Bethany

Oh, God, I'm such a puddle of weepy nostalgia. Some of my fellow American cable watchers might perhaps have noticed the five jillion hour long Lord of the Rings marathon that was on TNT over the weekend...? Well, I managed to avoid most of it due to my much whined about paper, but as I was going to bed Sunday night, I decided to see if it was still on. It was just at the end of Return of the King (by which I mean to say there was still about an hour and half left, haha), and sat up until almost midnight watching the rest of it. And. Oh. Oh. Best/worst idea ever. The thing is, RotK is actually my least favourite of the films by a lot -- but it still seems to be the one I get the most emotional over, being, you know. The end. And all. It's actually been quite a while since I watched the films; I meant to over Christmas break, but I had loaned them to my little brother and he left them up at school. So it was a weird mix of, obviously, every line and shot totally ingrained in my brain from seeing it at least once a week when it first came out, but still little forgotten tidbits coming back up again to emotionally ruin me once more. Somehow I had managed to forget about the very very VERRRRY ending, with Frodo's voice-over and "You cannot always be torn in two" and HEY THANKS FOR TEARING ME IN TWO!! ...And that was Sunday night and now it's Tuesday night and I'm still sitting here listening to the soundtrack again and getting all sniffly and run-on-sentence-y about it.

...And I started typing up a short story about the soundtrack which turned into a long story about the movie in general so here goes. I'll always remember the exact date of the movie release for RotK as December 17 2003 because, aside from my general LotR nerdiness which should just be assumed anyway, it also happens to be the day of the 100th anniversary of flight. My dad is a huuuuuge aviation nerd, so he planned this whole family holiday vacation around going up to Kitty Hawk for the centennial celebrations -- and, of course, having my priorities straight as usual, I was distraught because, "but... but... I want to go to a movie!" As consolation, I was allowed to pick up the RotK soundtrack the day it came out, a week or two before we left. I listened to it about a dozen times on the drive up, already tearing up over it in the backseat of the car. Then of course once we actually saw the movie (because as it turns out, there was one theatre on the island, maybe four screens; my most wonderful daddy even went and bought me advanced tickets to the opening, although there were maybe a dozen other people who showed up, haha) it was pretty much me = the human hosepipe, but I think in a way I almost feel most connected to the music (although, again, not my favourite, because TTT is totally the BEST THING EVER in that department), because that was where I worked out a lot of my emotional build-up to the film. Even now, there are certain cues I simply cannot listen to without choking up -- pretty much all of "The End of All Things" and "The Return of the King," but most especially the first pan over Aragorn's coronation (2:14) and then hobbity significant glances scene at the Green Dragon (8:22). (And it is now way past Bethany's bedtime, so I think I'll have to cut short my nostalgia trip and look forward to happy dreams of Middle Earth.)

Once again, I really don't have much to post about... I have been making a lot of icons recently. They're just bases and if you want to use any of them feel free:

( The fruits of my boredom )

( EDIT: Some backgrounds (800x600) )

Well, so far this has been a somewhat productive spring break. Monday morning I played RotK forever, finally beat one level (bringing my total up to four or five, gads), and proved once and for all that I absolutely suck at video games. In the afternoon I went to Aly's party, which was pretty fun. I felt kind of bad because, despite the fact that I knew just about everybody there, I really had a hard time remembering who everybody was (how embarrassing!). We watched "The Italian Job," which annoyed me with the over abundance of product placement. And, seriously. If it came down between Edward Norton and Mark Wahlberg, who are you going to choose?

Today I went shopping with my mom for something for Robert's wedding, and I bought a grand total of nothing. Well, I didn't get any clothes, anyway. I did exchange some of my birthday gifts and got a few DVDs: O Brother, Where Art Thou?, Sleep Hollow, and the X-Men boxed set. I was really hoping that I would be able to find a paperback copy of "Princess in Waiting" because barnesandnoble.com lists today as its release date, but I didn't see any. Sadness.

I also cleaned up my room today (cleaning meaning: put away my clothes, dusted my dresser, vacuumed), because my uncle is coming for the wedding and is staying in my sister's room, so my sister has to stay in my room. I finally set up my Aragorn, too. I got some pictures of him dressed up as a hula dancer and as a Boy Scout. I will have to think of some more dumb things that I can do with him... I need to move him out of my room, too, because he is freaking me out every time I walk in there and see this big hulking somebody standing in the corner.

I find it incredibly amusing that my sister won "Wittiest Girl for Class of 2004" in this year's senior superlatives. I keep giving her a hard time about it, which might not be the nicest thing, but it sure is amusing. She says she is going to hit the next person who asks her to say something funny (it will probably be me...).

Other than picking on Nickie, today was pretty boring. The only class I could manage to sit through without conking out on the table was pottery (surprise!) because I really need to finish my project in there. I was kind of twerked off, though, because when I asked my teacher what I needed to do to it he told me to do exactly what I had spent all period doing (adding texture). Way to pay attention! I will hopefully finish it tomorrow.

Now that LotR is playing at Eagle Ridge again, I really REALLY want to go. However, the only showtimes are 1:40 and 8:00, so I won't be able to go until this weekend unless I can talk my dad into letting me check out during lunch or something. Does anybody want to watch it with me? Anyone? Anyone? Not that I have a problem going alone, just that I know there are so many silly people out there who still haven't seen it ::coughalyritalisacough::

EDIT: ( Who can resist yet another meme? )

Finally, watching E! New Live pays off! I got to see teh BILLEH last night and is it just me or does he get more adorable every time you see him? I was just about to give up my current Billy obsession and try to move on to something else (sad, I know). Then he has to be a dork and go on the show that has been my guilty pleasure for the last four years and look absolutely wonderful and poof is the sound my resolve makes the moment he starts to say something. Stupid Scots.

If it's almost my birthday, shouldn't I be more excited?

Why is Billy so cute? Stop it! Why do I now find Allie to be adorable as well? I wasn't that quick to jump on the "omg I love Allie so much" train just for the sake of not being one of those people who automatically hates celebrities' significant others. I just really hadn't seen enough of her to form an opinion, but the more I see of her the more I think that she and Billy are so cute that I want to puke. Why can't he have a tasteless golddigger for girlfriend who I can feel justified in hating? Bah, humbug.

I don't really feel rejuvenated, I just like this icon a lot.

I was slightly perturbed to discover that I had bought the full screen edition of FotR without realizing it, but it is nicer on the tiny TV I have out in the rec room. I've only watched one of the extra features (the Fox special) and I'm not sure if I am going to get around to watching the rest today. I forgot that we were going out to dinner tomorrow (it will be my dad's birthday) and I might not have time to finish my project (meaning I will have to do it tonight, wah).

Watching the movie last night brought back so many fond memories. I haven't watched that version in ages. The opening scene completely freaked me out, because I am so used to the extended "Concerning Hobbits" version. I do think I like the original title sequence better, though. And from the one extra feature I watched... They're so tiny! Ah! Dom with his David Schwimmer hair is so hilarious. And that much Sean Bean is enough to make me want to do very inappropriate things to him.

Oh, and "Fifty First Dates" is opening this Friday, isn't it? I think Nickie and I were going to go. This will be my first Sean-Astin-without-the-big-ears experience in quite some time, it should be exciting.

I watched the extended edition of TTT last night, and I finished the first half of the cast commentaries, but I'll wait until everybody else has seen it to post my opinion, so I will have somebody to discuss it with. I'll just end this with "leeeembas"!

Oh, and I am thinking that I want to change my icons again to something with a little more LotR flavour. Anyone want to help me choose?

Wow, I haven't updated in a while. I think I'm sinking into LJ apathy... And we can't let that happen! However, so little has been going on lately that I feel bad about posting about nothing. My life right now is mostly school, school, and maybe some school mixed in there. Joy.

I have an essay test in psychology tomorrow, and I have aboslutely no idea how I am going to write it. Basically, this was our preparation: Our teacher says, "Oh, you have an essay test tomorrow!" Okay, three cheers. So I'm thinking I probably won't do so well... Then again, this has been a very good week for me as far as test taking has gone, so I hope that the trend will continue.

I had a serious LotR moment in history class today. We were talking about... um... something... Oh, okay, European dark ages, and our teacher says something to the effect of, "After the fall of Rome, the peoples of Europe were scattered and leaderless." This of course triggered the whole scene: "There is no strength left in men. They are scattered, divided, leaderless." "There is one who could unite them, one who could reclaim the throne of Gondor." "He turned from that path a long time ago. He has chosen exile..." So that is shoved in my notes somewhere, along with a little ring of Barahir doodle.

Okay! Now that you all know what a huge geek I am... I know that the "I wanna a code pleeeeease" plea is really the last thing that people want to read. But. Lara has expressed an interest in one, and, if anybody has any they can spare, I would be most grateful for a LJ code to pass along to her.

I am going to explode from fangirly happiness. I have just had a serious overload on beautiful new LotR goodness. There is no way I'm going to be able to watch the DVD without passing out every thirty seconds from sheer joy.

I want to see The Two Towers trailer...! Of course, I would have run straight to the theatre and watched it as soon as I heard that they were playing it, but, alas, it is not longer playing ::sniffle:: They'll have it at the Mugs & Movies in about a month, but I don't know if they'll update the trailers. I saw a tiny (two-second) clip of it during a commercial for The Fellowship; they were advertising the trailer. Now...I want to see! I want to see! It is awful that I am getting excited about TTT, and FOTR just came out. Christmas...what an awful long wait...