Fairy Fails - Rumpelstiltskin Was a Twerp

I was going to do a blog post about fairy tales and how the original ones are much darker than the ones we know from Disney or kid's books. But I was searching the internet for original versions of fairy tales that I know, and I came across Rumpelstiltskin, which I've always liked until I read it again and realized just how stupid it was.

 A miller wants his daughter to marry the king, so he tells the king that his daughter can spin straw into gold. Now first of all, if you're going to lie to someone to impress them, at least make it feasible. Why couldn't the miller just tell the king that his daughter was really pretty? Anyways, the king locks the daughter away in a tower with loads of straw and a spinning wheel and says 'if you don't spin all of this straw into gold by morning, I'm going to lop your head off.' So obviously, she gets a bit upset, because that's something that no one can do. But Rumpelstiltskin appears and says 'I will do it for you, if you give me something nice.' So she says 'I'll give you my necklace,' and he says 'I'll do that.' So he spins all the straw into gold, and the next morning the king is like 'wicked but let's see if you can do it again!'

She's done it once, she's proved she can do it, why make her do it again? That's ridiculous. And again she gets upset because she can't do it, and Rumpelstiltskin appears and says 'I'll do it for you, but what will you give me?' and she says 'I got a ring, do you fancy that?' and he says 'That'd be lovely', he spins all the straw into gold and the king's like 'Well hey that's great but can you do it again?' ...For some reason because twice just isn't enough. So again she gets upset, Rumpelstiltskin appears and says 'What will you give me?' and she says 'I have nothing left to give.' So he says 'How about if you become queen, give me your firstborn child?'

...... That's a bit extreme isn't it? You wanted a necklace and a ring before, how does a child come next in that sequence? But she agrees because she doesn't want to be killed, obviously. And she just thinks, I might not even have kids, so yeah you can have my "firstborn" child. Sure. So the king's really impressed that she's managed to turn all this straw into gold three nights in a row, and he marries her. Now, if you've promised someone your firstborn child, if it was me, I would make sure that I never had kids. But this woman decides a year later to have a kid. I don't know if she thought that the promise she made to Rumpelstiltskin just went away but it didn't. Rumpelstiltskin appeared and said 'give me your kid.' And she says no. You've made a promise, you can't just say no now, that's not how it works. Rumpelstiltskin, being a pushover, doesn't demand the child, he just says well I'll give you a chance, if you can guess my name within three days, we'll call it off.

So she gets a messenger to go and ask all of the town their names so she can have more of a range of names to guess from. Now this is the bit that really gets me, this really.. it just annoys me because it's so ridiculous. The messenger finds Rumpelstiltskin dancing around the fire and singing a song about how his name is Rumpelstiltskin. What? Why would you do that? If you've made it a challenge for someone to guess your name, Surely you'd want to keep that quite close to your chest, wouldn't you?

So obviously then the messenger tells the queen, she guesses his name, and he gets properly annoyed. All I learned from that story is:
A. Don't let people go back on their promises, and
B. If you've made it a challenge for someone to guess your name, don't turn it into a sing-a-long.

Also if you don't know yet I've also started posting more blog bits to tumblr, so here's the link:  http://drrosetyler.tumblr.com/

Socially Unacceptable Sneezes

So I’m staying at my grandma’s house while my parents are away on their third honeymoon...

Anyways I found this rubix cube in the cupboard and I was like ah, my friend was trying to teach me how to do this the other week! I’ll give this a go! It’s friggin hard. It is so hard. I didn’t think about how hard it would be when I picked it up. I picked this up at around half of eleven, and I still haven’t done it, I’m so close though.. I’m just so scared of doing any more to it in case I screw something up again, because I’ve come this close about 3 times and in the last moves that it shows on the internet I’ve screwed it up. But I’m seeing my friend how knows how to do it tomorrow and I’m going to just had it to him and be like, ‘please help me?’ Never, ever try to do a rubix cube unless you have about a good 6 hours to do it because I am definitely never doing that again. Ever.

So I was on break the other day at work, and there is a considerable limit of space in the restaurant so I had to sit opposite of this woman, and I don’t want to judge but she gave me the dirtiest look I have ever seen. It was a real, who do you think you are to sit in my presence kind of look, and I’m going to be honest it made me dislike her a little bit. But then she did something that I couldn’t forgive her for. She sneezed.

Now usually when people sneeze I’m the first to say bless you. Even if I don’t know who it is because they’re not by me I will still say bless you because I find it quite amusing that this person will just hear this voice and not know where it came from. Usually me saying bless you is met with a really weird look, and or an awkward silence. But I still do it anyways because it’s just nice and polite and common courtesy. But this woman had already annoyed me a little bit so I… I didn’t say it..

As soon as I made the decision not to say it I felt so guilty. So guilty! It was the same feeling that I get when I accidentally step on a ladybug. I felt awful, so awful that I immediately wanted to say it but too much time had already passed since the sneeze and it just would have sounded weird. Plus, about 10 seconds after she sneezed, she blessed herself sarcastically. “Bless me.” Which made me feel even worse because usually I’m the first to say it. And usually it’s unexpected, but because this woman didn’t expect it and I didn’t say it… it’s the one time someone actually wanted it, and wouldn’t give me a weird look and I didn’t say it. I carried that guilt with me for the rest of the day.

Now, yesterday was an exception, and it’s a mistake I won’t be making again because I always say bless you, and I will continue to say it to people. But whenever I’ve said it before, it’s always met with a look. It’s a look that shouldn’t be given when someone’s being nice and said bless you. It’s a look that should be given when you’re handed a dead puppy. Saying bless you is a nice thing to do when someone sneezes and it should be met with a thank you. But somehow it’s weird when you say it to someone that you don’t know. So I was just wondering when this happened yesterday, when it became socially unacceptable to say bless you to strangers. Kind of made me a little bit sad as well.

Fairy Fails - Would you date a Disney prince?

I am a massive Disney fan. I've been to Disneyland, seen all of the movies, and I'm in love with Prince Aladdin. But, the other day I started thinking about Disney men, and what they would be like if they were real guys in real life. I can safely say that I wouldn't date any of them.

Prince Charming from Cinderella is the guy that gets totally wasted at the party, tells you he loves you, but then can't remember what you look like the next morning.
Aladdin and Pinocchio would be compulsive liars. "I'm a Prince!" "I'm a real man!" ... Would you believe them?
And the beast would have anger issues. On a side note, is it just me that's a little disappointed when the beast turns back into a prince? He looked better as the beast!
Peter Pan constantly has Tinkerbell around. That's like if I started dating a guy, and he's still lived with his ex! That's a little bit weird, no?
Tarzan in real life would be a naturist.
The Princes from Snow White and Sleeping Beauty both like their girls when they're asleep, so they'd be the guys walking around the party spiking everybody's drinks.
Hercules seems to like Pegasus a little more than he likes Meg. Guys who prefer their cars to girls are never the way to go.
Shang from Mulan only likes you if you're one of the guys.
John Smith would always be bringing his friends around to your house and wouldn't leave.
Prince Eric likes his women seen and not heard.
Robin Hood and Flynn Rider would just steal from you.

In the fantasy world, these guys are perfect, but in real life... I'm going to have to say no thanks.

Love is...

So I haven't posted anything in about a week, and I honestly don't have any idea what this post will be about... I think it should be relevant to things that are going on in my life, so I'm going to talk about... love. And I know it sounds cheesy and really ridiculous, but it is relevant. I'm going to try and make it as non-cheesy as I possibly can because there is so much cheese on my blogspot already that maybe it's time for... a little bit less.

I've had some conversations with people recently kinda just about love and what love is to them, because love is different to everybody. People feel it sooner in relationships than others, I mean, people can go years without ever feeling in love with the person that they're with. Personally I'm someone who falls in love quite quickly, because I'm very emotional and I'm very passionate, and as soon as I find someone that I really like and have a lot in common with and want to share experiences with, I suddenly get attached to that person and that just becomes falling in love with them.

But when I look back at the times I've said 'I love you' to someone.. the actual phrase I love you, in hindsight, I have actually said it without meaning it. I've said it because I feel like I love them in that moment, but as soon as that moment's faded, I suddenly realize that why I said has been quite extreme and quite intense and that I didn't actually mean it long term, I just meant it in that moment. That's quite a big thing to admit as well, especially with the people that I've said it to. But then again, I'm sure that people have said it to me and felt exactly the same way as well so.. it works both ways I guess.

I don't know if anyone knows about these, but there used to be these posters around London that said 'Love is...' and then a picture of a man and a woman showing someone's depiction of what love was to them. They were things like, love is giving her the last chocolate in the box, or love is kissing her even when you know others can see. I used to love looking at those posters on the internet because I loved seeing them, and I don't think there was one that I didn't 'awwww' at.

So I thought I would do one of my own. I think that love is being the most 'you' that you can be around him. If someone loves you, they can't expect you to change, they need to love you and who you are when they fall in love with you. I don't think it gets any better than being entirely yourself around someone. Those little bits that you hide from other people, those little secrets from family or other friends, that you don't have that with this person. They know everything, they know all the ins and outs, they know all of your secrets, you can't hide from them. And they always know when something's wrong.

So yeah, that's what I think love is. I don't know, I just thought that this was a relevant subject because I've been meeting a lot of new people recently, I just thought it would be nice to talk about it and also get your views, so write in your comments 'love is...' and then write your idea of love.

Adventures in Waitressing

Recently I was hired on to a local restaurant as a part time waitress. And let me tell you, there is never a dull moment in waitressing. Tonight in particular was one of those nights where I just wanted to get off work and curl up with my teddy bear and Dragon age and never go to work again. Then again, I guess everyone has their days at work like that. But there are several things that bug me about waitressing, and I am most definitely going to be sharing them with you.

So tonight I had a table of six people they ordered very complex things, and I managed to get all but two right. And to be fair, one of them wasn't really specified, because she said she wanted cheese fries with her burger, and the burger comes with fries so I just did that, then she decided she wanted a platter of cheese fries. so I had to go do that. But anyways, apparently one of the woman's eggs wasn't cooked enough, so I took it back to the kitchen and asked that they cooked it a little longer. Now, at the time we were fairly busy so the kitchen was running a little slow. So it took about 15 minutes for the egg to come out. In that time, the rather overweight family had managed to eat all of their food and they told me that because I took so long they wanted me to make the manager have her food rung up free.

Ok. So let me get this straight. You got hash-browns, a waffle, bacon, sausage and toast for 8 bucks and because you didn't get the 99 cent egg... you want the meal for free. RIGHT. Now, I didn't say that, I said "I can't do that, our managers not here at the moment." "well you had better go find one." she said. So I got our shift supervisor who really had the same amount of authority as I did. She listened and nodded her head and ended up giving her the meal for free. What she told her though was totally wrong. She said I hadn't brought out ANY of her food, had gotten every single order wrong, was rude, and blamed it all on the kitchen.

NOW. Ok, I blamed the fact that the egg took so long on the kitchen because I cannot control what goes on in the kitchen. Secondly, I did not get all of your orders wrong, I got 2 pieces of a specific meal wrong and quickly fixed them no charge. And lastly, you did get your food. Or I don't know what you were shoving into your mouth hole 5 minutes ago.

It's people like this that make me hate waitressing, living off the charity of strangers really bugs me, because they might not be particularly nice people, meaning I don't get that much money. I would really like to take all of those people who don't leave me tips, or leave me penny tips and make them work one single hour of my shift, and I'll pretend to be them for an hour. I think it would work out well for everyone.

Annoying salespeople

So I've been saving up for this wig for a costume I'm planning on doing this summer and it's super awesome. I finally got it last week and I am very excited. But I would be even more excited if the process of getting said wig would have been a bit easier. I went to this shop, I won't say which because it is regularly a very nice shop to get things from. But I have been there before and gotten a wig there before and loved it.

I went in and the wig I wanted was sitting there on display, and there was a woman nearby and I said I want that one please. And she said ok, and I said you do a price promise right? Now a price promise is where if you find a product cheaper somewhere else they will match the price and give it to you for the same price. Now this shop goes one step better and will match the price and then give you ten percent off whatever the price is there and what the price was at the other shop. Now the wig I wanted in this shop was $60 and since I had been saving up for it I was prepared to pay that much, but when I shopped around it was $30 cheaper in all of the other stores. then I checked to see if the shop was selling a slightly better wig, but it wasn't, I checked and it was exactly the same wig but for $30 more.

if it would have been like $10 I probably would have just payed it. But since I am a poor college student and it  was $30 I felt like it was the difference between me being able to afford this wig and me just dreaming I'd be able to afford this wig. So before going to the shop I printed off the price of the wig from another shop so I could show them and be like Why?

The reason I just didn't go to another shop and buy it for that price was because if I went to this shop and got the price match I would get another couple of dollars off. So it would be cheaper than the cheaper stores. So I presented this woman with undeniable evidence and said to her: it's $30 dollars cheaper at all these other stores, can you match it? and she said to me, 'no we only price match store to store.' and I said 'no on your website it says you have an online price promise.' That is genuinely the headline. It even says in the terms and conditions that the item on the website must be in stock and available for delivery. On their website. Which means it's an online price promise. It's website to website. So she called over the manager who continued to tell us the same thing that it was in store and not online. And then he continued to tell us all the reasons we were wrong. It wasn't an opinion! If you state on your website that you do something then you need to actually carry that out and actually do that because that is one of your companies policies. It felt like they put this 'price promise' thing on their website so people thought they were this really great company doing really nice things, but they didn't think anyone was actually going to put that policy to the test. And now that somebody had they were panicking.

 So in the end I said well if you're adement that it's an in store price promise can you do that? Can you call one of the competitors shops and see if they have it in stock? And then if they do, then can you do the price match? She said yes we can, so she called one of the other competitor's shops and they had it in stock. So I said right, now can I have that wig at the competitor's price? And she said no, we don't have that wig in stock.

ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We'd been in this shop for like half an hour or more, if she had just said to me at the start when I said I wanted the wig that they didn't have it in stock.... I can't buy a wig that isn't there! We had just spend the better part of an hour price matching a wig that wasn't there. What is going on?

So she called another store and they had it in stock, we went down to this store, and when we got there we said can you match it blah blah blah blah blah? And what did the guy say to us? No. We only do in store price matching. So we had to go through the whole ordeal again and explain to him that's what it says on your website, you say you do an online price matching therefore that's what you should be doing. But if you're so adement that you don't do an online price match then can you call another store and see? Luckily there was a competitor's shop right next door and he went in and asked and they had it in stock. So finally, I got my wig for $30. However, in their price promise they say they'll beat it by 10% of the difference which they didn't do so I'm a bit annoyed about that. Plus the guy serving us was really jerkish in the second shop and he said to us; 'do you want carer's insurance?' we said no. He said, 'oh, you'll be happy when it gets ruined then won't you?'

Ugh.

cake and books

So I'm just munching on a bit of chocolate cake here. It was sent to me through the mail today from a really good friend. Who does that? That is so great. And it's also reallllly good cake as well. I'm a very happy girl right now.

Now, I read an awful lot. I counted my books today specifically for this post and it turns out I have a lot more than I thought I did. I have 376 books. I could start a library! Now, I haven't really read all of them because I have a really bad book buying addiction. I'll be reading one book, but by the time I've finished it I'll have bought ten more. But because I have so many, I have a lot of favorites so I thought I would give you my top 10 favorite books. But then I realized I can't choose just 10, so I settled for 11. HOWEVER, I have left out Harry Potter, Maximum Ride, and the Hunger Games because I love all of those series equally and couldn't possibly pick a favorite.

So at number 11 we have Green Angel by Alice Hoffman. I read it when I was around 10 but it still remains to be one of my favorite books. It's a story of a girl who loses her family and has to learn to live on her own in the retreat of her garden and discover exactly who it is that she is.

At number 10 I have the Doomspell by Cliff Mcnish. Again, I read these before I even reached my teens but it's the first fantasy series that I ever really got into. It's about two young children who find themselves in another world and they discover that they've got magic powers. It's slightly Narnian but much darker.

Number 9 is the Five People you meet in Heaver by Mitch Albom. It's about this old man who dies saving a little girl and goes to Heaver. And when he gets there there are 5 people waiting for him that he effected in his lifetime and they have to explain his life to him. It's really nice because it's a book about how you can effect someone's life and change people's worlds without ever really knowing them.

At number 8 is Inkspell by Cornelia Funke. It's actually the second book in a trilogy, but it's much more fast paced then the other two in the series. It's about this girl and her father who find they can read people in AND out of books, and they read themselves into a specific one called Inkheart where it's Medieval and stuff. It's very intriguing and I love the characters so much.

The next one is an offer you can't refuse by Jill Mansell. I can't resist a bit of chick flick every now and then, and this just happens to be my favorite.  Right, answer me this: What do you do if you're boyfriend's mom offers you 10,000 dollars to break up with him? Read it and find out. So good.

Dream Factory by Brad Barkley is at number 6. It is about a girl who plays Cinderella at Disneyland while all the regular actors are on strike. Then the boy who plays Dale at the park starts falling for Ella (that's really her name) even though he's dating the so called "perfect" Cassie. The book describes their jobs, (Ella has to get married 4 times a day to prince Charming)  and you get a peek into what it's like to work in Disneyland through their dry, cynical humorous descriptions of what happens behind the manufactured "magic".

Number 5 is the Book Thief. This is the first book I've come across where the main character has blonde hair and brown eyes. It's a rare combo. This book is actually narrated by Death and it's about his encounters with a little girl who's living in Nazi Germany and she keeps stealing and saving books from book burnings. I cried a lot whilst reading this, so if you're going to give it a go have some tissues at the ready.

Number 4 is The Eternal Ones by Kirsten Miller. This is part of a series and I actually haven't read the next ones yet but I just really liked this book. It's about this girl in Haven who keeps having visions and flashbacks about a past life that she once lived and she feels like there's a boy who she once lost and needs to find again but little does she know he's actually looking for her too. Now it's actually tied with another book called Reincarnation by Suzanne Weyn and it has a lot of the same story line, it's just about this couple that tries and tries to get together over history and just ends up always dying on the other one. It starts in the cave man days and they actually end up killing each other within the first two pages. It's a really good book and makes you think a lot.

Ok Top 3. These are the really good ones. Number 3 is The Night Circus By Erin Morgenstern. The Circus arrives without warning no announcements proceed it, it is simply there when yesterday it is not. Just read it. I can't even explain what is in this book, you just need to read it and love it.

Number 2 is Grow Up by Ben Brookes. I would read the blurb on the back of the book, but it's not exactly family friendly. It is definitely 18 and up, (Not saying that's when I read it) but it's really good. It's about being a teenager and experimenting and growing up. And it's really good. If you're old enough, read it.

And finally, at my top spot... and it's going to take a lot to knock it off the top position but it's One Day by David Nicholls. Every chapter is the same day, every year for 20 years. And it's about Emer and Dexter and how their relationship builds, breaks down, and finally comes together. Again, it's a tear jerker but I've never had a book speak to me as much as this one did. And plus it's hilarious as well, but it gets sad. So... be prepared.

So yeah, that's my top 11 so look them up, they are so good, and I've given a few of these books to people who don't like reading and they read them within a week, they're just that good, so seriously, give it a go.

Dumb Blonde

If you have known me for a while some of you would have noticed that I used to be a blonde. I at one point when dinosaurs ruled the earth, I was naturally blonde before anybody asks and I actually used to have curly hair as well. But every once in a while I had met someone and they saw my blonde hair and instantly judges my personality just based on the color of my hair. I've done my research and I have found out that the dumb blonde stereotype started with a woman called Rosalie Dathae.

She was a french courtesan who had a reputation of taking really long pauses before she spoke, making her look not only stupid but literately dumb as in mute. She could also be where the slutty/bimbo stereotype came from for blondes because she was a courtesan and she used to paint while nude. But I don't want to place too much blame on her because I don't think that's fair.

Like I said, I've done my research and it's been scientifically tested and proven that your hair color has no effect on your personality or intelligence whatsoever. This includes gingers.So all that about blondes being dumb and brunettes being boring and redheads being fiery? it's all crap. When one person is a little bit stupid and they're also blonde They aren't stupid because they're blonde, they just happen to have those two traits. But as soon as people notice someone who's dumb and blonde oh well it must be true!

And everyone that they meet from that moment on that's blonde? They put them into the dumb blonde category. Whether it's true or not. I did like being blonde when I was, and now I enjoy being ginger. There's not particular reason why I like it, it's what I've been given and it's what I have. So I'll just make the most of it. The only reason I bring this up is because I saw this shampoo the other day that makes your hair blonde and I just thought hair, and being blonde, and the judgements that come along with it. Now I'm not the brightest crayon in the box but I definitely know that I'm not dumb. Or fiery. And I was just hoping that I was some sort of proof that those judgements are misconceptions and they aren't actually true. Just proof that all blondes aren't ridiculously stupid and we aren't all supermodel types, and we just... we basically aren't all Paris Hilton.

Are You Scared?

I've just spent most of my morning on a website called phobialist.com. It's just someone who's collecting names and types of phobias and they've put them all on this one website, and some of them are just bizarre! So I thought I would give you a rundown of some of my favorites.

You definitely don't want to go someone with ablutophobia. That's someone with a fear of washing and bathing, so they're really going to stink.

Barophobia: it's a fear of gravity. How? How is that even possible?

Clinophobia: it's a fear of going to bed. How do you develop that fear?

This one just confuses me. Euphobia: it's a fear of hearing good news. It's good! It's good news! if it was a fear of bad news I could understand it. But if you're being given good news how can you be scared of that?

'You've just won the lottery!' "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" yep. There's a phobia of that.

Dromophobia: that's a fear of crossing the street. how do they ever get anywhere?

Hexakosioihexekontahexaphopia: this is a fear of the number 666. I never want to be scared of that number just so I don't have to say that word again.

Linonophobia: it's a fear of string....

Ophthalmaphobia: fear of being stared at. So if anyboday has that and they're reading this post: O.O

The next two make me really sad when I read them.
Philemaphobia: it's a fear of kissing. and philophobia is a fear of being in love. ............it's really sad.

Now the last two are phobias that I have.
The first one is Globophobia and it's a fear of balloons. yeah....
and the other one is telephonophobia and that's a fear of telephones. I'm not, strictly speaking, afraid of telephones, I'm scared of picking up the telephone. I'm really terrible at telephone conversations.

So yeah, if you have any weird phobias or you know of any phobias with great names, let me know because I find it very interesting.

I'll leave you with my favorite phobia that i found:
Arachibutyrophobia: it's a fear of having peanut butter stuck to the roof of your mouth. That's really specific. Just don't eat it!

Mamihlapintapai

Recently I have come across this word that has become my favorite word of all time. There is so much awesome in this one word that I can barely pronounce it, but I’m going to try because I have to tell you what it is. Mamihlapintapai. It’s not even the word itself that is the awesome part, it’s the definition it’s so cute! It means a look that’s shared between two people that both want something to happen between the two of them but are both too scared to initiate the first move. How sweet is that?

But this got me thinking, there are some seriously awesome words in our language that we never use anymore and are sorta being forgotten about because they’re either too long or too complicated to go into everyday sentences. So, I’ve selected a few of my personal favorites and I dare you – no I’m going to do better than that. I double dog dare you just to try and slip these into everyday conversations.

Booboisie – this means stupid people as a group.

Nudnik (Noodnik) – this is an annoying or irritating person.

Starrify – this just means to decorate with stars. How cute that there is actually a word for that?

Squiriferous – this means having the qualities of a gentleman.

Diffibulate – it just means to unbutton or unbuckle.

Jobler – it’s just someone who does small jobs like a handyman.

Vampirachy – this is a government, usually like a king or a queen that are comparable to vampires.

Redamancy – this is the act of loving someone in return. (awww :3)

Snollygoster – this is a shrewd or unprincipled person.

Slimikin – this just means small or slender. 

Tortiloquy – a dishonest speech. 

This next one is my favorite just because I can’t believe that there’s a word for this:

Epalpebrate – this means lacking eyebrows! Why is there a word for that?

So there’s some words I bet you didn’t know before. So yeah, give it a go putting those into everyday conversations and see what happens. For example, you could tell your little brother or sister to go away and stop being a nudnik. Or at the end of the day you could diffibulate your coat. You could go up to a gentleman and tell him that he’s squiriferous. You could use a tortioquy on your teachers to tell them why you didn’t do your homework when really you were reading my blog… or more unlikely, but still kind of possible you could have been an explosion that blew off your eyebrows and now you can tell everyone that you’re epalperbrate.

Every horror movie. Ever.

I went to see the woman in black the other day, alone. How brave am I? but great movie, like really really good. Almost peed my pant that’s how good it was. But when I was watching the movie there was one part that really, really bugged me. 

Now I’m not going to say spoiler alert because this happens in every single horror movie. Ever. So Daniel Radcliffe is sitting in this house, and he knows for a fact that he is alone. The woman who owned this house is dead, she’s been dead for like 20 years. There’s nobody living in the house, it’s just him. So he’s sitting there in the study doing some work and he hears this noise coming from upstairs. It’s sort of this BA BOOM. CREAAAAK. BA BOOM. CREEEAAAK.

It definitely sounds like there’s somebody upstairs. Now if that was me, and I was downstairs in my house and I heard that noise coming from upstairs, I would be out my door like a shot. I would be like a cartoon, there would be a dust cloud of where I used to be because I moved that quickly. I’d be calling the police, I’d be calling family members to get them to come and help me. There’s no way I would hang around to find out what it was.

But that’s not what happens is it? The character is never sensible enough to say “I can hear a noise upstairs. I’m just going to leave.” In every horror movie when that situation occurs, they always do one of two things.

First, they’ll call out ‘Hello?’ as if the murderer, or serial killer, or ghost or whatever the movie’s about is going to shout back; “oh sorry love I was up here behind your curtains. I was just going to murder you, but no rush, come up when you’re ready, it’s fine.”

If you know that you’re alone, why do you expect anybody to shout back at you in the first place? And if there is somebody upstairs waiting to kill you, they’re not going to shout back!

The second thing that they do, is they go and find out what it is! WHY? Why would you go? If you hear a scary noise you don’t go and find the source of it! You leave!

At least give the stupid characters a sensible friend who says, “I don’t think that we should go find out what that noise is.” Because then it gives the movie some credibility and you could argue that at least someone was in favor of not being stupid.

The Hunger Games Review

So this evening I went and saw the hunger games with my younger brother who is thirteen. I had gotten the book almost a month ago from my boyfriend as an anniversary gift and only finished reading it about 2 days ago.

It was an absolutely fantastic book and I loved it so much. if you haven't read it yet you really need to. NOW. I am not going to say spoiler alert for this next part because I feel like to be interested in the series you should have read the book or at least seen the movie. if you haven't done so.... Why are you here?

Ok, so to start off with, the casting. I liked this Jenifer Lawrence who played Katniss from when I first saw her, but I didn't think that she would be quite gruff or forceful enough to pull off the character of Katniss. Boy was I wrong. The character was played out brilliantly, she was heroic when she needed to be, motherly, and snarky. All in all Katniss was cast brilliantly.

Now Peeta I was sure was a terrible casting. He, in my opinion just looked helpless and honestly a little bit dumb. Now Josh Hutcherson is not a bad looking guy, but for some reason in this movie he just seemed very unattractive to me, and I feel like that's mostly in fault of his stylists. But after watching a few scenes with Peeta and Katniss and the other tributes, I knew I had been wrong. He played the part of Peeta very well. And I have to say, the filmmakers must not have liked him very much because there were several unflattering shots of him, especially in the cave with Katniss.

Now I could write 7 pages about what I felt about Casting but I'll just skim over some of the characters quickly. President White I felt wasn't bad enough, he just reminded me of Santa Claus the whole time, he needed to be more mean looking and acting. Whoever played his right hand man had a magnificent beard. Rue was so adorable. She was cast brilliantly and was such a great actress. I cried a little when she died. The Carreers were terrifying in themselves, not because of their stature, but at the way they all played off killing the other tributes. It was terrifying watching them kill other teenagers and having a good time. Haymitch was just perfect. and I absolutely adored the actor who played Cinna. I want him to my teddy bear.

Now I'll briefly comment on the sets and costumes. District 12 was fantastically done. I felt depressed and hopeless just by looking at it. I also really loved the costumes for district 12, 11, and 10. The districts really represented themselves through their 1960esque fashion. I felt everything about these districts represented poverty in themselves. The other districts, especially the capitol, had brilliantly colorful, interesting, and futuresque costumes. I feel like the costumes were very good analogies for the two very different ways of lifestyles these two districts had. I also absolutely loved the makeup in this movie. I'm sick of porcelain looking dolls plastered on the screen. The makeup done for all the tributes was very natural and helped them retain their innocence. You could see freckles and imperfections without them being caked in powder.

Now when a movie is made from a book they usually take a few liberties and alter a few things from the book, this movie is no exception, but they were very careful with what they added to the movie. One of the main things that bothered me that was altered from the book was the way the Mockingjay pin was given to Katniss. Katniss in the book received it from the mayor's daughter, which later they use this to expand their relationship in the series. In the movie, Katniss takes it from the Hob and gives it to Prim. Prim then gives it to Katniss after the reaping. Cinna then 'sneaks' it on her clothes so she can wear it in the arena. In the book Haymitch talked the judges into letting her take it in. Another was the hounds that were sent into the arena in the end. These hounds were supposed to resemble the tributes that were killed earlier in the games. I was very upset when the hounds were simply sent in and had nothing to do with the story other than making Peeta and Katniss run. There were two things that they added to the story that I absolutely loved. After Rue died it showed district 11 saluting Katniss and then rioting, which I loved. I love rebellion :3. The other addition that I loved was Cato's few simple lines that he said at the end; "killing is all I know how to do." Those few simple lines brought so much character depth and made you feel pity for him.

The one mistake they made in this movie was how much they brought out the romance. Yest there was a romance between Peeta and Katniss, but as soon as they lip locked they bring Gale into the picture. It shows him a little hurt as he watches it televised on TV, then later shows him looking jealously at Peeta. Now, what makes this story great is that it has a storyline apart from the romance. Ever since Stephanie Meyer, idiot author of the Twilight series, brought her fans over from her series, I've heard that everything's been going downhill from there. The whole 'team Peeta' 'team Gale' thing could bring this whole series to it's knees.

The biggest mistake of this film though I felt was at the very end. In the book Katniss confesses to Peeta that she's not actually in love with him. She only did it to help both of them in the Hunger Games. This was never even brought up in the movie, and since the next book deals a lot with this idea I'm confused how their going to do this. I also felt the ending was very, very, very rushed. it was all of one minute from when they were crowned to the credit reel. Another thing they failed to do was bring character depth to Rue and Peeta. Katniss spent a lot of time with both of them in the arena, and although most people would have not sat through a four hour movie where there were many meaningful character building dialogues. The thing I was most upset that they didn't put in the movie is so stupid. It was the moment Katniss jumped down from the tree after being betrayed by Peeta, (again) when he joins the careers. In the book she sent a smile to the cameras saying "let them figure out what that means". In this moment I fell absolutely in love with her character, I feel like that moment has a lot to do with her and her personality.

Now the violence in the series is part of what brings so much horror and intensity to the story. I feel it is necessary in the movie that it is brutal and hard to watch, and they definitely did not disappoint. The violence was not overpowering and there was not an overabundance of blood and gore, but there was some involved. The two most violent scenes in my opinion were the beginning cornucopia scene and the ending fight with Peeta, Katniss and Cato. The only significant blood or gore in the movie was when Katniss got burned, Peeta was cut, and Cato was close to death. The scenes were not done up with fancy tear jerking John Williams. No, the first cornucopia scene has a silence to it, with a low pitched buzzing sound, which I think brought out the raw horror of the scene that unfolded before you. Teenager killing teenager. The two times the audience responded most to the film was when the boy who set up the mines had his neck broken, and when Rue got speared. When Cato killed the mine boy there was a collective gasp in the audience, and I couldn't help but cringe. When Rue died at least 15 people in the theater cried, and I have to admit I shed a tear or two. 


All in all this was an absolutely fantastic movie, it brings out what, in my opinion, could actually happen if our government went crazy. Well, more crazy then they already are. It followed the book very closely, and actually was one of the best movie adaptations of a book I've ever seen. 


May the odds be ever in your favor.

Moments

I have this thing about moments. I document everything, in pictures, videos, drawings, and writing. When something happens to me that I just step back and say… wow. I need to make sure that I never forget it.

So the other day I went through my collection of documentation, and picked out my favorites. The ones that captured the amazing moments of my life. And I got them all put together in a dvd video. 

So now when things aren’t quite going my way and my moments aren’t so great, all my favorite moments from over the years are one click away on my computer, for me to look at and remember things haven’t always been this bad. Therefore they won’t always be this bad.

romantic advice for idiots

So I feel like I’ve been living in a book or a movie for the past two or so months. I don’t know whether I changed at all, or whether 2012 just brought upon it a new wave of guys who are ridiculously confident. Some really great romantic things have happened to me in the past few months that have never ever happened before, and not only had they not happened before I didn’t think they were possible. I didn’t think that there were people out there who actually did stuff like this. I didn’t think that there were actually guys who took notes from romantic movies, and then did them and applied them to their lives, I mean that’s awesome!

Then again when something great happens in life there has to be something that counteracts it, the balance needs to be restored because that’s just the way the world works apparently. For instance I was walking around the other day and a guy wolf whistles at me. Now usually, I say usually but I don’t get wolf whistles very often. But when it does happen, usually it’s a group of drunken or cocky boys that are just having a bit of banter or trying to impress their friends, and this is really easy to ignore because they are just being silly. Or maybe it’s like a builder or a workman who’s up high on a roof so you can’t really see him. You kind of hear it, and then just assume it’s meant for someone else.

But this was different, this guy was walking towards me and I was looking down, and he waited until I looked up so I would see him, and then he wolf whistled at me. But he didn’t just wolf whistle; he did it super creepily…

What did he expect from that? What did he expect me to do? Was I supposed to just jump into his arms and say; ‘take me to your place’?

The wolf whistle, it’s not an attractive noise that makes women swoon as soon as they hear it. It’s become pretty tacky over the years, and I don’t know why guys still do it. If you’re a guy that’s reading this post and you’re into the whole wolf whistling thing… cut it out. If you see a girl that’s good looking, go up to her and tell her she’s beautiful or pretty. Don’t call her hot or sexy; tell her that she’s beautiful. There’s a big difference between those words to us.

So yeah it is great to know that there are hopeless romantics out there like me that are willing to sort of put themselves out there, and put themselves on the line, and be at risk or being ridiculed or cringed at, just in the hope that they’ll find someone like me that responds positively to it. And it’s nice to know that stuff that you see in books and movies can actually happen.

But then again it’s just horrible to know that it works the other way as well and there are guys that think the way to get a girl’s attention is to whistle at them like a dog.