It was storming lastnight, so I had to prematurely cut short my Elite Force game with TW. DSL works properly now, and as such, it's far more sensitive to noise than before, which kind of makes sense, but is incredibly annoying. Every flash of lightning strong enough to cause the faintest crackle of static would make it disconnect. So I decided to watch the long overdue obligatory werewolf movie viewing of Blood and Chocolate. (Freaky odd name, yes...) I would have to say... While it isn't a good movie in and of itself, it IS a very good werewolf movie. (Seeing as how they're ALL TERRIBLE except this, and the werewolf episode in the new Doctor Who series.)

However, I still can't help but feel it's a stereotypical movie. In just about every wolf-centric story, the wolves are either giant evil monsters bent on devouring all of mankind and must be stopped at all costs, or they're misunderstood creatures who everyone is afraid of for the wrong reasons and must be stopped at all costs and they kill humans in self-defense... In either case, wolves are hunted and they kill humans. Doesn't seem to matter how glorified they get or how monstrous they get. So I again ask, can there be a GOOD, original werewolf movie? One that doesn't just rehash everything ever done before? It's like the fantasy genre! It's so stagnant... Everything that's been done is going to be redone over and over. You might have a few stand-outs like Blood and Chocolate or the Doctor Who episode, but not usually!

What I would like to see is a flip-side to the generic werewolf blah-ness... Like, I don't know, has anyone ever thought that it would be a PRIVILEGE to see one? Hey, if I somehow learned that you could willingly change back and forth between human and wolf form, I'm going to be the last person to ever freak out. In fact, I'd probably give you a big hug. Barring, of course, you didn't turn out to be a "disease" werewolf that goes insane every full moon and wreaks havoc all night. (Which, I might add, I would prefer NOT to be the werewolf theory... I'd hope for sane wolf shifters who could pass on their powers.)

But back to the movie, I would suggest you at least check it out, especially if you're a wolf/werewolf buff like me. I thought it was rated R, but it's only PG-13... For violence (which wasn't really so bad compared to other PG-13 movies), sexuality (of which I didn't notice any... I mean, there was a bar scene, but never any... James Bond flagship scenes), and substance abuse...

Substance abuse? Okay... I didn't see any drugs. At all. The only thing I could EVER think they would be referring to? Probably the drinking of alcoholic beverages. But when has THAT ever been considered substance abuse? Okay, not that... Hmm. Well, there's the whole silver-thing... Silver is deadly to werewolves! (I think that's something that should remain stereotypical. Just seems... Somehow... Well, I wouldn't say NICE, but it seems... Normal.) So some guy threw silver dust in a human-form werewolf's face. Yep... Substance abuse. Werewolves getting high off silver dust. Then there's the silver-poisoning antidote... Is THAT substance abuse? If it is, you should stop taking your vitamins. That's substance abuse.

Needless to say, I think it deserves the PG-13 rating for violence and overall themes, but everything listed is a BIT of a reach... There might have been suggestive themes I didn't pick up on, but nothing explicit like that sort of description usually defines.

I've burned over 100 gigabytes of data to DVD over the past week. I got my burner on Monday, set it up, crashed XP with the Roxio studio (horrible piece of software, but it's had the lowest "coaster" count of all the apps, so it's bad software, but a nice burner, so I use it), had to reinstall... So now I have a fresh XP installation, with a new SATA burner that can make DVDs in about 10 minutes. I've systematically backed up all my vital documents and downloaded material. I never delete anything, and I've had data spanning 4 harddrives: a 40GB, a 200GB, a 250GB and a 120GB. With only megabytes remaining on any harddrive at any given time, you can imagine how much data I've been accumulating since late 2000 when I first got online. DVDs for the WIN.

I'm going to have to buy another spindle of 50 or so DVDs... I need to pick up a few dual-layer discs, too, because I've acquired some pretty hefty files that need them. I might also check out a couple of those LightScribe discs and see how fancy those things REALLY are.

I've been thinking about reworking my site's style. I don't think I'll actually change any of the graphics or colors, but I'm definitely thinking about making the thing wider. Catering to 800x600 is beginning to become a little... suffocating. The way I see it, most popular sites make use of the entire window, so I might be making it dynamic width, but I think the minimum is going to be designed more with 1024x768 monitors in mind. Seriously... If you have 800x600, it's time to upgrade. If your monitor honestly doesn't go higher than that, you can buy an entirely new computer for the same price as that monitor when you bought it new. No excuse. :-p

So don't be alarmed if you see some... Weirdness. Broken borders, unbalanced gaps... I'm probably working on it while you're browsing. I think the hardest thing to change is going to be the banner image I spent a week trying to make look natural and balanced. I made the thing wider a few night ago and it very much made the page lean to the left, with all that weight over there with the title and trees and sun burst.

I have a Facebook account now. I'm sure you have heard of MySpace. (Not recommended that you visit!) Facebook is similar to MySpace, except it's classier and for more... dignified users? I believe it started out as more for college students who wanted to keep track of friends afterwards, but has since been opened up a bit more to the public. (I didn't have to specify a college this time, and I remember when I had to, but wasn't in a college, so couldn't apply.)

So far, my profile is strictly for friends-only eyes. You can find me, but you can't see ANYTHING I have posted there until I approve you as a friend. I would prefer to use it for what it is intended: to stay connected to existing friends. I'm not looking for any new friends on it, as some might do. But I hope to have existing friends hook up with me there so we can contact each other, or even get to know each other a little more. It's sorta like a repository for information on yourself, that you only allow your friends to see. I see it as a sort of... quick-blog. A quick glimpse into glorious ol' me!

I thought I'd throw that out for all you (small amounts of) readers... Granted I've only had it a few days, but I've still had people not know I had one. So for those of you who want to add me, here's the address to my profile! http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=669216836

Alright. I just postulated this question to myself after I wrote an incredibly long post about 4 different subjects, and I'm going to ask you the same thing!

Should I, when I write posts, try to break subjects into their own posts? I usually have a lot of different things to blab pointlessly on and on about, and I'll drone on forever in a single really long post. Is this good or bad? I just considered two possible points:

1. When I write a really long post of multiple topics, I am more than likely going to go on a spiel about something nobody cares about (maybe something boring like how I washed a spider down the shower drain because it was attacking me or maybe something fiery about how liberals flubbed up the process of logic again), but it's in a long post of multiple topics, and they might just stop reading entirely. While I'm not necessarily shooting to maximize my reader base (I'm sure my friends will read the entire post anyway), it is something to consider.
2. Having so many topics in a single post makes it far harder to properly categorize and title. I was going to call the post I was just writing "A few things..." Yeah. That's really descriptive, isn't it. It was going to fall into the category of "General" instead of, say, "General" and "Movies". (I know Movies isn't a category at this time, but I think after this post it will be!)

Now for some counterpoints!

1. Since I usually prefer to wait a while and build up a bunch of stuff to talk about, I'll have a stretch of idle activity before WHAMMO! You have 200 small posts showing up in your RSS feed or on this site, and you might have to actually flip pages to see everything. While that isn't actually bad, it could potentially be annoying. It wouldn't be to me, I don't think, but it might to others.

Okay, uhm... So that's just one counterpoint! Regardless, I want some feedback! Which would you personally prefer? Don't give me what you think would be best... Give me what YOU WANT. I want to see how many people prefer which one. That being said, I'm going to break my multi-topic post into smaller posts and see how it works, and give you a taste of what it'll look like!