. Who proceeds to accidentally upload an email from Chuck outing Dan as the sender of the video. So even though Chuck ends up looking like an a-hole, he thinks this will get him back in to Blair's heart. While I am annoyed that Dan did actually end up sending the video (ostensibly to stop the wedding because she seemed miserable and he figured she didn't really want to get married, he had no idea it would cause the whole prenup mess), its pretty hilarious that Blair forgave Dan easily and quickly. And then when Georgina steal's Dan's phone to frame him for uploading the picture of them kissing, destroying Blair's marriage, Chuck admits his complicity and deflects by claiming Dan isolated Blair. Instead of furthering the chaos, Dan just bows out, since Blair has enough to worry about.

Honestly, I can't see how anyone seeing Chuck's behavior and Dan's behavior in this episode think Blair should be with Chuck. I mean, I'm dumbfounded people are feeling sorry for Chuck. Oh, poor guy, he didn't get the girl after not backing off and doing the exact thing she told him not to last week or else she would lose him, and ruining her family!

But aw, how sweet was the end, when Blair showed up, and Dan thought she was mad at first. And his face as he slowly got all hopeful, almost not wanting to believe she's choosing him, finally lighting up when she said her heart was with him now. (I know I keep comparing these two to Pacey and Joey, but I was getting flashbacks to the dock scene at the end of "True Love" on DC) And then his remarks about her referring to him as Dan instead of Humphrey or Brooklyn or Cabbage Patch? As I said at the start of this post, after all the depressing Faberry stuff going into the Glee hiatus last week, I'm glad at least Dair are entering the break on a good place.

Talk about another pretty big Lily/Rufus/Blair/Dan parallel though, with Blair and Lily both losing their wealth at the same time, and Dan and Rufus taking them in.

Heh, even though the promo seems to indicate they're rehashing that one Seth/Summer sex plot from s1 OC, I'm amused by the haters jumping on this as an indication that Dan and Blair aren't right for each other. Obviously they haven't seen that ep of the OC, since S/S worked through that mess rather quickly. I'm guessing the same will happen with Dan and Blair.

And I just saw a comment on the Dair community bringing up the Seth/Summer parallels, I totally didn't see the similarities between Atomic County and the Inside until now. And Dan and Blair both having Cabbage Patches, that's almost like Captain Oats and Princess Sparkle!

TV commentary:

Gossip Girl- Finally!! ( spoiler cut )

Hart of Dixie- Heh, the snow sure melted real quick! ( spoiler cut )

Pretty Little Liars- Nice to see I was totally right about Paige showing up after the random mention last ep. And what the crap, why is the Wren/Spencer thing not treated with the same taboo as Aria and Ezra? I mean, she's underaged, and he's not. I mean, these shows seem to act like its only an issue if the guy is a teacher. But statch is statch, it doesn't matter what his occupation is! But lots of movement in this ep. ( spoiler cut )

So, it looks like Faberry won the E! online top TV couple 2012 poll. That's hilariously awesome! That's almost as great as all the Dair goodness from last night's Gossip Girl!

Soul Calibur blather: Since turdburgler was curious, I did finally come up with a design for Boyce. I managed to come up with something that didn't look too much like Abdul's outfit. And to make it more unique looking, I did Boyce in manifest form: ( pics under cut )

I also tweaked Innocence's design a bit, different hairstyle, and now she has a pirate hat for some reason:

( another cut )

Interesting, Cervantes level, its raining, but I didn't realize until now how much effort they put into making the characters look all soaked:

( more cuts )

I mean, look at that slick sheen!

So it is shocking that Whitney Houston died, I mean, yeah, she's been having problems as of late. I mean, I even saw an article on Friday about how she's been a bit of a mess, but I did not expect her to be dead a day later. In any case, what the hell is up with with people on Facebook being all "RIP, Whitney", but the pic is of Oprah Winfrey?! Is it a weird, tasteless joke? Did they hear Whitney and think Winfrey? Or did some idiots actually confuse Oprah Winfrey and Whitney Houston (though I don't see how, they look nothing alike!)? Its like when that lady called into that one show and thought Shirley from Community was in "The Help".

Is it necessarily racist though? I mean, one could think the person made the mistake because they think all people of a certain race look alike, but when a non-white person confuses Ralph Fiennes and Liam Neeson, or thought Opie from Sons of Anarchy was played by Roy from the Office, is that person racist? They could just be mistaken!

I wish cooking wasn't such a hassle. I saw some ready to cook fresh bacon wrapped filets in the butcher section at Publix. Unfortunately, the only instructions on the package were for grilling, and looking up how to cook it not on the grill, it seems like such a hassle. Cooking it in a pan first, then transferring it to the oven. That's too much effort for a meal for myself.

Oh wait, Walking Dead is back tonight? As I've said before, I think I would enjoy the show more if I just could better ignore the commentary and complaints of people who only watch the show and know nothing about the comic. I'm so sick of people all, "X and Y suck, just kill them off already! Let's see Z and A more!" Well, they can't because that's not how the story goes! X and Y are prominent characters integral to the plot. Z and A died early on or didn't even exist in the comic. I'm fine with a certain character who doesn't exist in the comic, because he's turned out to be a pretty good character. But killing off this person and that, and not killing some other character, those deviations are too big! At that point, it ceases to be Walking Dead for me. So shut your stupid faces and stop trying to ruin the story.

Anyways, now that we're on the topic of TV, somehow it seems there's more TV on in the winter season than there was on fall. I mean, look at my viewing schedule:

Sun: Cleveland Show, Once Upon a Time, Family Guy, American Dad, Walking Dead (3 1/2 hours)
Mon: How I Met Your Mother, House, Gossip Girl, Pretty Little Liars, Alcatraz, Hart of Dixie, Being Human, Castle, Hawaii Five-O, Smash, Lost Girl (10 1/2 hours! WTF?!)
Tue: Glee, NCIS, New Girl, Raising Hope, White Collar, Justified (5 hours, 5 1/2 when Cougar Town comes back this Tuesday)
Wed: Modern Family, Happy Endings, Criminal Minds, SVU, Royal Pains (4 hours)
Thu: Vampire Diaries, 30 Rock, Parks and Recreation, The Office, Person of Interest, The Finder, Secret Circle, Archer (6 hours)
Fri: Nikita, Fringe, Supernatural (3 hours)

So, its' list time. I'll break it into two categories, hour long and half/hour long shows. And I'll come up with the top 5 shows I prioritize in both categories. i.e., if I had missed a bunch of TV watching, these are the shows I'm catching up with first.

So, hour long dramas:

1) Glee- I guess I just love musical numbers. Smash is okay, and while I really liked the songs coming up in this week's ep (Blondie's "Call Me" from Katharine Mcphee, while Megan Hilty does Carrie Underwood's "Crazy Dreams"), the show has yet to hit me with something that delivered the emotional punch of "Don't Stop Believin'", "Somebody To Love" (The Queen one, not the Bieber one), "Keep Holding On", or "I Feel Pretty/Unpretty", among others. ( I babble on and on about the show for a more few more paragraphs, so here's a cut for your benefit )

2) Vampire Diaries- its easy to dismiss this as being the same as all that Twilight crap, that is just about a girl mooning over two or more creatures of the night. And while there is an element of that, the show still does the suspense so well. As I've said before, the show has constant twists and turns, and the plot actually moves at a breakneck pace. Way faster than you'd expect from a drama on the CW.

3) Fringe- The best sci-fi show on prime time TV right now, hands down. I have to question the "geek cred" of any sci-fi geeks who don't watch this show.

4) Nikita- Hey, this surprised me just a much that it made it on the list. But honestly, the show has just gotten really good. clevemire quit this show last season because nothing was happening. Which is amusing because right afterward was when things started happening. They've flipped the scripts multiple times already, and there's so many players right now that its chock full of intrigue. Not to mention the cool action.

5) Gossip Girl- Honestly, this show is only on this list because of Dair. The only reason I've been enthused about this show as of late was because they've so strongly hinted they're finally getting together. Of course, if they ever destroy that dynamic, particularly to get Blair back together with Chuck, and even worse, get Dan back together with Serena, I no longer have to watch this show.

FYI, Game of Thrones doesn't start up for almost 2 months, so its not a "Winter Season" show (Heh, which is kinda amusing given the whole "Winter is Coming" thing), otherwise it would easily be number 3 on this list, shifting everything else down.

The half hour sitcoms:

1) Archer- This show is just hilariously awesome. And its got action and obscure references and Judy Greer portraying Carol/Cheryl so hotly.

2) Modern Family- If I could put Community on this list (see below, at the end of this list), this show would be at number 3. But as it is, its the funniest sitcom currently on network TV, after Community.

3) Parks and Recreation- It started off as an Office clone, but eventually found its groove. I've been enjoying this more than the Office lately, probably because it makes a better use of its ensemble, and while I've said its found its own groove, it now reminds me of how the Office was when it was in its prime. The Office now is a little too soap operish, which you'd think would be right up my alley, but I don't think its balanced it out with the comedy. I mean, I'm totally engrossed by the Erin/Andy stuff, and the Val/Darryl stuff, but I haven't laughed like I used to for a while.

4) Happy Endings- Hey, I say this show is hysterical. If HIMYM was the Friends of the oughts, this show is on its way to becoming the Friends for the 20-teens. It does the style of humor New Girl is going for better than New Girl, particularly since it has a much stronger ensemble. I mean, Coach is barely a fleshed out character, and Jess, the main star, is one of the weaker parts of the cast. Let's face it, Elisha Cuthbert is prolly one of the bottom rungs of the Happy Endings cast, and I still find her funnier than Zooey Deschanel on New Girl.

And as I've said above, one of the ways to really make me laugh is make obscure, yet funny and clever references, which this show does well.

5) The Office/How I Met Your Mother- This is a tie, not because I couldn't decide which one I liked better, but which one I disliked more than the other. I voiced my complaints about the Office above in my Parks and Rec entry. As for HIMYM, it has the Barney/Robin stuff still going for it, but that is rightfully not the only thing on the show, because not everyone is into that stuff. So I think they've at least balanced that well. But the humor hasn't been hitting its mark as it has in the past.

Again, given they haven't even said when Community is returning, I couldn't put it on the "Winter Season" list, otherwise it would definitely be on here.

So I've been fully expecting to be disappointed with tonight's episode of Gossip Girl, Dair-wise. Like its gonna be just more teasing that will never amount to anything. Then I saw this this ONTD post, and it makes me think, maybe, just maybe the writers will hook up Dan and Blair. I mean, the pictures are pretty compelling evidence, but I'll believe it when I see it on the show. It could be another dream sequence, who knows!

Anyways, I'm currently at level 30 in SC5. Just 22 levels to go before I unlock every piece of equipment. I think I mentioned it before, but the sucky thing is that a couple of key pieces I need for my created characters are in the batch unlocked at 52.

But yeah, I've been gaining levels by playing through each character in the standard, European and Asian tracks. Just one track is too short to really get a feel for a characters. I've actually only played Mitsurugi, Raphael, Cervantes, Ezio, Lexia, Patroklos, Alpha Patroklos, and Siegfried. I've played a little of Pyrrha, Omega Pyrrha, and Zwei in story mode, but not nearly enough as I have the other characters.

I was thinking I'd prefer Pyrrha since she's closer to original flavor Sophitia, but Patroklos has some pretty neat moves. And unlike his mother, his A+B guard impact, you don't have to get attacked to use it. The critical edge is an interesting addition to the game, unlike the previous game where it was an insta-win, its closer to a super combo from SF. I think they are a little too easy to perform, as its the same input for every character. So basically, by the time you've won 2 rounds and you haven't used too many brave edges, you should have enough meter to perform at least one critical edge. Then that last round, you only have to worry about getting the opponent down to about a 1/4 to an 1/8 health and your win is practically guaranteed.

I've come to realize, "This Means War" is totally my kind of movie. I mean, an action movie with Bane and new Kirk that's also a Reese Witherspoon rom-com? All they need to do is throw in a musical number and it'll be one of the greatest movies evar!

TV commentary:

Gossip Girl- ( spoiler cut )

Alcatraz- Mysterious! ( spoiler cut )

Cool, so the latest iteration of Soul Calibur will have Ezio from Assassin's Creed as a hidden character? (unless the screenshot going around is one really good and elaborate fake) That's awesome. They've had good choices for the guest characters so far- I liked that both Starkiller and Kratos were put in to previous games. I think besides Ezio, the most logical choice of video game character from another game to put in would be Dante and/or Vergil, but they're already in MvC3. Of course, Kratos is also in MK, but I still doubt we'll ever see DMC in SC. Still, its cool that those characters have made it into the fighting game world in one form or another, because it just makes cents!

TV commentary:

Community- This has been making its rounds today, a video showing all 7 of the timelines in Remedial Chaos Theory simultaneously:



Glee- So my sources tell me Sam (you know, I knew his brother was in Hot Chelle Rae, but I did not realize they were the sons of country music's Paul Overstreet. Well, actually its more I didn't know their dad was some big deal in the country music world) is definitely coming back. You know, a few weeks ago, I predicted this was gonna happen. I mean, he still hangs out with the cast, and I was thinking, wouldn't it be an evil genius thing to do by making a big deal at the beginning of the season that he wasn't coming back, and then all of a sudden saying, "No, we were wrong, he will be back!" in the middle of the season to generate new buzz?

I mean, I could see him being incensed over the not being made a regular for this season (even though it sounds like he doesn't really need the work, he could live quite well off his family' residuals), even though he was almost definitely guaranteed a regular spot for the next season. But it seemed like the TPTB would've tried harder to keep him given he was one of the more popular characters.

Gossip Girl- Okay, re-watching Blair reading the book, it does look more obvious that she was touched by her portrayal. It just royally (ha!) effed up her relationship with Prince Louis. I still would've like to see Serena and Chuck weigh in on it. I mean, I guess with Serena she was so self absorbed about how flighty she was in this book, she's glossing over the fact that somehow, she stopped being Dan's muse and it was "Claire" who ended up being Dylan's true desire. And you could say Chuck was too busy realizing how effed up his life is after seeing it on paper, but you'd think he'd have something to say about Dylan and Claire.

But I totally missed how Claire's dialogue pretty much mirrored exactly what Blair said, so maybe there is more there.

Hart of Dixie- I still think Lemon is a huge C-word who I can't really feel sorry for, so she still annoys the hell out of me. And Zoe is still basically Summer Roberts playing at being a doctor.(It would be funny if they end up casting Summer's dad to play Zoe's faux dad. They were both surgeons! And the show is made by a lot of the same people who did the OC) But dang, Rachel Bilson was friggin hot in last night's ep, with the skimpy outfits and bein' all hot and sweaty.

She should just end up with Wade. He started off as a dick, but he seems to be a nice enough guy once she got to know him. I mean, the show seemed to be setting up her and Street, but wow, she needs to stay away from that drama. I mean, he's nice enough, but given what a whack-job Lemon is? I mean, the girl is already friggin nuts over the Mayor thing, and has an insane notion that Zoe is out to ruin things for her. But if Zoe actually did start getting involved with George? Lemon would eat Zoe alive!