Sissillie's Randomness

The Boys Love to Dance

2009-07-23T16:21:00.004+09:00

Ok, ignoring how long it's been since the last post and the failed attempt to start something new at Wordpress (maybe I'll move someday, but not yet.) Let's get started with a real post!!

Right now my school is in it's summer camp season, which means I have a one class for 4 hours but as a rare treat I can do whatever I want in class. Two of my passions being music and movies I decided to make my camp on those and focus on Western, and more specifically because I know it, American pop culture.

Today I decided to compare American pop music to Korean Pop music. For those who are unaware of it the boy and girl bands live on and strong in Korea. Something that I thought I left so far behind in my early teenage years when *NSYNC and Spice Girls were popular. However, the thing about KPop is that it gets under your skin, plus there is nothing like seeing your students break out into the full dance of a song by mentioning two lines or seeing an entire club of Koreans go into this dance when it comes on. Think I'm wrong? Tell me you aren't entertained by the thought of people breaking out into this.

So, how does one compare pop music to 4th, 5th, and 6th graders who barely understand English...show them *NSYNC videos of course! Let them know that Korea is not the only place that had boy bands and I wanted to see if any of them would try to do the dance. Well a few of them did, more specifically the boys did. I found this very interesting. While I'm trying not to get horrible high school flashbacks by listening to Bye Bye Bye the young boys are standing there, studying the movements of Justin Timberlake and the other boys whose names I can't remember and trying to pull them off. Meanwhile the girls just sat there and watched.

Maybe this is because I'm thinking of my brother who wouldn't try to dance if his life depended on it but in American culture at least, wouldn't it be the girls trying to dance and the boys refusing? Perhaps it was because it was a boy band and the girls didn't want to dance to a "boy's song," but they did not move! Eventually one of the boys gave up and decided to do one of his Tae-Kwon do forms, but made sure to do it to the beat of the song, which I really appreciated and wished I had my camera for.

But now I'm definitely scouring youtube to see if I can find anymore good girl or boy band music vids from back in the day to show my students. Who knows, perhaps I'll be able to get them to learn an English dance!

Where has my English gone?

2009-04-22T16:03:00.003+09:00

Wow...so I just made a post about my new blog and there I am, checking it out when I notice things...
"bite the bucket"
"After I finished the movie I had was this idea..."

WTF?! Where has my English gone?!

I used to be able to write better than this! I know I wasn't the best writer before but seriously! The only thing I can think of is while I'm teaching these kids basic English my own English skills are fading. Spending my day hearing "Teacher finishi!" and other similliar phrases has clearly put my brain into this mode where I cannot help but to stay in all the time...so I now ask for your forgiveness as I continue to screw up my home language...and maybe I should find an editor before I post anything...

A Dumb Podcast Idea?

2009-04-08T09:13:00.003+09:00

A few weeks (months now?) ago chaos happened on Twitter. Kumar over at The Kumar Expirience took up the challenge to watch Star Trek: The Original Series and many of us followed suit by saying we would watch something that we had been avoiding. I chose the Exorcist, because I'm not a fan of horror, thrillers yes, horrors no. But really I could have chosen from a huge list of films that people consider classics. Films that I honestly have very little desire to watch.

There are many reasons for that. One big one is that my Mom is a huge film buff and would often quote and reference films that I have never seen and when I was little my parents would watch a lot of the classics like Gone with the Wind or The Godfather when I was about 7 and I remember either being bored out of my mind and annoyed that they were taking up the TV for what felt like days and just not being interested in any of them. Then there is the fact that I've grown up in a culture where a lot of those classics, and even recent things are parodied rather quickly and more often than not the parodies make me not want to watch the film even more. And finally there is that when I was a teenager if it wasn't an anime I didn't really want to watch it and as a result I missed out on a lot of movies that kids growing up in the 90s would see. I've gone back and watched a few, but my list of films that shock people I haven't seen is still long and impressive.

So, this is my idea: I want you to challenge me to watch some of these movies that I've avoided. Tell me about some film that I probably missed (I'll try to work on a list to help people out) give me a reason why I should watch it and then I want to see if I can turn this into a podcast. The goal is to have many many guests as they challenge me to something and then we go back and review whatever it is I saw. And you know what? I'm not going to limit this to movies; tv, books, music, and since I've mostly stopped watching anime you can challenge me to that too (I've never seen Evangelion people, still plenty to challenge me to there), whatever you want to challenge me to, go ahead.

Now, this may turn into an epic fail idea. I have no idea how to record or edit a podcast, especially to record phone conversations that would be required for this. I don't have a mixer and am a little reluctant to get one knowing that I'm going to be travelling a lot...if there is a good travel one that'd be great? This was mostly an idea that I had for something to do during my free time that I feel like I'm wasting. I want to do something productive and this is the best idea I've had so far.

So let me know what you think. If you want to help out in anyway, be on or have any tips. I could definitely use it. Or if this is a bad idea...like I said I can see this ending in Epic Fail, but might give it a try...

or maybe a better idea would be to just make this into a blog since I know I will be traveling more, back to home and then to somewhere else after that?

April Fool's

2009-04-01T13:14:00.003+09:00

Well, it's that time of year. If you are living in the Western world then I'm sure you know and are expiriencing in someway shape or form April Fool's Day. The day where all the pranks come out and people try to trick one another in the most specectaluar way that they can.

This often leads to property destruction or people getting injured...and really that's not all that funny. I hate seeing people get hurt, I've never found that amusing and too often people get caught up in the idea of pulling off the perfect prank that it no longer becomes funny. Or if it's the internet, it just means that I'm going to get Rick Roll'd a lot...we need to find a new joke internet...this one gets old quick today.

Now, I have no examples on bad April Fool's jokes...yet the day has just begun for the rest of the world, but I'm keeping my out for one ot report on...but I will tell you about the best April Fool's joke I've heard about.

I'm sure many have heard about it but if you haven't last year Think Geek, known for their wide variety of geeky apparel, especially interactive shirts claimed they had a shirt that would be the soundtrack to your life. It would play music and you could control it, so it would be like living in your very own movie with your very own soundtrack. Or you could annoy the shit out of people and by playing your music through your shirt with very little they could do about it. Either way, awesome.

And people bought it! So many people believed that it was a real shirt! Which truly makes a great April Fool's joke, that people truly believe in your joke and no one gets hurt. In fact, so many people believed that this shirt was real that Think Geek has gone ahead and made it! It's there in the store right now for you to buy for only $39.99...that's ridiculous for a shirt like this. I'm pretty sure I have a shirt or two that cost close to if not more than that...and they don't have special features...I just wear them to death. Go and check this out here.

I hope there is a prank that awesome this year. Cause that was seriously awesome. And I may need to get that shirt soon...

Just a Small Drink After School

2009-03-26T16:55:00.002+09:00

So, talk about one of the most surreal moments of my life so far...the other foreign teachers and I leave school slightly early to go activate phones for those who didn't have one before or those whose broke mysteriously (mine won't even work as a clock anymore...and I can only call the last person who called me, unless I have your number in front of me...ungh). And on the way is a nice little Mom'nPop type convinience store that we usually pop into...only this time when we stopped it was quite different.

I suddenly felt a hand on my arm and I turn to look and see one of the older gentelmen that usually hangs out there handing me three hard-boiled eggs, one for me and my two fellow teachers...I first thought they were these pickled eggs here that I hate, but then I saw the pot and portable stove top over the register...well he was so nice and earnest we couldn't say no and now no way I wasn't buying anything even though I wasn't hungry...so we go to the register to pay and start eating our eggs when another man comes over and blops down a bottle of soju...

For those who don't know soju is Korean vodka that you can buy in any convinience store in Korea for about 1,000 won (that translates to less than a dollar...it's very popular here). It generally tastes very weak, especially once you mix it with anything and often will be the destruction of your night.

Fortionatly, this time they were kind enough to ask us if we wanted soju...well they asked me, they assumed my co-teachers would drink because they were male...and being the only female in the store I couldn't let a couple of Korean or Yorkshire men out drink me (although they probably could...) So we had a drink...no mix even though I hate my soju straight...and suddenly I'm being handed another egg...and another cup of soju...this time I was smart enough to bring my juice out and mix it myself. They didn't even really ask...only for politness sake, because after one of us said no thanks to the egg the owner started peeling it for him.

We were finally able to leave after the second one, but still, we were right by the school. We see students in there all the time and I avoid buying alcohol there so they don't think we are drinking right after school and this time school hadn't even fully let out yet!!! This has offically marked one of the top ten surreal moments in Korea, let alone my life!

Man I love this country.

Crab Ball

2009-03-20T12:57:00.001+09:00

Thanks for my talking down guys...I need to stop reading multiple articles in a row about this while I at work, my imagination tends to run away from me...

ANYWAY!!!

Time for another silly game to waste countless hours on and that I had forgotten about until I starting cleaning out my bookmarks last night.

Crab Ball.

A very fun game that I used to waste hours on over at Spikey Thing. It's the easiest and the hardest game in the world. What you do is play volleyball against another crab using only your arrow keys. Easiest thing in the world to figure out. If the computer, or as I like to think, the evil crab in this epic battle, misses the ball you get a point and after 5 points you get the chance of earning an extra ball. However, if you miss the ball not only do you loose one of your lives, but you loose a point as well! This makes getting a high score really difficult and why I call it the easiest and the hardest game in the world.

My personal best score is around 20, but others on the list have stuff in the 230's....I can't imagine how much time they must spend playing this game.

But it's great fun and probably the best of the things I've tried out over at Spikey Thing and if you need a mindless game to clear your head, this is definitely one of the tops of my list!

I Need a Talking Down

2009-03-19T16:02:00.002+09:00

So in enjoying my internet working at school again this week, I decide to write a new blog post about the silliness of Crab Volleyball when what does one of my friends tell me about?

This article and this article describing how North Korea no longer wants food aide from the U.S. and that they are detaining one, maybe two reporters for reasons that are unclear in that article... This seems to be in preperation for the big satellite launch that you can read more about here.

I've always been a bit skeptical about anything happening with North Korea, I mean after so long you would've thought something would've happened by now. But more and more it is looking like buttons are getting pushed too far. South Korea, Japan, and US are not going to like North Korea sending up their missiles and there is a very good chance at least one of those nations will do whatever it takes to stop those missiles. And like in the last BBC article I linked said if they do, the North Korean government has stated it will start a war over this...something I didn't fully believe until now.

The act of closing off their borders once more to even businesses, refusing aide from the US (I don't know about other sources of aide...but still) and now holding reporters...this makes me think that they are serious about their threats and are prepping for a war to start...talk about my worse fear at this moment!

Maybe because I'm living here and I tend to run to panic mode fairly quickly is the reason why I'm so scared at this moment, but I am...this just feel so much more serious on my end and I am scared. Please someone tell me I have nothing to worry about...

Nevermind, this is fucking Scary

2009-03-13T18:01:00.003+09:00

Ok, I know I joked about the electric shock that happened earlier this week, but this is getting ridiculous.

Every time I get back from the bathroom I'm getting a shock...and it's not from the water after I wash my hands, I make sure I dry them really well afterwards. Not only that it went through my headphones and into my ear this time!!!

This is starting to scare me...The IT people can't come to school soon enough.

I am a Mutant.

2009-03-11T19:35:00.003+09:00

I apparently have developed mutant powers.

Do I have super speed? Can I leap tall buildings in a single bound? No, I can do none of that now.

Apparently, what I do have is powers over electricity.

Let me tell you about my origin story.

It is a short tale, one that has not fully finished yet.

I sat down at my computer at work after finishing up classes early that day and ready to enjoy the new Facebook Uno game (actually quite nice if you like Uno, can't play with friends yet, just strangers, but looking good) and I even get the urge to try and clean up some of the apps I have on there. When suddenly it happens!

A shock, a very large electric shock goes through me from my mouse and causes my computer to restart. I kid you not, it took all I could not to yell because there were official looking people talking around my desk checking out the English center. Then well, I want to continue my life and what happens...there is no internet. Apparently that short circutted something because there was no sign of any internet anywhere on my computer, like it's never been connected.

So it's not big, but it has resulted in me not having internet at school until at least next week. Which really sucks. I hate it.

I actually get a lot of shocks at my work computer, every couple of days I get at least 2-3, but still to get a shock that big?

Maybe someday I'll get my own comic book then. :-D

Brains...

2009-03-09T14:55:00.003+09:00

My brain is dead...as usual after teaching a day of classes. It's not like it's hard material, just after I have classes non-stop, especially 6th grade classes my brain goes a little ...well do you remember the season 3 finale of Buffy when she was all like "fire...tree..pretty?" Yeah, that's me right now.

I don't even have a podcast right now that I think I could listen to at the moment to make this better...and I really wanted to listen to Starbase 66 and Skeptics Guide to the Galaxy right now...

If anyone has a cure for brain-deadness to keep me from turning into a complete zombie for the rest of the day, I'd be greatly appreciative.

It's ALIVE!!!

2009-02-24T10:18:00.007+09:00

So...I did something on Friday night...something I never honestly thought I'd do my entire life...

We had a goodbye dinner last Friday for our Principal and the other 6 teachers who are leaving at the end of this week. Instead of the normal gal bi dinner we went for seafood. Now seafood restaurants are a sight to behold in Korea. The outside has these tanks full of fish and other creatures that they serve inside so there really is no question on the freshness of your fish, it's right there still alive until you order it. Except one thing...

Octopus...that's right, there was actual live octopus served at this meal. I couldn't believe it. In fact, for a few seconds I thought it was dead...until I noticed it move...Now if you've seen Oldboy you'll know that there is a scene where the main character eats a live octopus...and for proof that even Koreans don't normally eat this weird food, here's a clip I found of the behind the scenes for that part...

It wasn't whole like the one here...this was just the tentacles chopped off and moving all around the plate and trying to even leave it. Like here.

Although unlike them, I couldn't chew fast enough!

And well, because I was trying to be polite, it was apparently expensive and on the Principal's bill so I decided to try it...And I liked it...it was a bit sticky at times and let me tell you I couldn't chew fast enough, but over all the taste wasn't too bad...

Of course that was that night and after more than enough soju so now the more I think about it...the more disgusted I am by it. OMG, I actually ate that!!! Talk about something that will never happen again.

I'm not really all that upset that I did eat it. I think you should try most things at least once (although if you offer me dog I may have to cause some harm) and I was drunk enough to enjoy it at the time. Will I ever go after this supposedly rare delicacy again? Absolutely not.

But it was fun for the time, and hell, now I have another story to shock and amaze people with!

I Wanna Be a Muppet!

2009-02-20T14:57:00.003+09:00

Who doesn't love the Muppets?

If not...then I must sit you down and have you watch countless episodes of Seasame Street, Fraggle Rock (which I will need to see much more of) and every Muppet movie I can get my hands on outside of the space one until you see the error of your ways.

I always wanted to be on Sesame Street, hang out with Big Bird or go chill over with the Muppets and sing a song with Ralph while Gonzo crashed through the ceiling. Not to mention Miss. Piggy just rocks

I'm totally stealing this from AfterEllen.com, but it's fun and I want to share it. But there is a quiz, perhaps the quiz of the week where you can discover what muppet you are.

Which you should also be able to take on the side of my blog right now, if it worked right...

And now, to end the suspense, who did your fair proveyer of silliness at this blog get?

You are Gonzo the Great.
You love everyone, and still you get shot out of a cannon on a regular basis. Oh, and you are completely insane and have a strange fascination for chickens.
ALSO KNOWN AS:
The Great Gonzo, Gonzo the Great, Just Plain Weird
SPECIES:
Whatever
HOBBIES:
Tapdancing blindfolded on tapioca while balancing a piano on his nose, backwards, five times fast.
FAVORITE MOVIE:
"From Here to Eternity...with no brakes."
FAVORITE TV SHOW:
"Touched By An Anvil"
QUOTE:
"No parachute? Wow! This is so cool!"

You have no idea how happy this makes me. The King of Crazy himself! Gonzo is hysterical and never fails to make me laugh. And after the Muppet Christmas Carol where Gonzo played Charles Dickens himself and was quite probably my favorite part in the movie, few characters could make me happier.

Now, just to go find my Rizzo.

Facebook Games

2009-02-17T10:24:00.006+09:00

If you haven't heard about Facebook by now you clearly are living under a rock somewhere and I'm wondering how you've gotten this far on the internet without at least hearing about it.

Now there are many haters out there for Facebook, but I'm a fan. I love being able to keep in contact with people from back home, especially since I'm living so far away right now. It also has a ton of games on there that keep me from dying of boredom after I finish teaching class but am not allowed to leave the school. They are pretty much ridiculous and a very silly waste of time, but at least once a day I check them.

Attack! is probably one of my favorite games on Facebook. It is essentially their version of Risk and I'll usually spend some time everyday taking over the world against friends and sometimes strangers. There is a small strategy to the game, but mostly it comes down to luck as soon as you've figured it out. Nothing challenging, but really, who doesn't like to conquer the world every now and then?
Texas Hold'em is another one of my favorites on here. Pretending I'm rich, and can actually afford to place $400 bets on things and taking everyone elses money makes me go into full on Mr. Burns mode, "Excellent..." Especially when I find out that I have more money than someone else since it displays your ranking among your friends at the bottom of the screen. It's fun for about 15 minutes, then I find my brain going numb and having to do something, anything else, but then that's all these games.

Scrabble...I actually kinda hate scrabble a little bit...but I believe that's mostly due to me losing 95% of the time...but it's probably the only thing I do on Facebook everyday that gives me the slightest bit of education by helping me to learn what are words. But I still don't know what prads are, even if it is a word...This has got to be the nerdiest thing I've seen on Facebook and I'm actually too scared to fully play it. Supposedly it's DnD...just on Facebook, and it sounds almost exactly like it too. You pick your character, you let the dice roll from an automatic generator and just watch to make sure you don't run out of items or health before you finish your generic quest. That's it, little boring sounding and I'm not exactly sure if it will give me my roleplaying fix that I miss ever since moving to another country. (BTW, if anyone knows of any good online ones for cheap/free NO WOW, I'd be interested).

But what makes these game so compelling for me to play? Why do I go back there every single week day whether or not I'm going to win or lose and waste some precious time? Is it because I'm that bored? Well partially, altough I'm sure I could find something, anything more productive to do with my time. But I think what keeps me coming back to it is the competition of it. I play with friends, I get to beat them and it's really the closest thing we have to playing a game with one another while at work. And no, I still won't play WoW...

Those games where I play by myself and am competing alone...I usually give up about a week or two later, these games where I get to conquer friends, see how much more money I have than everyone else or maybe pray that someday I will beat someone at Scrabble. There really is no other explanation for it; boredom and a combination of a desire to beat all my friends on there keeps me coming back to these games time and time again.

It's All in a Name

2009-02-13T12:50:00.003+09:00

Well, I want to thank everyone who responded to my poll and told me to just keep posting, but after some careful thought I've decided to do a giant make-over and pretty much start over.

My reasoning for this is that I created this blog when I was very unhappy with the world. I hated my job, had no life, and was trying to find an outlet that had no real direction. Then my life started to change. I changed jobs, locations, got new friends, and my outlook on life has changed a lot since I moved and I wanted my blog to reflect that, to become a new outlet for me. So let me go through the changes here and explain some of them.

1. Name: It's probably going to be the first thing you ntoice since it also had me change the we address to the site. Handles are probably one of the silliest things in the internet. A name people create for themselves to take thesemselves out into the internet. Some find it silly and just use their real name, which is kinda what I was doing before. However, I've grown up with the internet and many different handles, I figure I should finally embrace it and stick with the one that's lasted me the longest.

Sissillie has been a nickname of mine since middle-school, my best friend at the time just started calling me it and it stuck for so long that when I was going through one of my handle changing times I decided to go with that and everything has become that since, forcing me to create this ridiculous spelling). I recently thought of changing my handle from Sissillie to Sicily because my real name is Sydney and a. I thought it would be symarty with teh two names that are places and b. I wasn't sure if I wanted to get away from Sissillie. After getting the amazing responces on Twitter on my name I decided that I not only wanted to keep it, but embrace what it means to people. Silliness. Therefore becoming the inspiration for this blog.

I'm sorry about the adress change and if it causes problems for anyone, but I thought I should change the address to reflect the new name as well.

2. Color: Who doesn't like a a little color in their life? I wanted to give my representation of my life a little color too.

3. Missing posts: Yes, I admit. I deleted a few posts. Mostly the ones of me being a winy twit about not posting in my blog. I'm feeling kinda done with that and didn't like how the majority of my posts lately seemed to be about that.

Sorry about that...I really doubt you wanted to see those again so I just got rid of it.

4. Links to other places: In case I scare you off, these are some of the best places and people I know of on the web. I think they are all smarter than me so go check them out.

5. Random Useless Fact: Because what's sillier than a random fact about something you never needed to know?

Well that about sums up all the changes here. I hope you like them and stick with me on this. And not everything will be silly, but I will try to find the silliness in everything. :-)

Should we start over?

2009-02-12T13:32:00.000+09:00

So once again after trying to make a rpomise to write in my blog I've forgotten and not written in it again for a few weeks...so this is leading me to wonder why do I even have this blog if I'm not going to write anything in it?

Perhaps it's my lack of direction that I want to take this. Not sure what I want to write about or what to do here nothing is happening. Perhaps it's time to figure something out and maybe start completely over. Go with a theme maybe...or maybe not...who knows...

ARRGH!! Opinions would be nice...

Smoothies!!

2009-01-22T08:31:00.001+09:00

Right, I said I would be writing everyday, so let's get this day started!!

Today, I'm going to give you a smoothie recipe of mine. You should know I adore smoothies. They solve that sweet-tooth problem of mine while not being fatty and calorie ridden ice-cream or other processed shit that I sometimes still indulge in. And, if done right, they can be a meal on there own.

This is a fruit smoothie that is my breakfast today and serves one person if they want a large, or two people looking for a small/medium.

Put in equal parts strawberries and cantadew.

** For those who don't know cantadew is a new melon that is a cross between a cantelope and a honeydew. The outside looks like a cantelope, but the inside is green and but still tastes like the yummy orange cantelope and is what I'm finding here in lovely South Korea. If you want to subsitute real cantalope please do, I do not attest to honey dew though...

About a teaspoon of Vanilla Protein powder -

**I'm not a buff person, but I love this stuff because it gives me that little bit of extra flavor and some protein in my smoothie that supposedly keeps you full longer...does that work, I'm not a doctor, but if you put in only a little bit you get a nice vanilla flavor to it. Warning though, too much and your smoothie will taste like shit, I suggest you experiment.

Then fill the rest of the container with berry juice.

**Multiple juices are found all over Korea with a lot more ease at times than in the States at least. For instance, I don't remember seeing a nice berry juice (rasberry is the focus on this one) without spending a lot more for a lot less than I would want. Here, their cheap so you may see me expirementing with lots of different juices.

Blend

If you find your too be too thick, which I often do because I freeze my fruit to last longer, you can do 1 or two things. Leave your smoothie to sit out for about 5 minutes if you and let the frozen stuff melt just that little bit and mix again. It works, I do this one often. Or you can just add a little bit of water right then if you are impatient.

Final step: Enjoy.

If you like it let me know, if you want more recipes let me know. I often expirement with cooking and other things like this. Although I warn you, I don't always measure very well when I do this stuff...eyebaling FTW...

2008-11-09T19:28:00.000+09:00

O.K...so I take it back. I'll watch Grey's after this, if only to see what direction they take Callie...if they have her straight again though I'm done.

But That's Why I Watched the Show!!!

2008-11-04T17:12:00.000+09:00

Well nothing motivates me better than anger to write a blog post...Congrats ABC you have just made me angry.

I adore and check AfterEllen.com everyday for new blog posts and reviews of wonderful lesbian media entertainment to read (for the other end, AfterElton.com exists too). Today after work I decide I want to read the latest review of Grey's Anatomy, the hit prime time medical drama soap opera did something that did something groundbreaking and made me want to watch it again. They wrote in not only a lesbian kiss, but a full on couple featuring two of the main characters that would have been explored fully in this season. Even better, one part of this couple is Sara Ramirez who I've had a crush on since I heard her voice on my CD of Spamalot. Now, did I like how little we got to see of them or how Callie decided to not only get advice from Sloan on dating women, but had sex with him? No, but I was dealing with that.

Well wasn't I shocked to see next to the article on the latest episode of Grey's Anatomy there is an article about how apparently ABC has just fired Brooke Smith, the other half of my newly beloved couple and thus killing the entire relationship. You can read the full article here : http://www.afterellen.com/TV/2008/10/greys-fires-brooke-smith .

This was shocking news to clearly everyone, the writer/creator, the actress, media, and those of us who were watching for that very reason. They are not even going to give her a good send off, this Thursday will be Smith's final episode and all she's going to get is to drive off in her car. I'm sorry, what???? That's it?! No reason at all, not that she got so pissed off with Callie going back to sleep with Sloan for one reason after another each week, just driving off?? Fuck you ABC.

To add to my anger, ABC has also announced that

Melissa George's character is no longer bisexual. "Melissa came on as a lesbian character," a Grey's source tells Kristin, "but they changed the script and now she isn't. She starts off flirting with Callie but it never goes anywhere." From AfterEllen.com

Something that AfterEllen announced yesterday and had me all excited for controversy in our happy lesbian land. Now, this isn't controversy, this is a fucking dead duck.

Now why am I blaming ABC and not the writer/creator of the show? Well that would be because the rest of the article focuses on her and how shocked she was this was happening.

This is 2008 and people!!! Get your heads out of your asses and not only give us our gay/lesbian characters, but give us the same story lines you give the straight couples!!! I'm fucking tired of seeing either no one gay at all, or if they are gay they have to go with the safe story line showing as little as possible and heaven forbid that when we do get the gay characters they act the same way the straight ones do. And while it is nice and kinda morally uplifting to point at the daytime and nighttime soaps and go, "well clearly we are better than you because we don't sleep around on TV." I'm tired of this PC world where we can't risk offending anyone. I know there are too many people out in the world that would take what I want and use it against us, that is fine. But if execs are too afraid of even the safe story lines, how the hell are we going to get anywhere?

This also has me fearing for the future of another beloved lesbian character on a daytime ABC soap, All My Children. I love Bianca, I've loved her character even before she came out and now that she is out, I love her even more. Add to the fact that she is now back and in a committed relationship with another character Reese (another actress I had the hots for when she was on General Hospital) I'm loving that story line, even if we rarely get to see them kiss, let alone have sex. However, ABC pulled the plug on one groundbreaking lesbian relationship this week, what is going to happen to the other one?

I'm not going to boycott ABC, nothing will come of only me doing it, plus I still like Lost and Boston Legal a lot. However, I am not watching Grey's Anatomy after this week, I have no reason to, and if they do the same with All My Children, I'll have no reason to watch that either.

ABC you were doing great, breaking new ground on the gay character on the networks front!! Please don't stop now!!! Cause if you go the way I fear, I won't have a reason to watch at all...

Hug Your Dog For Me Please.

2008-10-29T21:39:00.000+09:00

Well, so after I made the big post about posting more, work had me well, doing work so that didn't happen. So again, I apologize and I hope to be able to post more.

However, this is not the reason why I'm blogging today. Basically, I've just found out that our family dog, named Max, has cancer in his stomach and is going to a special place today where they will do an ultrasound to see if it has spread to his liver. If it has not spread then is he going to go into surgery, if it has, then the only thing that they can really do is make him comfortable.

I honestly never thought I'd be praying my dog had surgery today.

Now, he has always had a weight problem, not an over-weight problem, but an under-weight one. He is a little strange in that he has never been all that excited when we put food down for him, so we leave it out all day. Now, when he has a special treat like leftover eggs, steak and chicken juices he would go nuts for it, but otherwise, he wasn't such a fan of the dry food. This has never really been a problem, just strange in a house full of over-weight people that the dog is skinny. But lately he has been eating less and less and getting under the healthy weight zone, we thought he was getting better, but now it turns out that we have to pray he gets surgery.

He is older, 9 years old, and a small dog, which means that he has a shorter lifespan already. But not this short. What makes this worse is that I'm overseas. I can't pet, hug, and give all the loving I want him and I can't. So I ask all of you dog lovers and owners out there to please hug your dogs for me today. Because I can't and it is breaking my heart at the moment.

This is a picture of him as a puppy, it is the only one I can find at the moment which is really making this worse. Excuse me, I need to go off and cry now.

If Plastic is bad for Babies Then Why Am I Alive?

2008-09-16T21:22:00.001+09:00

So, I'm on the phone with my mother and she tells me about how there are new news reports about how plastic is now bad for you. Or more specifically babies.

Now, needing more information I immediately Google and see what I get, ignoring the first two which are essentially Mom's going nuts for green, something I really want to avoid, I go to U.S News and World Report and read this article http://health.usnews.com/articles/health/2007/09/22/the-problem-with-plastic-bpa.html .

The article proceeds to go into how there is this chemical Bisphenol A, BPA, is harmful, especially to infants because well, they are still developing. Except, it seems that all the side effects happen when you are an adult, after all, I don't think babies need to worry about decreased sperm counts, prostate cancer or breast cancer...And apparently uterine fibroid and endometriosis affects women at the reproductive age...did we change when the reproductive age is? However, I'm willing to give it the benefit of the doubt and say that possibly we build up BPA and then it affects it later on. But then, how do you know it affects infants more? Also, going back through the wonderful world of Google I found only one other credible site other than sites featuring parents or other journalists/commantators freaking out over that at msnbc on the first Google page. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26531316/

What no CNN? Uh Oh I'm smelling something else wrong with this...And MSNBC doesn't even mention what the side effects could be!

Then there is the most important evidence of all: Me! Standing right here before you a healthy (if not slightly obese, but quickly loosing weight) 22 year old girl who drank from not only plastic baby bottles, but plastic cups, and is drinking a massive thing of water from a plastic bottle right now! I'm perfectly fine, not dumb at all, even though I'm sure my grammar and spelling could use work, but I blame my public school system for not teaching me in the first place.

Now, if you're going to say, "Oh but it may be a link to obesity!" Umm...no...my family pre-disposition and more importantly, massive amount of junk food and lack of exercise are the reason why I'm having weight problems, not plastic.

Not to mention, do you really want to go back to the joy of glass again parents? Think of all the times your baby likes to throw their nice, durable, plastic bottle/cup and how it can come back safe and sound with just a little wash, and then think of them throwing a glass bottle/cup and how often you will have to make a huge fuss of cleaning it up, because a baby won't know not to touch it, and how many you will have to go through...Can we be practical?

So, thinking practically, thinking that not only myself, but my brother and I'd say 98% of my friends are fine (maybe a couple had the glass thing, I dunno) I'd say this may be a bit of a hoax, overstretch, and possibly a way to shift blame again.

And I think I'll wait until the FDA announces their results on this testing before I even hint at worrying. Until then, I'm going to keep drinking from this plastic bottle and keep on planning on giving my future, way down the line, maybe 10 years from now babies, the same plastic treatment I got if another material doesn't come out before then.

Why my Parents Rock 1

2008-08-26T20:02:00.001+09:00

This may turn into a running series if my parents continue to rock this way.

Today in the mail I got this card from them, random out of the blue, just something to cheer me up because they know I've been down.

See, the fact that they did this just made my day good. It has given me something to smile over and is going to make me laugh for a while. Especially since they like to say they planned how to make my life miserable anyway.

Things like this are the reason that I am going to fight to spend the holidays with my family at my new job, no matter what.

The right to refuse

2008-08-19T20:01:00.001+09:00

The right to refuse someone is a very important thing. I'm not going to argue this fact, to take away someone's right to say "no" to someone else is horrible and essentially takes away their free will. However, there are certain instances where a person on a moral, good, HUMAN level should not say no to another person.

I have just read a news report from the BBC where California State Legislature passed a law stating that doctors cannot refuse treatment of another person for religious reasons. This was started when a lesbian woman tried to get fertilized artificially and two Christian doctors decided that it would be against their religion to help her and told her to do it herself, albeit they did tell her how. All this is taken to from the BBC website and here's the link for those who are interested : http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7569538.stm

Now, I'm not going to report anymore on this, I am going to say HOW FUCKING DARE ANY DOCTOR REFUSE ANY PATIENT FOR ANY FUCKING REASON!

I do not care what your religious beliefs are you took an oath to do no harm and to help people! To give a woman the instructions how to do it and with no care what may happen to her, props for them for eve giving her the instructions instead of leaving her to go to the internet for answers. It does not excuse a DOCTOR refusing a patient. I'm now picturing someone who has some sort of life-threatening disease and they go to a doctor and they turn around and go "I may be the only person in the world who can help you, but I'm not because you're gay." or "because you're whatever religion is unpopular and I hate because I'm another religion." You decided to take a career helping people, not specific people, but people in general.

Not to mention, as a human being how can you turn your back on a person like that?

Yeah California though! This definitely makes me consider moving to California at some point in time if the rest of teh states don't get their act together on this.

My Time At Pride

2008-08-15T15:12:00.001+09:00

Well, this is something that I've been meaning to do for a while (try about 4 months now). But a few months ago I experienced Pride in South Korea. Now for those of you who do not know, Pride is a celebration of being a part of the LGBT community and still one of the best ways to get information out on issues in the LGBT community, especially in countries where it is hard to find anyone that you can be sure is LGBT.

I do not know much about the laws here concerning LGBT rights, but I do know that extremely few people are fully if at all out here. I do not plan to discuss those, just what I saw at Pride.

When people think of Pride in the Western world they often think of large parties, a parade expanding blocks and lasting for hours, and lots of alcohol, sex, and drugs, with a few gay issues thrown in to make it seem like it is more than a giant party, which it can be, but usually is not for most.

South Korean Pride is completely different.

There was also a great deal of political booths to promote health and awareness and it was clear that is was a big deal to them to get their word out, however is a huge problem in how the gay community wants to get their message out in Korea. No one wants to be seen. The first thing I noticed at Pride was the amount of South Koreans there, which is great considering how often they hide their sexuality, and that the majority were wearing these red-ribbons. I know most people are thinking that it is for AIDs awareness, and trust me I was too, until I realized that these red-ribbons were to keep people from taking photos of them. As it turned out I had to register my camera in order to even take picutres and was given this really annoyingly huge cardboard sign so everyone knew I had a camera. I also had to agree not to post, or at least blur out any photos with people wearing a red-ribbon. This is because while they wanted to be out and proud and so many booths talked about making change, no one wanted to be seen and risk being outed to their family, friends and job. To make matters worse, when the parade started, we didn't go very far, which was fine, but as soon as we left the main Pride area a few of the people I saw wearing the red ribbons were hiding their faces. That alone made the whole expirience rather pointless to me. After all, change doesn't happen without showing yourself.

Now for those who are expecting a lot of alcohol in Pride, there wasn't really. There was a convience store nearby that sold alcohol and one outside vendor selling not really good beer. So, first of all this is not a drinking event. Now, drugs are apparently ridiculously hard to find in Korea anyway (at least I haven't heard of it, so we drink a lot) so clearly that is not going to be there. Which is nice, if you are like me and not a too big of a fan of over drinking and such, but I was in the mood for Jello shots. So there was a culture shock, very little alcohol. But we manage, we deal, convience stores that sell whole bottles of soju are there for a reason. :-)

Now, do not misunderstand me, I love South Korea and the very few gay people I met at Pride were wonderful. However, people are hiding and while there were chants during the parade about change and not having to hide anymore, change is not going to happen if you do keep hiding, especially at your biggest event of the year.

So this is my plea to you gay people of South Korea. Stop hiding please, it is time to be proud of who you are. As an ex-pat I have no power to make change here, I am "only a foreigner who cannot understand Korean culture." And I am sure many will ignore me because of that and maybe I got the wrong impression, but based on what I saw please stop hiding. Although I know change won't happen over night.

Also, to those of us in the western world who are young and used to more gay rights and not really having to hide on the same level: we really need to learn to appreciate what we have more.

And if I am wrong, please tell me that too.

Now to end these things I'm going to post one or two picutes that I can on here, because someone needs to.

Actually, I'll only post one, I don't want to risk posting one of my pictures and missing someone I should block out.

The Mummy 3 - The Pain Must be Shared

2008-07-31T21:44:00.000+09:00

Have you ever experienced something so bad that you had to share the pain with at least a few people, just so that you are not the only one and you all can express your pain? Well, that's how I feel about the Mummy 3 and here I am sharing the pain.

Now, let me preface with two things.

1. I like some really shit movies, Doom being my favorite example as to what bad movies I like.
2. I love the Mummy movies, the first two are a part of my favorite action films of all time. They have a very similar feel to Indiana Jones, and are things I love to go back to. They are movies that are purely meant to be fun. Brendan Fraser, Rachel Weisz, and John Hannah have a chemistry together that makes these action movies very funny as well, something that was rarely seen since Indiana Jones. They also made archeology entertaining again for the masses!

Now, that we have gotten the love out of the way, let's begin with the pain.

I'm not even going to go into the reasons why there needed to be a third movie when the second movie completed the story, we all know it was the money and Stephen Sommers desire to prove he could make something good again (after all, his last film was Van Helsing). No, I'm going to start with the plot of the movie and then we'll go with the other problems. First of all, it was practically the same story, complete with lines like "No one may touch her, she is mine." The only difference is that now the woman who is being objectified becomes the narrator and is thus the one we all know who is gaurding the "mummy" emperor so we know she will survive 2000 years somehow.

Secondly, the begining was too long! There is no need for us to spend a lot of time going over the back story as to why this guy becomes a "mummy," we are here for the O'Connells, all this stuff was just boring. I'm not even going to touch the obviousness of the plot progressions either, we all knew going in that it would happen and it would be a waste of time.

Instead, there was also the issue of the Dragon Emperor of course learning how to control not only one, but all five of the mystical elements that means he has magic powers, but then instead of really using them other than to throw fireballs and ice every once in a while he starts changing shapes at his full power. Why could he suddenly change shape and what happened with the at least different from the other two idea of controlling the elements? Is this because you are calling him the Dragon Emperor so he needs to change shape like the Scorpion King became an actual scorpion? They fought a bad guy who turned into a monster in the second movie, we didn't need it again.

Now some people will call me a nit picker (what does that mean anyway?) about this next part, but I really feel that accents can make or break or film. Maria Bello you cannot do an English accent to save your life. I can do a better one, and I suck at it. It was painful to watch and I felt that she was the reason the chemistry between the three main characters were gone. There was no romance between her and Brendan Fraser, and I felt like she was trying to hard to be this posh British thing that it just ruined any chemistry and any comedy that was in her scenes. Also, their son Alex O'Connell, in the the second film he had an English accent, like most boys who were growing up in London whose mother was English would. Now, I would almost, I mean almost understand if he no longer had much of an accent, if the actor was good (but is in fact, another black hole of talent). But why go Brooklyn? What about a man whose home was based in England, mother was English, and spent most of his childhood traveling the world getting in the way of his parents being spies during the war (really? They did that too?) leads to a Brooklyn accent? It was painful.

As for voices and bad actors, the person who played Lin was atrocious with an annoying voice to boot. Her voice felt like nails on a chalkboard to me, and I yell at people when they try to do that. Time to give that up please. Also, not enough John Hannah. He really brought out the comedy in the other films, and the slapstick between him and Brendan Fraser was great. It first takes way to long for him to show up, and then he is barely in it sucking out even more of the comedy that Maria Bello is taking out. As for Jet Li, this may have been just a costume thing, but he looked fat in the film and barely did any action that couldn't be seen with the way it was filmed. If this is all you are going to do now Jet Li, then please retire for good.

As for the action sequences, we had the same problem with this trend of putting the camera too close to see anything and it just leaves you feeling confused. I understand that it is suppose to make you feel like you are in the fight, but there was a fight between these three Chinese characters that was apparently suppose to be a big deal, but I couldn't tell who got whose assed kicked or who died for a full minute afterward. Also, the only reason why I could tell what was going on in the lack luster Michelle Yeoh v Jet Li was because one of them was wearing a dress, and even then it was tough.

There is also the crux of the whole thing of this being called a mummy movie. There were no mummies!! They kept referring to Jet Li and his army as mummies, but they were just people who got turned to stone. Mummies need to go through this process called mummification before they can be called mummies. And there are more mummies in the world than Egypt so they didn't have to stick there if they wanted the mummies. Or at the very least, don't call these guys mummies just because it is the theme of your movies.

There were so many other issues with this movie when it came to lack of exposition and people just forgetting not only what the other movies were, but this one. For instance, why did Evelyn give up archeology to write harlequin romances? Or the O'Connells were spies against the Nazis? Gee, how did that fully happen and wouldn't that make a good story? Then there is a line where Evelyn saying "The Emperor is back to full strength!" Wait, when did he loose his strength (the avalanche? how does that work?) and then how did he get it back? I understand that too much exposition is a bad thing - note the beginning of the film, but some there would be nice. I've never seen a film that had too much and too little exposition in the same film. I wasn't sure what to do with it.

I'm going to stop there because I'm sure I gave you enough pain, and if I made you want to see it for yourself to experience it, please let me know so we can share together. I'm also stopping because other wise I'm going to start talking about the Yetis.

I don't want to talk about the Yetis.