He should have been cast in the movie

I won't go on and on (again) about how perfect Hugh Panaro is. I've already done that.

You can find that picture (and others from Phantom's 23rd anniversary) here:
http://broadwayworld.com/article/Photo_Coverage_THE_PHANTOM_OF_THE_OPERA_Celebrates_23_Years_20110126

Has anyone else played Dead Space 2?

I'm just wondering how many other people had a delayed reaction to the beginning of the game that ended up causing them to die.

They're not screwing around. "Give them time to get used to the game? No way. Let's just throw EVERYTHING at them and surprise them by making them play in a STRAIGHTJACKET."

I love it. It's terrifying, but so worth it from what I've played so far.

My only small complaint is that it's very easy to miss when the chapter changes. I didn't realize chapter 1 was over until chapter 3. But actually...Maybe that's a good thing. It transitions smoothly instead of forcing Isaac to get on a tram between every chapter.

There was no way to narrow this list down

I love movies. Not in an "Oh, this is a great way to kill time!" kind of way. I love the stories. The cinematography. The acting. The soundtracks. All the hard work that goes into them. I love them for many different reasons. And because I find so much to love about the movies I enjoy, it's really difficult to narrow my favorites down to a Top Five list. I had trouble just getting it down to a Top Fifteen, to be honest.

I keep revisiting this topic

I love The Little Mermaid, it's my favorite Disney movie. So when I found out it was going to be on Broadway, I was really excited. (Until Broadway went on strike and I ended up missing the show because of it.)

I've said repeatedly that Sierra Boggess wasn't right for the part of Ariel when The Little Mermaid was still on Broadway. Most of that comes from the fact that I heard the demo album before the show's cast was even announced, and Kerry Butler recorded it. Kerry is, by far, my favorite stage actress. And her voice was so perfect for Ariel. As I've said a thousand times now, Sierra is much more suited for the role of Christine in Phantom of the Opera/Love Never Dies.

As many times as I've said this, I don't remember ever posting the songs for comparison. So here they are.

"Part of Your World" and "If Only" performed by Kerry Butler:

"Part of Your World" performed by Sierra Boggess:

"If Only" performed by Sierra Boggess:

Okay, Tim Gunn. You've really done it this time.

From page 84 (Rule 5: Get Inspired If It Kills You) of Gunn's Golden Rules

You can see why I was mad at my students who told me they couldn't find inspiration! I don't care if your list leans away from campy cult classics and period dramas toward, say, zombie movies or bromances or video games. Any genre, any film, any book can be the jumping-off point for amazing creative work. As long as we have Netflix, Turner Classic Movies, Amazon, YouTube, and bookstores, there is no excuse ever to lack inspiration.

I want to see all of that in the next season of Project Runway.

He's here to interrupt my currently scheduled reading

And I'm okay with that.

(And by "he," I mean Tim Gunn, not the raptor. I was reading Phantom of the Opera, but now it will have to wait.)

He's probably leaving tomorrow

And the battery in my camera is dead, so. Phone picture.

Cagney is going to miss him so much. :( He'll miss her, too. Since they started getting along, all he does is follow her around.

Bogart and Sam

It should be noted that Bogart ran away right after I took this picture.

(Sam isn't named after Sam Neill, surprisingly. He's named after Sam Spade from The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett.)

It doesn't have a name, but I call it Sam

This picture was taken with my phone, which is why it's terrible.

Sam is a stray with an injured leg. Someone else was supposed to be taking this kitten, but they did not follow through.

I won't throw Sam back outside with an injury, especially since it's getting colder now.

So now I'm stuck with an adorable kitten, and I can't get attached to it. Oh, and Cagney and Bogart hate it.

All I want from Nintendo in the future

1) I want the Fatal Frame 2 remake to be brought to America. Let's not have a repeat of Fatal Frame 4.

2) These Mario platformers? Please implement online multiplayer for them. There's no reason not to when you have the resources to do so.

3) No more motion controls.

That's it. That's all it will take to get me to stop complaining about them. I'll forgive them for the Wiimote and the Fatal Frame 4 debacle. Because, really, I love Nintendo...Just not anything they've done since the Wii was released. They can even make 3D games and I won't talk about what a useless gimmick it is.

Please, Nintendo. Just those three simple things. Stop holding the games that are actuallygood hostage. Let us play Super Mario Universe 12 (that's obviously not a real game) online. And get rid of the non-responsive motion controls. <3

One of the scariest things I've ever seen in a movie

His voice would put me in a trance-like state, too

What's on my bookcase?

First things first, try to ignore the glare. :)

The only reason I took these pictures is because I feel like what's on my bookcase gives a clearer idea of what I like than anything else would. These are the movies and books I enjoy most. All the other DVDs and books that wouldn't fit in there are stored somewhere else (or are on my desk, as is the case with my makeup book and the Dinosauria.)

And, I DO own the first season of Supernatural, but my father has been "borrowing" it for the past two years. Which means it's collecting dust in his house somewhere.

Also, the book whose title you cannot see (but whose pages are clearly visible on top of my games) is the Dinosaur Comics book. The book next to An Abundance of Katherines is The Picture of Dorian Gray. The playbill for Phantom of the Opera is stuck between Will Grayson, Will Grayson and Always Looking Up. Mana Khemia 2 is hidden behind The Hunger Games series because it came in a huge box and can't fit anywhere else. 13 Ghosts, House of Wax and House On Haunted Hill are the original movies, not the remakes. Except, technically, the Vincent Price version of House of Wax is a remake, but that DVD contains that one as well as the original.

SMT Devil Survivor 2, The Outsiders, The Buddy Holly Story, Nosferatu, The Holiday, Fear Itself

Are You Afraid of the Dark?, The Hunger Games, Catching Fire, Mockingjay, The Picture of Dorian Gray, An Abundance of Katherines, Paper Towns, Looking For Alaska, Will Grayson, Will grayson, Always Looking Up: The Adventures of an Incurable Optimist

Little Caesar, 27 Dresses, 13 Ghosts, 1408, 28 Days Later, 30 Days of Night, Best of Abbott and Costello Volume 1/2/4,  Abbott and Costello in Africa Screams/Jack and the Beanstalk, Abbott and Costello in Hollywood/Lost in a Harem, Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, Adventureland, Aladdin, Alice in Wonderland, Back to the Future, Back to the Future 1/2/3, Battle Royale, The Beatles Anthology Part 1

Teenate Mutant Ninja Turtles 1/2/3/TMNT, The Beatles Help!, The Beatles Anthology Part 2/3/4/5, The Big Heat, Breakfast at Tiffany's, Cary Grant Screen Legend Collection, Casablanca, Confessions of a Shopaholic, Death Note, Death Note 2, Death Note: L Change the World, Fullmetal Alchemist: The Conqueror of Shamballa, Gilda, The Beatles A Hard Day's Night, Hot Fuzz, House of Wax/Mystery of the Wax Museum, House On Haunted Hill, Horror Hotel, In the Mouth of Madness, It's a Wonderful Life

Zombieland, Jurassic Park 1/2/3, Life is Beautiful, The Little Mermaid, The Loves of Carmen, Mister Roberts, The Monster Squad, Paul McCartney: Good Evening New York City, The Phantom of the Opera, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Pretty Poison, Psycho, Psycho 2/3/4, The Public Enemy, Kairo, The Roaring Twenties, Shaun of the Dead, The Shawshank Redemption, Silver Bullet, Singin' in the Rain, Suspiria

The Tingler, Toy Story, White Heat, Yankee Doodle Dandy, You Can't Take It With You, You Were Never Lovelier, You'll Never Get rich, Alfred Hitchcock Presents Season 1/2/3/4, Family Ties Season 1/2/3/4/5, Harper's Island, Nightmares and Dreamscapes

A Walk to Remember, Supernatural Season 2/3/4/5, Chip n Dale Rescue Rangers Volume 1, Daria Complete Series, Tiny Toon Adventures Season 1/Volume 1, Descendants of Darkness, Disgaea, Fullmetal Alchemist Season 1/2

That Thing You Do!, Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood Volume 1/2, Ouran High School Host Club, 3D Dot Game Heroes, Borderlands, Calling, Clock Tower 3, Condemned 2: Bloodshot, Cross Edge, Dead Rising: Chop Till You Drop, Dead Space, Demon's Souls, Disgaea: Afternoon of Darkness, Disgaea: Hour of Darkness, Disgaea Infinite, Disgaea 2: Cursed Memories, Disgaea 2: Dark Hero Days, Disgaea 3: Absence of Justice, Disgaea DS

Dinosaur Comics, Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem, Eternal Poison, Fatal Frame, Fatal Frame 2: Crimson Butterfly, Fatal Frame 3: The Tormented, Fullmetal Alchemist 2: Curse of the Crimson Elixir, Guitar Hero 3, Haunting Ground, Heavy Rain, Kuon, Lights Out, Makai Kingdom, Mana Kehmia: Alchemist of Al-Revis, Mana Khemia: Student Alliance, Mega Man Anniversary Collection, Mojo, Motorstorm, Namco Museum 50th Anniversary

New Super Mario Bros. Wii, SMT Nocturne, Oblivion, Obscure: The Aftermath, Okami, Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door, SMT Persona, SMT Persona 3,  SMT Persona 3 Portable, Persona 4, SMT Strange Journey, Phantom Brave: We Meet Again, Prinny: Can I Really Be the Hero?, Resident Evil, Resident Evil 0, Resident Evil 2, Resident Evil 3: Nemesis

Dead Rising 2, Resident Evil 4, Resident Evil 5, Resident Evil Code: Veronica X, Silent Hill, Silent Hill 2, Silent Hill 2 (PC), Silent Hill 3, Silent Hill 4: The Room, Silent Hill: Homecoming, Silent Hill: Origins, Silent Hill: Shattered Memories, Siren, Siren: New Translation, Super Paper Mario, Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World, The Urbz, Uncharted: Drake's Fortune, Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, Valkyria Chronicles, Wii Sports

Sleepers, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, The Giver, Disgaea 2 Volume 1/2, Disgaea, Smack, A Wrinkle In Times, Party Monster, No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous, The Outsiders, A Safe Place, Phantom of the Opera

Gentleman's Agreement, The Thin Man, The Big Knockover, World War Z, Lovecraft - Tales, The Zombie Survival Guide, Battle Royale, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Disgaea Strategy Guide, Disgaea 2 Strategy Guide, Disgaea 3 Strategy Guide, Descendants of Darkness Volume 11, Kana Flashcards, Demon's Souls Art Book, Kana Flashcards Audio Companion

Cagney, The World of Disgaea 2, SMT Persona 4 Art Book, Necronomicon, 501 Must See Movies, Japanese For Busy People, Japanese From Zero, The Abbott and Costello Story, Genki 1, Genki 1 Workbook, Vintage L.A., It's Only a Movie: Alfred Hitchcock, A Personal Biography, There Are Survivors: The Michael Cuccione Story

It's February and I'm editing this because I've changed things around a bit...It's still not organized. I separate everything by movies, TV shows and games (and books, but there are no new additions that are able to fit on the shelves), but I've yet to integrate these ones.

Beauty and the Beast, Center Stage, The Cure, Death to Smoochy, Little Monsters, Radio Flyer, Sleepers, Toy Story 3, Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 1/2/3, Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood Volume 3, Tales From the Cryptkeeper Season 1/2, Dead Space 2, Prinny 2

What's the easiest way to take all the fun out of a game?

Add trophies to it.

And as if trophies in general don't suck all the fun right out of a game, add one in that requires you to kill 72,000 zombies in one playthrough, in a limited amount of time.

You may be thinking, "If they make you that miserable, just don't bother with the trophies." Sure, that makes sense. But my obsessive compulsive tendencies will not allow me to simply ignore them.

So when Capcom asks me to kill 72,000 zombies, rescue 50 survivors, consume all food items, enter every store and use/create all weapons...Of course I'm going to force myself to do it. And in doing so, I will kill ANY desire I had to play the game in the first place.

For the record, I'm on Day 2 and I've only killed 17,000+ zombies, so I think any hope Ihad of killing 72,000 zombies is officially dead. "Oh, I have an SUV, this is going to be SO easy!" Yeah. Right.

Capcom finally brought Crimson Heads back...Just not to Resident Evil.

Edit: Disregard this post. After spending more time on Dead Rising 2, I've decided I hate it. Quite a bit. So much, in fact, that I can't even be bothered typing a new post about my feelings towards it.

If I'm so sick, how can I post about Dead Rising 2 and not make that horror movies post for my 31 Days of Halloween folder? Well...Because I actually want to discuss this game. And because I attempted to discuss it in a video I recorded today, but I was having difficulty speaking, on top of having a thousand cutscenes play that I couldn't speak during, so I wasn't able to talk about it.

Dead Rising 2 is a major improvement over Dead Rising (at least the Wii version). The controls are so much better on the PS3 than they are on the Wii. Unless you're playing some sort of mini-games game on the Wii, motion controls just don't work. They are terrible for games that involve fighting off a horde of zombies or throwing some warped version of your daughter off your shoulders as you're running around a forest maze. I was very pleased with the controls for this game.

However. I was not happy with the changes they made to the now non-existent inventory screen. In the first game, you could pick up food and it would go directly into your inventory, while you would just hold on to any special weapons you picked up. They were separate. In Dead Rising 2, everything goes into your inventory. So if you have a handgun, a fire axe and orange juice, it's all in the top right corner of your screen. On the one hand, it's easier to cycle through your items that way. On the other hand, it means less inventory space.

The other issue is, if you have a weapon equipped and you pick up a food item, or catch a Queen Bee, that becomes equipped instead. I cannot stress just how many times I've wasted healing items and Queens because of this. If you have a weapon equipped, that should be the default, even when you pick up another item. There's no good reason for it to automatically be switched out with whatever you found lying around.

Co-op is a double edged sword. If you are killed, your partner can revive you. That should make it easier to progress through the game without having to repeatedly redo difficult sections, right? Well...Not really. Almost any time you're about to exit through a door, there's a large group of zombies (probably at least sixty, if not more) waiting to tear you apart. If your partner is not near you, you're stuck in the middle of those zombies until they get close enough that you're able to leave through the doors. It's not that bad early on in the game, but it's a huge problem once you're on Case 6. (No spoilers, even though the title hints at it.) I actually feel like I would have enjoyed Dead Rising 2 more if I had played it alone.

Any progress you make in the story while helping someone else co-op their game isn't saved on your game. That's surprising to me, considering how well Capcom did with the co-op for Resident Evil 5. As much as I don't particularly care for the direction that series has gone in, I love the co-op for it. I don't think it was implemented very well for Dead Rising 2. (Although, I have to admit, I was VERY annoyed with the person I played DR2 with, so that could have something to do with why I'm not fond of it.)

All of that aside, I really do like the game a lot. It's not perfect, but it exceeded my expectations.

As I type this...

I am in an enormous amount of pain from Wii-related injuries.

(Toy Story Mania is serious business.)

My wrist feels like it's going to fall off. Luckily, I don't think that's possible. But since it hurts to type, I quit.

It used to frustrate me when Nintendo would release things like this, but now it just makes me laugh

The Virtual Console gets maybe one release a month now, if we're lucky. And that's the only thing I've really used my Wii for since I bought it, aside from a few Wii games and playing Gamecube games. All they release now is WiiWare, and most of it...Is ridiculous. (I will say that I love Dr. Mario Online RX. And Mega Man 9 and 10 were worth it, even though they make me want to throw things.)

None of that can compare to this though...This is the description for the new DSiWare this week:

myNotebook: Tan™
Publisher: Nnooo
Players: 1
Price: 500 Nintendo DSi Points
Description: myNotebook allows you to take notes wherever you are. Just pop open your Nintendo DSi™ system and jot down your thoughts. Make a list and cross it off, or even play your favorite pen-and-paper games (games not included). You can personalize your notebook by drawing on the cover or by changing the paper type with 24 unlockable squared and lined paper styles. Use the pen or pencil to make notes or doodles and then erase the bits you don't like. With five ink colors, you'll always be able to make your notes and doodles look stylish. myNotebook also includes 128 pages to write on, plus the ability to export your pages to your Nintendo DSi Photo Album.

...I'm at a loss for words here. "24 unlockable squared and lined paper styles." Really, what is there to say?

Thank you, John Green, for putting this into perspective. I feel much better about it now.

Dating, after all, only ends one way: poorly. If you think about it, and Colin often did, all romantic relationships end in either (1) breakup, (2) divorce, or (3) death.
-An Abundance of Katherines

My failed relationships aren't as terrible as I thought. It could be worse. I could be dead. Not the point there at all, but still.

I like this book, but I still have Mockingjay on my mind. I wonder if re-reading it will help me feel any better about it...Probably not. It will just give me more time to analyze the story and let those emotions sink in. I read through it so quickly the first time that I didn't have time to think about what was happening. Imagine actually taking the time to dwell on how tragic that ending was?

Nintendo, this is why I don't love you anymore

My Wii has been glowing blue for two days now, probably because of some message Nintendo sent out about a useless update.

I cannot sleep because it is SO obnoxiously bright and I need my room to be really dark or I have trouble falling asleep.

But I'm not giving in, Nintendo. I'm not turning that thing on to check a message I don't even care about. I'll unplug it before I let you win.

Bogart loved/hated Mockingjay, too

The more I think about it...And I've been thinking about it a lot, I can't seem to get Mockingjay off of my mind...That book could very well be my favorite in the series. It wasn't at first, because I was so depressed by the end of it and I was disappointed that Peeta wasn't really...Peeta anymore. But thinking about it...That book got the most intense reaction out of me. The Hunger Games and Catching Fire were amazing, but I've never read a book and felt so awful and broken down afterwards. The fact that it could draw such strong emotions out of me speaks volumes about the subject matter in Mockingjay. I hate it for having no boundaries and making me feel so horrible after reading it, but I also love it for those very same reasons.