nekare

The happiest of birthdays for mellafe!!!
Hope you had a wonderful, James-filled day, hon. *blows kisses*
(also: I really wanted to write something for you, but I didn't have the time, so! feel free to ask for a drabble, k?

Also, ways, I'm finally back in my baking groove! I made cupcakes today - chocolate cupcakes with chocolate and peach ganache, to be exact. It was such a good recipe, but it didn't really pan out. I mean, they taste great - the cupcake tastes a lot like a brownie and the ganache is sublime and so very fruity, but they look HORRIBLE. Like, really, really horrible. ;_____; But OH WELL. It was just great to finally get back to cooking; it'd been about two months since I last baked anything.

I've been trying really really hard to write Martha/Ten and it's just. not. working. It's making me horribly frustrated, argh.

I made carrot cupcakes yesterday. They're so incredibly good and some of the best cupcakes I've done, IMO. THE ICING. IT IS WONDERFUL. No pictures because I'm lazy so blah. And it was really fun, too, except for the carrot grating, which was hell.

So I didn't get to see Client on concert (;__;) but I did went to see Ne le dis à personne (Don't tell anyone), which was frankly amazing. I hadn't seen such a good murder mystery movie in some good years, and this one was so good - good, solid characters, wonderful music, some funny thrown in and a riveting plot that was tricky and gave nothing whatsoever away. I love that in this genre. I went in under the idea Guillaume Canet starred in it, and okay, he does (for all of five seconds) but he actually directed it, and boy I didn't know he was almost as good a director as he is an actor. Much love.

Okay, which one of you was the complete sweetheart that gave me a virtual cupcake? *grin* THANK YOU, YOU ANONYMOUS AWESOME PERSON THANKS SO MUCH. ♥ ♥ It seriously made my day. :))

In other news, as as y'all can probably guess already, I'm desperately, madly in love with Goong. Oh man, it's so so good. Chae-kyung just couldn't get cuter if she tried, Yool is hot as hell, Hyo-Rin won me over during the Thailand episode (in which, you know, she's fleshed out as a human being) and even Shin has his moments. So much love.

I just finished my Graphic Expression IV homework: drawing 15 hands in different positions. I've always sucked at drawing hands, so this was great, I can see an improvement already. It's all human figure and life drawing this semester, so I can tell that I'll like it already. :)

I eat four times a week at school, and I'm fixing lunches for myself to save some money, so I'll probably be cooking rather a lot this semester during the nights. Boo. I want to bake, not to cook, damnit! Anyway, I made 'pacholas' (something like hamburger patties) and cauliflower roasted in butter. And I have two of my own-made chocolate chip cookies for dessert, yummy yummy.

I went into an Artic Monkeys download frenzy yesterday, and now I have most of their b-sides. I can't get over how much they've improved over time, it's so very noticeable. I mean, I started to like them along with everyone and their mothers when they first started (remember? When they didn't even have an album out and they were just a myspace craze phenomenon), but it didn't last long and in the end, their songs were too alike and their titles better than their music. This new album though, and some of their b-sides, show such an amazing growth as musicians. PLZ PLZ PLZ LET THEM COME FOR A CONCERT HERE. PLZ.

In other news, I'm watching Goong and I'm finding it absolutely charming. I'm on ep. 6 right now, and I'm still all hyped out about it, no matter how silly it can be at times - it just makes me laugh a lot, so. Plus, the dude that plays Yool or Yul or however it's spelled is hot hot hot. And Chae-kyung is so so cute *g* I so suck at remembering Korean names. I used to be the same with Japanese ones until I started studying it, I think, but still. Then again it was a pain to study Prehispanic names while studying Literature in high school because there's no easy way of remembering names like Huitzilopotchli, in all honesty. *shrug*

I made chocolate chip cookies today! I'd missed baking. :3 I still haven't achieved The Perfect Cookie, but they were still better than my last batch.

My brother's been counting the hours I have left before going back to school for three days already. It is mortifying. I'm going out with some friends tonight, and truth to be told, I'm not all that excited about it, but they've been telling me I'm becoming a hermit (from hermits united, maybe? *grin*) for a long time, so.

I probably wouldn't mind going back to school that much if it weren't for my crazy-assed schedule: I get out of there two days at five and two days at seven and I even class on Saturday. BOO.

Anyway, I'm all caught up with Ex Machina by now and my God, but it was extraordinary. Honestly, it's very raw, and very violent, but it's so well told, and it has amazing, flawed characters (I'm especially fond of Mayor Hundred and Bradbury), and I love the healthy mix of political intrigue with insane psycopath villians in the true fashion of a superhero comic. Wonderful, wonderful comic; I do wish more people would first think of these kind of comics instead of the crap that's out there right now - there's so much more to this medium that scantily clad ladies with gigantic breasts (and don't even get me started in how the majority of comics nowadays are written for sex crazed male teenagers) and capes.

( In other stuff, here's a picture of the choux pastries I baked yesterday. )

Haha, I didn't have time to take the picture this morning so by the time I was ready for it my mom had already given out the prettiest ones to my grandma, so I was left with the squashed ones, haha.

Oh man, I'm so tired. In addition to baking the apple pie my grandma asked me to make for a party she's hosting tomorrow, I made choux pastries, profiteroles to be exact. I'm so so tempted to have a piece of the pie, yum yum yum. The profiteroles look all kinds of pretty, but I'm not sure I like them that much. They have way too much eggs in them, and I hate eggs. *shrug* They're good, but I'm not quite sure why I made them when I've never been a great fan of them. *shrug* I'll take pictures tomorrow, when there's better lighting.

Anyway, speaking comics: I'm honestly in awe at how Brian K. Vaughan manages to juggle three comics at the same time (no, wait, four now that he's taken over Buffy's Eight Season) and still manage to keep an incredible quality with all of them. I thought Runaways was good when I first read it, but it's nothing compared to his other work. I've gushed about Y: The Last Man enough in here already, so let's talk about something else:

I finally got my greedy hands on Ex Machina, and boy, am I loving it. I'm only in issue 12 right now, but I already want to snuggle it close to me and call it my precious because it's so. damn. good. You guys know I'm not one for politics, but they're so well portrayed in here that it truly becomes what makes this comic tick. So, Mitchell Hundred is New York's city's mayor, and he can also speak to machines and he used to be a masked vigilante. Really, why can't all superhero comics be this good or this smart? It feels incredibly real, along with being quite creepy at times. And the art is amazing; Tony Harris is really something. Read it, folks, I recomend it fully.

Yayz, I did post Oleaje's translation instead of procrastinate wildly! I'm definitely improving, haha.

Well, the wireless... thingy is still BROKEN OR SOMETHING and my dad took it to work to see if he can force make someone take a look at it and I MISS BEING IN MY ROOM. I feel like I can't do anything in here because my mom is almost literally breathing down my neck (and, okay, this is her room, so she's entitled to it but STILL) so no precious NWS stuff for me (HEAR ME WEEP). Boo.

Anyway, I checked out the main actors for the pathetic Life on Mars remake and just-- no. NO NO NO. *wishes it would all go away* I know I'll probably end up watching it to mock it but right now? I'm in denial.

( Anyway, here's a picture of yesterday's apple pie. )

MMMM, SO TASTY. My dad was a bit whiney about why it turned okay for me when it usually doesn't for him, lol.

Oh, and since I'll whine until I get it: Does anyone have 'Delivery' by Babyshambles? Pretty please?

Mmm, I baked apple pie today and I just had a slice and it's so so good, yummy. :) *rubs belly* I just wish I had vanilla ice cream to go with it, mmm... I've made apple pie dozens of times since I was a child, but never by myself, always as my dad's assistant (I got the cooking gene from him, who in turn got it from his mother), and always following my dad's recipe, which is to say, none at all. Turns out he always skipped that part when you dip the apples in sugar and spice and all things nice cinnamon and stuff so that's why it'd always come out so dry and unflavor-y.

Anyway, I've started translating Oleaje, who got the most votes, and man, but it's been kinda hard - it's so painfully Mexican in its execution. Anyway, by popular demand, I'll probably be translating Hedonismo too once I'm done with this one.

I saw The Dreamers yesterday nigh, and oh wow. Oh man, I'm in love. One of those movies, you know? The premise: Matthew is an exchange student in Paris, and he meets and falls in love with a pair of fraternal twins, Isabelle and Theo, and the three of them seclude themselves from the world, lost in a fantasy world made up almost entirely of reminiscences of old movies while the student rebellion of 1968 comes to a peak outside their window. So yes, there is incest, somewhat explicit sex and a lot of nudity, and yet, I loved it to pieces. Just - the way they interact with each other, the games they play, it was all incredibly moving, even if they're all somewhat disturbing characters. Then the love of cinema of all of them was just incredible, and the lovely Parisian atmoshere coating everything and the subplot of the revolts was really well made. I'm only sad that it didn't have subtitles for the French parts, few as they were, and I feel like I lost something of the sibling's interactions. In all, I just loved it, so, so much. It's weird, though, remember what I said a few days ago about gratuitous sex? It didn't feel like that at all in here, because, just like in Y Tu Mamá También, sex is one of the main ways in which the character interact, and it tells a lot about their characters. Plus, they were really well made, and not at all pornographic or anything of the like.

So much thanks to anyone that recced me this one, moonix and mon_starling come to mind, and I know I'm still forgetting someone else...

Argh, my brother discovered you can order pizza through the internet and since we're both somewhat phonephobics we decided to try it out. It's been about 50 minutes and it's not here yet. ARGH, I'M HUNGRY DAMNIT.

( anyway, here's a photo of the cinnamon rolls I made yesterday )

( Anyway. Today was made of lulz because my brother suddenly called from school to say classes were over because the entire school (about 1400 people) WENT ON STRIKE. AND ALMOST ATTACKED THE DEPUTY HEADMASTER. OMG LOL. )

LOL LOL WHY DID THAT NEVER HAPPEN WHEN I WENT THERE, DAMNIT?

Also, joy, but I learned to color in photoshop today using a scanned lineart! Not very well, mind you, and using only flat colors, but it's a start! I'm seriously retarded in all things photoshop-related, honest, which is downright embarassing for a Graphic Design major. *shifty eyes* My pitiful first attempt can be found here, being the colored version of the doodle on the right. Lol, have I ever mentioned I like bright colors? Yeah, thought so.

AAAAAARGH, STUPID, STUPID CINNAMON ROLLS. WHAT IN HELL POSSESSED ME INTO THINKING IT'D BE A GOOD IDEA TO TRY AND MAKE THEM?

First of all, I hadn't made honest-to-God dough in a couple of years, and it took me more than an hour to tame it into submission, and by then my back ached to no end and I was so tired of standing. Then, the stupid yeast pretty much didn't work, so even if I waited about two hours before getting it into the oven THEY DIDN'T RISE. AT ALL.

ARGH. I started making these things at about 5 today. It's ten and I just got them out of the oven AND THEY'RE NOT COMPLETELY COOKED, even if the stayed there for about 20 minutes more than the recipe said they should. ARGH ARGH ARGH WHAT A WASTE. They look kinda pretty, though. STILL. I'm not doing this EVER again. (And I was kinda looking forward to making chocolate-filled croissants next, but if today's fiasco is any indication, maybe I should wait a bit. Dunno.)

In other, happier news, I'm finally hooked with Gabriel García Márquez's El Amor en Tiempos del Cólera (Love in the times of cholera), and really, it's odd, but him and Isabel Allende are the only authors that can pull off the 'years later, he couldn't have said... blah blah' thing - they switch perspective and timing and place sometimes in one parapraph, and yet, it works so. well. Maybe it's a Them thing? Dunno. But I hadn't been this excited about somethinf of GGM since I last re-read his peregrin tales.