Wow.

I can't believe I neglected this blog for so long. I started up another one recently, but I guess with school starting I haven't had much time to think up a meaningful entry for this one.

Well, as far as the whole "fame" thing goes, I suppose I'm getting there!

I recently won a contest through Avon/Harper Collin's to be on supermodel Carol Alt's new book. I will be flown, with my mother, to New York in February for a photoshoot. One of the photos from said shoot will be considered for the cover of this new novel. It's really quite exciting but a little scary. I'm really grateful for the opportunity but WOW. This could be the start of something big. If it doesn't though, I'm okay with that. This opportunity is cool enough.

I finished Neil Gaiman's Anansi Boys about a month ago, and it was great. I loved American Gods, and while this one took a little longer to get into, I liked it just as well. Some people preferred Anansi but I think they were just different styles. I feel there was a little more humor in this one, which made sense considering the character referenced in the title.

I just started Neil Gaiman's newest book The Graveyard Book and it's really cute. Kind of like a dark bedtime story, but not "dark" in a bad way. But the fact that it takes place almost entirely in a cemetery is enough to call it dark for something that seems like it could be read to kids at night. It's very episodial- each chapter is a little story within itself. Probably why it's taking me so long to read too...when there are no cliffhangers at the end of each chapter, when it has closure to it, I'm okay with setting the book down after just one chapter.

My ex is a huge fan of Orson Scott Card and recently was given Ender in Exile as a belated birthday gift, a book neither he nor I knew existed. He offered to let me borrow it when he was finished, so now I have it to read while I'm at home over break. I haven't started it yet but I'm interested to see how it goes.


Hopefully I'll keep this updated a little more frequently than I had before...though I suppose almost anything's more frequent than abandoning a blog for five months.

Someone Get Me a Job?

I want a job in movies.

In all seriousness too. I'm not just some kid who wants to be big and famous. Acting has always been a passion of mine, and I will say I'm not half bad. It's hard living in the Midwest when you're interested in show business...hardly any opportunities arise. Even if films are being made here, the casting rarely takes place anywhere but California or New York or those other fancy shmancy places.

I finished Xenocide and picked up Children of the Mind immediately. I am now finished with that as well, and I'm having separation anxiety from Lusitania and Miro and Peter and Jane and Wang-mu and UGH. I want them to make an Ender's Game movie...NOW. And I want to be Valentine. Not little Valentine, obviously, but teen/young adult Val. I want to be a part of this world forever... not just by reading it, but be BEING in it. My dream is to make something of myself and my talent, and to have it essentially immortalized in a work as wonderful as this could be would be all and more than I could ever ask for.

So if anyone is willing to be my agent...please do! Haha. Any casting opportunities pop up around here? Let me know! Find out any information about Ender's Game FINALLY being casted? Please tell me! I'm dying here! Hahaha!

It has been awhile since my last post, and since then I have seen the Dark Knight twice. And it was AMAZING. It has even affected me enough to give me the most incredible dreams about being the Joker's accomplice. The dream's in my LiveJournal, if you know it. I even went out and bought myself a shirt, haha.


My brother bought an Xbox 360 for himself a few weeks ago, and my sister bought a game called Viva Pinata. I guess it's based off some TV show, but it's really cute. You have your own garden that you spruce up all nice and try to encourage these animal pinatas to come live there. The more pinatas you have, the more want to join. Some eat each other, and they fight and get broken. It's adorable! And of course my geeky self named my garden Lusitania, while my brother's is Gotham Garden. We're basically amazing. He's playing Rainbow Six Vegas 2 right now on Xbox Live, but I would like to kick him off to update my garden soon. :]

Guilty Pleasures

I'm definitely guilty of giving into some rather..."childish" forms of entertainment.

For example, I love watching "The Suite Life of Zack & Cody" on the Disney channel, along with "Hannah Montana". I'll also admit to watching Nickelodeon's "iCarly". Miranda Cosgrove is pretty adorable.

Along with that goes music... Miley Cyrus may be a little strange and annoying, but her songs are so damn catchy!

Not to mention this new one, "7 Things", fits too perfectly into my life right now.

The Smiths

I watched I Am Legend last night and sadly... I was rather disappointed.
It was nothing like I thought it would be. I was expecting a smart, psychological thriller... not an overdone plot involving crappy CGI zombies popping out unexpectedly. Not saying it was a bad movie, but I was not too thrilled.

Sure, Resident Evil is similar with the storyline, and yes they have monsters and zombies, but for some reason I just really enjoyed them much more.

Plus I've been watching way too much Fresh Prince lately, so I immediately burst out into
"In West Philadelphia, born and raised..." at the beginning of the movie, and my parents joined right in. I think they were surpised that I knew the entire song, and not just the short version they play as the theme.


I am looking forward to Will Smith's new movie Hancock. It looks pretty hilarious.

I've always wondered though... is Mr. Smith really a Scientologist? He's on the "rumored" list, but I just don't know. It would be rather upsetting if he was. Normally I'm all for "to each his own" and I'm usually fine with letting people believe in whatever they want to believe, but c'mon. How am I supposed to be fine with people buying into a religion formed around the idea of making money? And involving some alien as the connecting force between all humans? I'm serious... anyone who actually believes in that needs some help.

Alright, stepping off my soapbox... on the subject of Will Smith, ever since I found out it was her, I've been amused at the fact that Jada Pinkett Smith is the lead singer of Wicked Wisdom. Who would have thought that the wife of Will Smith would sing in a creepy hard rock band? They're actually decent too, I saw them live a couple years ago.

Wall-E

I'm so jealous!

My little sister gets to go see Wall-E for a birthday party tomorrow...WITHOUT US!
It looks so cute...and now she gets to see it first. Grr.

Also, on the recent subject of Resident Evil 4, check out this amazing video my brother showed me.

Summerfest '08

Anyone who lives in Wisconsin knows the excitement of the summer that is...Summerfest. I've only actually been once, which was two summers ago when I went to see Panic! At The Disco (yes, back when they still had the exclamation point). I think because such a popular band was playing there was such a huge crowd, because I couldn't see a damn thing and it wasn't a very good experience.





However, since there's no one too huge this year, I might try my best to see one of my favorite bands, Coheed and Cambria. They were in Milwaukee at the Rave a couple of years ago but I didn't get to see them, so I was quite disappointed. Hopefully I'll get lucky and score myself a couple of cheap tickets and bring a friend or two to check out the show. They're the only band I really feel like I *need* to see this year. They've been at Summerfest before but like I said, I have only been once.

I was considering getting a laptop for school next semester, as I have a desktop now and it's just too difficult to deal with notes. I'd like to be able to take notes on a laptop during class. Then I started thinking about getting a Macbook and I did some research on it. I made sure to stay off the Apple sites and choose relatively unbiased comparisons online. For awhile a Macbook was looking like a good option...until I spoke with my father. He is quite anti-Mac... to say the least. Luckily though he has actually used Macs before and it isn't just a familiarity preference. So if I get a laptop at all now, I'll probably stick with HP or something. But I might just stick with the clutzy desktop unless I make enough money from tips this summer to get myself a pretty new toy (though with the way business is going I'll be lucky to make $100 in tips in the next two months).

Why So Serious?

So I will admit I have not seen the first of the new Batman movies... bad bad Rianna, I know. But even before Heath Ledger's untimely death I was very intrigued by the trailers to The Dark Knight. I didn't even know what I was getting into when I stumbled on the website sometime in the fall, and I was immediately drawn in. After the tragedy that was Heath Ledger's demise, I feel even more inclined to see this movie. More and more I see subtle advertising and every time I see the trailer I get even more excited. Remind me to rent the first movie before this one comes out, because I know my family will be heading to the theatre right away.

One of my all time favorite things happens to be horror movies. I love almost any horror movie, as long as it doesn't involve stupid monsters. I prefer psychological horror, with deep plots and lots of twists, cliffhangers and nailbiters. And I happen to think that zombie movies are way overdone and cliché. Yet I absolutely adore the Resident Evil movies. There's something about them that makes them different than other zombie movies. The fact there's an actual cause to the creation of zombies really draws me in... rather than it being some unexplained supernatural phenomena that just decides to take over the world. I had never played the video games before I'd seen the movies however, so maybe I don't have the entire story. My brother did give in and buy Resident Evil 4 to play on his Wii console, and I have been watching him off and on. The graphics are spectacular- the architecture inside the castle is just brilliant. So clear and detailed for a video game...I love seeing where technology takes us with graphics. As much as I suck at most video games (aside from RPGs), I think I might have to go out and buy the first three to take with me to school this fall. Of course, I need to buy my own PS2 first.

Anyway, I've been trying to get my family to see the Resident Evil movies for a long time now. Hopefully they'll give in soon. I'm just worried they won't like them as much as I keep saying they will, and then I'll never hear the end of it...

Good Evening, World.

I am an avid LiveJournal user, however I have decided to make my way over here to check things out and perhaps start a less...private journal.

My name is Rianna, and I am a 19 year old college student attending UW-Madison.
This blog will be used for me to discuss any sort of entertainment I am interested in, want to discover or am currently checking out.

The title comes from a song by my favorite band, 3.
They are a prog-rock band from Woodstock, NY with a distinctive sound and a fantastic vocalist, who is also one of the best guitarists I have ever heard.

Now onto my current finds.

For starters, I saw You Don't Mess With the Zohan about two weeks ago with my brother and sister. Now, as a warning, my sister is 11 years old and I did not think it was a good idea to take her, but my mother insisted. I still don't believe it was a good idea, but most of it probably went over her head. My brother is 14 and got a kick out of it. It is a very sexual movie but luckily there is nothing graphic, just a lot of implied sexuality and more innuendo than I think I've ever encountered in an hour and a half. I did enjoy it greatly however. I'm not a huge Adam Sandler fan, but I do like some of his stuff, and this was a little different than his usual type of character. I highly recommend it for any Adam Sandler fan.

Currently I am reading the third book in the Ender series by Orson Scott Card, Xenocide. I loved Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead, so I am hoping this book will meet my standards for science fiction. Anyone that knows me well understands how picky I am with my sci-fi. First of all, I am very anti-aliens in any form of media. I only saw half of Signs and couldn't take much more. I loved the War of the Worlds remake until they showed the alien. Yet I consider Ender's Game one of my favorite books of all times. I think since it doesn't focus on the aliens themselves, but rather the psychological aspect within the training of the children, it held my interest all the way to the end.

I am also reading Dante Aligheri's The Divine Comedy, but I haven't gotten far enough into it to have a clear opinion on it. It is a book I have been wanting to read for a long time, so I hope I will be pleased with it.

Well, it looks like I am off to the store to buy some ice cream and snacks for my brother and I.

A domani,
RJ