Yes I am a twenty-three year old woman with a little bit of a crush on a sixteen-year-old boy whose voice still hasn’t broken, and who looks like a lesbian. Someone who, even I can admit, hasn’t really got any real talent at all, and only got famous based on how he can fool teenage girls into thinking that they might actually be the one for Justin.

I guess the only consolation is that I don’t cry over him:

The question came based on the depiction of Bella Swann’s father – Charlie Swann, chief of police in the small hick town of Forks. He’s been chief of police for years. He lives in the same small house that he’s been in for decades. He has the same routine – goes to work, doesn’t know what or how to cook for dinner, and watches football on television every weekend with a beer in his hand. That’s the extent of his life, and if his wife hadn’t left him, he’d be extremely content with it.

So the question – could I be content with that kind of life? Could I be content working the same job for years without any significant pay rises or career progression? Could I be content living in the same house with no visible improvements to lifestyle? Could I do the same thing day after day with no change in routine? Could I be happy having a weekend game of football on television being the high point of my week?

My housemate doesn’t think he could – he’s a few years older than me, but remarkably well travelled (he spent two years travelling the world), and has just bought a share of a business, so he’ll be going into business for himself. He’s a university graduate (or will be, after this semester), and plans to go on and study for Honours in history.

I don’t think I could be content with that kind of life. I’m not as motivated and driven as many people seem to believe I am, but I: 1) consistently look for opportunities to progress my career and earn more money; 2) count graduating from university to have been important for me; 3) consider continuing further postgraduate study as crucial to my personal growth; 4) am a home owner at the (relatively) tender age of twenty-three; 5) travel as widely as I can considering my other monetary commitments; 6) have definite plans for future children and family.

Yet, millions of people around the world are content with a life with no change, and don’t mind working that same job, and living in the same house, and knowing the same people, and doing the same thing for years upon years. It makes you question what’s worth more – the sense of accomplishment that people like myself and my housemate get when we achieve yet another goal, or the easy sense of mindless satisfaction from having an worry-free consistent life that others get. Is the stress and pressure that I feel worth the sense of achievement?

Question of the Week: What kind of person are you – are you a constant achiever with a number of goals, or are you happy to let life take you wherever it may?

Then I read all four books. I read all four books within two days. I read all four books in two days while working ten hour days. I might have neglected to sleep, eat, and function like a human being.

While I’m not crazily obsessed, it would probably be safe to say that I’m enough of a fan to contemplate holding a sparkle party with a girl friend, where we plaster ourselves with glitter and watch the movie.

I’m Team Jacob. What are you?

Everyone has a favourite Black Eyed Pea. That’s a given. Mine has always been apl.de.ap because of his breakdancing moves and the track Bebot (which I personally thought was one of the best on the Monkey Business album), though I’ve also had a soft spot for will.i.am and his lyrical genius. Fergie surprisingly, has never really appealed to me because (and I’m going to be superficial here), her nose has always bothered me. Taboo never even rated on my radar, but all that changed last night.

Taboo has the most electrifying charm ever. He’s not a conventionally good-looking guy, but when he was striding up the stage to the podium near my seat and he gave the crowd around me a wave and a smile…oh my god. I don’t know how he does it, but he has this animal charm once you get within fifty feet of him. He is by far my favourite Pea now.

The group ran through most of their greatest hits from Elephunk and Monkey Business, some of their new hits from E.N.D., and played my favourite track from the E.N.D. album – Imma Be, as well as allowing for each member to do their own solo thing as well. apl.de.ap did a medley of The Apl Song and Bebot, Taboo freestyled, Fergie did Fergalicious and Glamorous, and will.i.am showed off his DJ skillz0rz with a mash. The setlist was well done as well – starting with Let’s Get It Started, and finishing with Got A Feeling, the arena was jumping all night till it all had to come to an end.

For those who are my Facebook friends, I’ve uploaded a few more photos (blurry!) and videos to my profile if you want a taste of the BEP experience!

However, last night I was invited by the Mirvac hotel chain to a cocktail party, and then to a showing of Chicago at Her Majesty’s Theatre. Our company has previously made bookings with their function rooms for events like our annual two day conference, the annual general meeting, and other seminars and lectures by visiting guest speakers – the invitation to myself and the executive officer of my organisation was really a “thanks for giving us your business, we hope that you continue to book your functions with us”. Which, fair enough – we’ve given them tens of thousands in business over the years, a couple of hundred spent in entertaining us for the evening is a good investment on their part.

We started off with a cocktail party at the Hotel Lindrum. My champagne glass was constantly topped up, and I was fed delicious canapes – oysters, an eggplant dish, an amazing fetta puff pastry, topped off with creme brulee for dessert. Transported to Her Majesty’s Theatre by coach, we received a free program (they’re expensive!), and excellent front row seats in the dress circle for the show. In the interval, we had free snacks from the concession bar, our own private entertainment room, and ongoing drinks. Overall, it was an excellent boozy evening with lots of schmoozing.

And Chicago, oh my god, Chicago. I love the movie, and I’ve seen it a million times – as a result, I was afraid that my experience would be coloured by my blow-by-blow familiarity with the film. It was to some extent; I was surprised by how musically driven the play is (there’s little dialogue), whereas in the film, the musical numbers were spectacular, but by no means all there was to the film. The set and costuming too were surprisingly spare in comparison to the movie, with no costume changes, and hardly any props other than a few chairs. The play on the whole was driven largely by its individual powerhouse performances (Caroline O’Connor is amazing as Velma), whereas the film is driven more by spectacle, colour, and visual effects – the whole experience, rather than the singular character.

I kind of want to become a theatre actress for real now.

Now, this film has been in the works for months now – it was first announced that Stephen Chow (this man is a genius in the Hong Kong movie industry, my childhood was spent ROFLing to his films, and I still delight in them now) would both star as Kato, and direct the film too. I was absolutely ecstatic when I heard the news – Stephen Chow crossing over to Hollywood, and working with Seth Rogen who I adore equally? Fantastic! Now with Stephen entirely unattached to the project, this announcement of Jay as Kato is equally as exciting, especially considering how disappointed I was to miss his Sydney concert early last month. It means that since Jay is crossing to Hollywood, there’s every chance that in his promotion obligations for The Green Hornet’s release next year, he’ll return to Australia, and I can see him there. There’s a silver lining!

Plus, considering that the role of Kato in the remake is rumoured to be written as more of a equal crime-fighting partner, as the real brains behind the operation rather than a silent partner to the comic Green Hornet, Jay’s role is bound to be as prominent and prestigious as Seth Rogen’s. It could do a lot in improving the depiction of Asians in mainstream Western media and removing the Asian geek, bad accented Asian, Asian mail order bride, etc. stereotypes.

Heck, the release of the movie next year might even encourage me to change the layout on the Jay Chou fanlisting.

Anyway, something amusing I found on our shopping expedition today:

You too, can grab Angelina Jolie’s “Sexy” perfume and Beyonce’s “Sex Bomb” perfume at your local dollar store and smell just like your favourite celebrity!

Oh, and by the way? I revel in it – domesticity, disgusting displays of affection, finish-each-other’s-sentences and all.

He’s writing Harry Potter fanfiction and I didn’t even know it. The only reason I even found out about it is because I used his computer today to print something out quickly so I didn’t have to turn my laptop on for five minutes, and did some snooping (largely to make sure he’s not doing anything stupid like downloading porn with viruses attached – porn without viruses is fine!) in his files.

There appears to be twenty-one chapters of his fanfiction, with each chapter consisting of about six hundred words each. Would anyone be interested in reading it if I was to purloin his work and post it here over a number of days?

In any case, prepare yourself for a somewhat haphazard set of thoughts on the movie, probably with spoilers:

1. Cormac McLaggen was super fucking hot! I never pictured him as being that attractive in the books – I always thought of him as simply being plain and somewhat solidly built. The actor is apparently only two months younger than me, so…dude, hello. Come to Melbourne. Now.
2. Unlike most people, I actually loved the way that Lavendar Brown was depicted. She was just so over-the-top and ridiculous that it reminded me of actual high school relationships. That’s how teenage girls act in relationships. It was entirely true to life and reminded me of the way some of my friends acted when we were fifteen.
3. Harry is apparently a hottie! I mean, I’ve always kind of adored Daniel Radcliffe – I can see now that he’s not handsome, but he’s just simply adorable and so awkward in interviews. He’s like a little boy, literally (seriously, how short is he, especially when you see him next to either Ginny or that chick in the opening scene?).
4. I’m really disappointed that they didn’t show the Order members as much as they should have. The fight at Hogwarts between Order members and the Death Eaters would have been a fully epic battle scene – and would perhaps have added an extra “oomph” to the movie which actually lacked action. While the Inferi scene was creepy, it wasn’t nearly long enough to be an actual fight-action scene. The movie could have done away with one relationship scene, and added an action scene.
5. I am absolutely astounded by how grown up the main three characters are. Emma is an absolutely beautiful young lady, Rupert is surprisingly built, and Daniel is…well, still really short, but his jawline is much more defined now. I’m thinking back to when Philosopher’s Stone came out, and they were children then. They were children! They’re adults now! I feel so old, having watched them grow up.
6. Harry’s behaviour during the Felix Felicis scene was simply hilarious. His tone, his devil-may-care attitude, his cockiness, the whole package. Daniel’s not a bad actor – I doubted him after the crying scene in Prisoner of Azkaban, but he was good in this scene. Very fun.
7. OMG the costuming. They seem to have dispensed with robes altogether and opted for Muggle clothing 24/7, but I think they did it really well – the characters were dressed the way I’ve always imagined they would if they had a chance to choose for themselves. Draco’s costuming in particular was particularly bitching. The perfectly tailored black suit, the waiscoat, the briefcase…Tom Felton has gone from a cute-faced in Philosopher’s Stone to an awkward teenager in Prisoner of Azkaban to a full-fledged hot man in Half Blood Prince.
8. …I cried. I didn’t actually cry as much as I have in previous films, but when Dumbledore died? Yeah, I was tearing up and sniffling. The most tear-jerking part wasn’t actually the death itself, but the tribute afterwards, when everyone raised their wands for a moment of silence. That just set me off like you wouldn’t believe, I was a teary wreck.

On the whole, while I really enjoyed the movie in the viewing, once I actually got out of the cinema, I was attacked by thoughts of “hang on, what about…?” They missed out so much vital information – how on earth are they going to show important plot points such as the entire memories-of-Tom-Riddle backstory? If Harry hasn’t seen the memory of Hepzibah Smith’s house-elf, how will he know that Ravenclaw’s diadem is a Horcrux, and how will he remember that he’s seen it before in the Room of Requirement? How will he know that Nagini is a Horcrux if Dumbledore didn’t share his suspicions with him?

At least the next book will be made into two movies – it’ll give them a chance to catch up on important details like that. They really should have done something similar with this movie – or at least make it longer. Two hours of Harry simply isn’t long enough to satisfy me until the next one comes out!

Yesterday, I finally got a chance to watch Pirates, a film I’d been dying to watch since it first came out.

For those unfamiliar with the porn industry, it essentially:

1. Is the most expensive pornographic movie ever made with unusually high production values
2. Included over 300 special effects shots
3. Had an original music score
4. Won 11 AVN awards (porn industry awards)

What I liked most about it (or the half hour we watched before my body was appropriated for other matters), was the fact that it was a porn movie directed mainly at women. Considering the genre, the film is heavily plot-driven with sex scenes as an added extra that are really secondary to the actual story. Unlike porn directed at men, it simply isn’t sex scene after sex scene after sex scene – there’s an actual point to the movie.

It is by far the best porn I have ever watched – and for those who are into it, there’s a really rough and kinky lesbian scene right near the end of the movie. Recommended!

Question of the Week: If you watch porn, do you have any particular recommendations?