Twilight Chapters 1-6.

And... I'm finding it fairly slow.

Also, I'm rather pissed that the new girl, who's relatively emodepressed that she has to spend time in GloomyTown, has all the boys clamouring to be Friend Numero Uno and wanting to go out with her, even though she hardly provides any stimulating conversation whatsoever, aside from replying the person with the question of the hour / day.

Things must work differently in small-town America.

So far, it's the occasional conversation between Bella and her father, and her annoying friends, and Edward. And Edward saving Bella from the skidding van.

We have also have a bit of back-and-forth between Bella and Ed, even though some parts don't make sense. I mean, he keeps glaring at her and telling her to stay away from him and that he won't be a very good friend, and the next he's asking her whether she needs a ride to Seattle, and to ask him for. We know he means it, and we also know he's half-assing it, because unless you've been living under a soundproof rock that also doubles as a nuclear shelter, *spoiler* Edward is in love with Bella.

And there you have it ladies and gentlemen, the definitive men's guide for scoring with chicks. If there is a girl you like,

DO:

• frequently snicker (this is crucial); and
• give her mixed signals about what your intentions are.
  

DO NOT:

• be clear on anything, especially on your feelings towards her. 
  

This hot-cold combo will annoy and infuriate her to no end, and eventually (about two months or so), she will start hyperventilating whenever you're within the two-mile radius.

NOTE:

• Will only work if you are GOOD-LOOKING. 
• Alternative: PLASTIC SURGERY.

One part about the book I did appreciate was how straightforward Jacob was in telling his tribe history with Bella. I haven't read any further, but I hope this saves us some time on Bella looking up the Google and doing research on something so painfully obvious (as per the movie).

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At the mountains of madness...

As much as I refuse to have any thing to do with sparkly bloodsuckers and pedo werewolves, alas, I finally give. The New Moon is on the rise, my colleagues want to see it, the whole WORLD will be / is already watching it, and I must admit, I am not strong enough to deny its pull.

After all, pop culture is my life.

Not that I loved or even remotely liked the first movie, this intrepid reporterreader will delve into the most popular and current book series for teenage girlsyoung adults, just for the sake of exposure. I've already downloaded the books (try before you buy :)), all I need is just some time to read it. Rather than do the ol' hackneyed chapter-by-chapter analysis, I'll be posting my thoughts when I wanna, though I'll make it a point to update regularly on my progress.

[Like, more often than I blog now.]

So, before I descend into the madness that is Twi-mania, here are my last lucid words as someone who has not read any of the Twilight saga, and who is well aware that the next thousand or so pages (four books) she reads will revolve around forbidden love and romance, with absolutely no sex despite there being vampires around.

Here's to hoping I come out of the experience sane, and not as a *shudder* Cullen fangirl.

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Twilight (2008)

I figured with Twilight season already upon us, I'd give the first movie a try. I hadn't seen it when it first came out, because even though it has vampires and is based on a best-selling series, teen romance isn't my thing.

As much as I tried to keep an open mind, I didn't like it.

Yes, the people are beautiful, and the acting wasn't atrocious as everyone had said it to be, but I still couldn't find myself to like it.

The first 45 minutes involved our two leads being awkward towards each other, with the girl being annoyed with why the totally cute loner doesn't like her, and, I believe, also with her excruciatingly over-chatty new high school friends. Besides being overwhelming, I mean hellooo, there's probably a reason why she's awkward with y'all and gives one-worded answers EVEN AFTER SOME TIME INTO THE MOVIE.

Anyway, for 15 minutes (and occasionally after that), the point that THE NEW GIRL IS POPULAR AMONG THE LOCAL EVERYONE is put to us.

We find out that totally cute loner Edward doesn't like her because he's attracted to her bloodscent (and also 'cuz he can't read her mind, but that bit isn't expanded on), and after he saves her a few times, they get to know each other and get together. As in, they lie on the forest floor looking into each other's eyes, while NOTHING EVER HAPPENS.

NOT EVEN PASSIONATE KISSING. 

[No wonder Rob Pattinson keeps wanting to get it on with Kristen Stewart. But last I heard, they already HAVE! SQUEE~]

In this story, the vampires don't burst into flame when they go into the sun, they just... glow. Or shine, if you will. A word I see being thrown around is 'sparkle', but that's just ridiculous. Edward looked glow-in-the-dark, despite standing in bright sunlight. And even with his good looks, no, he doesn't look beautiful, he just looks freaky and radioactive scary.

Anyway, the next half hour's involved with our girl Bella meeting Edward's family, decent vampires who abstain from human blood and drink animals instead (they call themselves 'vegan', but the way I see it, animal blood isn't synthetic blood, nor is it the opposite of plain ol' blood, please correct me if I'm wrong), and playing baseball, the latter scene being the best part in the entire movie.

[I think that speaks volumes of my opinion towards this film. Supermassive black HOOOOLLLLLLEEEEEEEEE!!!]


Then we have some rogue vampires that do eat humans, and one of them, James, likes Bella's scent. So with some really lousy attempts at misdirection, we get to the showdown between Jim and Edward, which isn't too bad, but still can't beat the baseball scene.

Long story short: Bella gets bitten by James, James is set on fire by the other Cullens (who proceed to prance about in the background after doing so), Edward sucks the venom out after MUCH thought and deliberation, Bella is taken to the hospital, Edward says he wants to leave for fear of hurting her, Bella upon hearing that has a MASSIVE PANIC ATTACK, Edward changes his mind, and then they go to the prom.

Tha End.

Some parts didn't make sense. Obviously, James had stopped by Bella's mom's place to be able to speak to Bella over the phone, but we're talking about a cold-blooded killer here. Don't tell me that after James knocked Bella's mother out and ended the call with Bella, he proceeds to LEAVE the place without HARMING the mother?! Unless James has mad hackering skillzz or something and intercepted the call without stepping into the house, which I really doubt. And James was right outside Bella's house in Forks! How on earth does he NOT drop in and eat her father??


[And plus, the bad-ass vampires wanting to play baseball as well? Puh-leese.]

Despite all the irregularities, it was still okay for me, till I saw Bella's reaction towards Edward leaving. It was such a 180˚ for a character who through this entire time was rather expressionlessnonchalant and 'whatev', so much so that she would get all clingy and borderline obsessive towards Edward when he said he wanted to leave. Yes, she loves him, and he did save her life quite a few times, but the overreaction was a bit... random. I mean, he just 'said', he didn't actually do it.

I equate that scene to the butler telling Harry that his father died by his own hand in Spider-man 3. Though this one didn't make my jaw drop out of WTF-ness, still made the movie suck for me.

I admit that some instances (like the 'James and parents' part) may be fully explained in the book, but that should've been translated onto the movie, and it didn't. I'd be a bit pissed if I had anything to watch that day, and foregone it for this. As much as I love reading, I'm a bit afraid of trying Twilight, just in case I become a tolerant reader (or worse, a Twi-hard) and start gawping and fangirling over anything Twilight-related.

Here are two articles about the series and Edward Cullen, courtesy of Cracked.com.

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And today we went shopping!

We totally did. After we left the company, we went down to Central Square (in Sungai Petani!) to do some gift-shopping for a colleague of ours, whose party is this Saturday.


We didn't manage to buy anything, but at least we got to see some place new :)

I swear, I had the most fun at work this week and the last.

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Kedah and back!

Went to Sungai Petani this morning, and was back by 5.45pm.

And I didn't even have to go on leave.

This week I'm to assist my seniors in auditing a manufacturer of... stuff, I'unnoyet. We got to go see the factory, which was pretty cool 'cuz it was big, and we got to see the township itself, which, by all aspects, looks a helluvalot cleaner and newer than our Penang.

Pity we can't stop by to do shopping and stuff. Though the weather was really, really, REALLY hot today. And glaringly bright, too.

And last week we got lost in Seberang Prai. I yelled, "Road trip!" about an hour into the journey, and we drove around for two hours before we found the bloody place (different from this week's, though). We even went off the Googlemap we had, and had to stop every 10 minutes or so to ask for directions. That company was a plastics manufacturer. It was quite stuffy.

IN OTHER NEWS !

I read in the papers about something called "Through My Window", which is this rather annoying TV commercial that also seems to be getting airtime on radios and cinemas.

That article also mentions that TMW is supposed to get everyone participating in a nationwide karaoke session, and footage of random people lipsyncingsinging will be combined to make a montage of sorts. Don't get me wrong, it sounds kinda cool, but between ONE movie trailer per movie and a full song that isn't from Lady GaGa or Tokio Hotel? I'll be pissed that management will be taking away what little movie trailers we get and replacing it with a song that isn't even sung / pronounced correctly.


[I'm all for pronounciation. That's why I don't really like Leona Lewis.]

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BROOKLYN RAGE~

As you all would've figured it out by now, I'm a fan of the original Yu-Gi-Oh! series, as well as the Abridged Series that parodies it. Little Kuriboh, the guy that's behind the series, just released this video of Joey Wheeler singing about his Brooklyn Rage (he goes into a frenzy when he's pissed and he has a Brooklyn accent), all the while parodying one of my favourite songs in all of existence.

It has quite a bit of in-jokes, but I hope you non-followers enjoy it as much as us crazies did ;)

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Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson's The Gathering Storm.

As I've probably typed quite a few times now, Book 12 of The Wheel Of Time series was only partially finished by the original author, since he'd passed on in 2007. Sanderson is the new author to finish off the series, and as per my relatively-outraged post here (outrage for different reasons), he'll be doing the writing for the next two books.

I just finished the book, and I'd have to say, it was much better than I thought it'd be. Much, much better.

I was a bit nitpicky at the beginning, especially with the first few chapters, since they were so many italicised words in there that weren't in Old Tongue!! It was a bit jarring at first because Jordan hardly ever used italics in his narrations, except when referring to terms in Old Tongue. Luckily, I got used to the writing, and there were not much italicised regular words to distract me from then on.

Well, fellow fans who've complained about the length and filler-iness of some books *cough*Books 6-8*cough* and yet stuck by all this time (as in, me), this book is very similar to Book 11, except better. At least one major storyline was wrapped up, several hundred people got theirs, and even more dark random mayhem happening to poor random civilians.

And another onetwo bites the dust! I think you know the Ones ;)

Many, many Dreams and Foretellings come true, with the major one close in the end a battle that, though not as long as Dumai's Wells, is far, far more awesome. Highlight below if you wanna know what that's about ^^
The Seanchan siege of the White Tower.

The most major character development to happen in this book is of Rand. He did a complete 180˚ in this, a transition discussed in many of the previous books, and made things all the more intense. Most of the chapters are focused on Rand and Egwene; with the occasional Mat, about two from Perrin, and absolutely no chapter from Elayne's POV.


[In a way, I'm kinda glad. Her arc kinda bored me in the previous book, even though she finally defeated the rebel Houses.]

I did get a kick out of trying to guess which parts were his and which parts were Jordan. The names of the new characters are a bit obvious, since some had Indian origins. I've not read any of Sanderson's work, so I cannot be sure, but some comments on Tor's webpage for the book mentioned that it's fairly obvious between the writing styles. The Foreword from Sanderson mentioned that he did not try to copy Jordan's style of writing (but of course), but the purist in me still kinda wished he did.

I love how the ending was written. I've never paid much attention to the excerpts from the prophecies and other brouhaha usually written at the end of each Book, but I did to this. It explained a lot, and for Rand, it's on a really positive note.

At least, unless I misread that section, which I really hope I didn't 'cuz it'd be a total bummer if I did.

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