The ball was, as predicted, fine. I was still more shy than I normally am, and I wasn't brave enough to ask any men to dance, but the dancing I had with Lee was fun and my dress looked good and my seams were straight and my shoes adorable. Lee danced more than I did due to the slight lack of leads, and he seemed to have fun.
It did emphasise to both me and Lee how little swing steps we know though, and it does get boring after a few songs just doing the same thing over and over. Need to go to more classes!
On the walk to the ball we went across the wharves and saw a shooting star! It was neat. On the way home we saw drunk teenage girls. No penguins at all. It was a very beautiful night actually, still as anything, just very cold.
Have some neat photos.
This morning I wrote most of the 'girl and guy finally kiss' scene from the end of WtWTCH? which I got so wrapped up in I was still in my pjs when Chelle and Jase came over. After a hasty shower on my part, we all went out for Yum Char, which was yum and then to see Hellboy 2 which I liked.
The guy from Bros was awesome as the evil elf, and the girl playing his sister was great too. I kept thinking about Neil Gaiman all the way through, and actually parts of it were like Mirrormask. It was a similar sort of film to the first one, good action, scary monsters, jokes, romance. It wasn't the Greatest Film You Will Ever See but it was entertaining.
I also really liked the soundtrack and now have 'can't smile without you' stuck in my head.
PoF: Sunday
CO: sleeping
I'm feeling uncharacteristically shy and uncertain about the Swing dance ball tonight. It's been interesting to me to recognise my reluctance to stand out in this situation. usually I love the idea of dressing up and being flamboyant, but in this case I'm not brave enough. There are a few reasons I can immediately put my finger on:
->I'm new to the crowd, I don't know that many people, and although the ones I have met are all lovely I am worried that they will somehow be mean. This is a ridiculous worry, so I shall ignore it.
->My dress/hair/makeup/shoes will be wrong. Normally I wouldn't worry about this *at all*, but I am trying to recreate a vintage look. I am trying to look like someone from 60-70 years ago, and I don't have a very clear visual in my head of what I should be trying to achieve. Unfortunately Charm School kind of just emphasised all the ways I'm doing it 'wrong'. Again this is a pretty silly thing to be worried about. I can't afford to buy actual vintage clothing, so I will have to do my best with modern aproximations. I will do my best and look awesome anyway.
->I can't dance well enough. This is mostly a knowledge thing, I know I can do what I've learned so far well enough but I've only been dancing for a few months, so I haven't really learned that much. This is alright because I don't have to know too much anyway, the lead does the hard work, I just have to follow.
So yeah, maybe if I knew a few more people going I wouldn't worry at all, but here I am feeling shy, which is new and different to me and almost dreading the ball I've been looking forward to.
I am going to tap on this a bit and then I'm going to concentrate on writing instead. Worrying after all, will get me exactly nowhere.
Charm School was pretty fun, but I would have got more out of it if my hair was longer. We learnt pin curls, victory rolls, sweeps and rolls and listened to a talk about fashion. I bought some setting spray and some cuban heel pantyhose. Man I wish I had long hair again.
PoF: robe
CO: not reading the pre-release draft of Midnight Sun Stephenie Meyer has put on her website. It's so bad it's good.
Somewhat Swing this week....
Honourable mentions: In Bruges being released in New Zealand 06/11/2008, this worth photoshop contest that mixes fine art and movie imagery, socks, doing the laundry, snuggles and Holy crap these are the best My Little Pony mods in the world ever. Want the Batman and Robin ones!
PoF: swirl of the world
CO: I can smell delicious dinners
After a completely useless Sunday in which I moved about like an eighty year old, moaned at Lee and was convinced I was sick enough to take a week off work I managed to get up on Monday morning and go to work.
After a Kapai salad at lunch I felt almost completely normal again: no trace of aches, just a bit of increased temperature and a slight sniffly nose. I went to bed early last night to make doubly sure and today I feel better again.
Weird body. Thanks to everyone who sent get better wishes, it was appreciated.
I have finished writing the big climactic battle/breakthrough moment for Shelley and have moved on to the emotional wrap up stuff in What's the Worst That Could Happen? which is quite comforting to write really, not stressful like difficult vampire battles and hey, I love happy endings, so I'm happy I can make one happen. I've switched back to a Moleskine for this last part as there's less to fill, but I have another A5 notebook for my next project.
I have also waxed my own legs with hot wax, which works a lot better than the premade wax strips and although it hurts a little more is worth it I think. Only thing is, it's hard to do the backs of your own legs. And Lee won't help. Anyone got any suggestions?
I finished reading The Emperor Mage and am now reluctantly reading Realms of the Gods, the last of the Daine books. Now, I love Tamora Pierce deeply, but I can no longer remain silent about the awful Mary-Sueness of the character of Daine.
Let's see: she is special and unique because she is the daughter of a God and has Wild Magic, which means she can talk to animals. Everyone who meets her loves her, all the characters we know from the Alanna books love her, all the new characters love her and even some of the freaking villains love her. (See: Evil Emperor Ozorne who wants her to stay and look after his birds, because she is special and unique) Also, she actually has no flaws in her personality; she is good at everything,she is better than most at a bunch of things, she's good and kind, etc etc. It bugs me, it really does, but at the same time I have such good memories of the books that I still love them, and even re-reading them now, I really enjoyed the first two. The third and fourth get a bit too twee and annoying but they're still exciting and interesting.
So, I enjoy them still, but I'm really looking forward to re-reading the Kelladry books more. Kell is awesome *and* she has flaws.
PoF: Destination Earth
CO: EFT and finishing my longhand first draft
So, I had been tootling along and slowly getting better from my cold. Still have runny nose, still have the odd cough. Yesterday morning I woke up with achey legs and went off my food halfway through brunch.
Came home and had a nap and some panadol and the legs ache was gone, all good. Then in the evening I started feeling....off. No energy at all, distinct weakness in my limbs. I watched a DVD from the couch and fought to stay awake, eventually ended up completely horizontal and kind of moany.
Got into bed and had serious temperature issues: my face was too hot, I knew this, I could feel the flush and my eyes felt like they were drying out. But the rest of me wasn't warm enough. I could feel that I was warm but I had goosepimples and shivering. I guess it was a fever, but where did that come from?
All night I dreamed incredibly vivid things about Giselle from Enchanted which is the DVD I watched, also about Daine because I am reading The Emperor Mage and a long involved dream about organising a picnic to take to the beach on the huge middair moving walkway bridge that leaves every 16 minutes. It included broccoli in a bread machine.
My stomach aches, my back and legs ache some from curling up all night trying to stay warm and although I would wake up too hot sometimes if I removed any blankets I would shiver again. Plus with all the sleep I got yesterday afternoon I want to keep sleeping so that my body can fight this off.
I'm done with being sick thankyouverymuch!
PoF: still sleepy
CO: water
Unexpectedly I was taken to the ballet last night. Big thanks to Sokky and her mother-in-law-to-be for taking me!
It was the Royal NZ ballet doing Romeo and Juliet and it was divine.
I love the music, Prokofiev's score is so full of my favourite classical pieces of all time that it's a delight just to listen to. The story was set in Italy with inspiration from La Vie e Bella as well as Baz Luhrman's movie (a little bit) and the set design was lovely, crisp and pretty and to the point. The costumes were also lovely with calculated use of bright red to highlight important characters.
Amy Hollingsworth danced Juliet and she was perfection, she just inhabited the role completely. Romeo was also good, but I kind of preferred the dancing of Benvolio and Mercutio. Mercutio was basically Puck, which was a little unexpected but made sense. His comedic stuff was awesome.
I figured out it was at least the fourth time I've seen Romeo and Juliet danced, and I have enjoyed it every single time. Here's what I remember about the previous shows:
- The time Ou Lou danced Romeo, the setting was period Elizabethan.
- The Russian Opera ballet performed it set in a facist regime with Orwellian big brother stuff going on
- A couple of years ago with some one very hot playing Romeo and some of the same set as the current performance.
Today I have written a whole lot more new stuff. I have gone back to the smaller MoleSkine notebook since I'm coming up to the end of the story, so page numbers are less impressive. I have however now completed the epic final battle against the Big Bads.
I have also had brunch out at Sweet Mother's Kitchen and behaved badly to Lee, because I needed a nap. He went to play soccer and I had a nap. I feel kind of awesome now.
PoF: Rock Princess World Tour, thank you Giffy!
CO: EFT
Whipping this happens in a Laura Ingalls Wilder book. Kinda.
From Svend Oktapodi, a short romantic action movie starring octopuses. It won the best PC animated short last year and is pretty darn adorable.
Honourable mentions: Lemon Barley cordial (hot and cold), warm feet, my friends, being productive writing wise, assembling outfits for my Winding City character, Nick saying 'Jesus', Burger Fuel being so very close and so very delicious, presents from Giffy, sunshine on the couch that I can bask in.
PoF: comfy
CO: my feet are cold
Sneak preview! This is just a wee excerpt of one of my main character Shelley's tangents. The book is written from her perspective, so this happens a lot, and she worries, a lot.*
Shelley is a superhero and in this scene, well, her superteam ain't doing so hot.
So there we were: trapped and in deadly peril. I hoped Jordan's back up would arrive soon. I wondered if I'd put on clean underwear under my costume. I actually couldn't remember, I might have just left yesterday's on from last night. Which would mean that I had been wearing the same undies for like, 48 hours. Gross.
My Mum would be so disappointed in me if I died in old knickers.
What was it about that anyway? Why does it matter if you have clean underwear on when you die? You still end up dead. Okay so the Emergency Services people might, maybe think you were a slob if they were stripping your body and somehow realised that the underwear you had on wasn't freshly laundered that day, but so what? You were, by that stage, kind of past caring about it. I mean, I don't know what happens when you die, maybe you move on to your final reward or maybe you just stop altogether but I highly doubt that you are hanging around in spectral form worrying about what the paramedics think of the state of your undergarments.
This is what I was thinking as I was threatened with death by vampire bite. There really is something wrong with me.
So, hope you liked it!
*Note to self, EFT tap on 'Even though I have a worst case scenario brain....'! OMG do it now.
ETA: I just wrote another 11 pages of new stuff and am keen to keep going. Go the EFT! I also spread the EFT mania to my extended family. (Mother in law and sister in law)
Sam sent me this request, I figured I could get a post out of it:
I have been meaning to ask you for some time. I want to do a scrapbook for Ayla about her first year and I have no idea were to start or what to get. Can you help me with some ideas etc.
I would recommend starting with some inspiration. Get some scrapbooking 'hot to' books out from the library. I can recommend especially the Enclyclopedia or scrapbooking by Creative Keepsakes magazine, Cathy Zielske's Clean and Simple scrapbooking books and the magazines Creative Keepsakes and Scrapbooking Memories.
Have a look through the books and magazines and decide what kind of style appeals to you; do you like lots of stuff going on in a page or do you like it to be more streamlined? Maybe make some notes about things you especially like to use later. What colours you prefer is also worth thinking about.
Once you have an idea of the kinds of pages you want to produce go to a scrapbooking store. My 'local' is Craft House on Thorndon Quay. There are also great shops in Paraparaumu Beach and Waikanae. You can also get supplies at Spotlight, Whitcoulls and The Warehouse.
Pick out an album in a size you feel comfortable with, if it's your first album, for a finite project, like Ayla's first year there's no reason why you couldn't get a cute little 8 x 8 (that's inches) sized album or an A4 sized one. I generally work on the standard 12 x 12 format because you can fit so much onto each page, but these albums do get heavy pretty quickly.
Pick out papers in the colours you like, matching stickers, acid free adhesives, ribbon, anything that appeals. This is where scrapbooking gets expensive, there's just so much pretty pretty stuff available.
When you come to start your first scrapbook page, choose a photo or group of photos that you really love and play around with how they look on different papers, what accents/accessories you want to put with it. Scrapbooking pages usually have a title and a wee bit of journalling explaining something about the pictures, it's good to get detail into the journalling and record your personal experiences in there as well.
There are whole books about journalling, so I won't go too far into it here. I like to make sure I've named everyone on the page, put in the date and info about the event (Turkey dinner, November 17th, Giffy and Beau, for example) and then maybe explain the whys, wheres, hows, if they are interesting.
Things to remember when you are starting out:
->Nothing is set in stone. You can always add more later, you can always pull your photo off and start again, if you make a mistake you can cover it up with a sticker.
->Relax.
->There's no right or wrong way to do it, just make how you like it.
->Have fun!
->Show other people, it's a little but surprising sometimes just how much other people can enjoy looking through your scrapbooks, but it is very rewarding when they do!
Some links:
NZ scrapbook is a shop in Auckland but you can shop online via their website. Navigate using the categories menu on the left hand side.
The Paper Peacock which you used to be able to order pretty things from but not so much now. Great layout galleries though.
Scrapbooking supplies on Trade Me, a great source of all sorts of bits and pieces, just do a price compare before you buy :)
I had expected to be well enough to go back to work today, but it didn't turn out so good. Still with the brain fuzz, nose running and now gunk coughing up! Last night I was still pretty bad as well, so I figure one more day at home to really kick this bug and then I will be well again.
I'm pleased I did because I ended up reading all about EFT and trying out some 'tapping' and I don't know if it's had any effect, but I feel good about it, so that's a reason to keep doing it.
EFT I learned through Gala Darling and the website for the guy who invented/refined it here. I was encouraged to do so by Sokky's report that it had worked for her mother. (I *heart* Sokky's mother. And Sokky too.)
Actually, I lie, I have had a benefit from it. I've been frustrated with myself not writing anything new since last Monday, so I tapped on 'even though I am not motivated to finish my novel I love and accept myself' and this afternoon, between drinks breaks, coughing and snot removal I wrote 16 new pages (A5 notebook) of stuff. I usually manage an average of 6 pages of new stuff and am pleased with myself if I get to 10-12 so 16 was an impressive effort. So, maybe this EFT does really work.
I also received a gift in the mail, so happy happy Jenni! I wrote Giffy a love letter, partly to expand on Things I Love Thursday (you know, dwell on the good stuff) and partly because she had written one to me, and her responses to that were lovely. Made me cry a little wee bit. I'm surprised, but her being on the other side of the world has made us even closer I think, because our letter writing is so open and honest, not so much like when we were writing letters in university and it was all "and then I went to a dance, and then I went to a movie, psychology class is fun!!!!"
Also, she sent me a kick-ass tshirt that says 'Rock Princess World Tour' on it. Giffy is hereby made of win. And a postcard from Erik! With a hilarious tiny cartoon strip on it! I LOLed.
I also LOLed at this write up on Defamer about how Dan Radcliffe has dyspraxia. Love love love that article writer. (Link from cleolinda. Really need to work out some new sources!)
I leave you with this video, animated poetry by Billy Collins, called 'Forgetfulness' and the promise that if you are very good I will post a sneak preview of What's the Worst That Could Happen? on this blog tomorrow.
PoF: Brown
CO: being a writer
Compare and contrast the two colds I've had this winter.
Last month's cold started with sneezing and encroaching brain fuzz. This cold started with two days of sore throat. I prefer last month's cold.
Last month's cold drained my energy and took away my appetite, same as this month's cold. No difference.
Last month's cold made me emotional and delicate. This month's cold I have found myself reverting to childhood a little. Last night, while half asleep in front of the TV I wanted to play with my paper dolls. I also recall fondly childhood illnesses where my Mum would bring me all my picture books and I would sit up in bed or on the couch with a blanket and read all those familiar stories. I prefer: this month's cold.
Last month's cold did not prevent me sleeping, I was able to sleep straight through the night with the aid of Vick's. This month I am waking up every couple of hours to blow nose, cough, sip drink, pee. I am definitely preferring last month's cold in this case.
My sinuses hurt, my snot is bright colours, playing a long song on Rock Band drums last night nearly made me pass out. I have shared with you too much. I'm sure you will join me in despairing wishing for last months' cold instead of the one I caught this month.
On the up side I have lemon barley cordial, and that makes me feel comforted. Plus baths, and vaporub to look forward to tonight.
Oh yeah, my life is one big rock concert!
Yeah this is a craft entry. It's also a cold-brain fluff craft entry, so if it doesn't make any sense, well, you can cope.
I've been scrapping again, having had a drought from when I packed up all my scrapbooking stuff in August last year, finally got it all back in March when we moved and then I had a lot of baby quilts to make and whenever I had time to do some scrapbooking I just felt a little intimidated. I had so much to catch up on, where to start?
Organising my scrapbooking area better helped a lot. Making the area both prettier and more functional went a huge way to getting over the mental block I had about starting. I like things to be pretty, I'm Libran that way.
Of course, once I sat down and actually started doing it I had no problems churning out pages, because I had so much to catch up on it was okay to skip around times and placed and just do whatever I wanted to.
However, I'm kind of unsatisfied with what I've done. The pages look fine, but they lack X Factor, they just aren't pretty enough. I made a lot of no-effort pages and it shows. The awesome thing about scrapbooking compared to a bunch of other crafts I do is that it really doesn't matter if you go back later and fix it up. You stick a finished page into a page protector and at any time in the future you can just pull it out again, add some more stuff, put in journalling, even start over, so I'm not that concerned about the pages looking not-awesome, I'm just trying to figure out how I can awesome-them-up some more.
There are heaps of resources online for scrapbooking, so in addition to reading the books I have and pouring through a scrapbooking magazine, I've found useful stuff at various websites.
TwoPeasinabucket is always being mentioned in magazines, they have a huge range of stuff going on, products for sale, bulletin boards full of people giving each other help and heaps of tips and ideas.
Scrapbooking 101 has a weekly article, her 10 best shortcuts one is great.
I have been careful lately to use the papers that I already own. Scrapbooking is not a cheap craft for me because I am so drawn to the pretty new things that I really have more supplies than I need. So using up what I already have is a priority. When I reorganised my desk I was brave and actually got rid of papers that I didn't think I'd ever really use. I have only been buying stickers if I can immediately think of where I can use them, with what photos, what pages, etc.
Etsy is all full of pretty pretty things I love. But haven't bought.
I have been having trouble making a title page for my current album. My first big album was just called 'House of Friends". My last one was called 'World where I live" which I was very pleased with, and I want something equally good. A little tootle about online has brought up:
Scrapsayings which is a very hard to look at homepage that leads onto good lists of title ideas.
and Perfect Title which is heaps easier to look at and has a bit more stuff on it as well. You just click on the general type of title you want on the menu on the left hand side and get a list. I like the Western ones!
So, any suggestions from the floor for the title for my latest big, general album about the stuff I do and the people I love? I'm thinking something about the world, or life in general, something catchy and fun. Otherwise I'm tempted to use "Thank God I'm a Country Boy!" and that makes zero sense.
PS. Cleolinda linked me also to scrapgirls which is a nice site, but they do digital scrapbooking and yeah, I just can't get into that idea. I like having the physical book to hand to people. I like watching over their shoulders as they look through what I've done.
Honourable Mentions: Matt and Debbie’s new version of the Entertainment Weekly Twilight cover....so good so good you will in fact LOL. New downloaded songs on Rock Band, improving at Swing dancing - learned two new moves this week in a ‘private lesson’ uhm, reverse turning Charleston, where both partners turn out instead of in and something called a Johnny Stop (I think) which is super cool and fun and ends with a stomp.
PoF: black and tan
CO: throat soreness, I hope it's not another sickness
On Sunday I went to see Mama Mia! with girlfriends, because there is literally no other way to see such a film.
If you don't like musicals, the music of Abba or stories about mother/daughter relationships then you will not enjoy this movie.
If those things do not make you run screaming then I definitely recommend it. It's a very very silly movie, but it's a good one, and the songs are fun and the whole thing is just stunning, filmed on the Greek Islands and everyone in it looks like they had an absolute blast doing the filming.
Lily Kane from Veronica Mars is a great singer, and even Colin Firth sounds rather good. Merryl Streep was insanely impressive, she sings, she dances, she does stunts! She's charismatic and enchanting! I should really just track down everything she's been in and watch it in chronological order, that way I can bask in her glory.
PoF: hoodie
CO: procrastinating
In my research travels, I have discovered an awesome site the Zombie Initiative a preparedness guide for the Zombie apocolypse. I found it because I was looking for ideas on how to fight off a crowd of zombies, but I really like the information on keeping yourself alive, food and water, etc. It's all invaluable stuff I'm sure.
Unusual stuff I have researched for WtWTCH?: Electrodes and EEG, Ancient Egyptian amulets, fighting crowds of zombies, internet dating sites (handy research through osmosis as I learn on the job!).
Gala linked to this amazing site of terrible professional cakes, called Cake Wreck. I love it. I especially love the baby's butt one. Oh so good.
The best thing is that I am excited by the action sequence I am writing right now and that means I am actually writing it. Glee!
I finished Monster Blood Tattoo book two last night. I really like the books, although they are a bit jargonny, they're a good adventure, fantasy series with a moral conundrum at the heart. Are all monsters evil? Are all humans good? Plus, the author is awesome at strong female characters and that makes me happy. The art is all divine too, I'd love Europe's outfits.
PoF: normal Saturday morning
CO: breakfast
Join the movement!
Also these things:
Honourable mentions: snail mail, the song 'Go with the flow' by Queens of the Stone Age which I learned from Rock Band. Pictures of kittens, candy that tastes like peaches, milk chocolate, new wool socks, Nick, Sass, Steve, C, Svend, Chelle, Zephf, all the Jasons and Mr Elric.
PoF: Gizmo
CO: singy throat needs moisture
Cobbled together from various sources.
Bake blind a pie crust. (I use my trusty Little House on the Prairie Basic Paste recipe.)
In a mircowave safe bowl put
1 cup milk
1 cup chocolate (I use dark chocolate, Cadbury energy last time, Whittaker's dark this time)
Microwave on low power for half a minute, take it out and stir then microwave another half minute. Stir again and give another half minute or until the chocolate is completely melted.
Into this mixture add a dash of vanilla and then mix through one 500g packet of frozen berries, or two-three drained cans of berries. The first time I didn't mush them up or anything, just threw them in whole. This time I'm just using frozen raspberries and I've mashed them into a pulp.
Pour the mixture into the cooled pie crust and top with something good, like shaved bits of chocolate.
Refrigerate for at least two hours. Serve cold.
*fingers crossed* for a successful raspberry chocolate pie tomorrow night!
PoF: Zawesome
CO: pie crust is cooling
Edited to Add Turns out Whittakers chocolate doesn't like to melt into milk the way Cadbury does. I had to chuck out my first go and make a smaller batch of milky chocolate. With less chocolate, so the middle of my pie is going to be very raspberry-ish and less chocolate-y than I had planned. On the up side, I have shaved chocolate over the top of it so it should be good.
Sorry it's been a while since I posted, I've been back at work, which has been crazy busy because of some media coverage of the not-so-hot kind. I'd rather not get into it really. Not in such a public forum. This was all not helped by the high number of staff absences. Goddamn you winter
So, Wednesday afternoon off. I have done the dishes and vacuumed and bought myself some snacky treats did washing and folded dry washing and listened to 30 Seconds from Mars and Tori and I'm feeling kind of lightheaded actually.
I had an anxiety dream this morning about my Prime Time Adventures game, based on In character stress from conversations Sam had with his Real World friends and a 'next episode' flash forward that Svend came up with. I don't think I've ever had roleplaying anxiety dreams before, so it's probably just a reaction to the super busy work shifts. Or something else. Who knows?
I am getting excited about having the ending of What's the Worst The Could Happen? in sight. I have been trying to do a little writing or typing each day and thanks to some discussion with The Lovely Rachel on lj I have some clear ideas of things I want to work on in the re-write.
Update on the Montauk monster, which has made its way onto the Colbert Report (short video, very funny.) (Link from Cleo, who truly provides the best linkspam of all.)
Also! I got some mail from darling Giffy yesterday which made me smile. I *heart* you Giffy!
PoF: Zawesome stories
CO: I think the Southerly is here.
I really wish I had put the word around and encouraged more of my friends to come to see Mechanical Love. It is a documentary about the advent of robots, specifically about whether you can give an android human presence. It was all very Chobits-ish. It was weird and sad and cool and I liked it a lot.
Svend had managed to double book himself, so Lee got the extra ticket to The Romance of Astrea and Celadon, kind of against his will. It was a strange film. Imagine a not-so-good writer trying to write a Shakespearian romantic comedy, they have the basic stuff: misunderstandings, cross dressing, people thinking someone is dead,etc. But they leave out the stuff that makes it make sense. Ok, you with me? Now imagine that play being put on by a bunch of not-very-talented actors.
Yeah. It was pretty funny actually, in that This Movie is so Bad it's Good way.
Final movie of the festival was Evanaglion 1.0: You are Not Alone which we had four friends accompany us to and then met four more friends at the screening! I really enjoyed this movie, Lee got annoyed at Shinji being such a whiney bitch but I thought it made sense in context. The battle scenes were incredibly exciting (although way too loud, had to plug my ears) and the story was good enough that I want to watch the next two movies. I suspect it's better for me to watch the anime in the movie format rather than all the episodes.
Grand Total of movies seen = 27 plus The Dark Knight
My picks for best movies of the festival, that people should definitely seek out when they come back to cinemas or out on DVD are:
In Bruges
Ben X (difficult to watch but well worth it)
The Complete History of my Sexual Failures (penis content may offend)
Max and Co (if it ever comes back...I'm still yearning to see U again.)
The Savages
And When Did You Last See Your Father? (This is bound to return, it stars Colin Firth after all.)
The Escapist (For everyone who liked Shawshank redemption
Jar City
Let the Right One In. (Scary. Disturbing. Awesome.)
CJ7
....so yeah, good festival.
PoF: not quite warm enough
CO: all I want to do is play Rock Band
So, you might have seen this already because it is meant to be doing the internet rounds, but Cleolinda's been keeping me updated. The Montauk Monster. Awesome. Most especially awesome is this article (also from gawker) about why we care about the monster which pretty much hits every reason I care right smack on the head.
Yesterday I went to see my folks on the train. I looked at pretty waves in the sea and flooded fields and swollen creeks. I also got lots of new writing for my chicklit done so yay, although I managed to make myself sad by writing a sad scene which wasn't quite what I had thought would happen.
Last night we had dinner at Arashi, which we also did two weeks ago and I have to say I love it there. I much prefer their chicken kiraage to the one you get a Kazu bar, it's less greasy and more...peppery? But it's not that peppery. It's just better ok? Plus, they do takoyaki which I adore.
Then we saw The Escapist which is a prison escape movie made of awesome. None of the important characters were guards, none of the characters told yarns about why they were in jail, it was just a very tight, exciting action thriller with characters you care about and Joseph Fiennes doing a damn good Vin Diesel impression. He really didn't look that tall in Shakespeare in Love.(If you click the movie title link he's the one in the hoodie. Or it's slightly bigger here and wow, that picture makes the pretty boy look like a frog. Weird.)
This movie did make me wonder though, why the bad guys in prison movies (Shawshank, American History X) are always so rapey, but I guess it ties into the commonly held idea of what happens in prison. I mean, you do get those jokes about big men and their bitches all the time in all kinds of media, so if you want to make a scary prison movie it makes sense to use that stereotype and show just how scary that situation is.
Overnight my neck started hurting like crazy, so I didn't sleep in today. I shall now go and do some typing up of stuff I've written.
Oh and The Dog Blog has updated. So many awesome dogs. I especially love pitch black enthusiasm dog.