Tomorrow morning, I'm leaving the white-sanded, dark-watered shores of California behind for some Kauai gold and turquoise. I'll be back on the 12th! Will be toting my MacBook overseas as a receptacle for the gazillion photos I plan to take, but don't plan on hopping online except to check up on weather reports - I will, however, do some tweeting from my phone. :)

2009 has flown - we booked this trip back in February or March, and now WE'RE LEAVING. I feel like Mulder in the X-Files pilot, except I lost ONE YEAR instead of 9 minutes. D:

Work today was a WHIRLWIND; I'm still trying to recover. But I... kind of loved it? My old position is already a distant memory, and for that I'm surprisingly grateful. The lethargy is gone. I don't just feel like a cog in the wheel anymore. Always a plus!

Thanksgiving was excellent, as were the days that followed. I couldn't have asked for more from a four-day weekend. My mom and I hit the streets of Pasadena on Black Friday, expecting to dodge crowds and traffic left and right, but shockingly, encountered neither! Of course, we weren't venturing near the malls – just hit up our favorite specialty stores and gift shops from years of tradition. Tres awesome.

Saturday, Luke and I got out all our Christmas decor and spent the day with Bing Crosby. Our tree is such a lovely sight whenever I walk in the door. Sokka was deathly quiet the whole time we put it up, and kept fleeing when we tried to place him on a branch. I think it's too much shiny for his delicate sensibilities.

( Happily enough, we've found time to watch TV again... )

I've also been reading a ton – have an incredible stack of brain food going – but I think that's for another post.

Kauai in four days. Why yes, I am excited.

I have been discussing this with Luke on and off for awhile now. I always thought the answer was OBVIOUS but apparently, he thinks I'm crazy. And I think he's crazy. The verbal battle has been epic, and it's led me to wonder what the majority opinion really is.

So!

Poll #1486326 ATTENTION
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 15

ALIEN (Ridley Scott) or ALIENS (James Cameron)?

I've been spending a lot of time mocking up an itinerary for our fast-approaching Kauai trip. It's less than a month away, and I'm so excited I can hardly stand it. I've never done anything like this before. I've never been overseas. I've never had the opportunity to plan my own crazy travel adventures. I've always dreamed about doing this on some distant day when I was out of college and employed, and HEY, how'd I get here again? It's a total thrill and I'm not even there yet. Really, just the fact that we found a way to afford it and get the time off work blows my mind. We shouldn't be able to; I don't think I'll quite believe it until the plane lands.

For now, I'm just grateful to be surviving the local epidemic that's going around here, and hoping for a virus-free December (*crossing fingers*). Everyone I know is sick, has been sick, or is getting sick. Seriously: three different Trader Joe's were out of their Vitamin C supplements at one point this week. Three! That tells you everything.

My awesome co-worker just lent me her copy of C.S. Lewis's That Hideous Strength, so I can finally finish the Space Trilogy after ten years or so. (I know, what kind of Lewis fan am I? But the man wrote so much! That's part of why I love him; always something new to discover.) It's perfect timing, as I just finished my first Charles Williams novel, and That Hideous Strength was directly influenced by Williams' fiction. It's also supposed to be one of Lewis's more "controversial" novels; I'll see if I agree with that once I'm done.

Anyway, nothing like roughing a cold through a week of work to make you truly appreciate Friday again. Hello, weekend! I've missed you.

Supremely bummed that I couldn't go to Laguna this morning, but exposing everybody to whatever I have would be pretty thoughtless – that and I've pretty much lost my voice. Alas. I've been mainlining vitamins and OJ for awhile now, as our neighbor has swine flu. So my body's armed to the teeth; I'm hoping it's enough to kill whatever this is. Doesn't feel like swine flu, and I hope it isn't – only because I don't want to take a week off work when we've got our Kauai trip coming up so soon.

Anyway, despite all that unpleasantry, yesterday was wonderful. It was my first full day with Luke back (NO MORE BUSINESS TRIPS) and we just lounged around playing Dragon Age: Origins, watching T:SCC S2, terrorizing Sokka-bird, and refusing to cook any meals. It was lovely.

Dragon Age is completely addicting, despite the fact that the console version has some uninspiring graphics at times. The character expressions are still better than those in Oblivion, and the narrative is far more captivating. Luke and I both kind of adore Morrigan and Alistair – get all excited every time they have a bantery moment. I'm highly amused that they're played by Claudia Black and Steve Valentine, aka Chloe and Flynn from Uncharted 2! They have great chemistry together. And man, Claudia keeps getting all these awesome femmes to play. She's doing well for herself.

Anyhow, a bit earlier on, I took my car in for an oil change, ( and had a 'faith in humanity – restored!' moment. )

Sometimes, people can be awesome.

...and it comes around again! mercy_myst asked me stuff. It is below!

( LJ friends, music, marriage, work - all that jazz. )

You know the drill: comment and I'll fire some questions your way. :)

I was going to comment more extensively on the Prince of Persia movie trailer that hit the web yesterday, but falling_home has done it for me with her loltastic recap, featuring screens and commentary from the POV of a gamer.

Basically, I'm both surprised and confused by the trailer. Surprised, because there's actually a lot in there that's recognizable - Mechner appears to not hate the second two games as much as I thought he did. Confused, because it looks like elements of all three games have been thrown into a melting pot and I'm afraid some of my favorite things - the Dahaka, Dark Prince (our hero's snarky sand-wraith counterpart!), and Farah - are going to get lost in translation. We'll see, I suppose. It sure is pretty, even if the trailer is essentially LOL, BOSS FIGHTS all the way through. That's the way you sell these things, I guess. I still don't really know what to think of Jake, but I think he'll end up pulling it off just fine. Tamina is portrayed (in the trailer, at least) as more of an Elizabeth Bennett clone than I'd like, but I'll hope for the best. 'Cause that's what I do!

As for the whitewashed casting and British accents... to be honest, this doesn't bother me nearly as much as The Last Airbender's racefail. Because a) Persia/Iran has had political relations with Britain since the 13th century, and b) Jake's Prince is nowhere near as Americanized as Nolan North's in the 2008 Prince of Persia game. You really can't get any worse than that. I don't know what Ubisoft was thinking; I adore Nolan North, but the Prince of Persia he is not.

Anyway, is that enough fannish overanalysis for the moment? Heh. I think so. *hides*

I had a spectacular weekend, though I'm in quite a bit of pain from it. Halloween involved me running around as Buffy in a pair of cheap red (p)leather pants, wielding a garden stake and a wooden cross. Hee. I don't know how anyone can suggest they get "too old" for dressing up; it was a total blast. While out that day/evening, a grand total of three strangers recognized who I was supposed to be and said something about it, though I got a lot of odd looks besides. Despite owning a completely badass leather trenchcoat, Luke refused to go as a Whedon-vamp. I forgive him for this even if it was a tragic missed opportunity.

( Yesterday, I spent my morning in Laguna Beach... )

I have the best husband ever, basically, and somebody else deserves my life.

Now I get to track down all the obscure sheet music my little heart desires! WHEE.

savethescc.com - responsible for the insanely organized and passionate efforts to keep Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles alive - tells me it's Blog Day. I guess that means it's time for me to write about this show again... one that has completely revitalized an old, beloved sci-fi mythology and turned it into something more compelling than I ever believed possible (and I always believed much was possible, when it came to Terminator).

Those of you who've been with me for a few years now know that this show was on my radar before it was even greenlighted. Look, I have proof! I remember when Summer Glau was cast. I remember worrying I might not like Thomas Dekker as John Connor (you can all LOL now). I remember when the first picture of Sarah and John came out, and when the show finally premiered. And I quite vividly remember running around my college dorm like a lunatic when I first saw episode six, Dungeons and Dragons.

( It was too good to be true. )

When somebody asks me why I love science fiction and when I love it best, I point to this show before anything else. I have never before associated the word graceful with a piece of sci-fi, but TSCC practically married the word - especially as it grew older and wiser near its end. I can only hope that future scribes of this franchise take note of what was accomplished here. This is how you write the dinosaur. This is how you make it live again.

Played through half the game last night. From the moment I sat down after work (around 6PM) till midnight. Stopped only to eat a delicious dinner with our newlywed neighbors and do some dishes. Which, they helped me finish the dishes faster just so they could see more of the game. We were all depressed when we had to stop.

BECAUSE YOU GUYS. ADJECTIVES FAIL ME. I have no words. NONE. I give up trying to convey why exactly this is the most awesome thing I have ever seen play across our glorious 52-inch HDTV. I wish I could gather all my friends and fit them on my couch so they could finally understand exactly what I'm talking about.

If you were there last night, you would've heard the four of us all yelling and cheering like we were at the frelling Super Bowl every 5-10 minutes. I fear that all big-budget globe-trotting blockbusters are forever ruined for me, because I'll just yawn and say "BEEN THERE, DONE THAT, BLEW UP HELICOPTER WHILE PWNING SPEEDING TRAIN ON MY WAY FROM JUNGLE TO HIMALAYAS YEP."

Don't even get me started on Nate and Elena. Don't. Even. They are so OTP it's ridiculous.

(And I love Chloe and Harry Flynn even if they're ruthless, backstabbing muthereffers.)