Dragonball Evolution is the greatest movie ever

No, I don’t actually believe that.  I’d really be in trouble or have some terrible taste if I did believe it.

Honestly, it’s one part sarcasm, and one part stubbornness.  The stubbornness springs from the fact that I regularly converse with a person who’s only seen approximately 20 minutes of Dragonball Evolution, but swears that it’s the worst movie ever made.  Which is in fact, untrue.  Don’t get me wrong, Dragonball Evolution is a BAD movie, but I’ve seen worse.  This attitude is just annoying me enough that I will now attempt to annoy that person by defending the movie every time he badmouths it.

It’s weird, but that’s the way I am.  It really annoys me to read/hear people’s opinions when they don’t even bother to watch/listen/read whatever they have the opinion about.  What’s worse is when a person accepts another person’s opinion as their own.  That’s just lazy.  Why bother having an opinion about something you never plan to watch then?  I really don’t get it.

In non-ranting updates, I’ve finally finished watching Gurren Lagann, and I have to admit that the ending had some tears coming to my eyes.  It’s been a little while since I really enjoyed what I was watching as much as Gurren Lagann, and I’m glad that the ending was…..an ending.  Honestly, I really liked the ending.

Since I finished Gurren Lagann out of my personal collection, I’ve moved on to Vandread which is not as good as I remembered it being.  I have the sinking feeling that this is going to be the trend for a lot of the anime I watched when I first became a fan, unfortunately.  It has a great premise: battle of the sexes in space.  Unfortunately, it really just turns into space harem with combining robots and one hell of a bitchy lead.  He is completely unlikable, but I still like a few of the side characters, such as the elderly captain of the female pilots, and the merchant guy who operates their ship naked.  Poor guy.  I’m just going to try and get through both seasons as quick as I can and move on to the next title in my collection.  If I ever finish, I will definitely be thinning it out.  I own some terrible anime.

I caught up with Fullmetal Alchemist:Brotherhood on hulu, so I started watching Spice and Wolf since it expires the soonest (May 14).  I’ll admit that a lot of the subject matter is pretty dry, and it’s definitely not for the average viewer, but I’ve been surprised by how much I’ve been enjoying watching it.  There’s an excellent chance I’ll end up buying it.  It’s a nice contrast to a lot of the other anime I watch, with it’s calmer pacing and excellent music.  I think that the music helps to draw me in even when my attention starts to wander away from the screen.

It’s shocking that I’ve posted twice in the same week now.  If you know Missouri weather, it’s been back and forth between summery warm and wintery chilly for the past month, and it really messes with me.  I spent most of last week simply working and sleeping, since I was pretty run down.  I’m feeling better so far this week though, so hopefully that stays true.  I hope all you guys are doing well too.

Witty and sarcastic title here

Once again, tears4dragons has prompted me to make a blog post, this time on the subject of the Twilight books/movies.

You really can’t shake a stick on the internet without hitting one of two kinds of people: those who love love LOVE Twilight, or those who hate Twilight with a rabid passion.

I dislike both kinds of people.  Intensely.  Now which end of the spectrum to tackle first?  Let’s go with fangirls.

My first and only real exposure to Twilight fangirls has been with the facebook application Pieces of Flair, where people make buttons out of images, and post them to a virtual board to share with each other.  Browsing this application, I’ve seen hundreds upon hundreds of buttons extolling the virtues and attractive qualities of Edward Cullen as well as the eternal Twilight question ‘Edward or Jacob?’  My initial reaction was to wonder who exactly is Edward Cullen and what’s so great about him anyway?  I was also puzzled by all the seemingly sudden division between vampires and werewolves.

So, the worst of fangirls are rabid and stupid.  True.  I’ve read such moronic statements online as something to the effect of ‘my fandom cries’ in a debate about how Meyer’s manuscript for her new book from Edward’s side was “stolen” and uploaded to the internet.  I read the author’s rant.  I was not impressed.  When you give manuscripts out like that, you should expect the worst.  DUH.  I have more respect for a lot of the podcasting authors I know of, who not only give downloads of their manuscripts to their fans on a REGULAR basis, they also podcast their fiction and make it available for FREE!  These people work their asses off to get their names out there.  I must admit, I know nothing about Meyer’s working process, but I still have the opinion that she is naive and childish.  I’m good at forming baseless opinions like that.

However, Twilight fans do one important thing: they READ.  They buy books, they buy merchandise, and they get excited over the movies.  This makes them no better or worse than Harry Potter, Star Trek, Star Wars, or Lord of the Rings fans.  What I’m saying here is that all these fandoms are pretty well equivalent, to me anyway.  The worst of the fans are terrible people and tend to give the entire fandom a bad name.  No real surprise there.  Detractors ALWAYS judge by the worst common denominator.  ALWAYS.

Now on to Twilight haters.  They spend more time hating Twilight than fangirls do obsessing over it.  They are eternally pissy about the books, and never pass up a chance to go on and on about their hate for it.  Most of them probably have never read the books, which I have a real problem with.  It’s easy to hate Twilight, all you really have to do is go on a message board, copy what all the other haters say and then post it yourself.  Simple.  This doesn’t interest me.  I’d rather have intelligent discussion of something else.  The funny part is that Twilight haters help to promote the thing they hate.  If you don’t like, just leave it be.  Don’t help it out.  DUR.

So now the important questions.  Do I like Twilight?  Not really.  Have I read the books?  Yes.  In my opinion the series starts off with promise, and goes downhill quicker with each volume.  I absolutely hate Breaking Dawn.  However, I’m glad that teens (and all the older women for that matter) are reading and buying books.  That is ALWAYS a good thing, no matter how bad the books really are.

*possible spoilers, if you care, don’t read beyond this point*

Also on the question of Edward Cullen and Jacob, both are idiots, and Edward is creepy to boot.  He watches you in your room sleeping?! There is NOTHING sweet or romantic about that, it’s creepy no matter how you look at it.  Jacob is just stupid, mooning after Bella endlessly, and I’m not even going to get into what happens in Breaking Dawn.  I loved that Bella was not the model of high school perfection, knew her own mind and was willing to go after what she wanted.  I hated that she got so dependant on Edward that she didn’t really live while he was gone.  I hated that Edward was such an utter ass as to simply abandon the person he supposedly loves the way he did.  It is all stupid, and this is the first and only time I will be ranting about Twilight.  If you put up with it this far, you have my thanks, and I will be returning to my anime fandom-ing next post. Promise.

I would give my kingdom for a decent set of headphones

I’ve been a music lover since I can’t remember when.  No doubt the love comes from listening to my dad’s stereo and my mom’s record collection as a child.

Ever since my first personal cd player, I’ve learned the value of a good set of headphones.  I already listened to music a lot then, I think I must have been around 14 or 15.  Good headphones will at least last a while, while you constantly have to replace cheap ones – I learned from the cheap headphones my parents would buy for me and the better quality headphones I started to buy for myself.

My favorite headphones were a pair by Bose.  Terribly expensive, but absolutely comfortable, and when I put them on, I couldn’t hear much of the outside world, even without music on.  Unfortunately those didn’t last near as long as I had planned, and I cannot currently afford a new pair along with all the other various gadgets and electronics I wish to buy such as a new phone, new iPod, and a better digital camera.

I just haven’t had luck with headphones in the past few months.  On one count it’s because my dog chewed through a couple pairs.  The other is just that I’m rough on headphones.  Rather than they last about a year, my headphones seem to have a current life of two months.  I just killed another pair yesterday, and will need to go buy a new semi-decent pair so I don’t treat my coworkers to what I’m listening to.  I like to listen to things on loud, helps drown out the pesky gossiping.