The Nightingale and the Rose

"What a silly thing Love is," said the Student as he walked away. "It is not half as useful as Logic, for it does not prove anything, and it is always telling one of things that are not true."

(From The Nightingale and the Rose by Oscar Wilde)

I don't actually agree with that at all, but the cynic in me (the one that ruled my teens and the first few years of my twenties) enjoyed it.

I've been reading The Complete Short Stories of Oscar Wilde...Mostly because I loved The Picture of Dorian Gray so much. The conclusion I've come to so far is that these stories are beautiful. Normally, if I'm reading a short story, it includes dialogue such as, "The cheaper the crook, the gaudier the patter." (Except, not THAT line, because that's actually from The Maltese Falcon, which was not a short story.) But these stories are beautifully written...And they end tragically. So in the end, I'm left feeling confused. Not confused by the stories, but confused by conflicting emotions. Still, I'm enjoying them.

This is my terrible attempt at keeping my word about more book reviews. The past two weeks were hectic. I'm trying.

It's not being a fangirl, it's knowing what I want from a gaming console.

I don't know if I've ever mentioned this on here, so I'm going to now.

Up until 2007, I ONLY owned Nintendo consoles. The NES, SNES, N64, Gamecube and Gameboy Advance SP. (I own a DS now, but that was after 2007, so it's irrelevant.) I loved Nintendo, that was all I needed. The Xbox wasn't even on the radar for me, and I couldn't stand the thought of Sony. So what happened?

When I bought my Gamecube, I mostly played survival horror games on it. Resident Evil. Resident Evil 0. Resident Evil 2. Resident Evil 3. Resident Evil Code Veronica X. Eternal Darkness. (I also own Resident Evil 4, but let's be serious. At what point is that ever a survival horror game? Other than the two seconds you play as Ashley.) I loved survival horror, and I wanted to try more games in that genre. Sadly, MOST of them were on the PS2, including the Silent Hill series. But, as luck would have it, Silent Hill 2 was also a PC game. So I bought it. That's when my love for Nintendo, exclusively, went out the window.

I was amazed by Silent Hill 2. It was scary and it had a really incredible story, albeit with pretty dull gameplay, but I've always overlooked that because it's completely worth it. I wanted to play the rest of the series. The only way to do that, though, was to buy a PS2. Or, the other option, a PS3 with backwards compatibility. And with Silent Hill: Homecoming announced for the PS3 (along with Resident Evil 5), the PS3 was the best option. Even if it did make me cringe.

So I got my PS3, and it was gorgeous. Best looking console I've ever owned, hands down. And it did EVERYTHING. I could store pictures, music and movies on it, go on the internet, message people, and on top of all that, play games. It was basically a computer. Now I could play all the games I was never able to play before (except for when Mana Khemia 2 came out for the PS2 last summer and it was not compatible with my 80GB PS3, forcing me to buy a PS2, which I also love now). I bought the entire Silent Hill series. Siren. Kuon. Haunting Ground. Clock Tower 3. And the Fatal Frame series. Then, something happened.

Fatal Frame 4, for reasons completely unknown, was announced as a Wii exclusive. None of the previous games had ever been released on a Nintendo console. Why start now? Oh, that's right, because I didn't own a Wii and it was still impossible to find one in stores at that point. Solution? Ask my cousin, who was a Gamestop employee at the time, to put a Wii on hold for me as soon as the next shipment came in. Problem solved! I now owned a Wii, and it was so cute and tiny next to my giant PS3. My giant, bulky PS3 that took up so much space...

For a couple months, I really loved my Wii. It was going to allow me the opportunity to play Fatal Frame 4! The Fatal Frame series is my favorite survival horror series. I was SO excited! Plus, it allowed me to play old NES, SNES and N64 games thanks to the Virtual Console. AND, I could also play my Gamecube games on there. Sure, it couldn't store pictures, music and movies. And it doesn't have the best setup for online gaming. But still! ...Then it was announced that Fatal Frame 4 was never coming to America.

What did my Wii do then? I owned Wii games, sure. But I didn't really like most of them. And some, I didn't care about one way or the other. They were decent, but not amazing. And at a time when I was discovering the Disgaea series and playing it on my PS3 (Disgaea 3 would go on to become my favorite game of all time), what did the Wii really have to offer? It offered me NES, SNES and N64 games. And the ability to play my Gamecube games, which was pointless since I already HAD a Gamecube. I was playing games on there that I LOVED, that were released for OTHER consoles. The Wii offered me what older consoles had already offered. It wasn't giving me anything new. I wasn't enjoying the Wii, I was enjoying those other consoles. And I was bitter over the fact that I bought it exclusively for Fatal Frame 4, and I would never get the chance to play it now, because apparently, it's "not [Reggie's] problem."

The PS3 kept offering me new games to play. Online multiplayer was fun, and really, there was nothing for me to complain about. Aside from my brief lapse in judgment when I first bought the Wii, I still loved my PS3.

I won't even get into the issue of the DS vs. the PSP right now, I'll save that for another post.

The point is, I can back up my opinions. I feel the way I do for a reason. It's not just, "The Wii sucks!" And that's it. The Wii doesn't meet my gaming needs. And as for my distaste for the Xbox, well...Aside from the RRoD issue, it's just not for me. I'm not interested in FPS games. The RPGs I want to play are not available on the 360. And the survival horror series I'm interested in release their games for both consoles, so it would be completely unnecessary to buy a 360. Plus, Microsoft charges you to play online, while Sony allows you to do so for free. (Granted, they're going to start charging for premium accounts, but everything that you've been able to do up until now is STILL going to be free.) I DO love my PS3, but everyone has a preference. That's mine.

Catching Fire

I finished reading this book like...A month ago? And I really wanted to review it and expand on the post I made about Hunger Games, I just haven't gotten around to it yet. I will though! It was so, so amazing. But again, I was left with a feeling of wanting to throw the book across the room after I finished reading it. I cannot wait for Mockingjay to come out in August.

He's so sneaky

You don't even see him until it's too late and he's already sprawled out on the floor. Isn't he cute? :)

The cutestttt cat ever

Makeup can completely transform a person, and to prove it, let's play a game.

These pictures were taken from Making Faces by Kevyn Aucoin. Sorry about the glare. :) Anyway, the book is completely amazing, and I definitely recommend it.

I'm not going to say who these women are, but feel free to guess. I promise, you've heard of all of them before. As for who they're portraying...That might be left in the pictures. The only reason I cut some of them is because their names were in the description and I didn't want to give it away.

Battle Royale vs. The Hunger Games

I would like to preface this by saying that I believe my interest in books involving controlling governments stems from reading The Giver when I was in school. Out of all the books we were assigned to read, few of them really struck me. But I'll still flip open The Giver (as well as A Wrinkle in Time, the only other book to leave a lasting impression on me from school) every now and then.

Originally, I had intended to write a comparison of Battle Royale, the novel, and Battle Royale, the movie. I started rereading the book, taking notes and then I realized that by the time I'd reached page twenty, I already had three pages of notes. It's 576 pages long. You can see where I'm going with this, right? That's what lead me to this comparison instead.

For a while now, I've been debating whether or not to read The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. I finally caved and began reading it on Monday. I finished it on Wednesday. Unfortunately, the book is only 374 pages. I've always enjoyed reading, and I never want books to end. I suppose it's forgivable, as the story is continued in two other novels, Catching Fire (which I have not read, but I did order it this morning) and Mockingjay (to be released in August). For the sake of this post, and also because I have no idea what happens after the first book, Catching Fire and Mockingjay will not be taken into consideration and I will treat them as if they don't even exist. All I know is what occurred in The Hunger Games.

There are massive spoilers ahead for both Battle Royale and The Hunger Games, so I suggest you stop reading this now if you don't want to know how either ends.

Someone get Tory Burch a color wheel

"I'm not sure blue and orange are that complementary."

I am referring to what she said during judging on Project Runway this week. Maybe Amy's design was flawed, but it had nothing to do with the colors.

Currently Reading (95% Battle Royale, 5% Everything Else)

Battle Royale by Koushun Takami
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
Always Looking Up: The Adventures of an Incurable Optimist by Michael J. Fox
The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson

The one that I have trouble putting down at the end of the night when I can barely keep my eyes open any longer is Battle Royale.

I watched the movie first. "Actor-redemption" for Tatsuya Fujiwara after hating him (well, not really him, but his character) for four and a half hours during the Death Note films. Anyway. The film version was pretty good, if not somewhat predictable. It was unsettling to see these junior high school students killing eachother, usually without giving it a second thought...But I felt pretty detached from it all. Really, there's only so much you can accomplish in a movie that lasts for less than two hours and features 42 different students in the lineup. How much characterization could there possibly be? That doesn't make it a bad film, it just makes it a bit harder to be drawn into it.

As for the book...Well. Between working during the day and falling asleep at 8:00 the past couple nights, there hasn't been much time to read it (I've only had it since Tuesday). I've just now reached page 100, the beginning of Part 2, with 31 students remaining. (It's worth noting that the novel is over 500 pages.) I've always loved reading. It's so easy to get lost in a good book. This one hasn't let go of my attention for a minute.

What I can say so far, though, is that what the movie lacked in characterization, the book more than makes up for. (For the record, the book came first.) You learn the backgrounds of each student, where they come from, what type of person they were before being thrown into a "game" where the objective is to kill all their classmates and be the lone survivor, the "winner," if you consider murdering your friends and classmates as winning at the end of the day.

It's not a book I could recommend for everyone, because it is pretty detailed, thus making it incredibly disturbing at times. But if you can handle it, it's definitely an interesting novel.

NYX/Mario Badescu/Victoria's Secret Ultimate Makeup Kit Reviews

This is going to be one huge post because I've been putting the first part of it off for...I don't even know, three months now? NYX had a huge sale and since everyone raves about how great and affordable their products are, I decided to buy a bunch of them. And it only cost me $60. Well...I say "only" but... 

I don't love it quite as much as Dinosaur Comics

It's still pretty amazing though. <3

http://lovecraftismissing.com/

Are there any other webcomics inspired by Lovecraft?

Just spent an hour and a half watching Resident Evil: Afterlife

And the only reason I did it was so that I could confirm my suspicions of how terrible it is to Ryan.

(There are no spoilers for Afterlife since it's new and I don't want to ruin it for anyone, it's bad enough to ruin itself for you. But there are spoilers for all the other movies, which everyone has probably seen by now if they were interested in them.)

The first movie...Was okay. Sure, it wasn't based on any particular Resident Evil game, but it still felt like it could fit into the RE universe. And Alice wasn't insanely overpowered. Yeah, there's that whole..Jumping off a wall and kicking dogs in the face thing, but she was probably trained to do that.

In every movie since that one, she's been WAY too powerful. And it's annoying. Look, I know Paul W.S. Anderson was sleeping with Milla Jovovich (and I'm assuming he still is since they have a kid together and they're married), but that doesn't give him an excuse to make the Resident Evil series center around a woman who never existed in any of the games. And to be honest, there's no place for super-human protagonists in this series, whether they're infected with the T-Virus or not. The games feature regular people trying to survive a zombie outbreak. They can't look at a security camera and make a man's eyes start bleeding.

And someone will probably say the movies don't have to follow the games, it's an original story, etc. If you've noticed, I said the first movie was fine. It's everything that came after it that's an issue.

We can start with Carlos. Oded Fehr is an attractive man, he was enjoyable to look at. And that's about it. Carlos...Was nothing like his Resident Evil 3 counterpart. Neither was Nicholai. If I recall correctly, Nicholai was awful in Resident Evil 3, yet for some reason, they decided to turn him into a decent human being in Resident Evil: Apocalypse. And I have to ask, why? Why not just give his character a different name? It doesn't make sense.

Then there's Jill. I never really cared about her one way or the other in the games, but she kind of struck me as a bit of a bitch in Apocalypse. (Sorry for the language, but she did.) She had a completely different personality. Why would you do that? Because Alice is the heroine of the movies and she's the only one who can be nice and perfect and save people? Again, I know you're sleeping with her, but enough is enough.

I can't even find the words to describe what happened to Claire. Chris and Claire are my two favorite Resident Evil characters, and what I saw in these movies was not Claire. Giving her red hair is not enough.

The biggest issue I've seen so far is Nemesis. Nemesis was sent to Raccoon City to destroy STARS members, which is why he's so hard to get rid of in Resident Evil 3, he chases Jill down constantly. But in RE: Apocalypse, for some reason, he was stalking Alice instead. That's not even the part that bothers me. What bothers me is that Nemesis actually HELPS Alice at the end of the movie. You can tell me that this is all fictional and Nemesis wouldn't do or not do something because he's not actually real, but the fact is, in the world of Resident Evil, there's no way that Nemesis is going to become an upstanding citizen. I should know, I was killed by him many, many times in Resident Evil 3. (I know, I know. He used to be Matt. Sorry, but I still don't buy it. Nemesis in the game used to be a human, too. That didn't give him a conscience though, did it?)

Paul W.S. Anderson took a lot of liberties when making these films. I have trouble understanding why he didn't just give them a different title and change the characters' names. They're completely unrecognizable from their counterparts in the games, anyway. It's a shame these films turned out the way they did, I know he's capable of making a decent movie. Event Horizon was great. (Sam Neill is in it. And when I played Dead Space, I immediately thought of that movie. That's a good thing, because Dead Space is incredible.)

I think the only way we'll ever get a decent video game movie (because let's face it, they're all terrible, including Silent Hill [just because it's the best out of all of them, that doesn't make it good]) is if a fan of the game actually makes it. Some low-budget, uploaded-on-YouTube-in-seven-parts movie. Something like this:

Here's a list...Basically, so that I never have to answer these questions again. 

Legally: Blonde The Musical (and some other pictures)

These were all taken with my phone, however...Next time I go to the city, I'm bringing the digital camera and my Flip, so there will be a lotttt more pictures and videos. Because no matter how many times I go there, I still act like a tourist. 

Pictures of the Palace Theater, when Legally Blonde: The Musical was still playing there: 

Toys R Us in Times Square:

Satan's House:

Citi Field:

Long Island:

Disgaea 2: Dark Hero Days (PSP)

I know I have an entire post on here regarding everything I hate about Disgaea 2. However...It's still a Disgaea game, you know I'm going to get it anyway. 

And here are some excellent reasons why: 

Axel Mode - I love Axel. He's pathetic and slightly irritating, but I love him anyway. And I think it's amazing that he now has his own scenario. Now just give me Mid Boss Mode and I'll be happy! (I wouldn't mind a Prinny Kurtis mode, either, NIS.) 

Mao is playable. I don't think I need to elaborate here, right? ...This probably should have been my first point, I don't know why it's coming after Axel Mode. 

The only thing that doesn't interest me is the fact that they implemented the Magichange system from Disgaea 3 into this game. I never used Magichange in D3, so I won't probably won't use it for D2 either. (Don't hold me to that, though. I could easily change my mind.) 

The official release, according to the website (http://www.disgaea.us/d2psp/), is September 2009.

"They all want to be James Dean. I want to be James Cagney."

I really like Michael J. Fox. I love that quote. 

I'm watching Little Caesar...It reminds me of Sleepers. If you've seen Sleepers, you should know why. 

But anyway. I need to get an orange cat now. So I can name it Robinson and have all my little Warner Bros. gangster cats. Although, that's not the reason I named my cats Cagney and Bogart. 

Cagney was given her name because James Cagney was, in my opinion, the greatest actor ever. People think of him, and they think of Rocky Sullivan. Well, while Angels With Dirty Faces was an incredible movie, I think of James Cagney and Yankee Doodle Dandy comes to mind. 

The first movie I ever saw him in was Angels With Dirty Faces. I'd enjoyed old movies before that, but mostly just the ones starring Abbott and Costello and Vincent Price. AWDF sort of opened up the doors for me. I thought James Cagney was good in it, but I wasn't amazed or anything. The next movie I saw him in was White Heat, and it floored me. This scene in particular: 

I realized what an incredible actor he really was after watching that film. However, I didn't realize just how talented he really was until the next film I watched him in. Yankee Doodle Dandy. Cagney started out as a song and dance man, and you can see how much he loved making that movie. He was the perfect choice to play George M. Cohan. I believe Cohan said, "What an act to follow," after seeing the film himself. I wish Jack Warner had been smart enough to allow Cagney to make more musicals (he made only a handful while on contract at Warner Bros.), rather than throwing him into so many gangster roles, not that he didn't do an amazing job with every single role he had. 

The real proof of his talent is in Mister Roberts. I couldn't stand him by the time that movie was over, that's how well he did playing the captain. And just a note, The Strawberry Blonde is also a wonderful movie, and it doesn't get the attention it deserves. 

As for Humphrey Bogart, the first film I happened to see him in was also Angels With Dirty Faces, but he wasn't terribly important in that movie, so I didn't pay him much attention. The next film I saw him in also starred James Cagney (and of all the gangster movies Cagney made, it's my favorite), The Roaring Twenties. Again, he wasn't that important. 

I didn't particularly care for Bogart after the first two movies, I had no sympathy for the characters he played. Which is why when I was told to watch Dark Passage, I was a bit hesitant. He was decent in it, and I decided to give him another chance. This time, with the Maltese Falcon. That was the movie that did it for me. Bogart's version of Sam Spade is the reason that Spade is my favorite fictional character. Not only did that movie open me up to watching Bogart's other films (I'm sure I don't need to tell you I've seen Casablanca since then), but it introduced me to Dashiell Hammett who has since become one of my favorite writers. 

Now, it's nothing against Edward G. Robinson, but I've yet to find a movie that he's starred in that really caught my attention. I've seen him in Smart Money, Bullets or Ballots, A Slight Case of Murder, Brother Orchid, The Stranger (I don't blame the fact that this movie didn't impress me on him, I've never been able to sit through a movie Orson Welles has starred in yet, not even The Trial, and I love Anthony Perkins), and now, Little Caesar. So the fact that I want to name a cat after him has little to do with the work I've seen him do. But I'm always open to suggestions, if anyone has one.

You probably think the pink one is my favorite, right?

Well. It's not. The green one is. 

And they sent me this Laharl thing...Last time, they sent me one of these, and it was Flonne. And...Whatever. I don't even have a point, except that if they'd get the order right in the first place, they wouldn't feel the need to keep sending me these things. (RosenQueen Company.) 

The Dazzle finally works, and I was going to record an entire playthrough of Disgaea 3, but I said screw it. I don't feel like restarting that game when the file I started back in October/November has 210 hours on it at this point. Too much time goes into it. And there's an insane amount of grinding, which means I'd be editing the videos forever. It's just not worth it for an RPG. Not until I figure out a better way to go about it. 

And I still need to come up with some kind of post for Prinny: Can I Really Be the Hero? as I've completed it twice and it deserves its own post.

88 Warm Palette and other palette pictures that I've yet to put up here

This is the 88 Warm Palette...Obviously. :) And I really like it because it's matte, unlike the other 88 palettes (the original ones), so you can't see fingerprints all over it. I also like that it tells you what it is on the front of the palette, because I have two other palettes from Coastal Scents that are the same size, and it saves me like...Five seconds if I don't have to open them to find out what they are. 

These are the other two palettes that I have from Coastal Scents (the other 88 palette has completely fallen apart since I originally got it, so you can tell these are old). 

88 Shimmer Palette: 

56 Blush and Eyeshadow Palette: 

And you can get all three of those palettes at coastalscents.com, I definitely recommend them. 

Onto the next three palettes. These can be found at sillyfarm.com...I rarely ever use the Mehron palette, but I use the Ben Nye palette a lot, and I always use the colors from the Kryolan palette as a base for my eyeshadow. 

Ben Nye 12 Color Lumiere Palette:

Kryolan Interferenze 12 Color Palette:

(Paradise) Mehron Tropical Palette:

Ohhh, what is this?

Yeah. I got the Dinosaur Comics book today. And that's a copy of the...2004? Dinosauria underneath it. 

I almost said, "I never thought I'd see the day..."

Cross Edge

...But then I remembered this: 

Disgaea Anime