I Read Death Note Out of Boredom

So there's an artist on DeviantART that likes drawing fan art. She's good, too, so it's nice to see lots of her work on the front page every day. She recently got obsessed with Death Note, so I was seeing lots of fun Light and L pictures constantly, and it sort of renewed my interest in the series.

Keep a close eye... by *moni158 on deviantART 

I watched it a while back, and I generally enjoyed it. I enjoyed it a lot less once Near and Mellow were there (because I really hate Near and Mellow), and I think the last episode was pretty much the worst thing ever, but it was generally good. The first half was really good. I'm a Light fan, and L added some entertainment, and Misa is dumb.

I may have enjoyed the manga a little more in some aspects. The ending was better in some ways and worse in others, I think. It was easier for me to follow the side characters and such because I'm really awful with Japanese names, and seeing them rather than hearing them made it a lot easier for me to understand what the hell was going on and who Light wanted dead.

On the downside, the translation I read switched translators often, and sometimes there were drastic differences in names and such. One translation kept using question marks in place of commas, and it really threw me off. I also got a few interesting mistranslations, like L saying, "You can make love outside," when it was supposed to mean either "make out outside" or "make love out of this building." Either way, it was just sort of amusing. 

So I guess those are my thoughts, and totally spoiler free thoughts, too. Yay, me! 

Daily Art - "Fear the Reaper"

I made this using a gradient that I made from a picture of Light from Death Note. I think it was fitting that it turned out to look like a lot of little scythes.

My Top 25 Songs

It was absolutely impossible to make this list only 10 songs, which was my original intent. I like a lot of music. I just kept adding songs, then when I was pretty sure I had covered all my favorites, I prioritized them, which was really hard, since some of them are really difficult to compare. Interestingly enough, my favorite band Nightwish doesn't have a single song on this list. No matter which one I think of (and I love most of them), I can't bring myself to place it above any of these. Even after I started numbering these, I added a few more. I'm bad at this. XD

Apparently there was some copyright issue with putting links here (I guess), so I removed them. I'm not entirely sure if that's what the issue was and I don't see how they infringe on any rights whatsoever, but there. Hopefully Blogger is happy with this post now.

So a late edit: somehow "The Islander" by Nightwish kept slipping under my radar as I looked through things. That should go somewhere around...14-19? I guess? I don't really feel like giving it an exact placement since I'm not putting it in the list. XD

25. Juke Box Hero - Foreigner

24. Alsa tu Cerveza - Mago de Oz 

Also called "La Posada de los Muertos"

23. Bird and the Worm - The Used 

22. Ain't No Sunshine - Bill Withers

21. The Unforgiven III - Metallica 

20. Zzyzx Road - Stone Sour

Specifically this version, which was played on the radio. There's a different version that has a different ending, and I don't like it so much. I had to host it myself just because it's so hard to find.

19. Every Time I Die - Children of Bodom

18. Fairy Tale - Shaman 

17. Headstones - Lake of Tears 

16. Sounds of Silence - Simon and Garfunkel

15. Paperthin Hymn - Anberlin

14. New Divide - Linkin Park

13. Sieze the Day - Avenged Sevenfold

12. What a Shame - Shinedown 

11. Sky Is Over - Serj Tankian

10. Endlessly, She Said - AFI

9. Wooden Pints - Korpiklaani

It's so freaking dancable.

8. Gone Forever - Three Days Grace

7. Billy in Despair - Maximum the Hormone

This is used as an ending theme for Death Note. I sort of fell in love with it. 

6. Rip Out the Wings of a Butterfly - HIM

5. I Don't Care - Apocalyptica

Featuring Adam Gontier of Three Days Grace for the vocals.

4. Bad Company - Bad Company

This song motivated me to write my book, and also influenced it. I remember liking this from the first time I heard it, which was when I was a kid. It's one of the only songs that's held up over the years.

3.Cybernetic Queen - Iron Savior

2. Life is Beautiful - Sixx AM

1. Gone Away - The Offspring
I couldn't tell you why this is my favorite, but it is.

People I Don't Find Attractive

There are plenty of people out there I find attractive, whether they're celebrities, fictional characters, musicians, or whatever. There are also a bunch of people that have tons of fan girls and I have no idea why, or, at the very least, I really disagree. Warning: really opinionated opinions.

L from Death Note
L is adorable - but in a way that makes me want to give him a cookie, not have his love children. I was actually really surprised when I first learned how huge his fan base was. I seem to be part of the minority that prefers Light. L just doesn't seem like he should have fan girls; he's sort of creepy in a lot of ways, always sitting hunkered over and spending all his time thinking. Especially when you put him next to Light, who is much better looking, in my opinion, and seems to have no trouble with girls.

Light doesn't get it either.

Hugh Laurie as Dr. House
This just doesn't make any God damned sense to me. He's a cranky old drug addict who is out of his mind.

He's in your medicine cabinet stealin' your drugs.

Robert Pattinson 
I read Twilight before it was a movie. I enjoyed it for the characters and such, and in all honesty, Edward is a guy I would enjoy spending time with myself. I should also mention that if I had pictured him as Robert Pattinson through my reading, I probably would have enjoyed the story a lot less. I really don't understand why he got the part. He just has really odd features, like that large jaw and eyes that look like they're glued open or something. I think he's sort of gross looking. I'm pretty convinced the only reason girls like him is because they read Twilight and like his character. No one gave him a second glance when he was in Harry Potter.

This picture is certainly not helping his case.

Jeffrey Donovan
He creeps me out. He has squinty little eyes and a weird mouth. I feel like he's trying to absorb my soul. I know lots of people love him on Burn Notice. As far as I'm concerned, unless his character makes him drastically change his appearance, he'll be just as creepy and I will be just as likely to wonder why he looks like that while watching him act.

@_@

Ichigo Kurosaki from Bleach
There's nothing wrong with Ichigo...there's no reason for him to have so many fans, either, though. I mean, out of all the characters on that freaking show, why go for one of the least interesting ones? I don't like the show much, but I'm an Ulquiorra fan myself, and there are probably at least 5 others I'd place above Ichigo.

Maybe it's that orange hair. I hate orange.

Muscle Men
Just in general, I don't like guys that are super heavily muscled. A little muscle is nice, and I'm totally okay with scrawny twigs as well. You'll just never find me searching for muscle men on the computer when I think no one is looking.

This is an acceptable amount of sexy.

The Twilight Issue

Twilight haters are everywhere. They're as obnoxious (if not more so) than the avid fans. Right here, in one post, I'd like to show each side the flaws in their arguments, because I really hate seeing stupid, incorrect, and poorly thought through attacks that the fans and haters have launched at each other.

I'd like to start off by saying that I honestly enjoyed the books. I've heard Stephanie Meyer's writing style criticized as being simplistic, but the story is told by a teenage girl, not a bard or a scholar. Simplistic fits. Also, the book was not written for the same audience as Lord of the Rings; it was written for teenagers. I think the writing style arguement should be scrapped.

I've also heard the argument that the characters are stupid, the plot is stupid, and so on. I think the characters behaved as most teenagers would in their situations. I think the plot was unique and not all that bad.

Then there's the vampire issue. Vampires do not exist in real life. They are fantasy. Most people think of vampires as pale, but the first vampire myths portrayed them as bloated and purple from drinking blood. Authors changed how we saw vampires over time. The Twilight vampires are definitely not what we usually see, but that doesn't make them bad. Should we be comparing World of Warcraft elves to Lord of the Rings elves? No. Enough said.

I was throughly disappointed with the movies. Robert Pattinson does not look or sound as Edward should. He slurs his words together and doesn't have the formal way of speaking that Edward has in the story. Kristen Stewart just kind of sucks at acting. Actors aside, I think the movies left out way too much of the emotion. in the books, you really see the love between Bella and Edward. You see Edward's humor, charm, and compassion, none of which comes through in the movie. The movie really makes it seem like they fell in love overnight for no real reason.

I've seen a lot of really dumb arguments against Twilight pop up recently, too. I found a group of people who called Twilight a rip-off of Death Note. Do you know what the basis of the argument was? The apple on the cover. Some people actually believe that Stephanie Meyer was watching her anime one day and saw Ryuk eat an apple, then thought, "I'm going to write a story about vampires!" Twilight and Death Note have absolutely nothing in common, and the apple isn't even the main focus of each story. How, then, can Twilight be a rip-off of Death Note? It's not like Bella found a death note, or the gods of death are trying to kill her, or anyone in the story is trying to play God.

Those are my thoughts. I just wish people would stop being so obnoxious without knowing what the hell they're talking about.

Caught up with Death Note...

Time to move on to Code Geass. I had seen more of Death Note than I realized, so that didn't take me long. I missed the vast majority of Code Geass, though, and since it isn't on TV at the moment, I'll be watching the whole series. This could take a while.

A Week in My Life

This week will give you a good idea of my life, and seeing as this is my first blog post, I'd say that's a good place to start. If you've seen my profile at all, I'm a craft fanatic. I've spent my life making everything from cookies to wreaths to wooden gumball machines. This weekend is the second ever Oddmall, a craft fair in Hudson, Ohio. I travelled six hours to the first with my mother and my boyfriend Tim. That was in May. I did well, met some awesome people, bought some cool stuff...overall had a great time. The website is http://www.oddmall.info/ for those of you interested in what the show has to offer. My business is Dragonistic, vendor #1.

On Monday of this week, my mother bought me a laptop as a belated birthday gift. Im typing from this shiny new HP now, as a matter of fact. Yesterday I used it to watch about 12 episodes of Death Note. I've never been one for anime - in fact, I hate the vast majority of it. Death Note and Code Geass are the exceptions. Congrats to the writers for creating something even I enjoy.

Just browsing the internet, I found some pretty interesting things over the past couple days. One slice of awesomeness I encountered was this comic book character costume. I have no idea who she is, but it's very well done. On the same site I found a link to an artist's website. Jeffrey Thomas has a collection of "Twisted Princesses," his take on classic Disney figures. Personally, Jasmine is my favorite. One of the most amusing things I found was http://www.regretsy.com/, a blog of horrible items for sale on the craft site Etsy. Before you check that out, be warned that there is adult content on the site. I love the comments of the woman running the site. It's hilarious.

I think that's about all I have to say. I'll keep finding fun things and writing about them as time passes. Thanks for taking the time to hear my crazy ramblings. :)