I'm about halfway through The Strain by Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan. You can tell that he wanted to do something different with vampires, bring back the horror. It's very Peeps, but way scarier. The writing stye reminds me a lot of Michael Crichton, with the crazy fantasy mixing with actual science. The only down side is that part II won't be out until next year! ARGH!

Anyway, he's made a couple of "trailers" for the book. I just watched this one which happens to be a scene a just read in the book! I'm mostly impressed by how spot-on the description in the book matches the images in the trailer matches how I was mentally picturing the "vampires". They are not your average blood suckers. Erm, don't watch this if you're eating. Or easily frightened. It will probably stick with me more than I want it to, but the book is really a fun read! I'll post more thoughts once I've finished it, but for now...

Well, I gotta say thank you to jellibean - she did a retweet this afternoon of the NBC Universal Store's special Comic-Con giveaway where all you had to do to enter was retweet the message. Initially they just had one prize - Hiro's Sword from Heroes - but they felt generous and added a second prize at the last minute. AND I WON!!!!!!!!

*spazzes*

9 times out of 10 all the cool retweet contests happen while I'm at work and I miss out so I am totally thrilled abou this. PLUS it's actually a pretty cool prize - it's the Double Helix Heroes logo as a necklace. They only made 1,000!

Now I get to stare at my mailbox starting next week (they said they would mail it on Monday) and wait for my prize...

I am totally wearing it around Dragon*Con. :D

You know you want to make pretties with us!!!!!!!

aw man, the only theaters nearby that got (500) Days of Summer are in D.C. or Bethesda. That's like a 45 minute drive. Blah.

Maybe after Harry Potter madness dies down, Arundel Mills will pick it up. Sometimes they get random stuff...I mean, they have 24 theaters, what else are they gonna run?

Okay, I'm finally getting around to typing up my thoughts on the movie. I'll preface it by saying 1) this was 2 nights ago 2) it was frakkin' 12am-3am and after waking up at 7am I didn't have as much left in me as I had hoped 3) I haven't read this book since its initial release so I wouldn't call myself a "hardcore" fan.

So, with that out of the way, I will tell you, I think I currently rank my favorite HP films as #3, #1, #6 (though I haven't rewatched #4 or #5, even though I own them on DVD...)

I really enjoyed the movie, even with it's 2+ hours runtime. Like snarkel commented, it probably has some of the funniest moments in the series so far, but I think it also manages to pull off some of the darkest. destertale commented that Dumbledore was channeling Gandalf even more than usual. And I think the use of photoshop filters was probably abused, but I don't mind, I like my fantasy films with a bit of soft light/exclusion blending (PHOTOSHOP HERO!)

I think one of the things that works against the films is how soon they were made after the books. I almost wish it could be like the Lord of the Rings series, and that we could be far enough removed from the series to let the scriptwriter *ahem* fix some of the story elements to make them work a bit better on film. One of the reviewers on Rotten Tomatoes commented that the weakest part of the movie is the fact that there is no villian, no final battle. More of a final really tense moment.

( spoilery thoughts for series, more play by play )

OMG, I feel so out of touch. I went straight from work to the movie theater on Tuesday. Didn't get to check LJ at all and did a little bit of FB/Twitter while at work. Found out that I am apparently part Mogwai, and if I eat after midnight, my stomach turns into a Gremlin and attempts to kill me. I swear, I didn't have THAT much popcorn (I still have half a bag here) but I woke up on Wednesday morning with this horrible tightness in my abdomen. Suffered through it because I was scheduled to host two programs last night, so I stumbled home afterwards, ate just enough to survive, and passed out at 11pm.

So today is the first day I've sat here and gone through my LJ and my emails and such.

Going to type up my HBP thoughts in a moment...

So, as you guys know from all my raving on here, I beat Bioshock. I've been sitting around trying to decide what to play next, mostly filling time with Sims 3.

Yesterday, AD got the new Ghostbusters game for his birthday from his brother. I played a little bit today and it's so weird. As I said on Facebook, it is less of a video game and more of a interactive movie. Maybe it is because I've been playing Bioshock and Sims 3, but it feels so strange to play a game where you have to follow a certain route from point A to point B or you cannot continue. Ghostbusters does not have the open world mode that you think would be so easy to accomplish. But maybe it is because it has a full fledged script written by Dan Akroyd and Harold Ramis, and isn't just some crappy movie tie-in game.

I do like it. It is hard to deny how fun it is to strap on the Proton pack and go crazy blasting random ghosts (and destroying whatever property is near by). But the positron gliders are not as accurate as a pistol and they have more kickback than a machine gun. But that's how they are in the movies, never really aiming and hitting, but aiming and hitting the ghost for a moment only to set the wall on fire after the ghost leaves. It works. But boy does it make it tough! AD made the mistake of putting it on "Professional", the hardest mode in the game, and he is getting his butt kicked a lot. I have it on Medium and it is rough enough!

When you play the game, it feels like you're in the movie, like you're hanging out with Ray and Egon and Peter and Winston and fighting ghosts. They are talking to you (btw, I'm adorable) and coaching you in the ways of busting ghosts. I think if you're a fan of the movie, you'll get a kick out of playing this game.

I also go Uncharted: Drake's Fortune from Gamefly today. It's totally Indiana Jones/Tomb Raider. Nick Drake may be the hottest video game character I've ever seen (and is it just me or does he kind of look like Nathan Fillion? His attitude is very Han Solo/Indiana Jones/Mal Reynolds). He jumps and climbs around like Lara, he even gets wet in waterfalls haha. But again, this game is weirding me out because I feel like I'm on a track from point A to point B. I keep trying to explore but there isn't as much. Maybe it's just because I'm at the start of the game so they want me to learn the controls before I run off...but I was surprised how not-open the world is. Still, it is a beautiful game with another plot that seems very involved and well done. I know I want to keep playing to find out the mystery of Sir Francis Drake.

Thinking about it as I type this, I guess Wolverine was the same way - Point A - snkt slash snkt - Point B - Next Level. I think Bioshock has just ruined me for all other games haha.

- the Dollhouse saga is over - my order went through and everything seems to be okay now. All that is left is for my friend to pick up my copy at Comic Con.

- I ordered my tickets for a midnight show of Harry Potter. just going to Muvico. It won't be as great as The Senator, but it will do. I gotta see HP at midnight, it's the LAW! (lostacanthus, are you coming with or do you have plans already?)

- I think I'm going to pass on I Love You, Beth Cooper - currently has a 10% on Rotten Tomatoes. That sounds painful. I think I might go buy a copy of the book because I want to re-read it. Plus, I think he put out a new edition with comics or something in it...I dunno. I was something when I was googling around.

- I hung out with my parents and brother after work tonight while AD was at class. My dad is playing his PS3, so that made me happy. I showed off my iPhone. Then we had root beer floats and watched Dr Horrible because they had not seen it. They both seemed to enjoy it.

- This summer is flying by. Coming up on my August trip to Boston/Maine very soon and then the DragonCon road trip, which I am sooooooo excited about. I need to order my Merlottes t-shirt. Where does someone get a waitress apron? I feel like I need a few more costume ideas...inexpensive costume ideas. I'm thinking of making a "Don't Panic" background for my iPhone and than just carrying around a towel and being an intergalactic hitchhiker.

- oh, also, faeriesfolly is insane. She started a new icon contest comm - whedon20in20 - which all of you icon makers should join because it will be awesome. There's no actual rules or anything yet, but if we all join, it will motivate her! ;-)

- I need to figure out what actors I want to get autographs or pictures from at DragonCon, because from the rumblings on dragoncon, it sounds like I need to have it all decided when I arrive Friday. I'm thinking I should get a pic with Michael Trucco ("Sam" from BSG - get it? "Sam" and Sam in a photo! Plus, he's a hottie...). Def getting a pic/auto with Felicia Day because she is made of awesome and also I get down to 1 degree of seperation between me and Joss if I touch her. How do the autographs work? I'm going to pass on Patrick Stewart and Leonard Nimoy - as awesome as they are, I don't want to fight the hardcore fans to get near them. I will be happy if they just speak during something...*sigh* I just need to look at the list of guests and decide who I will brave the crowd for. I don't want to miss out on fun stuff because I'm sitting in line somewhere.

Time for bed! TTYL

So, after hearing several people flail over the goodness that is Avatar:The Last Airbender (I blame snarkel for convincing me to finally add it to my Netflix queue) I caved and watched the first episode...and the second...and the third and fourth. I REALLY like it. I'm not a fan of anime, but it's not really anime, is it? It's like this weird mix of anime storytelling conventions but with a very Disneyfied/Western style that appeals to me. I love the sense of humor and the rich story that I can already tell is forming beneath it all. Again, the Netflix/Xbox360 deal really pays off for me. I'm going to watch an episode with breakfast every day. :D

The only anime I've watched multiple times is Princess Mononoke. I tried to watch Spirited Away - tried twice actually - and for some reason it always makes me naseous. I think it's just my poor Western brain trying to handle the Eastern cultural stuff. I think it overloads. Sad but true. I might try Ponyo if it gets good reviews.

Speaking of new fandoms, I watched the first episode of s4 of SPN today. I have a couple questions from the past season though - specifically to do with Ruby's Knife. Because they talks so much in the first few seasons about how demons were possessing bodies and how the person was trapped inside and you should try to save them blah blah blah - but doesn't stabbing them in the throat with a knife effectively kill the demon AND the person dead? They were pretty free wheelin' with the knife by the end of the season and I felt a bit conflicted about how they were no longer conflicted. Whatev, I'm just hoping to be caught up by September.

The Dollhouse Blu-Ray saga seems to be at an end. I placed a new order tonight and quickly called my credit card to say "OMG LET IT GO THRU FOR THE LOVE OF GOD!!!!!" which they said it did. I got a confirmation e-mail and unless I get some sort of paniced phone call/email from Fox Store tomorrow, I'm going to assume that this story is over until my friend comes back from Comic Con.

Miralce "Mellie" Laurie will be in Baltimore on Saturday at Shore Leave...and I have to work. :( I wonder how many people will ask her about vases...

I found my old Pandora log-in, so I'm reviving that account so I can use the iPhone app, which everyone says is far superior to the last.fm app. I spent a good chunk of time tonight bookmarking my favorite artists of the moment.

My rl friends and I need to pick our Harry Potter theater. I can't believe the premiere is next week!!! I have a feeling we'll just end up at Arundel Mills or West Nursery because our favorite midnight theater, The Senator, is no longer a first run theater. So sad. It won't be the same. Still, we have to see it at MIDNIGHT! I don't care what kind of shape I am in on Wednesday, I will be running on Harry Potter fueled adreniline. I wasn't in love with OotP, but HBP is HBP - it is meant to be seen on the big screen!

Alright, time for bed. Gotta read the next chapter in THE STRAIN and see if the vampires show up...though since it is a trilogy, I'm starting to get a bit concerned I might have to wait until 2010 to see some serious vamp action...

So, I woke up this morning and gave the Dollhouse order another go and it worked!!!

Or so I thought.

On my way home from work, I checked my voicemail, and it's my credit card saying their fraud detection has an issue with my card and to call back ASAP.

So I call back and explain that YES I was ordering the DVD this time and YES It should actually have charged the card. Okay, they say, we'll let it go through, but call and confirm with Fox Store.

I call Fox Store and THEY say it was declined and I should try again. So I try again and GUESS WHAT THE SITE SAYS? "This person already has an order in" *headdesk* She says she will forward it on to corporate.

I call my credit card again, juuuuust in case I misunderstood. They explain that after I called, they let the order go through so it should be alright.

So I call Fox Store again, to see if maybe it shows up in the system now as okay. And here is the issue - SINCE the item is a pre-order, Fox Store does a Pre-Auth on the card to check for funds...BUT since this is a special Comic Con thing, they also need to charge my card right then to...so what do the computers at my credit card see? 2 CHARGES in the space of a minute.

She tried to clear my account with Fox Store yet again, to see if I could try again, but no dice. She said she will try to call me back, but she was leaving soon, and to maybe try again in an hour to re-purchase it. She's sent all of my info on to their "corporate" office so hopefully it will get fixed. UGH!

THANK YOU SHANTELL AT FOX STORE'S HELP LINE! YOU WERE AWESOME!

Fox, on the other hand, needs to stop underestimating the power of Whedon fans and prepare for these things. You put a limited quantity of anything online, people will go for it.

I will update you more on the continuing saga of me trying to give Fox money and them refusing (because I know you're on the edge of your seat!)

Oh man, going back to work tomorrow is going to be ROUGH! Waking up at 7am after sleeping in for 4 days...I think I'll be making coffee...maybe 2 cups.

Never did order the Dollhouse Blu-Rays. I went back to the site and it looks like it is up. Tried one more time and the screen just went blank after I hit "order". I did notice it now has a huge "DO NOT REFRESH" warning across the top AND tax is now added. I went back to the page an hour later and noticed that the number of sets available actually went UP. So something is still very wrong with that page. I might check in the AM before I go to work...

We finally watched Virtuality, the tv-special-that-might-be-a-pilot thing that FOX ran a month ago. Interesting premise. I felt the direction/writing was solid - lots of "show don't tell" moments that I was impressed with for a TV show (let's face it, most FOX shows assume the worst about us and spell everything out). And looking at the Wiki page, I see that FOX is not picking it up so...yeah. Ah well. Reminded me a lot of Sphere by Michael Crichton, just with space instead of the ocean. And there was no way it was gonna last the 10 years the pilot mentioned. Would have made a good miniseries though.

I need to re-do my journal layout/banner. Kristen is pretty, but she's been up there awhile. I was thinking of putting the Star Trek boys up there...different kind of eye candy...I'm going to be making more Star Trek icons for faeriesfolly latest icon t'rodown challenge. Maybe I'll find a good image to pu there...

Speaking of, I made Bioshock icons!!! You know you want to see them. CLICK HERE for some little sister goodness. :D

Teaser:

For those of you that don't follow me on Twitter (and for those of you that do, I'm sorry, but while I was watching the site crash, there wasn't much else for me to do but tweet about it) let me tell you about the Dollhouse pre-order.

See, I really had no intention of buying Dollhouse on DVD, let alone Blu-Ray. I was going to see if it survived a second season or not. But then the announcement came out that they were doing a cool exclusive for Comic Con and one of my Star Wars buddies said he would pick it up for me if I managed to order one. So I was like "Cool".

I sat here at my computer, watching the clock count down. I'd never really done anything like this before, except for the Flight of the Conchords tickets (which I waited 10 minutes on and they were all sold out immediately). Eventually it was at 30 seconds, then 20, then 10....then OMG no seconds...then wait...WTF? 10 sec, 30 sec - AAAH! Where is the pre-order button?

I flailed around for about 15 minutes, trying to figure out if I was on the wrong page, checking the Fox Store site, googling like a fool. Eventually I called and was put on hold for at least another 10 minutes and when I finally got to a rep they said that there was a problem with the site, it wasn't actually up yet, and just to wait.

When I checked back it appeared to have a pre-order page, though it was taking awhile to load. I went and typed in all my info but while I was typing, it refreshed the whole page and I had to type it out AGAIN. I hit "ORDER" and it thought about it and said there was an error processing my card. I was like "wtf?" so I tried it again, this time entering my address with the Apt # on the second line. ERROR! WTF! I took a shower, tried again. ERROR. I put away the dishes, took out the trash, tried again - ERROR!

So I gave up, went to the post office, grabbed some lunch, drove home and suddenly my phone starts to ring (current ringtone: A-Ha - Take On Me intro). I answer it and it's the FRAUD DEPARTMENT! "If you purchased $$$ for a fast food rest., press 1" oh yes, I did do that just now "If you purchased $69.99 from 'Misc Merchant'" press 1" UM WTF "If not, press 2" TWO!!!!!!!!

Fraud dept. says I have FIVE instances of $69.99 PENDING on my account from Fox Store. I have absolutely NO emails from Fox Store saying it went through. They should all be gone by tomorrow, I assume.

Now, the Dollhouse site is just a string of text: "We are addressing some glitches that you may be experiencing, will be back up for pre-order soon. "

HA! Looks like everyone else had the same issue. From what I can tell, less than 400 orders were processed before the site crashed.

I really don't think I care anymore. Too much of a headache. If it comes back up and I happen to get one, big whoop. If not, oh well.

It's just ridiculous - this is a MAJOR company, they should have known people were going to jump on this. God FOX, is there anything you don't suck at???? Seriously????

Originally posted on orangerful.vox.com

Originally posted on orangerful.vox.com