Date of Birth!

[stunt_muppet]

Two days after it, technically. I don't feel any older, but then I said that last year.

My family (and M and J, the next day) did take me out to dinner and the waiter didn't ask for my ID when I ordered a glass of sangria, though, which considering I tend to get mistaken for a sixteen-year-old was rather nice. And I got to go to one of my favorite tapas places and have my favorite Spanish omelet ever. Good times all around. :)

I really think that Americans should take up the practice of eating tapas-style. Cycling through different dishes allows you to experience a variety of tastes throughout a meal without offering too much of any one thing; you never lose the sense of novelty and pleasure in the new flavor. Plus, you eat slower, which makes you less likely to overeat. Meals become occasions, inextricably social and linked to your dining partners.

Granted, it's pretty much impossible to make a tapas course for home consumption, especially if you're trying to feed a family - think of all the different dishes you'd have to prepare ahead of time. You'd pretty much spend your whole day cooking dinner unless you were super-coordinated. But as far as eating out goes, I definitely prefer it.

Also, as a belated birthday present, Mom took me and my brother to see Toy Story 3 yesterday morning, for which I am grateful because I adored it.

1. I found the opening sequence very touching, in that it recreates the playtime scenes from the first two movies from the point of view of the toys - as if, now that Pixar has the money and technology to create these lush sequences, they're showing them off to the kids who grew up with the first two movies and Pixar in general. Like saying "look how far we've come, look how everything has changed". On a meta level, it was really heartwarming.

2. SPANISH BUZZ . Everything about Spanish Buzz is wonderful. And Jessie's expression while Spanish Buzz is trying to seduce her with flamenco dancing makes my life better. Also it's a tribute to the Pixar writing staff that this is the third time "Buzz thinks he's really an agent of Star Command" has shown up as a joke and it's still funny.

3. So did anyone else find Big Baby kind of upsetting? Especially near the end when Lotso broke his pendant with Daisy's name on it? HE JUST WANTED HIS MAMA. *cry*

4. Other things that make my life better: Timothy Dalton as a tiny stuffed hedgehog and Very Committed Thespian. "I'm trying to stay in character!" Eeee. Also, Bonnie has a Totoro. I don't know why that makes me so happy but it does.

5. Speaking of which, Bonnie is so cute it makes my teeth hurt. And she is such a perfect mirror to young Andy during her playtime that every scene with her made me all warm and fuzzy. And the scene with Andy playing with her at the end and him spending all that time with her and the toys, playing with them one last time...and how he finally puts them away and gets ready to go to college and then Bonnie makes Woody wave at him and he just stops and looks like he's about to cry...*sniffle* Yeah, the ending might not have been the emotional punch in the stomach that Up or Wall-E was, but I still cried like a baby. Like I said, I grew up with these movies, and now that I'm older that feeling of saying goodbye and having to grow up and move on, characters that you've loved and followed for years waving goodbye after one last adventure. It's making me well up a little just typing this, because I'm a baby.

6. Speaking of endings, OH DEAR LORD THE INCINERATOR. I don't get it; Pixar movies consistently have a happy ending. How do they keep on making me believe, for one awful second, that they really are going to send everyone off to a horrible death while they hold hands and accept it? They did the same thing with WALL-E losing his memory and I have no idea how they keep on doing it. Dammit I should know better by now.

7. Is it bad if I missed Bo and the little pair of binoculars and the Army Men and everything? Especially Bo. I liked Bo. :(

8. So before I saw this movie the Toy Story series was much too connected to my childhood for me to even consider being fannish about it in any fashion, and it still kind of is, but now...I kind of like the whole Woody/Buzz/Jessie OT3 they've got working there. I like it in a completely wholesome and G-rated fashion of course, but, still. I'd go look for fic but I'm scared of what I'd find.


So, yes. Good show, Pixar. Good show.


Requisite Writing Blather:



Yeah, I knew this was a mistake. *grumbly discontented noises* *pokes at five total sentences of her springkink  fics*

Why is it, she said sullenly, that I can't seem to write anything without it turning into a Big Huge Exploration of the characters and their ~problems and their ~feelings? Why do I require so much buildup? Why does everything have to proceed so slowly? Why can't I just write effing porn? Gah.

And then because I do get into this mindset that I have to write a long, in-depth piece that's about the characters and logically gets them to a place where the sex scene makes sense, I end up not writing at all because I get so nervous over getting it wrong, or somehow not doing justice to the characters. And then I make no progress.

And then for the one fic that is supposed to be meta and crap I haven't watched the episodes in question yet. And also when I'm supposed to be writing I get distracted and Wiki Walk all over the place.

For example: I've been trying to write that Optimus/Ironhide fic, which I want to be set pre-series during the war, at some point where they're both isolated and surviving on their own (the idea that I had was that they'd been taken prisoner and escaped). That allows for the "cowboys" prompt, but I can't just have them wandering around the wastelands on their own
having awkward physical contact until the "kink" part of "Springkink" comes in. They need something to talk about, something to do until then.

So I start looking for things for them to talk about, and I end up going off on two separate tangents that tie back to the theme of Optimus as commander/superior officer versus Optimus as Ironhide's friend, and how Ironhide has never known Optimus without knowing Optimus The Autobot Leader. And, because sparks are a rather handy device for robot sex but the whole "Matrix vs Spark" problem from Beast Wars has never, to my knowledge, been resolved, I ended up on yet another diversion about where the Matrix (and its influence on Optimus) began and Optimus's spark began, so there was talk about that, but then there are three more problems. One, that leads to a lot of sideways and meandering conversations that don't go anywhere until the two robots in question reaffirm their relationship or whatever, which is (two) the exact same damn thing I did in Connections. And three, I really should save these ruminations on the Matrix and Sparks and whatnot for the Primal/Prime fic, because it's bad enough I'm reusing story structure; re-using subject matter is just too much. But I don't know where to go with those topics in the Primal/Prime fic, and I've got not clue what Optimus and Ironhide are going to talk about without that particular topic of conversation and aaaugh.

This is what I get for writing three different fics about three different Optimuses. Did I mention I haven't even started the Animated!Optimus/Blackarachnia one and I haven't even decided if I want it to be angsty or straight-up porn? Yeah.

Oh, and I should probably study for the GRE and apply for jobs and stuff, there's that too. Sigh




And once again it is incredibly late and I must go to bed. Hopefully by the time I wake up I will no longer have the Bokusatsu Tenshi Dokuro-chan theme song stuck in my head.

Comments

[laurus-nobilis.livejournal.com]

In the Latin American dub, at least, he does speak really over-the-top dramatic Spanish, with an accent from Spain. It's almost as foreign to us as it is to people in the US, really. XD They did that for the Puss in Boots in Shrek's dub, too.

Spain itself tends to have its own dubs for movies, though. I have no idea how they managed to translate the joke there.

[stunt-muppet.livejournal.com]

I thought it might be something like that, since the joke wasn't so much that he was speaking Spanish as that he'd become a Ricardo Montalban knockoff. :)

I kind of want to investigate the European dubs and see how they each played the joke now.