My own self

Out among the stars I sail.
Way beyond the moon!
In my silver ship I sail.
A dream that ended too soon.
Now I know exactly who I am
and what I'm here for.
And I will go sailing no more.

All the things I thought I'd be,
all the brave things I'd done;
vanished like a snowflake
with the rising of the sun.
Never more to sail my ship
where no man has gone before.
And I will go sailing no more.

No! It can't be true!
I could fly if I wanted to.
Like a bird in the sky;
if I believe I can fly...
why I'd fly!




Clearly I will go sailing... no more.

"I Will Go Sailing No More",
Toy Story

So don't lose hope when you're forlorn!
Just keep your eyes...
upon the skies!
Every night a star is
right in sight a star is
burning bright a star is born!

- "A Star is Born", from Disney's Hercules

That was... enchanting.


The only really bad thing about this movie is how it pretty firmly puts a stop to any tiny lingering chance there might have been of Disney ever doing another prettily animated fairy-tale-movie - because they parodied every single thing they use to do in them in this one, and very well too. It's funny, it's silly, it's pretty, and it's even downright sweet. It manages to be both a parody of your standard Disney fairy-tale animated movie as well as a very nice addition to them in its own right, with the added niceness of a ton of both subtle and blindingly obvious throwbacks to their old classics, particularily Cinderella, Snow White and Sleeping Beauty. Sure, it's somewhat predictable - but that's half the point with this kind of movie, isn't it? The comfort of knowing that everybody but the meanie will be happy on the last flip of the page?


And James Marsden is absolutely fabulous as the melodramatic Prince Edward. I also quite liked Patrick Dempsey as the surprisingly kind-hearted New York divorce-attorney, special mention to him as well.

The chipmunk rocked. But the dragon could've been cooler. Which says a lot about what kind of a movie this was.

9/10

Despite the somewhat boring title, this is probably easily the best Disney-sequel ever.


And it's so ooold! ;_; I have it on VHS, and when I saw the dates of the new releases in the previews before the actual movie on the tape, I realized it's fourteen years since I got this movie.


Fourteen.


Dear gods, FOURTEEN! ;_;

Sam Loeb and the 26's "Superman & Batman #26" was very good indeed, though the dialogue, the art and the individual scenes were all far better than the plot as such, I think.

"Firefly", both sadly and happily, gets better with each time I watch it. And Joss and Tim are hillarious on the commentary-track for "Train Job", which I re-watched last night.

"The Gardens of the Moon" is shaping up, at last. Still not completely hooked, but finally it has intrigued me enough for me to at times pick it up and read in it at other points during the day than when going to bed.

"The Prisoner of Agony Creek" by Don Rosa was splendid, and really moved back towards the direction of the Duck-stories he wrote during my early childhood. While not quite on par with his best works, this was a far cry better than his last couple of stories, and the gags it was crammed with were the major factors in making this happen - the guy who wants to hang everybody; that's vintage Don. And all the not-so-subtle-sex-jokes, which I suspect none other than Don would be allowed to do in the Duck-verse... I actually liked them, but I wonder what I'd thought at ten, when not understanding them as they are obviously meant to be understood. And the ending was the emotional excellence Don does so well. All in all, a major up-note on my week, reading this.

The first two parts of J. Michael Straczynski's "Skin Deep"-story came in the latest issue of the Norwegian "Spider-man" title, and safe to say, JMS, as usual, doesn't disappoint. While I do grow tired of this typical "let's introduce a new character who the main character new ages ago rather well but that we've never heard of before"-trick, it works. And Peter's flashbacks to Uncle Ben are very touching. When reading the one in the car, after Ben had met with the vice-principal, my eyes actually watered. Splendid work indeed, and I'm looking eagerly forward to the next issue, come early July.

"The Fellowship of the Ring (Extended Edition)", by the way, is pure art. It's been a while, but I re-watched it with my youngest siblings yesterday. The other two movies are great, sure, but FotR is nigh perfection. The visuals... the world looks so real, I forget just how real between each time I watch it. And the casting is brilliant. Especially Sam, Gandalf and Boromir blow my away, but Galadriel, Gimli, Aragorn, Pippin, Bilbo, Merry, Frodo... they're all just amazing.


Oh, and for the first time in I don't know how long, I'm addicted to a computer-game - and of course, it is a Heroes of Might and Magic-game. While I'm among those few people who liked most of the changes in IV (though certainly not all of them) and thus am rather disappointed with V for going back to III in almost every aspect IV tried to break new ground on (I sorely miss having several heroes per army and having the opportunity to send same-type creatures out without a hero leading them - those two things were the things I missed most in II and III, it felt illogical not to be able to do it), but I'll not be petty, V does indeed work. The graphics are somewhat too overdone for my mainly functional tastes - I could do with less annoying 3D forcing me to spin the point of view around all the time just to see what the hell that small thing behind that tree is - but by all means, it looks great. I also miss the Barbarian/Stronghold, which is the only major traditional Heroes-alignment missing in V. Hopefully, we'll get new alignments in an expansion... *greedy* And after "Shadow of Death" and IV, having to visit windmills and dwellings every week is horribly annoying. But other than that, I'm loving it. I just wish the bastards had included Sandro. It's not really a Heroes-game without old boneface.

Peeps I know - or think I know, or pretend to think I know, or really just vaguely have some form of relation to - seem to be having weblogs, too. While I do link quite a lot of these on the Links-page, I suspect you people reading this (who may or may not be the exact same demographic that will now be listed, but in the immortal word(s?) of Richard Fish, by-gones) never really bother with checking the Links-page, or any of the other fancy pages this weblog has to offer you.

ANY. WAY. (Put them together and what have you got? Bibbedi-bobbedi? Bibbedi-bobbedi? Bibbedi-bobbedi-bo? (No, that wasn't really intended to be making large with the sense (nor that with the grammar)))

IN ORDER OF TOTAL RANDOMIZATION, I GIVE YOU, THE LINKS!

LOTHAIR.
Ole. Edvard. The Hairy Man From Nordilandet. Way too mature for his own good, despite being, like, a gazillion years yonger than me, sometimes so much so that he's no fun, he'll just burst every single baloon of good, childish fun I go to great lengths to inflate.

But he's a good little chap, and funny, when he sets his considerable mind to it. I came to know the guy through a now-extinct message board, and I haven't let him shrug me off ever since, try as though he might have might.

OUR CANADIAN READER.
My main excuse for keeping this weblog in English. (The real reason is that I figure I have a larger potential base of readers this way. Of course, this is a poor delusion, in truth it only gives me a larger potential base of people choosing not to read my weblog) Lucky, or Sarah, or Jade, (why the heck would anyone named "Jade" ever make a webnick, by the way?! Me, I'd be all over with the flaunting) is a nice girl from the previously mentioned message board, though it wasn't until I realized she was a fellow Whedonite I started pestering her on MSN as well as on the board. She's a graphic designer, wohoo, and she has even promised me a cool Welsey-avatar! That, in my not-all-that-humble-really opinion, makes her The Bestest.

CYANIDA.
That's what used to be Carolinen's awesome nick on the now quite-a-lot-mentioned message board, which by the way suffered from having a lot of quality members mixed in with, well, horrid content. While Caroline and I may not have all that much in common, she's a treat to chat with, and maybe the sweetest person I've ever communicated with. Whenever I feel down, I just chat with her, and voilà, all better. For that alone, I should be linking her LJ every day.

OBDORMIO.
This rascal is way too alike me for my own good. There are differences, though. For one thing, the guy is so lazy he makes me look like Sir Worksalot. Also, he has this unexplicable thing for horrid islandic formations, and he comments on my weblog way too rarely considering how witty he can be when he puts his mind to it. He was, by the way, the main driving force behind me getting this weblog to begin with. Of course, then he proceeded to shift his own weblog, so that we no longer both had opera-blogs, ruining the entire point, but that's just the kind of a guy he is. Luckily, I had pro-actively gotten back at him by making a coup d'forum on him a year earlier.

SHEEP.
From yet the same message board. I think we've grown a little apart, personality-wise, but he's still a good ol' cyber-friend with way too high an opinion of himself, which I totally respect. His weblog, though, is a bit skinny, and I think he started it only to annoy me with its lack of activity. Oh, well.

LOKI.
Loki's just this guy, you know... In all seriousness, though, this chap is great. He's witty, he's smart, he's interesting, he's stark ravingly mad, and to top it all off he's nice, too. He is one of the most modest and down-to-earth people I've ever met, as well. Sometimes, I wish I could be more like him.

MOMS.
Olaf is a very pleasant cyberconversational-partner, who is my alibi for knowing someone adult. While I'm sure he'd protest about being very mature and adult, in my world, he is. He has is own business, for crying out loud, and, from what I gather, he is doing rather well, too! :D Yay for Olaf, people. Also, he has excellent taste in television. Fraggle Rock, Angel and Veronica Mars for the win, folks! And for the record: Anyone with the guts to actually apply for changing (well,okay, adding) their name to something as cool as "Moriarty" deserves all the praise they can get.

The Darth Admin.
Frode is the administrator on a Norwegian Star Wars-board I'm a somtime member of. He's a nice young guy, very into philosophy (these days, up 'til sometime last fall it was politics, I suspect it'll be nuclear physics by 2008) and Mozart, which is cool.

ALATÁRIEL.
A Dane! (OH THE HORROR, yes I know, deal with it, people, it has been like two hundred years, get over it, will ya?) And what inspired me to making this list when she personal-messaged med her weblogadress on a Norwegian Tolkien-message board we're both members of. (Though I've been inactive for a year) She's a really cool lady who loves "Scrubs" (who the Janitor doesn't?!) and as Obdormio can testify to, write really long and interesting PMs. (He used to ask me for quotes :D)

As soon as I saw his subnicktext, as mentioned in the post posted right before this one, I told Olaf "Yay, more to blog about!" As I was writing the last post, he edited his subnicktext to quoting me with the "Yay, more to blog about!"-quote instead! Of course, that quickly changed, too, (to something not-me-related so bugger that) so it didn't last for long, but a quote is a quote!







Ca-CHING.


You people might think you're smart, but you're forgetting one important thing. Nothing, nothing at all is insignificant or petty enough not to be a potential ego-boost of mine.



Oh, and the Psychophant says hello.



"hello."

Let's get down to business - to defeat the Huns.
Did they send me daughters when I asked for sons?
You're the saddest bunch I ever met;
but you can bet, before we're through,
mister, I'll make a man out of you.

Tranquil as a forest, but on fire within.
Once you find your center, you are sure to win.
You're a spineless, pale, pathetic lot;
and you haven't got a clue.
Somehow I'll make a man out of you.

"I'm never gonna catch my breath."
"Say good-bye to those who knew me."
"Boy, was I a fool in school for cutting gym."
"This guy's got 'em scared to death!"
"Hope he doesn't see right through me."
"Now I really wish that I knew how to swim..."
Be a man.
We must be swift as the coursing river; Be a man.
with all the force of a great typhoon; Be a man.
with all the strength of a raging fire;
mysterious as the dark side of the moon!

Time is racing toward us till the Huns arrive;
heed my every order and you might survive.
You're unsuited for the rage of war
so pack up, go home, you're through.
How could I make a man out of you?
Be a man.
We must be swift as the coursing river Be a man.
with all the force of a great typhoon Be a man.
with all the strength of a raging fire;
mysterious as the dark side of the moon!
Be a man.
We must be swift as the coursing river, Be a man.
with all the force of a great typhoon, Be a man.
with all the strength of a raging fire;
mysterious as the dark side of the moon!




No pressure. I'm not feeling inadequate at all after seeing this movie. Not at all. No-sir-ee.

I wanted to make a post. I can't think of anything to post about. Thus, I search my mind. What do I come up with?



Please, as if you don't know it'll be Whedon-related.




Well, it won't. Not per se.


It'll be LISTS! LISTS! LIIIIIIISTS!



Ehrm. I'm calm now. Really, I'm calm.




LIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIISTS!


TOP FIFTEEN VILLAINS OF ALL BOOKS, TV-SERIES, MOVIES AND COMICS I CAN THINK OF.
Many of these characters have lots of different incarnations, and I list only those I am both familiar with and like.

1. The Joker (from the comics "Batman" and the television-series "Batman the Animated Series")
2. Lex Luthor (from the modern-age comics "Superman" and television-series "Smallville" and "Lois & Clark")
3. Darken Rahl (from the book-series "the Sword of Truth")
4. Grand Admiral Thrawn (from the "Thrawn-trilogy" book-series of Star Wars)
5. Angelus (from the television-series "Angel" and "Buffy the Vampire Slayer")
6. Eric Magnus "Magneto" Lensherr (from the comics "X-men", "Ultimate X-men" and the "X-men" movies)
7. The Phantom Blot (from the "Mickey Mouse"-comics)
8. Doctor Victor von Doom (from the comics "Fantastic Four", "Ultimate Fantastic Four" and the "Fantastic Four"-movie)
9. Shere Khan (of the "Jungle Book"-book, Disney's "The Jungle Book"-movie and the "Jungle Book: Shaonen Mowgli"-television series)
10. Scar (of the "Lion King"-movie)
11. Holland Manners (of the "Angel"-television series)
12. Lionel Luthor (of the "Smallville"-television series)
13. Martel (of the "Elenium"-books)
14. Saruman (of the "Lord of the Rings"-book and ditto movies)
15. Hans Gruber (from the "Die Hard"-movie - there's probably lots of villains I like better that I'm just not trying hard enough to remember, but I just had to get Alan Rickman on the list)

(notable characters who'd probably have made the list if I had considered them true villains: The Janitor from the "Scrubs" television-series, Petyr "Littlefinger" Baelish from "A Song of Ice and Fire"-fantasy book-series and Lucifer from the "Sandman" and "Lucifer"-comics.)

Remember that this is probably highly dependent on my unreliable memory and moods.

Now, we have a list, what can we surmise from it? Well, if you dismiss characters acting out of uncontrolled insanity (The Joker), pure greed (Gruber, Saruman, Scar) or megalomaniacally based actions without further reasoning behind them than ego (Shere Khan, The Blot, Doom, Rahl), that means seven of my favourite villains can be considered, in their own ways, heroes. (That doesn't mean the eight I listed before can't, mind, it just means I'm not going to try)

- Lex Luthor
Lex is a fascinating example of what a really excellently made antagonist can be. Something that intrigues me about him especially is how he is the opposite to Superman. Superman is emotional, caring, emphatic, Lex is cool, distanced, cynical. What makes this so intriguing is that the same parallell exists between The Batman and The Joker. Batman is analytical, strategical, level-headed and surgical in his actions. The Joker is instinctive, random, unpredictable and insane. This, though of course not an exact parallell, places Batman and Lex on the same side of the scale. (And, amusingly enough, Joker and Superman on the other) This fascinates me - Superman's total antagonist have far more in common with Superman's arguably closest ally than with almost any other character in the DCU. I dunno, it just fascinates me.
To get back to the point, though, Lex is more than a mere villain who is wants to take over the world. Yes, he wants to take over the world, but he has reasons that, while questionable, are far more valid than the average super-powered warlord-wannabe's. Lex considers himself the most intelligent man on Earth - which may even be true. Thus, he considers himself best suited for leading mankind. Which, again, may be called a rational line of thought. He considers the greatest potential threath to humanity to be a Superman turned tyrant. Again, this is very probably a sound estimate, as Superman is one of, if not the, most powerful single creature in the earthly DCU, magics not taken into consideration. So, he reasons, as the world's natural leader, it falls on him to rid them of this potential threath before it is too late.
Lex, in his own eyes, is a self-sacrificing hero. His reasoning for innocents being killed as a result of his acquiring more power is "necessary casualties for the greater good". If he is to lead humanity, which he by his reasoning should do for humanity's sake, against a foe like Superman, he'll need whatever resources he can get.

- Grand Admiral Thrawn
Another "greater good" kind of person. He really just wants order, and like Lex, considers himself the best suited person to manufacture this order. In fact, putting him on the villain-list at all is something I do with doubt.

- Angelus
Is not crazy (in the sense that his actions are random and irrational), nor is he greedy or obsessed by his own ego. He's just evil. He likes it when bad things happen to other people. He may very well be the best display of a purely sadistic villain with no power-hungry main motive whatsoever I've ever seen.

- Eric Magnus "Magneto" Lensherr
He wants equality. Or, allright, not equality, he wants to practice a kind of humanitarian darwinism. Mutants are more developed than humans, ergo they should be put in better positions in society. This does not mean humans should be treated poorly, they are intelligent life, but they should ideally not be treated as as good as mutants - and under no circumstances as betters. He does, at times, go to extremes to reach his goals, and thus is considered a terrorist and a villain, but at heart, he's just a staunch defender of what he sees as his leaderless people, a people mistreated and bereft of priviligies. Sure, he thinks a hell of a lot of himself, but why shouldn't he? He is, after all, very intelligent and immensly powerful.

- Holland Manners
While it is dubious, Holland appears to at one time in his life has chosen to work for evil to be able to do greater good later in his life - at least this is the lesson he tries to teach his protegè Lindsey McDonald. This means he follows a code of ethics that will always allow him to let monsterous things happen with a clear conscience - he simply convinces himself "this will make me more powerful, and thus at a later point in time able to do even greater good than stopping this right now would be"...

- Lionel Luthor
As I see this character, though this can certainly be argued, he wants power for his son, not for himself. Everything he does is aimed at molding and shaping his son to be the greatest man who ever lived - as Lionel rates these things. This is very unegositical, and thus, I think, very un-villain-like.

- Martel
He's an odd one. He seems to have betrayed his order, mentors and boyhood friends for power, but he seems to half-way regret his choice throughout the entire trilogy of books. Due to some kind of personal set of ethics, he never tries to repent his misdeeds, though, he just seems to accept that he has chosen to be the bad-guy and, somewhat melancholy, acts like the bad-guy. His last words, though, were to the mentor he betrayed and the man who killed him - saying they were the only two people he ever loved.

(The title is totally irrelevant for this post, I just felt like singing on that song)

So, Obdormio's extremely supportive comment on my last post (which I am aware may very well have been a sarcastic and evil attempt to hurt my feelings, but I conveniently choose not to seriously consider that possibility) made me want to post something more! Yay!

I'm possibly going to show my first draft here sometime this weekend, we'll see, but for now, I have a question, and I'd appreciate it if everybody who read this and have an interest in it would give their view:

Should I minimize or exploit the amount of cross-breeding between the pantheons?



This is a difficult issue, you see, now that I've decided to use 'em all in one single "continuity", if you'd like. It seems... awkward... to have only two or three non-Nordic names on the chart (which is the case right now, apart from Sigyn's parents the only inclusion of a non-Nordic entity is the mother of Syn, for whom I'm considering mostly Artemis and Athena. (Olympians mainly because I see them as the non-Northern-European-pantheon most likely to have close relations with the Aasgardians, and also because, heck, I don't have to look up everything when I'm dealing with them, cause I already, like, know stuff. ) I'm leaning towards Artemis - I feel like the qualities she would inherit from Athena is already represented by my letting Odin or Ve (not sure which one yet, and I'm also considering Tyr, but I have this gut-instinct he shouldn't be a father) be her father, and I also feel like Artemis is more likely to have had a child with some barbaric northerner and then just send it away to him than Athena is. (Yeah, my justification for this is that Artemis is more of a feministic entity than Athena. Those of you who don't see the reasoning here are probably women. Those of you that do, and hate me, are probably too. Luckily, none of you know my name, or where I live, so I can continue my small-time-bigot'y ways undisturbed-like. Mwhahahaa.)

Also, another, more simple thing, that I'd like opinions on: how, if at all, should Honir (Norwegian "Høne") be related to Odin? I'm playing with three scenarios - half-brother to Odin, nephew (making Honir the son of Vili or Ve) or half-brother to Frigg (and thus half-cousin to Odin, as well). But any other suggestion will be recieved with thanks. (For those possible-yet-unlikely Norse-religion-geeks reading this, I'm identifying Lóðurr with Loki, as I like to think there's a chance he might have had a hand (a subtle hand, but a hand) in creation, without stating it outright. By giving him a pseudonym which in one version of the tale of creation of Man is said to have aided Odin, I think I'm opening that possibility. (Incidentally, this is also a theme I'm going to use on my Loki-inspired divinity in my book-thingie, if I ever get around to writing more on it))

And lastly, I'm struggling somewhat with Angerboda, mother of Loki's three monstrosities. I'm unsure if I should identify her with someone (Gullveig or Sigyn, probably), if I should let her be some important Jotnir's relative (if so, who?) or if I should just let her be some random Jotnir girl Loki got the hots for. I kind of feel that would be odd, though, as this girl's genes are supposedly half of what made Jormungand...

Dixi.

is my new subnicktext on MSN, stolen from a webpage I stumbled across today. I've also recently used "Hail the victorious Blot", as he won the poll-contest I've mentioned, and "Smutthullenes Herre", which an online friend of mine called me in jest on MSN the other day. It translates into something like "The Lord of Loop-holes". A title which I intend to keep. Mwhaahaahaaaaa.

Yeah, okay, so I've been extremely sloppy on the MSN-nick-update-front. Anyway, I'm still using "Grief" - I'll probably not feel allright about switching back to "Loki" until there's an official go for a live-action-slayerverse-project. Meaning I might very well be doomed to Grief for all time.


Be that as it may, short-time changes is okay, I figure, so to promote the Final Round of the Ultimate Disney Comics Badguy Vote on Andeby Online. I'm currently switching between my second-to-favourite and my third-to-favourite finalists in my nick. Hopefully, this might get them some votes, because they're hopelessly behind the Beagle Boys for the time being, and I for one cannot stomach the thought of the Beagle Boys scroing second best in such a contest.

You'll note I speak only of "second best" here, that's because my favourite, and apparently most other people's too, The Phantom Blot, has a rather substantial lead, so he'll probably win, I'm not too worried.

So, my nicks will vary between "Magica - Røyst frå Tryll!" (Magica - Vote DeSpell!) and "Gulbrand - Røyst Gråstein!" (Flintheart - Vote Glomgold!) this week, as they are my third-to and second-to-favourite characters in the finalè.

My subnicktext has changed a lot recently, among other things it's been the line from the Daily Show I ended my second-to-last post here before this one with.

Now, it's: "It's quite vexing" - Petyr "Littlefinger" of House Baelish, Lord Paramount of the Trident and Lord Protector of the Vale

That's a quote from "A Feast For Crows", the most recent book in the "Song of Ice and Fire"-series, and is in a somewhat humorous manner referring to the Queen Regent Cersei destroying her own base of power by sheer stupidity, arrogance and paranoia even faster than Petyr had anticipated.

...now is your moment...
...floating in a blue lagoon...
...my, you better do it soon,
no time will be better.
She don't say a word
- and she won't say a word -
until you kiss the girl!

Shallallallallalla don't be scared,
you gotta use your head
you wanna kiss the girl!
Shallallallallalla don't stop now
don't try it, how
you wanna kiss the girl!

Float along
and listen to the song;
the song say: kiss the girl!
Shallallallallalla

The music play,
do what the music say,
you got to kiss the girl!
You've got to kiss the girl...
You wanna kiss the girl...
You've gotta kiss the girl...
Go on and kiss the girl...


I seriously don't get it out of my head. The melody is so bleedingly catchy. I haven't had a mind-bug like this one since I first saw "Once More With Feeling" (oh day, oh glorious day). I'll say that for them, Disney know their musicals.

What's a fire and why does it, what's the word... buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuurn?
When's it my turn?!
Wouldn't I love,
love to explore that shore up aboooooooooooove?
Out of the sea... Sigh.
wish I could be... Sniffle.
part of that...
woooooooooooooorld...

Late. Tired.

Got rid of the virus/malware/spyware. Mostly, at least, there's some lingering nuiscances I didn't manage to kill off, but I'll live, and so will the computer. Tolerable.

This is the end of the second-last day of being home with my parents and siblings before I go back to school for spring. Melancholy.

MSN-subnick-text changes again. Quote from same page as last time. New quote is "Suffice to say that Yaweh spent endless hours testing his people's obedience, and they in turn tested his patience to the limit." Already had this one for a day or so, so tomorrow I'll change to "En gang var jeg nysgjerrig, men nå...", which is a quote from this month's Norwegian rerun-issue of the Fantonald (Duck Avenger) - comic, "Project Cold Sun", said by the character of Camera 9, an engimatic yet cool chap to say the least. It translates to something like a very resigned "Once I was curious, but now..."

Non-blog's not being very non-blog'y. Irritation.

Remember to do something about that in next post. Pressure.

Post ending. Bye.