Game of Thrones is fucking awesome.

I'll even go so far as to say it's LORD OF THE RINGS-ISH. And not just because of Sean Bean.

I've tried watching Mad Men and Boardwalk Empire before, and though I'm sure they're both great series, those shows just didn't really hold my interest. But Game of Thrones is right up my alley.

Fav characters of the first season:
Khaleesi - Her character development is maximum. She's starting to tiptoe into the dark side, though, which is worrying.
Arya Stark - She's gonna grow up to be the most badass of all the kid characters.
Joffrey - J/K LOL. I don't think anyone likes this little shit.
Tyrion Lannister - This guy is The Man. He OWNS his dwarfness and doesn't take shit from anyone. Especially not from Joffrey.

Honorable Mentions
The Bastard Jon Snow - Has "Meant for Greatness" written all over his face.
Rob Stark - For someone so under the radar for the first half of the series, he really got everyone's attention in the last few episodes.

One of my fav non-spoiler scenes, feat. Little Arya. As for fav spoiler scenes... let's just say the episode Golden Crown is aptly named. xDDDD

Even the illiterate foreigner knows!

Watched a really good play called Chinglish yesterday. It made me realize how much Chinese I've forgotten, haha. Most of the play had subtitles projected onto the background, oftentimes to show the difference between what the American guy says in English and how the translator decides to say it in Chinese and vice versa. ("I like your bluntness." --> "He appreciates your rudeness.") But beyond the conflict in language, the larger message is the essential difference between cultures & ways of thinking, culminating in an irreconcilable conflict between the values of the main protagonists. (Which is essentially, living for your family [even at the expense of your own happiness] vs living for yourself.)

Along the way, some similar themes are explored, such as a foreigner's place in Chinese society and Chinese people's views of the US & of their own country. The latter is particularly important for US audiences to hear; the Chinese lead actress laughs when the American yells, "China strong, US weak!" and replies in Chinese with something to the effect of, "That's why you Americans are so hard to beat. You act like you're weak even when you're so strong."

So yeah. Good stuff. To end on a light note, here's an email my boss just sent in regards to a tweet I wrote for the kids on the site:

:P

EDIT: OMG. I just found out about an Australian organization that uses The Girl Who Leapt Through Time as an educational resource. Australians are amazing!!

EDIT 2: Shoot, they also use Summer Wars. Aussies must love Mamoru Hosoda?

SON OF A

Some stupid bastard on MAL just ruined the ending of Usagi Drop for me! I was so pissed that I reported his ass!!! I'm not even all that paranoid about spoilers, but this one is actually rather mind-blowing. It seriously changes my view of the entire series. And not in a good way. :/

Blegh. I feel like I need to get the bad taste of that revelation out of my mouth. So ANYWAY, when doing research for my internship earlier this week, I came across the photos of a celebrity photographer. He uses a technique that he calls "Collisions," which put out photos that look like two images blended on Photoshop:

...except he swears that he only takes ONE photo and doesn't use Photoshop or double exposure at all. Out of curiosity, anyone know how this might be possible? I have a theory, but I don't know enough about photography to say how likely that theory is. ^^;;

In any case, seeing these images made me want to practice blending images on Photoshop. And so I did. :)

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(Photos taken from random people's Flickr accounts. a.k.a. NOT MINE, this is just practice, please don't sue me, etc.)

*WIBBLE*

CHIBI NATSUME. Bless my poor fangirl heart! *KO'd* @_@

Needless to say, I LOVE this new episode. This is my first time watching Natsume Yuujinchou week-by-week, and I was getting a little worried since I liked but didn't *love* eps 1-3. But this is definitely an episode I love. *o*~

I was expecting last week's episode to be about Natsume's childhood (since the preview suggested that), but it turned out to be more of a bittersweet story about love. I was expecting different, so I couldn't help but feel disappointed. BUT unexpectedly, this week's episode WAS largely about Natsume's childhood and it's just as sad and lonely as anyone would expect for it to be. Poor widdle Natsume. ^^;;

Also, the 2nd half of Ao no Exorcist 15 utterly killed me. I don't want to wait another week for the next episoddeeeeeeeee. ;-;

"will I be as excellent as my name?"

40+ chapters into the Pluto manga and I am LOVING it. To be honest, I like it quite a bit better than 20th Century Boys. It's probably the most emotionally-affecting series I've read/seen from Naoki Urasawa. As much as I like 20th Century Boys and...

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