It takes longer to reach Tucker than he first thought it would.

The number he's got written down in his notepad -- five notepads ago, so that alone takes some digging -- turns out to be no longer in service. The email address is likewise obsolete, and bounces back his first tentative hello unseen.

In the end he has to resort to Google and the online White Pages. The first number listed is the old out-of-service one. The second sends him to an answering machine, with a voice that is quite definitely not his brother's.

When he tries the third number it rings twice, and then there's a click and a faintly grouchy, heart-squeezingly familiar voice says "Yeah?"

"...Tucker?"

Emonoid-Day is-ay up-ay. oo-way oo-hay!

(Sorry if my pig latin is rusty)

Mallory is glad to be back in the village. Ryu has been spoiling and taking care of her since she showed up in the bar after her accident. Having a broken right wrist has been frustrating, but the pain medication has been keeping her in better spirits, when she lets herself take it. A full dose had proven too strong, and knocked her out and made her groggy, and so she is tolerating things quite nicely with a half-dose.

Sitting in the kitchen of Ryu's house, she is entertaining herself by trying to use chopsticks left-handed and failing miserably at the task.

Dude. DUDE. That movie was awesome. Disney's doing good by going back to hand-drawn animation.

And, zomg, surprise pairing of awesome: Ray/Evangeline OTPZOMG.

I mean, there were some things to be expected -- that they'd be awesome was a given once it was certain there'd be more episodes (had it been cancelled, the reverse could allow the show to end in a poignent yet final note), but some things were quite the surprise and I liked the whole "Don't want to be the rebound girl" thing but omg the ending . . .

I have to wait until freaking APRIL? (this goes to you, too, V!)

So, a while back, I picked up Beastly, by Alex Finn. Click the link and check it out -- the opening's pretty solid and gives you a taste of what it's like. It's another example of fairy tales retold, but with a modern twist. Rich kid with a bit of a jerky streak gets turned into a beast; his father pretty much wants to get him out of the way, so he gets the kid his own townhouse, a blind tutor, and ditches him there for the entire story. The guy grows and develops over the course of the tale, and takes a reasonably modern approach to finding love while looking like, from what I gather, a somewhat more feral take on the Disney beast. All fangs and claws and fur, he's still able to type and tries meeting girls on MySpace. With a magic mirror to check, he dismisses that option after coming across 12-year-old girls, 40-year-old guys, and undercover cops all pretending to be a girl his age.

It's a wonderful story, and while not everything he does is perfect, it's clear that, more than anything, he's trying to improve.

When the movie was announced, I was tenatively excited. Neil Patrick Harris playing the tutor! Directed by the guy who did the similarly awesome Phoebe in Wonderland! Quite promising indeed.

And then I came across the teaser and saw the Beastly form.

That . . . dude, that's not a beast. That's a bald guy with tattoos and scars.