She's the Man and Eureka

Based on liking Amanda Bynes in Sydney White, I decided to check out her crossdressing movie, She's the Man.  When I saw trailers, I thought it looked just like a shoujo manga, but didn't realize it was based on Twelfth Night.  Apparently setting it in high school makes Shakespeare look like shoujo!

When the girls' soccer team is cancelled at her school and her boyfriend (immediately to become her ex-boyfriend) says that she could never play as well as a guy anyway, Viola takes advantage of her twin brother, Sebastian, running away to London for two weeks to impersonate him at his new school and join the soccer team so she can play in the game against her old school.  Except that she develops a crush on her roommate, Duke, who thinks she's a guy and has a crush on Olivia, who has a crush on Viola, thinking she's Sebastian.

So, basically, just like shoujo.  Only shorter.  It crosses my line for "humor at the expense of the character's dignity" at time, but Bynes does a good enough job to rise above that.  It's ridiculously charming, though for about the first hour, Viola/Olivia seems a more viable outcome than Viola/Duke.  Thankfully for the movie's obvious outcome, that changes when Duke's dorkishness comes out.

I've also been rewatching the first season (all I've seen so far) of Eureka.  I tend to forget how much I like the entire cast.  Even Fargo, who's kinda like Topher from Dollhouse if he were actually, you know, funny and likable.  My favorite tends to fluctuate between Allison, Beverly, Jo and Henry, though it usually defaults to Allison.

But I'm most fond of how you could describe the episodes.  There's "the one with the elderly scientists vs the phallic doomsday machine that bounces lasers off the mirrors on the moon," "the one where they have to kiss to save the world from clone armies," "the one with the righteously pissed cloned wife," "the one with the nomadic robot lover," etc.

Though my favorite is "the one where the sentient house's evil second personality vaporizes the pizza boy."

(no subject)

Dear Credit Card Holders of the U.S.,

A credit card with a high limit and a low APR is not a right, it is a privilege.  It's like car insurance, indoor plumbing, a microwave, a chocolate.  Kinda awesome to have, but not giving you one is neither inhumane nor a violation.  And no, penalties for exceeding your limit  or not paying your bill are not uncalled for.

Not, mind you, that credit card companies aren't kind of inherently evil, but try to have a little perspective.

Thankfully, after Monday (which may only be a half day) I won't have to listen to you until June 2.

Love only because you keep me employed,

Me

And now to spend the next few days in a half panic as I try to make sure I remembered to pay all my bills since they're all due when I'll be gone.  And try to demolish a small stack of reading stuff.

Gorgeous Carat Vol 1

Or rather, about 60 pages of it.

Ok, so, you know how I don't read much shounen-ai/yaoi?  Certainly not enough to be familiar with all the tropes.  Anyway, I checked this out because it's Higuri You and I only have a few volumes of Seimaden left to read and who knows when any more of my beloved Cantarella will come out.

It's set in turn-of-the-century Paris and is about Florian, ayoung nobleman whose family is recently destitute, and Ray, a rich jewel thief.  Ray falls in love with Florian's amethyst eyes and buys him from his mother (to be fair, she objected to this and Florian volunteered so that she wouldn't have a heart attack choosing between him and a family jewel) and then they start acting out an Old School romance novel with much posturing and expressions of outrage and denial from Florian and much alpha posing from Ray.  And mostly, I was deeply amused by the Old School Romance Novel As Manga-ness of it.

Then I got about 50 pages in.

( Spoilers could turn genre disinterest into fear. )