Seven Deadly Sins & Virtues

Meme swiped from Z-chan's Ramblings. (WTF is a "meme" anyway???!!)

The Seven Deadly Sins

ANGER

1. Who did you last get angry with? the fucking Food Stamp ppl
2. What is your weapon of choice? a forked tongue
3. Would you hit a member of the opposite sex? frequently- as they do often deserve a good flogging
4. How about of the same sex? oh definitely
5. Who was the last person who got really angry at you? Brian
6. What is your pet peeve? rudeness
7. Do you keep grudges, or can you let them go easily? Usually I can let go easily.. .but then there are those things that just stick in my heart....

SLOTH

1. What is one thing you're supposed to do daily that you have not done in a long time? clean up the kitchen
2. What is the latest you've ever woken up? It was past 2-ish, for sure.
3. Name a person you've been meaning to contact, but haven't? Lloyd
4. What is the last lame excuse you made? "I can just do it tomorrow" is usually effective.
5. Have you ever watched an infomercial all the way through (one of the long ones...)? I'll say I think I fell asleep... it was very late....
6. When was the last time you got a good workout in? months and MONTHS ago...
7. How many times did you hit the snooze button on your alarm clock today? I didn't have to set it today... ^.^

GLUTTONY

1. What is your overpriced yuppie beverage of choice? bottled water
2. Meat eaters: white meat or dark meat? White.
4. Have you ever used a professional diet company? not on purpose
5. Do you have an issue with your weight? There are people who don't? Honestly!?
6. Do you prefer sweets, salty foods, or spicy foods? Sweets.
7. Have you ever looked at a small house pet or child and thought, "LUNCH!"? No, thank god!! (There's always Ramen.)

LUST

1. How many people have you seen naked (not counting movies/family)? at least 12
2. How many people have seen YOU naked (not counting physicians/family)? Probably more than that.
3. Have you ever caught yourself staring at the chest/crotch of a member of your gender of choice during a normal conversation? But I didn't make it obvious.
4. Have you "done it"? Repeatedly.
5. What is your favorite body part on a person of your gender of choice? Hair, ass, arms.
6. Have you ever been propositioned by a prostitute? Negative.
7. Have you ever had to get tested for an STD or pregnancy? Sadly yes.

GREED

1. How many credit cards do you own? You think anyone would gimme a credit card? LOL
2. What's your guilty pleasure store? If they've got anime, Harry Potter, or LOTR boys, I'm the 1st one in the door.
3. If you had $1 million, what would you do with it? Pay off old bills, truck, buy house, save it.
4. Would you rather be rich, or famous? Rich, no contest.
5. Would you accept a boring job if it meant you would make megabucks? Without a 2nd thought.
6. Have you ever stolen anything? Can you say clepto boys & girls?
7. How many MP3s are on your hard drive? got 3217 in the media player, but dunno if they're all MP3s.


PRIDE

1. What one thing have you done that you're most proud of? Muse duty.
2. What one thing have you done that your parents are most proud of? Bought my own truck. Haven't moved back home.. haven't got pregnant.
3. What thing would you like to accomplish in your life? To have my own home & someone to spend my life with.
4. Do you get annoyed by coming in second place? That would be an up-step from where I usually am...
5. Have you ever entered a contest of skill, knowing you were of much higher skill than all the other competitors? I loathe competition.
6. Have you ever cheated on something to get a higher score? There is that chance.
7. What did you do today that you're proud of? Got out of bed & took a shower & started my day when I could have easily not.


ENVY

1. What item (or person) of your friends would you most want to have for your own? My sister has a house... or Frankie & Ani's music collection.
2. Who would you want to go on "Trading Spaces" with? My mom, Dani & Frankie.
3. If you could be anyone else in the world, who would you be? Someone "independently wealthy" with their own house, business...
4. Have you ever been cheated on? Often.
5. Have you ever wished you had a physical feature different from your own? Of course.
6. What inborn trait do you see in others that you wish you had for yourself? Self-confidence, courage.
7. Do you wish you'd come up with this survey? I've made others before.
8. Finally, what is your favorite deadly sin? Lust.

The Seven Heavenly Virtues

FAITH

1. What religion do you follow? Pagan.
2. What religion were you raised as? Christian.
3. Do you believe that forgiveness is a religious property, or a human property? human I guess.
4. Do you believe in magic? In everything, every day.
5. What was the last promise you broke? That I would drive out to see my friends, but then had no gas $$.
6. Have you ever said the words to a prayer and not meant it? I usually bow my head out of respect, but don't recite.
7. Do you believe that anyone could be perfect? No one.

HOPE

1. Did you get everything you wanted over the last holiday season? I never do.
2. Regarding your future, what is the best thing you could hope for? To be able to clear up my old debts & someday have a house.
3. Do you let yourself get your hopes up for something even if you know that there is a large chance of failure? Eternally optimistic about all the wrong things.
5. Have you ever bought a lottery ticket? Once or twice.
6. Do you gamble? No.
7. Have you ever had something called off on account of bad weather, but then gone ahead and done it anyway? no.


CHARITY

1. What causes do you support? Never have the money to really support anything, but I plug worthy causes on my blog or webby.
2. What causes have you given money or time to? Helped build a park in town.
3. Have you ever worked in a soup kitchen or done another kind of outreach for the homeless? No.
4. Would you ever consider joining the Peace Corps, Amnesty International, or another type? Probably not.
5. Do you give money to the homeless on the street? They don't hang around on the street where I live.
6. Have you ever helped out a friend with basic needs, like food and rent? When I could.
7. What's the greatest extent you've gone to help a friend in need? Helped them move miles and miles away... Stayed with them to keep them company.

FORTITUDE

1. What are you most afraid of? Dying alone
2. What did you do today that was really brave? Let Josh bring his gf, a stranger, to my house to stay the nite.
3. Who is your favorite superhero, and why? Teen Titans
4. Would you put your life in danger to rescue someone? If it were someone I love.
5. If you were to face the Wizard, would you want more courage, more brains, or more heart? Courage.
6. Have you ever gotten stage fright? Still do, but not as bad as in high school.
7. Do you consider yourself to be a leader or a follower? I would like to lead, but I tend more to inspire others and then follow them.

JUSTICE

1. Have you ever been summoned for jury duty? No.
2. If they reinstituted the draft (for both genders), would you go, or would find some way out of it? I would hate every minute of it, but dunno how I'd hide.
3. Do you support capital punishment (the death penalty)? Very tricky....
4. Which should be guaranteed legal, prostitution or marijuana? I don't see how it would make much difference.
5. Do you believe that Dubya is rightfully President of the USA? Certainly not.
6. What was your favorite media circus trial? I despise media circus BS.
7. Have you ever written a letter to a politician? Maybe in school....

TEMPERANCE

1. What do you have the hardest time moderating yourself on? Shopping.
2. Do you collect anything? Anime, music, fanart, fanfic, pictures....
3. Are you addicted to anything? Anime, internet, compy, music...
4. Have you ever put anything on layaway or used an installment plan? my car.. maybe a layaway once.
5. What's your preferred method of paying for things? Cash.
6. Tell us one thing you wish you hadn't let yourself do? Make up all the bills I have now.
7. Do you feel that you obsess over things? Everything I can find to obsess about.

PRUDENCE

1. Who is the wisest person you know? Probably me.
2. Have you ever participated in a vigil? No.
3. Do you take advice when it's given? If it makes sense.
4. What area are you wisest in? The lessons life teaches, inspiration, listening to intuition.
5. Do you drive defensively? Motly.
6. Have you ever had unprotected sex outside of marriage? Would you ever? I don't know that I've ever had protected sex to be honest.
7. What did you learn today? To get the directions myself.
8. And of course, what is your favorite heavenly virtue? Hope!

Happy Birthday Peter Jackson!!

Happy 44th birthday to Peter Jackson! Peter Jackson, who was born in Pukerua Bay, New Zealand on October 31, 1961, is 44 years old today. Peter Jackson is the Director of the Lord of the Rings films, and he also wrote the screenplays with Frances Walsh. He's also been in all three movies, he was the guy eating the carrot in Fellowship, a Rohirrim Warrior in the Two Towers, and mercenary on the boat in Return of the King. 

Happy 31st Birthday Joaquin Phoenix!!!

Joaquin in "Walk the Line"
image source: Rotten Tomatoes.com

Viggo Mortensen Birthday Picspam

GQ June 2004 [source: TORN.net]

 

 

GQ (US) - November, 2005

[for all the pretty piccies check GQ]

Orlando Bloom sits chewing banana and peanut butter on toast, having his morning tea on what could be the patio of a modest little house anywhere in the world—watching his coal black mutt ramble around on the grass, chew twigs, and relieve himself. But little things everywhere hint that this is a partly ?ctional realm. Bloom is swathed in one of the long scarves he favors, covered in trinkets, and wearing combat-weight black boots, but because he has become so extraordinarily well-known for playing epic roles, the overall effect is of a man who is not quite modern but in modern dress. And this is no man’s house but a lavish bungalow at the Chateau Marmont in Hollywood. It’s not even one of the A-list bungalows down on the main level, where John Belushi breathed his last. This one is far more grand—seemingly ?oating above the hotel, insulated from the world by heavy gray wooden doors. It even has a private exit so that Bloom can come and go without fear of paparazzi.

The moment he speaks—despite outward appearances—it’s clear that the only thing that isn’t tinged with unreality is Bloom himself, who comes across as impossibly levelheaded. He is ?nishing his ?rst role as a contemporary American man, a character in the ?ctional real world, in Cameron Crowe’s new romantic comedy, Elizabethtown. “Being a Brit, I’ve spent most of my time here either in New York or L.A.,” Bloom says, unselfconsciously smacking peanut butter as he speaks. “But during the Elizabethtown shoot, we were staying in the Brown Hotel, a classic, old-school place in Louisville. Going to Kentucky was a whole different side of America I never knew about. It was America. The hats, the suits—they’re not letting go of their traditions. Which is great. I love traditions. I mean, cultural ones.”

In contrast to his sensible demeanor, Bloom is abnormally good-looking. And it’s often hard to bear in mind how young he is—how much work and fame he has gathered up in a scant four years. He is routinely on all the lists: People’s Most Beautiful, the Internet’s Most Downloaded, you name it. But some fairly grim experience has made him play against type in real life. Laconically staring out over the fronds and high hibiscus of the Chateau and eating unripe blueberries, he doesn’t hint at being aware of his Old Hollywood appeal—and he certainly doesn’t come off as ethereal.

There’s nothing otherworldly about the inside of the house, either. It’s a mess, scattered with health food, research, and mementos, much of which is still in boxes, since Bloom has been living here a month during one of his downtimes with Kate Bosworth. In the bedroom is residue from old work: There’s a DVD about the Crusades, ancient homework for Ridley Scott’s Kingdom of Heaven. Bloom grins and admits that while it’s ideal to read entire books, DVDs have the appeal of being condensed and visual. “Knowledge is power,” he says—“but having too much can actually get in the way. You simply want to know what world you’re in, and immerse yourself.” He’s taken time to hang a Cool Hand Luke poster, since he reveres Paul Newman. The kitchen is an aftermath of some kind of organic-food explosion. Everywhere you turn, there are protein shakes, containers of carrot and mango juice, oranges, tomatoes, and Lord-knows-what made out of tofu.

“I haven’t gone back to being vegetarian,” Bloom says, surveying the chaos. “I’ve gone back to the process of seeing what foods give me energy. When you’re working and you’re required to switch it on, you need to know what fuels you.”
Even Sidi, the wild black dog, has a prized possession or two in the wilderness of boxes and CDs and photos. Cameron Crowe has awarded the pup with a small framed Elizabethtown poster and signed it, “Try to eat smaller portions.”

Walking out the door, one sees the least artful object in the house: a sign, in ?erce block lettering, that reads DO NOT LET THE DOG INSIDE! Sidi is explicitly banished from the house, given his taste for apocalypse. “When I’m not here, he really tears up the place,” Bloom says, as the lone crease in his forehead deepens slightly. “He can be pretty devastating.”

It was the same during the Elizabethtown shoots. Kirsten Dunst marveled at what a tearaway that dog could be, and says Orlando’s trailer had to be “Sidi-proofed.”

“They had to put a sheet of plastic on the ?oor!” she says, laughing. “That dog just doesn’t care. And Orlando’s way of unstressing between takes is to jump around like a 5-year-old or ride on a pint-size scooter, whereas I’m more self-critical. He was always playing with Sidi between takes, and Sidi is still in many ways a street dog.” Then again, in many ways, so is Orlando.

Elizabethtown is vintage Cameron Crowe: dead center in the crosshatch between comedy and drama. It opens with Bloom’s character experiencing a professional failure—more accurately, as his character narrates, a ?asco—of staggering proportions. A shoe he has designed for an Oregon-based company (clearly modeled after Nike) is such a disaster that it’s being recalled, losing the company $972 million, all of it Bloom’s fault. To magnify Bloom’s self-loathing, the head of the company (played to the hilt by Alec Baldwin) leads him on a daunting walk through the corporate complex, explaining the sheer magnitude of this disaster. At one point, the two gaze onto a vast, NASA-scale ecological laboratory; Baldwin’s character pauses and ruefully observes, “We could have saved the planet.” At another point, laughing out his grief, Baldwin remarks that he has read that Bloom’s shoe “may actually cause an entire generation to return to bare feet.”

Bloom’s character responds by creating an elaborate suicide machine and is on the brink of using it when he learns that his father has died: He must travel to Kentucky to retrieve the body. So begins a chain of events that, as is so often untrue in Hollywood movies, is impossible to predict. Crowe doesn’t deal in cinematic formulas. The ?lm is strangely both intimate and sprawling, hitting a lot of giant themes— fathers and sons, life and death, hope and regret—through small, subtle encounters.

It’s striking how easily Bloom ?ts into regular clothing and the twenty-?rst century after having spent most of his career in chain mail, on horseback, or shouting things like “The Ring must be destroyed!” No ?lm actor in memory has been so furiously attached to the epic and fantasy genres as Orlando Bloom. After making his debut as a rent boy in a 1997 ?lm about Oscar Wilde, he spent three years at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama—then, right out of the gate, landed the Legolas role in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Since then, he has rarely been seen without a sword or an arrow in reach: in Ridley Scott’s Kingdom of Heaven; in Wolfgang Petersen’s Troy; in the gritty Australian legend Ned Kelly; and, of course, in the still blossoming Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy. (If he were a few years older, he’d have been in Braveheart. That’s a guarantee.) The only exception was a very small role in Black Hawk Down, in which his character breaks his back—but Bloom was cast partly because in real life he actually has broken his back.
Liam Neeson, who starred as Bloom’s father in the somewhat controversial Kingdom, is well attuned to the notion that an epic quality is not a card that every ?lm actor has in his deck. “Some actors suit period costumes,” Neeson says, “and others don’t. I always think of Errol Flynn. He looked uncomfortable in a suit—but put him in a ridiculous pair of tights, and he looked to the manor born! John Wayne playing Genghis Khan was quite the other thing. Clint Eastwood in a kilt would look ludicrous. I don’t know what it is. Orlando simply looks the part.”

From their experience in Kingdom, Neeson and Bloom know that this particular talent can double as a curse, for Ridley Scott is an especially meticulous director. “Even our underwear was period,” Neeson recalls, laughing. “It was the full bollocks, you know?”

And the epic quality is sufficiently rare that, once you’ve proved yourself in the genre, you are sought out again and again—another impulse well understood (and, for that matter, experienced) by Liam Neeson. “If I were Jack Warner, I’d get a team of writers, get ’em writing period pieces, and sign him,” Neeson says. “Orlando is like a classic ’40s movie star.”

None of this is to say that Neeson con?nes himself to speaking of Bloom’s costumes; he seems a little amazed by how sharply focused the man is, especially for a young actor. “When I was that age—Jesus!—it was the Dark Ages of my emotional growth,” Neeson says. “I knew ****-all about anythin’! Orlando is with it, but not in a hip way. He knows what it takes to make a ?lm, so he treats every department equally: the key grip, the gaffer, everyone. He’s right to. Without them, we’re nothing.”

The fact that Orlando Bloom is unusually grounded for a man of 28, sadly, has a lot to do with the actual ground. His career (and inextricably linked with that, his ability to take the long view) was entirely transformed by a potentially fatal fall he took in 1998. Late one night, messing around, he leapt onto a drainpipe while trying to get onto a roof terrace; the pipe gave way, and Bloom fell three stories, shattering his vertebrae. “Until then, I didn’t have a healthy appreciation for life and death—that we’re not invincible,” he says. “And for four days, I faced the idea of living in a wheelchair for the rest of my life. I went to some dark places in my mind. I realized, I’m either going to walk again or I’m not.
“The doctor said he wasn’t sure how severe the spinal-cord damage was,” he says, as an oddly unattractive look of distaste, even horror, crosses his features. “I remember him telling me that, and staring at the ceiling, thinking, I never stared at ceilings before! And I wonder if I’m going to be looking at ceilings for the rest of my life.

“But there’s something interesting,” he adds very quickly. “I knew I wouldn’t. I knew I wouldn’t, I knew…” He repeats the sentence ?ve times—quick like a stammer, as though he’s still trying to convince himself against hope that this will not be his fate.

The upshot of the accident was nothing short of miraculous. He was in the hospital only a few weeks and walked out on his own power. And the minute he escaped, still constrained by a back brace, he reverted to testing the limits of body and soul. When the time came to remove the titanium pins from his spine, to the doctors’ alarm, they were all fractured. They came out in shards. One of the pins had been driven too deep to remove, by dint of Orlando’s physical overexertion. “I’d been doing stuff right away,” he recalls, shaking his head. “I went straight back into it, man.”

The calming of Orlando Bloom, in the paradoxical underage dotage he now conveys, wasn’t instantaneous. “When I came out of the hospital, I started partying straight away—with the back brace on. It took me a couple of months to realize this was my life, and I didn’t want to mess it up.

“But that accident has informed everything in my life,” he says. “Until you’re close to losing it, you don’t realize. I used to ride motorbikes and drive cars like everything was a racetrack; it was ridiculous. It wasn’t because I thought it was cool; it was just because I loved living on the edge. But I’ve chilled.”

Cameron Crowe, too, sees all of this as key to Bloom’s swift maturation as an actor. “That broken back—that’s his Rosebud,” Crowe says. “It’s the key to him. He’s got pain going on in there. That’s why his silent mode is so interesting. Where other actors feel they have to constantly do something, Orlando doesn’t. Which is great. He’s a real guy with real stuff. Under that puppy-dog energy, there’s darkness.”

Perhaps it was Bloom’s upbringing that made him capable of eventually slowing off of the racetrack. Growing up in Canterbury, and beyond that, the county Kent, exposes you to one of the world’s cradles of sanity—a meadowed realm of constancy—even though some of its denizens look wild when viewed from afar.
“My generation in England was exposed to a huge antidrug campaign,” Bloom recalls. “I was one of the kids in school saying, ‘That ****’s not good.’ I’ve still gotten kicks; don’t get me wrong.”

At this point in the conversation, without a single word of transition, Bloom moves from the romance of drugs to the intoxication of women. “I remember asking my biology teacher, ‘How is HIV and AIDS gonna come to an end?’ ” he says, still popping the sour blueberries. “And the guy said, ‘When people stop having sex.’ I replied, ‘Dude, that’s harsh. That ain’t gonna happen anytime soon.’ I had plenty of vices growing up. But when you’re 21, you wake up and realize that your body is not something you want to **** with.”

To this end, Bloom has even surrendered caffeine—which, for many Englishmen, would be as bitter a defeat as Gallipoli or Yorktown. “I was doing night shoots for Elizabethtown,” he says, “and drinking green tea, which has caffeine. Not an awful lot. Just enough to get me through the shoot. By the end of the night, my back was killing me. It dehydrates your spine. And my back—that’s still my alarm. That’s my canary in the mine shaft.”

Bloom talks endlessly about how lucky he is; after seven years, the worst of his many reckless accidents hasn’t faded from memory. “When you experience the sort of physical pain I went through, you realize you’re not a god,” he says—“that there are limits to what you can do. It keeps you real. I mean, I can walk. I can enjoy a swim in the ocean and a beautiful day. And I was very close to not having that.

“I’m trying now to maintain a sense of balance. I was very extreme in my youth—everything in extremes, man! I’m at a very interesting time right now: a lot of change, growth…a lot of pennies dropping. I’ve a lot to be grateful for.”

This is all odd talk from an actor who, since that accident and many others, has buckled so much swash in the movies. (To say nothing of the fact that, for The Lord of the Rings, he spent vast amounts of time in New Zealand, the adrenaline-sport capital of the world, resisting most of those temptations.) Yet when it comes to doing stunts, he doesn’t hesitate. “I have one of those doctors who tell me, ‘Go for it, man!’ ” he says. “Does he encourage me? No. But I’ve tried to put myself in a physical condition where I’m able to do that stuff.”

“And, of course, for sex,” I toss out, just to lighten things up.
“Yeah, all those mercy lays I got,” he says, mock-wistfully. “Because I was the kid with the broken back!”

“Oh—you need mercy ****s,” I repeat, nearly spitting up my tea. “That’s the funniest thing I’ve heard in my life. You probably had to beg for it.”

Bloom won’t let go of the joke: “I was the kid with the broken back!”

By all evidence, Orlando Bloom has chilled. But the adrenaline chip in his brain is still switched on. He seems to have transferred its capacity from bone-breaking feats to potentially soul-crushing risks on a more emotional plane. “I like to feel alive, man,” he says. “Part of it is danger, part of it is love. Although I’m trying not to have those two realms cross too much. I’ve had a few dangerous women. My cousin once told me, ‘You’re tall, you’re handsome—and you’re gonna have to apologize for it the rest of your life.’ He imparted that information to me.”

“So…you’re still looking for mercy ****s.”

“That’s right!” he says, clinging to modesty with both hands. “I still am. Exactly!”

If, as he claims, Bloom is a bit accident-prone, he is among the most graceful clods ever born. He moves slowly but always seems to be out ahead of you; he gestures rarely, but when he does, every joint of every ?nger seems to be underscoring a different, subtle part of his idea.

Despite all the old injuries (broken bones all over his body—here from a motorbike spill, there from something strange that happened with a rope), his athletic prowess is not lost on those with whom he’s worked. Liam Neeson marveled at Bloom’s ?ght scenes in Kingdom of Heaven. “Some actors are utterly lost if you put a sword in their hands,” he says. “Orlando is all physical grace—and there’s Errol Flynn again!”

Cameron Crowe, for his part, actually directed Bloom in the only television ad Crowe has ever shot, a quasi parody of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, shot in black and white, for Gap clothing. All we saw was Orlando Bloom and Kate Beckinsale running through shadowy streets. “He has this Hard Day’s Night physicality,” Crowe says. “Watching what we’d shot in the Gap commercial, there was Kate Beckinsale—who’s hot!—and we couldn’t stop looking at him. He’s exploding with life.”

The whole blend of modesty and the movie-star looks can only have contributed to Orlando Bloom’s celebrity. In an average week, even with no ?lm release in sight, he’s in a hundred articles worldwide—the more so when anything kindles (or is stanched) with the dazzling Kate Bosworth.

That said, he’s not entirely allergic to Hollywood tricks. For instance, when celebrities stay at hotels, as most people know, they check in under false names, like Fred Flintstone or Jay Gatsby. Billy Bob Thornton, for instance, sometimes uses the name of a certain writer. For her part, Kirsten Dunst uses a musical reference.
“I’m not exactly sure what name Orlando goes by,” Dunst says, “but I bet it’s something sexual. He’s very ?irty. And that’s easy to understand. You should have seen them in Kentucky: Girls lined up holding signs with his name on them. He was very gracious.”

Typically, Bloom regards most attention as a ?eeting thing. And he’s not interested in spending precious time on ?eeting things. Especially tabloid attention.

“That stuff is not a part of my daily life,” he says. “Most of it is bullshit. It even becomes hard to have a casual friendship, because suddenly you’re ‘linked to’ that person.… I guess there’s got to be a cost. You can’t live the spoils without having the ?ip side of that coin. So you learn to live with it.”

Curiously, Bloom is so famous in costume that until recently he was able to blend in when he moved around in public. Cameron Crowe recalls that when the cast of Elizabethtown was shooting and living in Kentucky, girls were lining the streets just to catch a glimpse of Orly Bloom. (Though no one except the tabloids actually calls him Orly.)

“He was incredibly famous, but no one really knew what he looked like,” Crowe says, still amazed. “In Lexington, there was a girls’ national soccer championship team in the hotel. These girls were actually walking the halls—they were roaming in packs—looking for him. I heard them saying things like, ‘He’s on the seventh ?oor!’ And he was standing right there. Right there. He just disappeared into the culture.”

That air of mystery is attractive to ?lm directors. Crowe recalls reading something Warren Beatty once said—that 75 percent of what people bring to a movie is their perception of the actor. “In that sense, it’s great to have a fresh guy to put in the center of a movie,” Crowe says. “We don’t really know who he is. Orlando is a clean slate. Since Tom Cruise in Risky Business, very few guys that age have been able to do a comedy or drama and be that interesting to look at—and to really hold the center of a movie.”

These days, Bloom’s mother more than compensates for his aversion to his tabloid press. (And of course, when it comes to propriety and accuracy, British tabloids make their American cousins look like Huxley’s Illustrated History of Gardening.) She clips it all, keeps track of his status as “the most downloaded human on earth,” and shuffles through the bags of fan letters he receives. Bloom recoils. “I keep saying, ‘Mom, I don’t want to know,’ ” he says. “I don’t want to see whether I’m on some chart. There will be a time when I won’t be. That doesn’t mean I’m not grateful. But I keep telling her, ‘They keep building me up, so they’re going to tear me down!’

“I keep getting asked what it’s like to be a heartthrob,” he adds, much amused by the unspoken joke: Tempus fugit. “There’s that next kid, believe me, who’s right there on my tail—and if he’s not right now, he’s gonna be!”
Bloom is convincing when he says things like this: offhand remarks a modest person would say so as not to seem like a preening, self-absorbed *** in a magazine article. And when he says he has too much self-doubt to believe the hype, there’s not a trace of posturing. A casting agent once told him that a little self-doubt will get you a long way: It makes you work harder, keeps you sharp. “If you think you can do it all,” Bloom says, suddenly showing some heat, “you’re just gonna sit back. Whereas I’m constantly working at it: doing more sword training for Pirates, getting coached on dialect to make sure it’s as good as it can be for Elizabethtown. I’m always working, because the one time I don’t, I guarantee, is when I’ll end up saying ‘D’oh!’ ”

He looks at his enormous wristwatch somewhat worriedly, for he actually has a dialect session in an hour or so, and more than once he has registered that it’s a real concern for him. (It was also the sole doubt Cameron Crowe had in casting him, though that one doubt was quickly put to rest, Crowe says.)

“Look, I just want to stay normal,” Bloom says, very normally. “That’s the biggest challenge: being able to sit in a café and watch the world go by.”

Granted, wide is the road to temptation and—at least until that next kid catches Orlando J. B. C. Bloom—his world is a sea of temptations. But he prides himself on learning lessons, even other people’s life lessons. “My dad once told me that one of his dreams was coming to Los Angeles, getting a Mustang, and driving it down Sunset Boulevard,” he says, beaming at the memory. “One day, it came true. And he got pulled over by the police. Know why they stopped him? Know why? He was driving too slowly! That’s a great story for me. He was soaking up the environment and he got done! ‘Sir, you got done!’ ”

In more than one sense, Bloom isn’t ?nished. Even at the outset of his career, he’s ever ?ickering with a Buddhist tendency here or there. He chokes at the fact that he’s in an industry where it’s a virtue to label its products (including actors). Yet he has no idea what his label should read. “I’m still trying to formulate the idea of who I am—and part of the problem of having these ideas and images projected on you is that it’s hard enough really ?guring that **** out!”

Even in the Shangri-la con?nes of Bloom’s temporary home, time does not stop, and the hour is running late. At a dialogue coach’s office across town, there’s a new identity to burnish: some “R” sounds to harden, a few “A” sounds to ?atten out. Orlando Bloom shakes his head and eats one last bad blueberry. “There’s only a story in success so far,” he says, refusing to descend from the philosophical level before he ?ees the hotel out his private exit. “That’s why Cameron made a movie about failure—about ?asco. Because we all meet in the dirt. That’s where we meet.”
Marshall Sella wrote last month about Cameron Diaz.

The death of a blog

I dunno how many of the readers here frequent my Obsessions blog, but I thought I would let everyone know that I am killing that particular blog. See, the purpose for it was for info on my obsessions, stars, TV shows, anime, etc., but at this point I don't see a reason for having a separate blog for these things & am simply combining the two blogs into this one... No biggie....

So if there's anything there you wanted, best to get it. I will eventually get round to deleting the account....

Wizard News: Harry Potter gets ready to cast a spell on doll collectors

Hurley, NY (PRWEB) October 17, 2005 -- Just in time for the launch of Warner Bros. Pictures' upcoming feature film Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, due in U.S. theaters November 18, 2005, the Tonner Doll Company, Inc., internationally-recognized for its life-like and truly authentic, high-end collector dolls, is primed to cast its own spell on collectors worldwide with the release of its Harry Potter Collector Dolls, featuring the much-loved characters of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

"I wanted to bring something magical and a little mysterious to these dolls," notes Robert Tonner, CEO and head designer of the award-winning Tonner Doll Company. "Knowing the joy these characters have brought to so many all over the world was an inspiration. By creating the dolls in limited editions, fans will know they’ve acquired something truly unique and special."

The Harry Potter doll, the first in the series, is truly amazing. Each and every nuance and detail is captured, right down to Harry Potter's infamous lightning-shaped scar, inflicted by Lord Voldemort.

"I felt that fans would want Harry Potter to look as true to the character in the movie as possible," said Tonner. "The prototype took months to perfect - it was definitely a labor of love. I couldn’t be happier with how it turned out, and I think true Harry Potter fans will share my excitement."

At 17" tall, the doll features remarkably engineered jointing with 14 points of articulation, offering the collector unlimited posing and play possibilities. Crafted of hard plastic and high-quality vinyl, with hand-painted face detail, this is a doll to be played with and enjoyed. The costuming, taken directly from movie reference, reflects Tonner’s attention to detail and use of high-quality fabrics. From the sweater Harry Potter wears at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, to his flowing school robe, the authenticity is near perfect and makes this a true collector doll in every sense of the word.


The full article and a photo of the Harry At the Yule Ball doll can be found here.

I didn't know bananas had issues too.....

BANANAcrazy. Enough said.


Fucked up, any?
brought to you by Quizilla

Rant! Whine! Squee!

WTF were they thinking!??!??!?! How the hell did they vote off Constantine when Carrie the Karoake Barbie is still there (as well as Scott aka the Turd that just won't flush) >_<. Ok, so his Nickelback wasn't that great, but that had to be the only bad performance he's ever done. He's Constantine!!! He's super-sexy-hottie-Greek-rocker-sex-on-a-stik guy.... He does things that make you fantasize about being a microphone!!!!!

ANYWAY

Watched AI tonite (coz you fuckers got me addicted to it now- and you know who you are!) and they were just super-fab... Now, Anthony's 1st song didn't do much for me, but the Backstreet Boys woulda shit themselves to hear how much better his version of "Incomplete" was... They're probably crying somewhere bcoz you know at least the gay one was watching. Vonzel was great! Man that girl blew me away... I may not throw things at the TV if at least Vonz could win... Bo was just..... guh.... *THUD*

And then there was Carrie.. now, I almost didn't completely hate her 1st song... but who told that useless twit she could sing "Bless the Broken Road"?!?!??!??!! I changed the channel bcoz the mute button was arguing... Wretched. Horrendous. Rascal Flatts should sue her sorry ass for slander!

Then there was House. (Yes I watched it damn you! Just shut up.) I still hate the bitchy boss in her behold-my-cleavage shirts ("fun bags" I think House called them- LMAO)... Sorry to see they're really working this Cameron loves House thing... but whatever... It was a good show & House is great... especially watching him outsmart & outthink Cutty...

Screen God

My friends have expressed concern that Kingdom of Heaven (which I'm hoping to watch just for Orlando Bloom's hotness ^_^) will be a booster flick for the Christian faith vs. the Muslims & portray the destruction of the Muslim faith as right... This concern comes from the trailers we've seen thus far for the movie. If this article is a good review of the movie, it may be worth seeing for more than the eye candy.

Ridley Scott's dazzling epic of the Crusades has attracted flak from historians and Islamic scholars, but will its combination of spiritual devotion and gore draw audiences into the fold?

Peter Stanford
Sunday April 24, 2005
The Observer

Religion and mainstream cinema tend not to mix, unless it's one debunking the other. And that's usually one-way traffic - Life of Brian, Dogma, The Pope Must Die, Amen. But then two things happened to change the relationship.

First, 9/11 focused attention as never before on the hostility between some parts of Islam and the West. Religion overnight became a matter not for a dwindling bunch of sad souls who needed to get out more, but a terrifying force reshaping our planet.

Then Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ broke box office records around the globe, despite being cold-shouldered as an uneconomic vanity project by the Hollywood studios on the grounds of its heavy Catholic content. They had assumed religion only sold if you were laughing at it and were proved spectacularly wrong.

Both events form the backdrop to Ridley Scott's controversial release, Kingdom of Heaven. The £75 million epic from Oscar-nominated Scott takes as its subject the Crusades, the 200-year collision between Europe and the East, Christianity and Islam, over the fate of the Holy Land.

Set in 1185, it follows Balian (Orlando Bloom looking at his most Christ-like), a blacksmith in rural France, who is claimed as his illegitimate son by a Crusader knight, Godfrey of Ibelin (Liam Neeson) and taken to Jerusalem. Balian has lost his faith after the suicide of his wife, but slowly regains it at the court of saintly Baldwin IV (Edward Norton), the King of Jerusalem, who practises and preaches tolerance between Christians and Muslims. However, zealots on both sides destroy Baldwin's 'kingdom of heaven' and when his power-hungry son-in-law Guy de Lusignan (Marton Csokas) succeeds him, the scene is set for a confrontation with the Saracen General Saladin (Ghassan Massound) which leads to Balian's heroic leadership of the siege of Jerusalem.

Kingdom of Heaven is, however, no run-of-the-mill variation on the popular theme of the historical thriller - all battle scenes, manly knees and banquets. Instead, Scott has directed a complex modern morality play, its dialogue dominated by high-minded talk of God, redemption, sin and punishment.

In a post-9/11 world, with British and American troops still in Iraq, the subject matter is inevitably sensitive. The film has already generated headlines. In the New York Times last autumn a series of Islamic scholars lined up to denounce Kingdom of Heaven as 'anti-Islamic', pandering to stereotypes and likely to offend Muslims.

Meanwhile, Professor Jonathan Riley-Smith, a Cambridge academic and expert on the Crusades, has labelled it 'Osama bin Laden's version of history'. He questioned its historical accuracy, saying its basis lies in the romantic thrillers of Walter Scott, though screenwriter William Monahan has the support of academic experts in pointing to real-life figures and events as the basis for the major characters and events in the film.

What is true, however, is that the film gives religion - both Christian and Muslim, in their purest, most tolerant forms - the best and most respectful press it has got since The Song of Bernadette. And it manages, moreover, to tell its story without the usually de rigueur dollop of on-screen eroticism. The most you glimpse is the delicate shoulder of Baldwin's sister, Princess Sibylla (Eva Green) as she falls for Balian.

Such restraint is no accident. Scott is attempting to lure back to the big screen the hitherto non-cinema-going audiences from God-fearing middle America who turned out in such impressive numbers to watch Gibson's chaste epic. They need have no fears of being corrupted by sexual depravity in Kingdom of Heaven and may feel uplifted by the depth of its search for the hand of God at work. An essential part of the Gibson package was its gore with every physical indignity Jesus suffered on his Via Crucis recreated in extraordinary and lingering detail. Christian audiences, the zealous Australian actor-cum-director had realised, have no problem with blood and guts - it's just sex they're saving till they're married. Kingdom of Heaven is also not for the squeamish as heads are chopped off, guts torn out and the severed head of arch-Crusader, Reynald de Chatillon (Brendan Gleeson) displayed on a pole - a historical inaccuracy, according to one expert.

Yet it is less Kingdom of Heaven's very specific sexual restraint than its occasionally laboured parallels between the 1180s and the post-9/11 world that will probably be most debated by audiences. Five years ago there would have been no question that the Saracens should be portrayed as baddies, all treachery and turbans. Yet Saladin is shown as dedicated to peace and understanding between the great religious faiths as Bloom's Balian and his protector and patron, Baldwin. Saladin is even gracious in his final victory and pauses to right a fallen crucifix as he enters Jerusalem. Dramatic licence, arguably, but it has led to accusations that Scott is too indulgent of the Muslim side. He may just, of course, have felt the need to redress the balance after centuries of remorseless anti-Saracen bias in most Western accounts.

The film chooses unambiguously to place the blame for the Crusader-Saracen conflict, which causes the eventual downfall of Baldwin's kingdom, squarely at the door of fundamentalists in both camps, but overall it is the Christian fundamentalists who come off worst of all. At a time when the Catholic church has just elected as its leader a cardinal who has previously described other faiths as 'gravely deficient', Kingdom of Heaven presents a deeply unappealing picture of all those who feel their religious belief is superior to any other. Lusignan, the new king of Jerusalem, is egged on to battle by the Knights Templar, brandishing their crosses and talking of 'killing a Muslim to get to heaven'.

Balian hammers home the point about the supremacy of religious tolerance when he hands over the Holy City to Saladin. God, he tells his followers, is in your head and your heart, not in any particular place.

It is in its loud and repeated plea for religious tolerance and understanding rather than its precise historical accuracy that Kingdom of Heaven risks most. Evangelical Christians went to see The Passion of the Christ because it buttressed their own faith position. They may not welcome being told that Jesus, Mohammed and Jehovah are all much of a muchness.

And, in a broader political context, the careful, even-handed, pacific approach of Baldwin and Balian to reconciling East and West stands in stark, and no doubt intentional, counterpoint to the efforts of George W. Bush on his own self-avowed 'crusade' in today's Middle East.

But Scott's central theme is one of faith lost and reborn in Balian. Though it is not a new one for him - Maximus in Gladiator went through the same process - in Kingdom of Heaven he invokes religion more pointedly. Even though he does so with great respect for the principle, if not the institutions, that may not be enough to save him from criticism, as other directors such as Pasolini (The Gospel According to St Matthew), Godard (Hail Mary) and Scorsese (The Last Temptation of Christ) can readily testify. For if cinema traditionally looks on religion as a suitable target, then many believers have come, despite Gibson's efforts, to regard film as a secular, godless medium that is not for them.

Wizard News: Update: New Pope on record as critical of Harry Potter

Wizard News: Update: New Pope on record as critical of Harry Potter: "Update: New Pope on record as critical of Harry Potter

by David Haber, Wizard News Editor

According to the Contact Music web site, new Pope Benedict XVI has criticized J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter books for 'undermining the soul of Christianity'.

This claim apparently stems from a statement the Pope made more than two years ago when he was still Cardinal Ratzinger. He was praising Gabriele Kuby, author of the book 'Harry Potter - Good Or Bad', for revealing the hidden agendas behind the world's most popular children's books.

The then Cardinal Ratzinger is quoted as having said, 'It is good that you explain the facts of Harry Potter, because this is a subtle seduction, which has deeply unnoticed and direct effects in undermining the soul of Christianity before it can really grow properly.'

"

OMG!! *SQUEE* Finally got to watch the American Idol performances & not just the results show for once! *thud* How amazing was Constantine?!?!? Sex on a stik!! Anwar was great doing "September", but that performance leaves no doubt this boy is soo way gay! He was fab, tho, just like a one-man party all over the stage- love it! God, Anthony... could that song have BEEN more perfect for him.. and just watching him shake his li'l booty all over the stage... *dies* FOR THE LOVE OF GODDDD!! BO! OMG! "Vehicle" has never been so sexy... *passes out thinking about AI boys* Really, everybody was great.. except maybe Carrie. What look was she going for exactly?!!?! That hair was so 80s... poor Oklahoma girl, it's not her fauly.. I don't imagine they get alotta 70s dance exposure in OK..  

More Anwar!! Yummy!! 

Birthday Spam!!

Posted birthday spams for Sean Bean & Watari (from Yami no Matsuei) on Obsessions! I love my Picasa & my Hello!!

*SQUASH*

It figures. I finally get up the courage to make the biggest move of my life (even if for most people it's not that far) and it falls out from under me. They just got Mike's taxes figured up & it turns out he owes over $300... plus like 300 from last year that they may start garnishing his wages for... I don't understand everything perfectly, but I get the general idea. All their spare money is gonna go to paying his fucking debt to the IRS off & there's no chance of moving in any time soon.. Plus, apparently, they couldn't find any decent houses for us to all rent anyway that weren't in the ghetto. Fuck it. WHy did I think anything would work for me?!?!? Not like anything ever does... Fine. I'll start trying to save my & Brian's $$$ & we'll find some place here in town to move, then I'll find another job before I go postal at Fountainview & start picking off CNAs with the laundry cart.

Brian's napping right now. I just got the e from Dani trying to explain all of this.... I really don't wanna tell him. He was really looking forward to getting out of here, out of LP.. we both were... And he was so excited about living by Larry... Dammit. There goes my day.

The Beast

You scored as The Beast. Your alter ego is The Beast! But that is only a name... you are kind hearted and sweet, people just misunderstand you. The Beast 88% Peter Pan 88% Goofy 75% Cruella De Ville 75% Ariel 75% Sleeping Beauty 75% Donald Duck 69% Cinderella 50% Snow White 44% Pinocchio 38% Which Disney Character is your Alter Ego? created with QuizFarm.com

Jeff Foxworthy's Take On Indiana

If you consider it a sport to gather your food by drilling through 18 inches of ice and sitting there all day hoping that the food will swim by, you might live in Indiana.

If you're proud that your region makes the national news 96 nights each year because it's the coldest spot in the nation, you might live in Indiana.

If your local Dairy Queen is closed from November through March, you might live in Indiana.

If you instinctively walk like a penguin for five months out of the year, you might live in Indiana.

If someone in a store offers you assistance, and they don't work there, you might live in Indiana.

If your dad's suntan stops at a line curving around the middle of his forehead, you might live in Indiana.

If you have worn shorts and a parka at the same time, you might live in Indiana.

If your town has an equal number of bars and churches, you might live in Indiana.

If you have had a lengthy telephone conversation with someone who dialed a wrong number, you might live in Indiana.

YOU KNOW YOU ARE A TRUE INDIANA RESIDENT WHEN:
1. "Vacation" means going east or west on I-74 (or I-70) for the weekend.

2. You measure distance in hours.

3. You know several people who have hit a deer more than once. (Or a deer hit them)

4. You often switch from "heat" to "A/C" in the same day and back again.

5. You can drive 65 mph through 2 feet of snow during a raging blizzard, without flinching.

6. You see people wearing camouflage at social events- including weddings.

7. You install security lights on your house and garage and then leave both of them unlocked.

8. You carry jumper cables in your car and your girlfriend knows how to use them.

9. You design your kid's Halloween costume to fit over a snowsuit.

10. Driving is better in the winter because the potholes are filled with snow.

11. You know all 4 seasons: almost winter, winter, still winter and road construction.

12. Your idea of creative landscaping is a statue of a deer next to your blue spruce.

13. You were unaware that there is a legal drinking age.

14. Down South to you means Kentucky.

15. A brat is something you eat.

16. Your neighbor throws a party to celebrate his new pole shed.

17. You go out to a tail gate party every Friday.

18. Your 4th of July picnic was moved indoors due to frost.

19. You have more miles on your snow blower than your car.

20. You find 0 degrees "a little chilly."

21. You actually understand these jokes, and you forward them to all your Indiana friends.

I am a new soul...

You Are a Newborn Soul

You are tolerant, accepting, and willing to give anyone a chance. On the flip side, you're easy to read and easily influenced by others. You have a fresh perspective on life, and you can be very creative. Noconformist and nontraditional, you've never met anyone who's like you. Inventive and artistic, you like to be a trendsetter. You have an upbeat spirit and you like almost everything. You make friends easily and often have long standing friendships. Implusive and trusting, you fall in love a little too easily. Souls you are most compatible with: Bright Star Soul and Dreaming Soul

What Kind of Soul Are You?

I got the rest... but I'm not sure about the "tough" part...

TABITHA
T	is for	Tough
A	is for	Articulate
B	is for	Brilliant
I	is for	Innocent
T	is for	Thoughtful
H	is for	Honest
A	is for	Amorous

What Does Your Name Mean?

Type A Personality

You Have A Type A- Personality

A- You are one of the most balanced people around Motivated and focused, you are good at getting what you want You rule at success, but success doesn't rule you. When it's playtime, you really know how to kick back Whether it's hanging out with friends or doing something you love! You live life to the fullest - encorporating the best of both worlds

Do You Have a Type A Personality?

splodges

So one of the girls on my Postcard Fairies has this cute little blog called splodges where she puts up her sketches, paintings, poetry & thus.. It's spiff.

Major life-changing decisions...

This is my scared face =_=

I've made a very significant decision today, and I'm hoping it's the right one.. for me.. and Brian. My two (and only remaining) friends have been talking at me for years now to move to Mishawaka where they live &, specifically, trying to get me to move in with them. Well, they brought it up today at just the right moment.. and I agreed. We talked excitedly and made plans for what kinda house & all the things we can do... then they hadda go back home & they dropped me off at my mother's. No, of course I didn't tell her my plans.. are you mental ?!?!? O_o She'd have kittens! See, all afternoon now I've been stressing (had an awful night at "family night" anyhow, but that's norm anymore) about the decision... Was I right? Should I have thought about it? Will our houses really work well together in one house? Why am I stressing?!?!??!

See, we've all co-habitated twice before at an apt. I used to have.. and both times it ended badly. But we were all also very dif't people at the time & I had a bf at the time who wasn't who I thought he was & didn't really get along with them... but Brian's here now & he likes them & they adore him so everything should be ok, right....? Plus, our friendships with each other are much closer than I think they were back then... But I'm still stressing out *wigs & runs around flailing arms wildly* I'm not positive what I'm afraid of... well, that's kind of a lie.. I'm kind of afraid of one person or another insisting on control of things.. things going badly.. horrible ruination of friendships for all of eternity... but really there's no reason to fear all that stuff... *believes she is being very Tohru-esque just now*

So, I guess I just need some manner of confirmation.. on this issue... some assurance that everything will turn out ok in the end.. all live happily ever after, etc.. What I can't get is why was I so sure this afternoon and now I'm worrying my fluffy li'l damn head off....

M0m's having a "psychic party" on Friday at her house.. maybe I'll scrape the $30 up & see if this lady has any advice.. maybe I'll just stop fucking worrying over what seemed like a great idea earlier.. I've always been a very spontaneous and instinctual person.. but lately I'm out-thinking and over-thinking and over-disecting everything.... This is part of where the suggestion came from. I've been very un-happy with myself lately - usually I'm a very happy, optimistic, upbeat person and recently I've become this irritated, pessimistic, sarcastic creature I don't really recognise & can't stand. And Yuki & Kyou thought it might really help me, and my chibi, if we moved away to a fresh atmosphere and me a new and better (happier) job. It just all sounded so simple & such the perfect solution this afternoon... happy little "nakama" commune artist home family fantastic thingy & it will be wonderfull... so why am I suddenly freakin' out?

That's right.. because I'm Tohru. I think I'll go make rice balls.

Slaving away at "The Embracing"

... which would be the name of the novel I'm writing, for those who dunno. I've started this book at least three other times & everytime I had a great start then it went dead. When I started it this last time again (thanks to encouragement from Tal x Thorn *bows*) I started into a new part of it & realised it was the same story I'd been writing before.. the other 2 I'd begun with got stuck because they were different parts of the same story *DOH!* So, I've been working it at a couple weeks now & have ripped the pages out & started from another direction at least 4 times ;_; but I think I've got the right starting point now.. unfortunately I'm stuck at this one spot & I've been here for a few days now... it's making me nuts..... ack!!

Bad, Bad blogger....

Methinks my bloggy is publishing me for being neglectful.. It's been ever-so-long since I posted anything, but it's nothing personal... I haven't been doing much of anything... I haven't worked on anything, I've taken hiatus from webmistressing, I hate everyone on my messenger, I want to set fire to all my art projects.. I have no inspiration. My body & mind are filled with illness. I am un-well.

On top of my already marvelous mood (*ack*) I found out yesterday, as soon as I got to work, that Amber is dead. Amber who was the other night girl (not really a girl, one supposes.. she was 51.. I had no idea she was that old!). Sherri got worried when she never showed up for work on Thursday night, which is much un-like Amber. So she went to her apt. but no answer. She got a hold of Peggy (friend & co-worker who also lives near Amber). Peggy called Maintenance men who went into the apt. & when Sherri tried to get hold of things again, she found out the ambulance & police were there. Couple detectives came by work later to tell Sherri & Joe (prick boss) that Amber had died. She's been dead since Monday night.. and nobody noticed. Nobody had wondered where she was.. No one had come to see her... What a sad little life...... and her "family" isn't even giving her a decent memorial. Just a simple graveside service (translation- they don't care & don't think anyone else does either enough to bother having a memorial). Fuckers.

I loathe.

Saiyuki Psychoanalysis by WildeLamassu
Username
Is a cigar just a cigar?
Tell me about your mother.
Your Id	Lirin
Your Ego	Gojyo's One-Night Stand
Your Superego	Kougaiji
Your Oral Fixation	Yaone
Your Talking Cure	Hakuryuu
Your Dream Symbol (Snake)	Kanzeon
Your Psychiatrist	Gyuumaou
Number of Sessions	58
You Now Owe	$850,784
Quiz created with MemeGen!

Is the week over yet?! T_T

We got yet another boss at work... this one is Joe... yes, we already had one Joe, but this one isn't nearly as uptight.... He's kind of a cross between Shane & Justin, which isn't so much a good thing... Now, I was getting along with this Joe fairly well.. I was even half-suspecting he was flirting with me... then he heard me talking to Chris about my interviewing for the Activities Assistant job - which would be nice b/c it's still at the same facility, more hours, full time with benefits & all at $8/hour... so, Joe hears me mentioning this to Chris & he starts acting ????s & the last couple days he's just been a little prick, making me wanna stick a fork between his eyes.... >_<

And we got these new chemicals at work.. they feed directly into the water system for the washing machines.... the stuff is made of oxygen... but the smell it gives off... it doesn't really smell bad, but the scent is so strong I had a headache all day long at work today.. and I can hardly stand to sort the barrels coz the whole room smells so strong... and the clothes coming outta the washers just choke me... my throat is still killing me & I got off work at 3:30 this afternoon....

I need to go to bed & maybe it'll be better tomorrow... wait, I work with Anna this weekend. O.o Nevermind, then... no hope of it getting any better.......

Not in Our Name

"No election, whether fair or fraudulent, can legitimize criminal wars on foreign countries,

torture, the wholesale violation of human rights, and the end of science and reason."



Over the next week, the Not In Our Name statement will carry out an audacious project to puncture

the whole shameful celebration of war, greed, and intolerance that will surround the second

inauguration of the Bush regime.



Our aim is to publish across the nation a NEW statement of conscience (text below), signed by this

nation's recognized voices of conscience. Bush does not speak for us. He does not represent us. He

does not act in our name. And the whole world needs to hear that.



We want this statement to ring throughout all forms of media, and reach every part of the country.

In this country, free speech is very expensive. But think what a difference it will make if tens

of thousands of us contribute, and a few who are able contribute tens of thousands.



We have but four days left to raise the necessary funds. If you would like to see this statement

in the New York Times, the Washington Post, USA Today, San Francisco Chronicle and many others

large and small, then you need to go to Not In Our Name statement web site at www.nion.us, sign this

statement, and make your on-line contribution.



Together we can make this happen!



* * *



Not In Our Name



George W. Bush is about to be inaugurated for a second term as President of the United States. Let

it not be said that the people in the United States silently acquiesced in the face of this

shameful coronation of war, greed, and intolerance. He does not speak for us. He does not represent us.

He does not act in our name.



No election, whether fair or fraudulent, can legitimize criminal wars on foreign countries,

torture, the wholesale violation of human rights, and the end of science and reason.



In our name, the Bush government claims to justify the invasion and occupation of Iraq on baldly

false pretenses, raining down unspeakable destruction, horror, misery and death to as many as

100,000 people. It destroys entire cities in the name of so-called democratic elections, while

intimidating and disenfranchising tens of thousands of African-American voters at home. It holds an entire

nation hostage, forcing on its people torture, hunger, and unimaginable privation and humiliation.



In our name, it holds in contempt both international law and world opinion. It has carried out

torture and detentions without trial all over the world and proposes new assaults on our rights of

privacy, speech and assembly. It has already stripped the rights of Arabs, Muslims and South Asians

in the US, denying them legal counsel, holding them without cause, stigmatizing, and deporting

tens of thousands.



Could we have imagined a few years ago that core principles such as the separation of church and

state, due process, presumption of innocence, freedom of speech, and habeas corpus would be

discarded so easily? But under this government anyone can be declared an "enemy combatant" by

Presidential decree with no meaningful redress or independent review, by a President whose rationale for

concentrating power in the executive branch is "trust me." Its choice for Attorney General is the

legal architect of torture from Guantanamo to Afghanistan to Abu Ghraib.



As terrifying "trial balloons" are floated about invasions of Syria, or Iran, or North Korea,

about leaving the United Nations, about new "lifetime detention" policies, there is no telling what

further crimes this government will commit in our name against nations or individuals deemed to

stand in the way of its goal of unquestioned world supremacy.



The Bush government seeks to impose a narrow, intolerant, and political form of Christian

Fundamentalism as government policy. We must face the fact that this extremist movement is no longer on

the margins of society. It aims to strip women of their reproductive rights, to drive gay people

from public life back into the closet. It seeks to drive a wedge between spiritual experience and

scientific truth, smugly denying thousands of years of human scientific achievement.



We believe all people must be free to find meaning and sustenance in whatever form of religious or

spiritual belief they choose. But we will not surrender our right to think to extremists and the

President in whom they have their strongest ally. The Grand Canyon was not created by a biblical

flood. Women are not human incubators. Breast cancer is not retribution for having an abortion. AIDS

is not a punishment from God. Evolution happened. Religion can never be compulsory. This

government may claim to make its own reality, but we will not allow it to make ours.



Millions of us worked, talked, marched, poll watched, contributed, voted, did everything we could

to defeat the Bush regime in the last election. It was a massive effort, bringing forth new

energy, new organization, and new commitment to struggle for justice. It would be a terrible mistake to

let our failure to stop Bush in this way lead to despair and inaction. On the contrary, this broad

mobilization of people committed to a fairer world, a freer world, a more peaceful world must move

forward. We cannot, we will not, wait until 2008. The fight against the second Bush regime has to

start now.



The movement against the war in Vietnam never won a presidential election. But it blocked troop

trains, closed induction centers, marched, spoke to people door to door -- and it helped to stop a

war. The Civil Rights Movement never tied its star to a presidential candidate; it sat in, freedom

rode, fought legal battles, filled jailhouses -- and it changed the face of a nation.



We must change the political reality of this country by mobilizing the tens of millions who know

in their heads and hearts that the Bush regime's "reality" is nothing but a nightmare for humanity.

This will require courage and creativity, mass actions and individual moments of courage. We must

come together whenever we can, and we must act alone whenever we have to. This will require

extraordinary acts from ordinary people.



We give our love and support to the soldiers who have refused to fight in this immoral war, and we

pledge to create community that backs courageous acts of resistance. We applaud the librarians who

have refused to turn over lists of our reading, the high school students who demand to be taught

evolution, those who brought to light torture by the U.S. military, and the massive protests that

voiced international opposition to the war on Iraq. We stand with the tens of millions of people

throughout the world who fight every day for the right to create their own future.



It is our duty to stop the Bush regime from carrying out this disastrous course. We believe

history will judge us sharply should we fail to act decisively.





Among the initial signers are:



Janet Abu-Lughod, professor emerita, New School



Michael Albert



Edward Asner



Michael Avery, president, National Lawyers Guild



Rosalyn Baxandall, chair, American Studies/Media and Communications, State University of New York

at Old Westbury



William Blum, author, US foreign policy



Judith Butler, author and professor, University of California at Berkeley



Daniel Ellsberg, former Defense and State Department official



Jorie Graham, Harvard University



Abdeen M. Jabara, past president, American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee



C. Clark Kissinger, Refuse & Resist!



Staughton Lynd



Reynaldo F. Mac¡as, chair, National Association for Chicana & Chicano Studies



Robin Morgan, author and activist



Jill Nelson, writer



Rosalind Petchesky, Distinguished Professor of Political Science, Hunter College & the Graduate

Center - CUNY



Jeremy Pikser, screenwriter (Bulworth)



Michael Ratner, president, Center for Constitutional Rights



Matthew Rothschild, editor, The Progressive magazine



Luc Sante, writer



Naomi Wallace



Howard Zinn, historian



* * *



You may sign this statement at http://www.nion.us/READ_AND_SIGN.htm. You may also e-mail your

name, how you would like to be identified and your state of residence to sign@nion.us. (Personal

contact information will not be shared or utilized for any other purpose.)

Movie Review: Phantom of the Opera

OMG! It was positively riveting... This was a strange & wonderfull experience for me because I had to watch a taped version of the play in choir (which I believe not was not the ALW version- wHat WaS tHaT TeaChER tHiNKinG?!?!?!?) & I really didn't care for it at all, so for all these years the magic of the Phantom has been lost on me..... ;_; But I went West with my very dear friends yesterday to see it and was completely struck by it.... before we watched the movie we'd discussed catching a double feature since I so rarely get to the movies, but afterwards I had to say that would have been unfair to any other movie we may have seen... I don't know what could hold it's own against that...

Gerard Butler was seductive genius as the Phantom.. sexy, painful, tortured, beloved... enrapturing entirely... The girl who played Christine is someone I've never seen, as was the actor who played Raoul, but both were fantastic! The singing, the emotion, the pain.... many actresses cannot believably convince you of the tangle & confusion of a love like Christine has for these two men... but she was just splendid... Raoul was sweet & beautifull... I could listen to him sing all day.....

There are few movies with a love story like this where you aren't left believing the poor girl made the right or wrong choice between these two men she loved so deeply... but I cannot fault her for choosing Raoul, but I would have supported her for choosing the Phantom as well... 'Tis truly a tragic love story, as there is no way to be completely happy with either choice... this is a love that will haunt you all your life, no matter what you choose....

So long.....

Gee, aren't I the naughty little non-blogger... shame on me... pity I don't have someone to encourage or inspire me... honestly, with the mood I've been in lately I wouldn't have had anything worth reading anyhow... so it's probly better I don't blog in those sorts of moods...

Proud of me, tho, for finishing a Harry/Ron Yule fanart I drew as a gift for Dani, my very dearest bestest ever friend.... since she kept complaining Harry/Ron fanarts were impossible to find.. now if I can just get her to scan it so I can share it with the webbyworld..... >_<

Sitting here eating Xmas cookies my momma made me & wishing I had a car or the weather wasn't so lousy so that my beloved friends could come visit... or I could go visit them... man, what a month we've had round herre.. Had the power & heat shut off by the minions of Satan (otherwise known as NIPSCO) & the van finally went too far (or wouldn't go anywhere) & we scrapped it... some dude is buying the hunk of crappola for parts.. whatever... so we didn't have a very good Xmas & nobody else had much money so it was a pretty cheapo & crappy Xmas all around.. the kids enjoyed what they got & that's what really matters, right? Right?!?!?!?

Well, actually, we did get the ROTK Extended version hot off the shelves from our fabo friends.. they also gave Brian a gorgeous 43"x31" wallscroll of the girls from Final Fantasy X2 & I got a very pretty poster of the Saiyuki boys (THEY FOUND ONE WITH HOMURA *drool*) which promptly evicted Orlando from the bedroom wall.. and they bought me Gavin DeGraw's CD, so I can listen to "I Don't Wanna Be" a dozen times a day... and I discovered another song of his "Follow Through" that I'd seen a couple times on VH1 & loved! but didn't know it was him who sang it, so now I have that too.... I guess Xmas wasn't a total loss.. my parents tried very hard & my sister bought me stuff which might make me cooler- that's her thing, that's what she does... but that's ok. I got to spend the holiday with Brian & my family & that's what really matters to me. I got to watch the kids jumpin around going insane over every thing they opened...

Thank god Xmas is over.


I'm beating myself about the head with a stick trying to finish one last gift. It's an art project (of sorts) that I'm working on for a friend & I've been having just the worst time with it.. I can't seem to dredge up the happy inspiration to work on it thru the heinous mood & sinking depressiong I've been fighting with lately..... If you're reading this, I swear I will finish it... it's coming.. really.........

Issues...

whatever is the matter with me lately.. grant you, I've been thru a seriously lousy, scrappy bit of time & space the last month or so what with losing power & heat for a week then losing our van... now I hafta walk... see what I mean... all I seem to wanna do is be angry, irritated, spiteful & ranty. Frankly, I'm getting quite sick of myself... and I know it's taking a toll on Brian, bless him...

I just dunno what to do with myself, how to climb back outta my dark, chasmic bleak little cave of cranky....

Friends make a bad day better

Brian called me at work earlier today & I told him what a lousy day I'd been having.. so I said I'd like him to stay home with me tonite rather than running off to play at a friend's house.. and, of course, he agreed.

I'd been off work just a couple minutes when Dani & Frankie showed up (not really un-announced b/c they had written me an offline message saying they were coming - I just hadn't been on the compy to see this message ^_^) So here they are, just when I needed something to brighten my day.. funny how friends just know sometimes when they're needed...

I think today is going to be a good day..

despite the snow outside.. boy will Mom be irratable at dinner tonite...

Brian went off early this morning to start a job with his friend, Rex, so that will help with bills and Christmas... I am so proud of him sometimes. Yes, he can be quite the pain at times, but there are moments when I am overcome with his sweetness and caring... He sometimes reminds me of a certain Brian from a TV show I like, in that he is often harsh or rough around the edges and at times doesn't seem to care about anyone but himself (sometimes not even himself), but if you come to know him and love him you begin to understand he loves you back in his own time and in his own "Brian" way.

Yesterday I drove to Mishawaka to visit my only friends (how I wished they lived closer... and I could see them everyday).. I took a wrong turn at my exit and ended up hopelessly lost and in the wrong towne... Goddess bless the girl at the 7-11 who gave me very simple and easy directions to get back to where I was sposeta be... When I finally arrived, a bit frazzled from the trip, but happy to see my dear friends, we watched cartoons (we're such grownups LOL) then went out to "Thanksgiving" dinner at the Cracker Barrell. Since we will not be able to spend the holiday together, they took me out to dinner so our little family could have our own holiday. When they asked me after dinner what was I thankful for, I didn't even really hafta think before I said "Family and friends, and a happy home." It's funny, Mike was there and they pointed out to him that when they'd asked him he'd said he couldn't say that because it was "cheesy and stupid", I guess because that's what people on sitcoms, etc. always say on their Thanksgiving episode, but how could it be cheesy and stupid if it's the honest truth. For the first time in my life I am free of any false friendships which pin me into a little persona and people who don't truly understand me.. I am in love and can look forward to really spending the rest of my life with someone who loves me back just as much, and I am so thankfull for both.

To the outside world, Brian may seem difficult, and I suppose he is, but I have had to many false lovers and broken hearts in my life... I loved Brian from our first date because he was himself. He never pretended to be a knight in shining armour or Mr. Wonderfull, or my fantasy guy or any of that. He was just Brian, faults and all, and that's exactly what I was looking for. From day one, he has been c0mpletely himself, and I have had the freedom, for the first time ever in any relationship, to be just me. We don't have to pretend to like what the other likes, but we listen and pay attention when the other talks about it - him and his music, video games, magic cards & I will try to be interested in what he's showing me and be excited for him when he defeats that bad guy I've heard him cursing and screaming at in the other room for the last 2 days; me with my stupid cute-boy obsessions, interior decorating, scrapbooks and he lets me hang posters of Orlando Bloom on our bedroom walls, re-decorate the house with all my stupid girly stuff and bright colours, and he'll drive me to the recycling centre for more magazines and never spoil my happy craziness as I cut them up and leave paper shreds everywhere... Never once has he said "Don't you have enough of that crap?!" And I could not love him more, but yet I do everyday. To outsiders, it may seem he's spoiled because he's always got new Magic cards or a new video game or whatever and he never buys me anything, but if there's something I want, he never says I can't have it. It doesn't seem one-sided to me because I don't really want that much. When I do really want something, I get it, but mostly I just want to be here, in our lousy little apt. with him. That to me is home, and that's all I need. Just him.

And my friends.. some would consider it a lonely life to stay home all the time and only have 2 (3?) friends in world, but these are friends I've known for years, who've watched my change and grow and become someone completely different than I was when they met me and they've been there at every turn to support this new version of me, never questioning my goals or reasons, never raising a hand to hold me back where they thought I was and everything is the same and makes sense. Is it these 2 friends who've opened many experiences to me and helped me to discover new things and new aspects of myself.. It is these 2 friends who will drive an hour from Mishawaka to buy me lunch before I go to work, then drive an hour back home.... when people who I thought were my friends lived in the same towne and couldn't make time for me because of my work schedule. So very true that it is in our actions and not in our deeds that we prove who we truly are...


Yes, outside it is snowing, but for me today, it's like the fluffly frosting on my happy little corner of the world....

A few noticable additions

Hopefully no one is terribly offended by the stoopid ugly banners you see above.. they serve a useful purpose or I wouldn't subject my pretty blog to their ickness.... They are supposed to drive more viewers to my blog and get me more attention.... and I love attention....

There is also a little Site Meter thingy that upsates me on how much traffic my site gets... but if it starts to depress me when I realise I really am the only one who comes here... I may kill it.... lol

..:What's your psychological problem?:..

Apathetic. You my apathetic friend, you should care
more about your life, right?


..:What's your psychological problem?:.. ( Anime Pictures )
brought to you by Quizilla

Thou shalt not kill......

"'We kill at every step, not only in wars, riots, and executions. We kill when we close our eyes to poverty, suffering, and shame. In the same way all disrespect for life, all hard-heartedness, all indifference, all contempt is nothing else than killing. With just a little witty skepticism we can kill a good deal of the future in a young person. Life is waiting everywhere, the future is flowering everywhere, but we only see a small part of it and step on much of it with our feet.'

- Hermann Hesse, German poet and novelist.

Source: Daily Dig"

Victory and defeat

I weep for the world... the election is decided and they handed it to Bush.. I say handed it to him because I seriously doubt that he honestly won this election with as many people as he has dissappointed, offended, enraged, angered.. There's no way that the American people voted an uber-xtian, prejudice, anti-gay, pro-war president back in to run the country...

I shudder to think what will become of our country in his next four years.... and I can think of at least two Americans who'll be looking for apartments in Canada...