Books. Yay. Except, y'know, not.

So I went to buy my books yesterday and exploded with joy that I only had to buy 13 books, one of which is conveniently out of print, because I already own a few of the novels for English and my Chinese book is the same as last semester. Seriously, I hate that I'm rejoicing that I only had to spend $375 on books. Stupid books.

I have my differential equations book, which is all shiny and unnerving, and also my grandfather's differential equations book, which is pleasantly old and has pencilled notes in the margins. My grandmother gave it to me for Christmas. Unwrapping it, I could already see it was an old book, but I thought at first it might be the book he used to have that he would read "Casey at the Bat" out of every time I stayed at their house. That would've been cool, but hey, so is this, and anyway, it ups the amount of stuff I have from my grandfather to: his, jeez, 30 or 40-year-old guitar, a necklace he gave me when I was 4, the harmonica he left me, and his differential equations textbook. Neat stuff, all of it.

There's the differential equations book, and then there's a tremendous pile of other books for school, too. And a few more piles of books as well. My room is full of piles of stuff, in fact. I really need to do some cleaning up... but, on the bright side, my floor is actually pretty clear at the moment.

Ran errands this morning. What a delight. On the bright side, though, errands included depositing Christmas money in bank account, so now I have, y'know, actual money. And I've just realized that I have slightly more money than I thought, because I forgot a check at home. Yay, extra money!

One of my books for English is The Fellowship of the Ring. I don't think I'll even, technically, need to read it. It makes me feel like I have somehow beat the system.

... dude, the "cheerful" mood icon? It looks like it wants to eat my head. Wah.

Phantom of the Opera: an unfunny review.

I want to write a review of Phantom of the Opera, which I saw with Dana on Saturday night. The only problem is that there is, of course, no way I can possibly be as funny as Phantom in 15 Minutes, by the ever-so-clever cleolinda. (Note: if you haven't read the rest of her Movies in 15 Minutes, do so. Immediately. They're all posted at m15m.)

Nevertheless, I'm going to sort of review it. Because. I like doing that.

So. This is a movie based on a mediocre musical, which was itself based on a movie, which was in turn based on a trashy novel by Gaston Leroux. One does not go to this movie expecting greatness. One goes to this movie expecting that it will be pretty. Which it is. It is pretty like you would not believe. The majority of the vocal work is wonderful, too, although I'm rather disappointed that the Phantom was cast for his ability to look tragic in a mask rather than his ability to, y'know, sound like something a marginally sane person might be able to believe was an Angel of Music. Raoul looks like a dweeb (in an earlier review, cleolinda referred to him as the Lost Hanson Brother, a characterization which I find distressingly apt), but that's probably all right since Raoul is a dweeb, not that that's going to stop me from thinking he's hot stuff.

Anyway. "Masquerade": very visually striking with everyone dressed in black and white, but they keep singing about what bright colors everybody's masks are. And everybody's masks are... black and white. I realize they kind of have to be black and white because otherwise the Phantom appearing and being all RED and DOOMY and SO ON wouldn't be dramatic at all, but still. Either you can dress everyone in black and white, or you can sing about everyone's pretty pink and green and orange and yellow and chartreuse masks, but you cannot do both.

Monkey music box with cymbals: confusing. Random midget: SO MUCH MORE CONFUSING. I SPRAINED MY BRAIN TRYING TO FIGURE OUT WTF HE WAS DOING THERE.

Christine sings wonderfully and is really very sparkly and I am quite pleased with her, although I believe the traditional interpretation calls for one chaste kiss between Christine and the Phantom at the end, not "OMG let's make out like crazy" (while poor Raoul is tied to a portcullis going "Um, guys?"). The Phantom is pretty and can't sing and is in general a tragic, tragic disappointment. His mask has cheekbones. And then he puts on the "Don Juan Triumphant" mask, which hides less than the usual mask, and when it gets pulled off the entire side of his head, about 20% of which was actually covered by the mask, is all deformed and ugly, and also his hair suddenly becomes ugly as well. I feel that, given the capabilities of special-effects people and computers, there is no excuse for this sort of crap. Raoul looks like a twit, but... ajslgdkawegh. Um. Am a bit of a sucker for Raoul, really. He's so sweet and sort of naive and trying to be all protective and OMG most ridiculous fictional character crush EVAR, but still.

Anyway, you should totally go see it. It's full of pretty, and La Carlotta is fucking hilarious, and the title song (you know, DUNNNNNNN! DUNDUNDUNDUN DUNNNNNNNN! DUNDUNDUNDUN DUNNNNNNN! etc.) is so delightfully ridiculous that I have been known to laugh so hard I fall over, and Meg Giry's really hot, and it has random ballet sheep in addition to the random opera midget. Seriously. Go. Now.