Batman: TAS

I'm currently obssessed with watching Batman: The Animated Series/the New Adventures of Batman/The Adventures of Batman & Robin (which are all technically the same series, just renamed between seasons) on YouTube.

There used to be a back-to-back hour of Batman/Superman TAS's when I was a kid so this is basically reliving my childhood on YouTube. =P

I always liked Batman more than Superman. Superman always seemed like too much of a goody-two-shoes, especially the mild-mannered reporter aspect. Bruce Wayne was a confident and aggressive businessman/playboy millionaire in addition to his strict training regiments to be Batman.

And there was always all those psychologicals aspects of it, like his childhood trauma and how all his villains are literally insane.

My favorite episode was Girls' Night Out, which featured an all-female cast with Supergirl and Batgirl teaming up against the combined forces of Poison Ivy, Harley Quinn, and Livewire.

Here is part 1:

And of course, Part 2:

Enjoy!

Optimism

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Weekend Finds

Look how adorable this bride is! Since I'm also quite short, I hope I look this adorable at my wedding!

(image by Gene Higa - via Bustle, a division of Liz Beck Events, of which my two pals Amy and Pam are interns!)

100 Ways to Use A Strip of Bacon (via Mental Floss, downstream from Endless Simmer). I actually saw the little bacon cups myself a while ago on Not Martha.)

Get your kids to play outdoor games, even if you have to trick them.

Wonder how effective these anti-theft stickers are...

Yummy, cookie tables!

Apparently, the correct way to peel a banana...

Wisdom from the Dalai Lama (via Mental Floss)

4 Perfectly Round Circles

Hilarious n00b boyfriend video!

Amazing Flickr streams - official stream for President Obama and Michael Hughes, who superimposes souvenirs over the actual landmarks.

Penny Arcade and D&D

Did you see that Gabe of Penny Arcade has been asked to do the art for the cover of a new Dungeons & Dragons handbook??

On the subject, Gabe says, "The book is called the players strategy guide and from what I hear it's designed to help you build a solid character [...] I was really surprised that they asked me to do this. All the D&D book covers have such a strong and classic aesthetic. I was nervous about doing the cover because my style doesn't really match up with the rest of the books, but they assured me they wanted this particular book to have a different/distinctive look."

Webcomic geek + D&D geek = Awesome.

This is the Sound of Settling

I’ve never been good at doing things I hated to do.

I think it stems from a childhood of being pretty spoiled as a result of being an only child. When I was a child, my parents had tried to get me to do a lot of things I didn’t like, such as piano lessons. The only thing they never relented on was my Chinese, which I’m grateful for now. For everything else, if I protested or resisted, they simply told me I didn’t have to do it.

As a result, though, it seems that I am really bad at just putting my head down and plowing through things I dislike. I’ve always managed to get by on just the bare minimum. In P.E., I walked a 30-minute mile and just tried to look busy by standing around in the outfield or just running up and down the bball court instead of actually playing the sport. I was interested in learning, not sports. But I had to take PE so I scraped by with the least amount of efforts to get credit.

Side story: I once had a conversation with someone who told me, “You were one of those girls in PE! I hated those girls! I always wanted to win.” To which I replied, “Well, I always wanted to not play. So either way, it isn’t fair.”

I bet there are a lot of people who don’t settle or put up with things they dislike. I bet it can swing either way – they can be really successful because they go straight for what they want and never settle for less… or they can never succeed because they aren’t willing to dig through the dirt to find a diamond. What about the people who flounder around in the middle, like me? Some say you gotta do what you gotta do. Some people tell you that sometimes life forces tough choices and you have to do things you don’t want to do in order to survive. Some people say to never settle, even if you’re hurting.

Did you know that after 10 Things I Hate About You, Heath Ledger was offered many more teen romance roles? He turned them all down because he didn’t want to get type-casted in those roles his entire career, instead living on ramen and cereal while waiting for other opportunities.

Being this type of person means that at some point, you have to drawn a line between being confident and being stubborn. When do you know that you’re not getting what you want because it’s not fair or because of your ego? Are you fighting to fight or fighting to win, just because you hate being wrong and hate letting other people be right? Or, vice versa, are you trying so hard not to be stubborn and egotistic that you are letting people walk all over you?

Are you selling yourself short by settling or hurting future opportunities when you don't?

P.S. 5 points for naming the band in the post title.

Facing the Real World

As you know, I've been trying unsuccessfully to find a job since my college graduation in June of last year. Today, I went for an interview and tentatively accepted a staff position at an academic academy that does tutoring and standardized testing (SAT, ACT, etc.) prep. It's a 6-day work week and pays $9/hour.

She told me she wasn’t trying to lowball me, that it was the standard rate of pay for college-level or above education. Was that okay for me?

I wanted to say no, that I wanted the $36,000 average that UCSD claimed their new graduates made straight out of college. I wanted to protest about how my $40,000 education was only worth an extra dollar an hour compared to a high school education. I wanted to say that my internships were just as valuable as, if not more so than, any other work experience.

I wanted to cry, because I had always been taught that college was the fast track to success... that because I was smart enough to get into a good school and complete a degree there, I was supposed to have some kind of an advantage in the world.

And I know that I should consider myself lucky to get a job at all, because anything is more than $0/hour, especially for the experience and resume content... and I know that everyone has to start somewhere and that I will (eventually) move on to bigger and better things.

And even though I know, I know, I know.... that what I do as a job or how much I make isn't actually a reflection of what I'm worth as a person....

...it really hurts to feel like I'm not worth as much as I thought I would be.

The real world is pretty harsh.

Sound Advice

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Daily Joy: Blogging!

I can't believe this is already the last day of Daily Be's Daily Joy photojournal week!

Thanks, Karri, for the invite to this fun project! I've really enjoyed seeing you and other bloggers' posts about their daily joys. We should do this again sometime!

Today's daily joy is blogging!

(image via PRprep)

Thanks to all my readers and commentators for following my blog and giving me the opportunity to read and share so many great things with you! I've recently added a "Top Little Note Leavers" widget to the right and am in the process of piecing together a little competition for commenting in the not too distant future.

And thanks to all the amazing, inspirational, fashionable, fun, sweet, lovely bloggers that are too numerous to name (but check the blog roll to see me try) for all the work they do to keep me inspired and going.

This weekend, I have a date with Clement... we're finally going to see 500 Days of Summer and I think he has some other surprise for me? Who knows. We're celebrating 23 months together!