I don’t actually have a lot of ‘favorite actors or actresses’ but Julie Andrews has to be all time favorite actress. Sound of Music, Mary Poppins, the Princess Diaries (1 & 2), Cinderella… the list just goes on and on. I love the woman!

Mary Poppins is, surprisingly, one of the few Disney movies that I am not very fond of. Julie Andrews is the only thing that even makes it bearable for me. I hate the rest of the cast (aside from Dick Van Dyke even with the terrible cockney accent) and I am just too much of a visual person to let all of that pass by. I love Julie Andrew’s voice and it always amazes me to hear how much trouble she has singing at times (1997 throat operation notwithstanding). But Mary Poppins aside, I loved the Sound of Music growing up and when she showed up in the Princess Diaries I was just absolutely smitten. Seeing her as a queen was simply perfect. Fitting, even. And then she voiced the Queen in the Shrek movies! Oh how I squealed when I heard that glorious voice!

As of the time of this post, she is 75 years old and wow does she look amazing. While I am not one to truly fan all over someone, I have a feeling that the day Dame Julia Elizabeth Andrews leaves this earth… I will be in tears. May that day be far, far away.

Stay Classy, Internets.
♡ Kristen

So I wound up completely falling in love with the CW show Nikita and Birkhoff is still my favorite character. Sure, I love Michael and Nikita and even Alex but Birkhoff still tops my list.

He is played by Aaron Stanford, best known in the geek community for his roll as St. John/Pyro in the X-men movies. You can see that AS has aged and gained some weight. I think he is adorable! He pulls off Nerd very well and it’s rather hilarious.

Anyway, Birkhoff has the majority of the one-liners. It has been said by writers and Aaron himself that Birkhoff is the hint of comedy for when things are getting too serious. I love watching Birkhoff and Michael go back and forth; Birkhoff told Michael that he needed to get a sense of humor. Michael responded that he doesn’t laugh at Birkhoff’s jokes because he has a sense of humor. Of course, the fangirl in me ships Michael/Birkhoff–not romantically, just a general pairing–and there was this part in a episode where Birkhoff is kidnapped and held in a government office while Nikita is hacking into his laptop (because it is rigged to blow if it gets a certain distance away from him). Michael demands Birkhoff’s release when he gets there and is denied. Birkhoff yells, alerting Michael to his location and Michael kicks the door in to go rescue his Birkhoff. How adorable is that?!

Sure. It wasn’t meant to be adorable. But it was. STFU.

Side note, I actually roleplay as Birkhoff in a game and it’s so much fun getting into the character’s head and waiting each week to see what he does. I missed it when he was gone for a couple weeks!

Even Birkhoff and Nikita have a cute relationship. He calls her Niki (“don’t call me Niki”) and she calls him Nerd (“don’t call me Nerd”). In the same rescue episode, she comes into the room and he jumps up all surprised. “Hi Nerd.” Teehee!

Stay Classy, Internets.
♡ Kristen

Tangled is my current-favorite Disney movie. My all-time favorite will always be Beauty and the Beast but Tangled is my love right now. It’s just cute. It’s easy to love Flynn. It’s easy to see that Rapunzel is adorable. But that moment where she is leaving the tower and suddenly just stops, inches from the ground with her knees up against her chest. The ground is so close and she just stares at it with wide eyes for a few moments before putting a bare foot down.

And then comes, in my opinion, the funniest scene in the movie: the bipolar princess. She flip flops between being excited, being miserable, loving being outside, thinking she’s a horrible daughter, etc. She swings around and around and around a tree, for goodness sake!

I just love the movie. I have seen it at least four times since it originally came out and I have no issues watching it again on a whim.

It totally doesn’t hurt that I love both Zachary Levi and Mandy Moore ;D

Stay Classy, Internets.
♡ Kristen

Cassandra “Cassie” Sandsmark, also known as Wonder Girl (II) from DC Comics fame. Like Impulse, I first fell in love with her in the pages of Young Justice. It was fun to watch her grow and figure things out about herself. When she becomes a Teen Titan, it is finally revealed that she is a daughter of Zeus himself.

Cassie has had a bumpy ride; she fell in love with Conner only to have him get himself killed. She lost a year of her life to a cult in the hopes of filling the space in her life that had been left gaping. She lost another close friend, Bart, and tentatively started up a relationship with Tim Drake–which was quickly quelled. She makes mistakes left and right, but no more than the average teenager when you get right down to it. She has parental issues, she has sibling issues (Oh hi there, Ares), she has issues with love and loss.

And still she is a kick-ass Amazon warrior.

Stay Classy, Internets.
♡ Kristen

IMPULSE! Bart Allen. He was one of my first comic book loves and mostly because he was just so crack-tacular. His thought bubbles are illustrated. Bart doesn’t think in words; he thinks in pictures. When someone mentions that they were Navy SEALs, he pictured seals dressed in the old Naval uniforms. He absolutely infuriates the villains, he has zero attention span, and is constantly having to be told to do things at ‘regular speed’ or ‘normal speed’ by his mentor.

But what makes Bart so adorable is that he had been raised in a virtual environment. It isn’t until later that he truly learns life does not have a RESET button.

Bart is at his best in Young Justice. He changes names between there and Teen Titans (2.0) and eventually dons the Flash mantle. But it’s YJ-era Bart that I absolutely adore. Impulse is just pure WIN.

Stay Classy, Internets.
♡ Kristen

This was a no-brainer. I was introduced to Supernatural just before the second season began. I caught a glimpse of it and then was waiting desperately for the first season to come out on DVD so that I could watch it before the second season premiered.

I watched the entire first season in three nights.

I was immediately hooked and was only dragged in further as the second season progressed. I’ve had a thing for Jensen Ackles, which is what drew my attention at first, but it was the writing that kept me coming back. Oh, sure, I could listen to Jensen-as-Dean talk and talk away or even just stand there and look pretty. But the writers were what brought me back week after week. There seemed to be a good balance of humorous episodes versus the dramatic ones. Nothing was ever too light or too weird or too dark. Even the sporadic very-focused episodes that broke the mold I just gave as an example were specifically placed and I never felt like the series was moving… wrong.

Now, I’m not a horror fan. In fact, it’s one of the few genres that I just do not like. I do not like being made to jump. I wind up being on edge when I know something is approaching and it is never a pleasant experience for me. But this series isn’t about the horror. There have been episodes (My Bloody Valentine, s5e14) that actually made me ill with the gore but even it wasn’t about the gore. There was humor! Dean pushing a human heart at his brother, grinning stupidly, and asking Sam to be his Valentine? The Cupid? You just can’t beat that.

This season is the sixth and final season. I will be sad to see it go.

Oh look. It’s a brand-name product! This is a favorite that I really should be doing without but it seems to be an addiction that I can’t kick completely.

I like Pepsi.

Just Pepsi. Not diet, not zero, not any other type of ___-Pepsi. Just regular old Pepsi. Out of a can, out of a glass, with ice or without, it is my cola of choice. Now, I am not an elitist and I do not mind drinking Coke when it is all that is available.

Of all the things to have an addiction for, I really don’t need the calories and the sugar that these cans have to offer me. And yet it’s about the only way that I can get my caffeine fix up just high enough to where I’m not 1. suffering from a lack-of-caffeine headache and 2. wanting to rip someone’s face off because I’m still half asleep. It offers ‘just enough’ of a kick to my system.

Now, let’s talk about that lovely little headache that I get for a moment. I am prone to migraines and for many years I depended on the likes of Excedrin and other full-of-caffeine products to keep the edge off. Maybe it’s an addiction to caffeine itself now. But I’m a bit more of a realist here: I fear the 20-hour mark in a day between caffeine intakes because that headache sets in and goes straight to the red-zone, pending migraine quickly on its way. It’s not even a withdrawal headache at that point.

Regardless of all that, Pepsi is still my product of choice. I’m still not a fan of the logo re-design but I did applaud the change from the white/silver background of the cans/labels to the pretty blue color. Then again, my car is almost the same shade of blue. Mine is darker.

Glee. One word, one syllable, and one thing that makes me absolutely geek-out over every week. True, there have been a couple missteps and there have been entire episodes where I didn’t like a single song that was either played or covered. But overall, I have loved and adored this show since Fox decided to air the pilot months in advance of the first season truly starting. I couldn’t get enough of it. I was addicted. I needed more. More! What did they mean I had to wait until the Fall??

I even managed to get Rick hooked on it. This was an impressive feat, considering how much he despises covers of any kind.

I went to one of the live concerts. In NYC.

I have the red foam finger from the SDCC 2010 panel.

And I have almost every song from the show downloaded in one way or another, all organized by commercially released album AND by specific episode. That’s right. By episode. Season number. Episode number. Episode title. And then in each folder are the songs from that episode.

Perhaps I am more of a geek over the music than the actual show itself but s2e6 gave me an honest-to-goddess jaw dropping moment. I don’t have many of those. I can usually see plot coming from a mile away and while I may have suspected certain things, that had not been an outcome in my mind. Campy? Absolutely. Wonderful music? Completely.

I still have the Glee cover of Teenage Dream sitting on my desktop for quick play, set to repeat. I was not a fan of the original or any of the remixes but suddenly it’s covered by Glee and I can’t get enough of it. Then again, I am a total sucker for good male voices–which is why I also have a thing for Mark Salling. No big surprise there.

Where was I? Sorry. Got distracted. Enjoy!

I’m so bad. I haven’t written a post in a week. To be fair, it’s been a long week for me.

Anyway! The Dark-Hunter series, by Sherrilyn Kenyon, has quickly become a favorite series for me. I never, ever thought I would get into reading romance novels. Apparently I like them if they are paranormal-romance. The characters are fun, some more than others, and I love her writing style. Acheron, Vane, and The Simi are my favorites, followed up by a couple of other characters which isn’t entirely surprising given the popularity of Ash and Simi. But gimme some Vane and mmm!

It’s no real secret that I adore Greek mythology. I’m very knowledgeable when it comes to the myths and the entities. At first I was a little leery about the Gods making appearances–especially Artemis’ role–but after awhile it becomes so commonplace that I easily accepted the author’s version and the world she has created. None of the books in the series, and there are many, have been boring to me. They have all held my attention easily and I have been able to devour a book in a single day. Sure, things become a little… overplayed… but when you look at the whole picture of the world itself? So interesting! I am currently reading the long-awaited book Acheron and am only just shy of 60 pages in. I am transfixed by what little I have read so far and have had to force myself to put the book down on several occasions before I became too engrossed. If I do not force myself to slow down, I will lose all track of time and wind up not sleeping. Again.

Give the books a chance, if you’re looking for something new. It starts off timeline-wise with Fantasy Lover and it is difficult to pin down the correct reading order. But the author herself even states that the books can be read out of order without confusing the reader too much.

Now excuse me while I go off to read a couple more chapters…