A pamphagous Internet hound that I am, I discovered another cool and useful site today.
Each year, hundreds of words are being dropped from the dictionary.
If you want to do your part and save these forgotten words, go adopt a word today.
Spread the word. http://www.savethewords.org/
[pamphagous (adj): eating or consuming everything]
I got another call yesterday from a credit card company, urging me to apply for seven (seven!) supplementary cards for my existing Visa card. I was sleeping when the call came so, naturally, I was quite irritated. I had to tell the customer representative that, no, I’m not interested in getting any of that. Then I remembered my mother could use one, so I just told the CSR to send me one. She insisted that I get another since the annual fee will be waived anyway, and I almost did that pretending the signal is breaking up so you can hang up routine. Anyway, I thought that was settled. I didn’t want to get more credit cards because, hello, it’s gonna be used and I’m gonna pay for them. It’s not as if I have the option to buy structured settlements if everything goes haywire with my expenses. I’ve just read about this cash for structured settlements thing, and I’m not actually sure if it applies to credit card balances. According to Wiki, cash for structured settlements is a form of making periodic payments for settling financial obligations. Anyway, the following day, another call came from yet another CSR, urging me again to get the six more supplementary cards so I can be qualified for the London raffle tickets. I’m really sorry, but I had to laugh because it’s not as if I’ll get swayed by such an offer. Besides, I told the CSR that I’m not likely to have anything to spend for a London trip so I really, really won’t get those cards he’s shoving into my throat.
Found this on my PC’s <favorites>.
Ten Steps to Find Your Writing Voice
Qoute: [If you’re writing to make a living out of it] “You are selling your unique perspective on life; your unique collection of beliefs, fears, hopes and dreams; your memories of childhood tribulation and triumphs and adult achievements and failures . . . your universe.”
Felicia Day shared this link on her Twitter page.
An online resource for writers provided by the author C.M. Mayo, the Web site offers 364 five-minute exercises from January to December to stretch those writing brain muscles and get the creative juices flowing. I’ll have to feed these pages on the printer soon.
Felicia Day is best known for her roles as Vi, a slayer in training in the last season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Penny, the ill-fated love interest in Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog. Besides being an actress, she is also a very talented Internet star, creating (writing, acting, and producing) a Web-based show called The Guild. She’s also reportedly a trained dancer and violinist. She’s not the only multitalented Whedonverse actor out there so expect to read more about these people in this blog.
I don’t usually scour for movies that will be not released in a few months or so, except perhaps for Harry Potter movies, but when I’ve read about The Cabin in the Woods, I knew this is something I’m gonna look forward to.
First, it’s a horror movie. I’m not really fond of horror (especially the gory ones) but I’m making an exception of this film. This movie has been green-lit by MGM Studios and is a collaboration between Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard. It will be released in 2010.
SciFi.com reported that Whedon’s tight-lipped about the plot details except that ”bad things might happen to teenagers during the film.”
Drew Goddard wrote two of my favorite Buffy episodes - Selfless and the Conversations with Dead People. He was also a writer for Angel, Alias, and Lost. He wrote the screenplay for the 2008 movie Cloverfield. [The latter movie didn’t get very glowing reviews and I haven’t watched it yet. Sometimes, I rely on a consensus of reviews to decide if I’ll check something out, be it book reviews, movie reviews, Hydroxycut reviews, but sometimes a backgound on the people involved in the production also plays a part.]
Joss Whedon, well I’ve said a lot about him already. Besides the TV shows Buffy, Angel, Firefly, and now Dollhouse, his movie credentials are also growing. He was a script doctor/screenplay writer for movies such as Toy Story, Speed, Waterworld, Alien Resurrection, X-Men, Titan A.E., Atlantis: the Lost Empire, and Serenity. This marks the first time he’ll act as a producer in a full-length movie.
If things will go as planned today, I might be able to go inside the movie house after months of resorting to Internet downloads. I miss looking at the cardboard displays of upcoming movies, those life-sized photos, and colorful banners. I have two specific movies in mind, one I’ve already watched in my PC.
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is my kind of movie - long narrations, exquisite cinematography, heart-tugging background music, and general musings about life and death and love and loss. The movie is adapted from the 1920s story by F. Scott Fitzgerald about a man who is born in his eighties and ages backwards.
The Secret Life of Bees, on the other hand, has been described as syrupy sweet and rather maudlin. It is a story about redemption, tolerance, love, and healing, and is based on the best-selling book of the same title by Sue Monk Kidd. I would watch anything that stars Dakota Fanning but I think I’ll like this one on its own merits, too. I don’t really have a problem with schmaltzy movie plots as long as it leaves an imprint on the mind as much as it plays with your emotions.
If things would not go as planned, I may have to download The Secret Life of Bees just to see for myself how the rather good lineup of stars gave life to this particular tale.
I had an interesting experience about an Ebay/Paypal transaction, something that to other people will surely be more aggravating than anything else. I decided to buy a box set of all seven seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer because the deal I got was just too good to be true. Maybe later I’ll recount all the boring details. In case I won’t get to do that, know this: If something is too good to be true, then it probably is.
Anyway, when I got home, I immediately jumped to all the commentaries and interviews I didn’t get to see with my downloaded videos, and my appreciation for the show just got more cemented if it hasn’t been already. I’ve never seen any other TV show that played with the emotions so well while being so witty, self-effacing, silly, and multilayered, all at the same time. I’m almost afraid to recommend it because there are too many riches around the entire mythology that can be lost if you’re not paying attention to the details, and not everyone has the time to sink their teeth into something that sounds so ridiculous. But as Joss Whedon said in the interviews, he had no intention of creating a show that people will like and then forget. He wanted a show that 100 people need to see and not a show that 1000 people would like to see. I think Drew Goddard, a writer for the show and a big fan, said it best when he said that Buffy “has a punk rock feel to it; it has a movement that doesn’t belong to everybody and [fans] feel very possessive of it.”
That being said, I am among the very few fans of the show that liked the 6th season more than any other. It is here when the writers explored the darkest path that their heroine will ever go to in her continued search for the true meaning of her legacy and her life’s mission. Unlike the previous seasons where there is a thematic “Big Bad”, the one that will wreck havoc for the entire year and will get “dusted” by the end, this time the big enemy is life itself. There’s no life insurance, no real ticket to happiness; it’s about growing up. And when I say it’s about dark times, I’m not saying it lightly. For a show mislabeled as a “teen show”, this is the part where the kids should not be allowed to watch without supervision.
Disregarding the implausibility of the idea and all its theological implications, I was captivated by the thought of bringing Buffy back from the dead and having her walk around alive but feeling dead inside because she was torn out of heaven. How can someone with such huge responsibility of saving the world everyday and at the same time caring for her own needs and her sister’s cope with something like that? To be able to breathe but not to feel any spark inside.
Then there’s Spike, who’s torn between the divide of good and evil because he learned how to love even if he doesn’t have a soul. He tried to be good, Buffy didn’t love him; he tried to be bad, Buffy despised him; he tried to live through the gray area, Buffy used him.
The vampire loves the vampire slayer - poetic, no?
Anya, on the other hand is learning and touching into that place called humanity; she finally learned what it really means to love, after thousands of years of dooming men who wronged women. Finally, she is human; then she got left at the altar by the person she thought she was so lucky to find over all dimensions. She finally felt what human pain feels like.
Xander, the deserter, is still just an insecure little boy after all. This is why guys shouldn’t propose if they don’t really feel ready for something as mature as marriage. Even if the world is about to end, don’t do it. Not even, because what’s the point either way?
Stephanie Zacharek of Salon said that, “of all the characters on Buffy, Tara was the one who stood most clearly for the right of human beings to live and love as they choose without having to explain themselves, and to make their own mistakes if need be. ” In Joss Whedon’s world, there’s no place for someone as good and pure of heart. Even after repeated viewings, I still close my eyes whenever that stray bullet is about to strike her. I skip that part if I can help it. It couldn’t have happened to someone less deserving of such fate.
Now here’s the big bad, in lowercase because we’ve already established that L-I-F-E is the Big Bad. When Tara died, Willow went into a rampage of despair and destruction. She took all the magic her body can take to have her revenge and to dull the pain of losing the person she loves most of all. In the process, the dark side that has always been brewing inside the geeky sidekick of Buffy came out in full force. Grief does that. And power undermines grief. Willow had always been the “sideman,” the mousy bestfriend of the Slayer. Thoroughly removed from herself, she relished finally being more powerful than Buffy.
As Buffy said,”Life’s a show and we all play a part.” The parts these fictional characters take parallel the real world only in allegory - the abusive relationships, the addiction, the meaning of power, the meaning of living, the path to redemption and forgiveness - they’re all for show. But what a show it is.
Season 6 is a demonstration of ugly realism in the middle of supernatural circumstances. I hated the things unfolding before my eyes, but I couldn’t look away. That’s superb storytelling. That’s how life is sometimes - it grabs you and beats you and leaves you to pickup the pieces. And you will. Because, as I always say, it beats the alternative.
Or are you one already?
Here’s Joss Whedon’s Top 10 writing tips.
My personal favorites: #6. Listen/#9. Don’t Listen.
No, really, this one (on creating characters):
Not everybody has to be funny; not everybody has to be cute; not everybody has to be delightful, and not everybody has to speak, but if you don’t know who everybody is and why they’re there, why they’re feeling what they’re feeling and why they’re doing what they’re doing, then you’re in trouble.
For several days last week, the weather has been extremely cold. I actually slept with a jacket and a blanket every night. I’m not very tolerant with cold conditions, you see. It’s a good thing I have not run out of gas, and that’s meant in the literal sense, because I can’t really imagine how I’ll take a bath without heating water first. But the weather’s really odd and irregular that for the past few days, we’re back to the usual warm to hot conditions. Well, it’s OK in the sense that I’m not chilled to the bones every night anymore. I also started using the fan again, but not the airconditioning unit yet. My electric bill has dipped quite a bit since November but I guess my excessive use of the personal computer and the Internet is really contributing much to the electric bill because considering that I live in a small, studio-type space, my monthly consumption exceeds those of my other friends who are renting a lot bigger places. When I first lived here at my place, I was actually worried that I’m paying for the electricity of the nearby units but now I’m pretty sure it’s all me. In the States, I’ve read that you can actually choose your electric service provider. In Texas, for instance, there are several companies, such as Cirro Energy and Gexa Energy that provide different options depending on which part of the city you are in. At least they have choices; they can sign up for Cirro Energy or the other and base their choice on their home and business needs. Here, all I worry about is how to conserve.
If you think that people who obsess over weight (and take Anoretix capsules more than they eat real food) have problems, think again. There are people who have waaaayyyyy bigger problems than that.
There’s a new TV show that deals with the controversial psychiatric diagnosis called dissociative identity disorder (multiple personality disorder). The show is called The United States of Tara and was picked up for a full season by the cable network ‘Showtime’.
The show’s premise (a mother with DID struglling to maintain order in her dysfunctional family) is quite tricky first because DID is controversial in the way that there’s this great debate as to whether it is a real disease or not. Most diagnoses of this condition are confined in North America, that’s why. Second, tackling mental illness in a show that is supposed to be humorous may lead to a lot of social criticisms if not handled well.
But the real pull of this show will be the three names behind it - it is created by Steven Spielberg, developed by Diablo Cody (screenwriter of Juno), and stars Toni Collette (The Sixth Sense).
