Crisco’s calling it an early night.

As you all should know, my cat overlord and master pretty much decides everything for me, he’s rather demanding like that. Well, he has decided, that even though it’s still relatively early for me, that it is now time for me to go to bed. You can tell by the way he sits and stares at you, not letting you watch your anime in peace. =P

To be fair, I had a rather busy day today, so it’s not like I mind the idea of some extra sleep. I don’t have anything other than some stuff around the house planned for tomorrow, so I’ll try and put in some work on that review for you all.

It seems I am out of time to type at you, the piercing gaze has been re-leveled at me, and I must feed and tend to my overlord. I’ll try to have something better for you all tomorrow. =P おやすみなさい！ =D

-Felirc-

I watched two movies today! =P

Well, I finally did it. I managed to sit down and watch the Star Trek movie. You know what? It was HORRIBLE! Now, I’ve already gone on about three rants since watching this, so I’m going to attempt to remain civil on my blog. =P

I really hated what this movie did. I mean, all of it was painful. I don’t think they got a single actor right for the parts they were playing. The one beaming light of hope this entire movie had was Leonard Nimoy is still epic. They just didn’t behave properly. Everything from Kirk cheating at his test, to Spok having a love interest was just so completely wrong. To make matters even worse, this wanted to be an action movie, which is the exact opposite of what anything related to Star Trek should be! They summed up Star Trek better in the intro than anyone else could, Star Trek is about exploration, seeing something you never would have imagined and watching how fairly ordinary people deal with this strange situation.

So, ignoring that this was a Star Trek movie, how does it hold up as an Action flick? It’s terrible! Why? This is some of the worst directing I’ve seen in years. Constant shaky cam, even when it’s not some sort of action scene, half of the combat scenes had the actors heads cut off and the other half were cut so quickly you could hardly make out what was happening on screen, and the single most offensive thing this director did was add a @#$*#&$(@ lens flare EVERY 15 seconds. There is 1 scene in this entire movie that doesn’t have a lens flare in it, in every other one you literally can’t go 15 seconds without one (I counted). Do you know how distracting that is? Walking through a dark corridor, trying to pay attention to what’s going on and BLAM you can’t see half the screen because there’s a blue lens flare running across the entire screen, because every light in existence must blind the camera. To make matters worse, every shot of this movie outside of a ship (with the exception of a blizzard planet) is in perpetual twilight. I thought I was watching a Michael Bay movie (I seriously had to pause and check online, this was getting ridiculous).

When I have an Uwe Boll movie with better direction than you put into a movie, you really need to think about a different career.

*cough* And finally, how does it stack up as a Sci-fi movie? If you ignore everything related to Star Trek, and somehow look past the worst directing I’ve seen since the DBZ movie, it’s just generic. I mean, they didn’t do anything with it. The whole story can be summed up as, “Crazy alien wants to destroy most of teh universe!” (“teh” misspelled for dramatic effect) They didn’t actually change anything with this movie. Yes ***Spoilers***, Vulcan is owned and Kirk didn’t have a father, but at the end of this movie, Kirk and Spok are friends, the entire crew is on the Enterprise, and they’re all setting off to explore new life and new civilizations. ***End Spoiler*** That’s it, there was no reason to make this movie. They butchered the characters, ruined the very premise of Star Trek and all of it was for an unbelievably generic sci-fi plot that would barely make it into a made for TV movie. They didn’t even do anything bold with it like killing off characters that we know and love or making someone like Spok turn into the bad guy, just nothing.

Whew, now that all of that is said and done, it’s time to talk about the other movie I watched today, Zombieland. You know, I didn’t like the trailer for Zombieland, just didn’t seem like my kind of movie. But, a lot of people said it was pretty good, and it was free to stream it, so I figured I might as well. I really enjoyed it.

It has much better direction than the Star Trek movie, and I thought it did a great job of balancing humor and action. Is it a horror movie? No, but I don’t think all zombie movies have to be. It’s just a fun romp that doesn’t really lead anywhere and is making fun the traditional zombie movie. My favorite part? I loved the rules. I don’t know why, but I loved it every time one of those rules popped up on screen. =P

So, that was my excitement for today. I’d love to go on about other stuff, but it’s getting late and that word count box is saying this is around 800 words already. So, without further delay, I shall head off to bed. おやすみなさい！ =D

-Felirc-

One tired bird.

I swear, I’m never gonna watch Star Trek. =P It’s not that I don’t want to, but it just seems to keep getting put off by stuff, and now it’s too late to even consider it. Well, hopefully tomorrow I’ll get around to it. =P

So, what else is new and exciting in my little world?! Well, I might have a new language exchange partner! Course, I don’t know for sure yet, but it’s better than nothing. =P I would love to tell you sweeping and interesting tales about my language learning, but I’m somewhat lacking in those at the moment.

Well, of interesting note, Erin’s Challenge is still my number one link to the site. In fact, I’ve moved up to the number 8 result on google when you search for Erin’s Challenge I Can Speak Japanese. I’m rather surprised that my little blog site gets such a high ranking on google. Granted I’m kind of surprised so many people even know about Erin’s Challenge, but it seems word of it gets around quite often, so you would think there would be more sources of information on it. Not that I mind people coming to my site and reading the review (and maybe they’ll even find the others interesting), but I still find it interesting. =P

Ah well, don’t mind me, I’m just rambling again. I tend to do that when I get tired. Course, if I didn’t have my insane ramblings, what would this site really have on it? Admit it, you all come here to find out what crazy thing is going to pop out of Felirc next. Well, that or the adorable animal videos I keep posting. What can I say? I like adorable animals. =P

I must leave you all now to sleep.

I look and feel exactly like this bird right now. Well, not exactly, my beak is slightly less pronounced, and I tend to keep my crest neater, but otherwise, spitting image. =P おやすみなさい！ =D

-Felirc-

Yeah, might have skipped a night. =P

So, I might have kind of not felt like typing something up last night. It was late, I had to wake up early, and I warned you all that I was gonna be busy for the next couple of days. Besides, I didn’t really have anything to talk about, as I didn’t watch Star Trek yesterday (or today for that matter, but I’ll get into that in a minute).

So, it took a little longer than expected for the DVD to arrive, but I now have it, ready to subject myself to the horror at any time. Why didn’t I watch it yet? Because the person I’m going to watch it with went to bed early today. It happens, in fact, I’m going to bed early today! I know, kind of rare for me, but sometimes you just need to catch up on some sleep.

So, I now have the movie, and I will be watching it tomorrow! I haven’t put in any work on that review yet, but I’m hoping it isn’t going to take too long once I get around to it. I’ve got stuff to do tomorrow and some friends coming over, so between that and the movie, I’m not likely to get a chance to start it. Look at the bright side, I’m still making time for my lessons! Not that me doing my lessons impacts all of you that much, but I’m working on updates for you guys (admittedly, very slowly). =P

So, off to get some sleep with me. I’ll try to put in some work on the review tomorrow, but we’ll just have to wait and see. Later!

-Felirc-

Alright, make that tomorrow! =P

I know, I’m terrible. I was planning on getting it started tonight, but I ended up getting side tracked and watching some anime instead (hey, it counts as extra Japanese practice… yeah, that’s it). What can I say? I’m weak willed! =P

I do really need to get some work in on it tomorrow. I’ve got a busy couple of days coming up, and I’m not likely to feel like doing it when that happens, so a good start is always nice. Truth be told, whether I start it or not, I already know what tomorrow night’s post is going to be about. See, tomorrow you get to hear my opinion of the new Star Trek movie.

Some of you may know that I rather recently watched through the original Star Trek series, having never seen an episode before. Granted, I saw a few of the movies growing up, but I never managed to sit down and watch an episode. You know what? I loved it! =P It has an amazing “feel” to it. It’s almost nostalgic without it being that way for me, and that’s going to be a very hard thing for them to not ruin with this new one. Now, as fair warning, I’m going to be entering this with a bit of a negative attitude. I know, I should give it a fair shot, but from everything I’ve seen and heard, they’ve butchered the characters, and that makes a person like me bitter. I mean, let’s face facts, the original show was all about the characters, if you change those, you lost it all.

So yeah, maybe my bias is a bad thing, but I’ll still give it a fair shot. I mean, I’ve been proven wrong about these things before (I ended up really loving the Hulk movie they made, and I was sure I was gonna hate that), but I’ve also been right (the DBZ movie was so horrible). =P

You know what? I’m rambling and tired, that means it’s time to head to bed. Ah bed, how I love you and your glorious… bedly-ness (what? It could be a word!). Kind of strange for me to enjoy sleep so much but always end up staying up too late. I guess I’m just indecisive. =P おやすみなさい！ =D

-Felirc-

Quick post, but…

While today the post will be quick, tomorrow might be a different story. I know I’ve been bad about updates to my site lately, so I’m going to put in some work on my Anki review tomorrow. Who knows, I might even finish it (I think we all know that’s not going to happen). =P

I’ve had a lot going on lately, and I feel kind of bad that I put off this review for so long (having to change my operating system didn’t help). In truth, I really shouldn’t feel bad, since the point of this page was for me to practice my Japanese, but a lot of people seem to like the reviews, so now I feel like I should write more! =P

So, that’s all I’ve got for you tonight. Sorry, not videos of cute little animals (I could link some, but I’m too lazy). =P おやすみなさい！ =D

-Felirc-

Today was, different. =P

I had a rather long day today, even worse than yesterday in regards to my computer. I actually didn’t even turn it on until around 8pm. =P Still, I got a lot of stuff done, and managed to watch some movies I haven’t seen before! =D

I finally decided to bite the bullet and go for the netflix 1 month free trial. I don’t tend to do a lot of things online, but it’s a good price for what they were offering, and the free trial couldn’t hurt anyone. So, I activate it and then find out that I can’t stream video to my computer, because I use linux. Normally there would be a number of work arounds in place, but it requires both Moonlight (which isn’t really updated enough to handle netflix) and ActiveX (which is proprietary =\). So, I’ve decided I’m not going to actually stick with netflix. Sure, I can stream to the TV with the disc they sent me, but without computer support it just doesn’t seem worth it.

Still, since I have it for a month anyway, I’m going to try and get as much usage out of this thing as possible! =P Right now I have sitting in my stream queue 4 movies from Akira Kurosawa, and it took quite a bit of will power not to sit down and immediately watch these. =P Instead, I ended up checking out District 9, which I ended up really liking. So, my plan at this point is too blow an entire day watching epic oldschool movies, and trade in DVDs so I can actually check out some of those studio Ghibli movies everyone says I should see.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m going to be getting a few other things too (I can’t help it, I must see how bad the new Star Trek turned out =P), but at least I have easy access to those movies for the next little while. I have to be honest, I’ve wanted to see Grave of the Fireflies for a few years now. I have yet to hear a single bad comment about that movie, and most people hold it up as a work of art that all cinema should strive to reach. So, here’s hoping I enjoy it. =P

For now, I’m going to get some sleep and dream of oldschool Samurai movies (and yes, they’re subbed ^.^). =P おやすみなさい！ =D

-Felirc-

>.< Forgot.

I might have forgotten to make a post last night. *whistles innocently*

Sorry about that, I’ve had a busy couple of days, and tomorrow is going to be pretty busy too. Why, my day was so busy today I didn’t turn on my computer this morning! =O I know, a lesser man would have cracked under the pressure. Fear not, after some small symptoms of withdrawal (delusions, shaking, an odd attraction to glowing monitors), I have finally gotten back to my computer where I am once again a normal human being! =P

In other news, that stupid new font is still messing with me, and I’ve gotten in a little bit of extra Japanese practice by watching a let’s play of Shenmue 2 (dreamcast version, that’s why it’s Japanese). Granted, it’s not as good as when I was actually watching quite a few shows in Japanese (and I haven’t spent nearly as much time watching it as I would a show), but I always love learning words that are a parallel between the two languages. For instance, I loved it when I found out that in Japanese trains do run.

Sure, it seems like a silly thing, but I get endless little pleasures out of things like that. Another example, which I picked up today, is that a Hotel room is actually referred to as a room. I mean, for all I knew they had a unique word to cover something like that, who am I to assume otherwise until I learn? =P Of interesting note, while trains run in both English and Japanese, in German trains walk. See? I love that! =P

Alright, now that my computer “needs” have been met, I must head off to sleep. You know, I’m noticing that I start the last paragraph of most of my posts with “alright” or “so”. I need to do something about that, but they’re just so fitting for what I’m doing! Besides, it’s how I would actually speak to you if I were saying it, and isn’t that important too? I mean, I do stick to my general speech patterns when it comes to my writing. You could make an argument that I make some grammatical mistakes, or even that I repeat some things too often, or maybe something else entirely. But, at the very least, you’re getting exactly the same thing I would have said to you, and that gives it a certain “charm” in my mind. =P

Now I really need to get going. Do you see what all of you just did to me? Making me add more onto this post, how could you? You should all be ashamed! =P おやすみなさい！ =D

-Felirc-

Already late. >.<

Well, I’ve got a very busy day tomorrow, and I’ve unfortunately already stayed up too late. I tend to do that sometimes. =P

So, I’m afraid I’m going to have to take the lazy/quick way out tonight, and provide you all with videos of cute animals. I know, I do this too often, but it is what it is. What do these have to do with learning Japanese? Absolutely nothing. So, why are they on my blog? Because they’re cute! =P

Alright, sorry, but that’s all from me for tonight. おやすみなさい！

Edit: The First video I posted doesn’t seem to want to display, I could probably figure it out, but not tonight. Sorry, you’re left with two. =P

-Felirc-

Man that’s going to take a while.

You know, I was doing pretty well with my Kanji list, but over the last couple days, it’s been a little rough with some characters I really thought I knew! I didn’t forget them, no that would be too easy, instead I’m dealing with a new font with this operating system. Unfortunately, I don’t know what my old font was, so I might as well get used to this new one, rather than try to go back.

I guess it’s good for me anyway. I mean, when people write things, they tend to look different, so it should be good for me to get used to picking them out with slight variations from what I’m used to.

For those of you who were wondering, I did end up completing my deck again, and even wrote an ad to put up, like I said I would. I haven’t actually put up the ad yet, though. I sent off a message to another ad just as I was about to, and I was hoping for a reply, which didn’t happen. Ah well, come tomorrow I’ll officially post the thing and get it over with. =P

Well, this post is going to be a little short tonight. I haven’t been getting very good sleep lately, and I’m pretty exhausted. It doesn’t help that I just added another new set of Kanji to my flashcards. It’s not the studying them that’s the problem, it’s just a slow, repetitive process, which is not a good thing to be doing while tired. =P Come tomorrow I’m going to decide on a Ramen recipe, as in just a few days I’m going to be heading off to the store, so I might as well pick up everything I need. =P

Well, that’s it for tonight! おやすみなさい！

-Felirc-