of educational fairs and giant rampaging lizards

Well, I survived the fairs... Actually it wasn't that bad, I had a good time. Highlights of the evening include...

- Me trying to nonchalantly follow a reporter around the building in the hopes of snagging an interview, while trying to avoid the guy taking a restraining order on me. Um, didn't get an interview. Oh well.
- My amazing little padawan Gerry (Salty's little brother) winning the Future Fair Superstar trophy. Made my night. :)
- Seeing my friend Molly, who has been at college in Vermont but who came back home to visit for a while. With her boyfriend. <3
- General gossiping and laughing with a bunch of my girl friends :D Always fun.

MUST... SEE.... PERCY... JACKSON.... It's not enough that I have to wait until May for Iron Man 2, until June for Toy Story 3, and until friggin AUTUMN for Deathly Hallows Part 1, I have to delay my Percy Jackson-watching because of a stupid cold. Ok, done complaining, sorry.

For those of you who are absolutely tired of my sister and me not shutting up about Godzilla: Final Wars... Here is a brief summation/review.

Traditional fifties-style Toho opening.
Enter heavy metal music with shots of revamped Godzilla who looks about as badass as you can get.
Japanese soldiers fighting Godzilla at the South Pole.
Earthquake, Godzilla falls into a large crevasse. Soldiers shoot apart a mountain at the edge of said crevasse, thereby burying Godzilla. And there is much rejoicing.
Credits sequence (squee-moment when the Sum 41 credit comes up) with shots of previous giant monster films.

Now in the year 2004, Japanese airship/submarine/giant drill bit Gotengo is underwater someplace, being attacked by Manda (really cool Toho monster, one of my faves).
OMGOMG SHOT OF DON FRYE SITTING THERE IN HIS AWESOMENESS.
Haha, Don Frye doesn't need dubbing or stupid crappy subtitles.
Don Frye and the mutants Ozaki (HOT) and Kuzama (HOT, with major anime-style hair) kill Manda.

Backstory about how nuclear wars and pollution have "awakened deadly monsters" so the nations have banded together to combat the monsters, blah blah, MESSAGE. Oh yeah, also, backstory about how mutant humans are being discovered all over the world (although they all appear to be Japanese... huh) and have been gathered into an organization called The M Organization, in order to defeat Godzilla. Even though Godzilla is still a lizard popsicle buried beneath Antarctica. Okay then.

Ozaki and Anime-Hair (Kuzama to you) fight in a training arena with cool music and cool special effects and lots of mutant martial arts and close-ups of their faces so that you can see their hotness. Anime-Hair wins.
Random middle-aged dude who is apparently their boss comes in and tells Anime-Hair to stop being smug because he won the combat.
Ozaki and Anime-Hair talk about how Ozaki shouldn't have a conscience because the mutants are there to fight, not protect people.

Random middle-aged dude tells Ozaki that a mummified monster has been found off the coast of Hokkaido and that he will be accompanying the U.N. biologist who is going out there to investigate.
Ozaki objects cuz he doesn't want to be a bodyguard for a cranky old fart. Only the cranky old fart turns out to be a hot chick named Miyuki.
Ozaki makes epic faces during this scene, by the way.

Mummified monster turns out to be named Gigan, and is like a giant bird with hooks for hands (for anyone who has ever seen the episode of MST3K "Godzilla vs. Megalon", you will get a kick out of this....).
Scene shifts to annoying T.V. reporter Anna interviewing the new U.N. Secretary General about his job and his doggy named Clint (PLOT POINT).
Cut back to Miyuki, Ozaki, and random old scientist being transported to some random cave and talking to two UNBELIEVABLY ANNOYING little chicks who are Mothra's sidekicks who tell them about Gigan and blah blah blah... They also give Ozaki an ancient dagger that looks like it's made out of straw....

Then all hell breaks loose as all the big monsters (except Godzilla) start showing up all over the world and wreaking havoc and breaking stuff and stomping on people and generally being awesome.
Mutants show up to fight Ebirah (giant lobster) who gets sucked up into a flying UFO thingy.
Others monsters get sucked up into similiar UFO thingies.
Mutants: "Wha'?"
Giant ball-shaped UFO appears. Secretary General gets beamed down out of it and says that the people inside are aliens who saved him from danger. Head of the M Organization (some butt-ugly old lady whose eyeliner does nothing for her appearance) and some other guy get beamed up where they meet two of the aliens - a bald old guy and a REALLY HOT young guy - who tell them that some planet is gonna crash into the Earth in like a year, and that the aliens - called Xilliens - are there to save the world.

Over the course of the next several scenes, Ozaki, Miyuki, and Anna (who is Miyuki's sister by the way) discover that the Secretary General, the head of the M Organization, and some other people are actually aliens.
They get DON FRYE (SQUEEE!!!!) to help prove this.
Scene where Ozaki saves Miyuki's life. This is the closest they come to kissing in the movie. ANNOYING.
Anna proves that the Secretary General is an alien by making him believe that her dog is actually his dog.
Don Frye comes in and shoots Secretary General, who turns into an Xillien.
Bald alien starts to explain. Hot young alien shoots him.
Hot young alien (talking to earthlings): "From now on... you're cattle."
Bunch of mutants come rushing to to fight hot young alien and his minions.
Hot young alien takes over the mutants then teleports away.
Mutants attack Don Frye, Ozaki, Miyuki, Anna, and some other random guy who stays behind to hold the mutants off while the others escape.

Really awesome chase scene between Ozaki and Anime-Hair on motorcycles.
Ozaki whips Anime-Hair's butt. Ha ha.

Xilliens release all the monsters again and the monsters being wreaking havoc once more.

Don Frye says he's gonna take the ship Gotengo and go wake up Godzilla, get Godzilla to kick the other monsters' butts and the Xilliens' butts, then lock Godzilla up again.
No one doubts Don Frye's ability to do this cuz he's Don Frye.

Don Frye and company wake up Godzilla who follows them cuz he's still pissed at the humans for burying him in ice all those years ago.

Godzilla fights the American Godzilla (y'know, the one from that movie with Matthew Broderick...) and kicks his butt.
OMGOMGOMG SUM 41 SONG PLAYING IN BACKGROUND DURING THIS!!!!!!
Godzilla fights other monsters and whups their butts.

Ozaki and Miyuki have a heart-to-heart conversation, during which he gives her the straw dagger thing, and during which they DO NOT kiss....

Gotengo breaks into the alien UFO and Don Frye, Ozaki, Miyuki, and yet another random guy (there's lots of random guys in this movie, hard to keep em straight...) are taken to a room where Head Xillien (aka hot young alien) tells Ozaki that they both have unlimited superpowers, then takes over Ozaki (even though he was previously unable to do this - plot hole, anyone?).
Ozaki attacks his comrades until Miyuki stabs him with the dagger-made-out-of-straw, thereby returning him to normal.

Ozaki and hot young alien fight.

The REAL Secretary General and some other people show up and escape with Don Frye, Miyuki, and the aforementioned random guy. Don Frye separates from the group in order to kick some more Xillien butt.

Ozaki beats up hot young alien and goes back to Gotengo, where the others are waiting.

Alien ship blows up.

Uh, meanwhile, Godzilla has been fighting King Ghidorah who showed up about three-fourths of the way through the movie. Mothra also arrives and kills Gigan, but gets blown up in the process.

Godzilla kills Ghidorah, then leaves because he's sick and tired of waiting for Ozaki and Miyuki to kiss.

End of movie.