Bummed

Like Fanny, I don't have much to write about either. Work, writing and actually having a social life is taking up heaps of time. Then I got hit by a bike on Friday and spent much of the weekend limping about or in bed.

So, another recommendation for yous. This is from the finale of The Vicar of Dibley. You can catch it on YouTube. It's highly recommended for Richard Armitage: check him out in those jeans and leather jacket. Perfect "comfort viewing" as it were, great for the upcoming colder, winter-y days.

recommending

Yous probably won't realise that I'm doing you a favour but I am. Go and watch Samurai Girl (broadcast on ABC family today; available online, I'm sure). It's full of cheesy (Asian and otherwise) stereotypes, an awful storyline and general all-round badness that yous should enjoy.

And the Japan scholar chap is hot. Why aren't more of my academic mates like him?

ETA: I was talking (off blog) with Fanny just now and she asked whether we should be happy that there was a show with an Asian leading lady/cast or whether we should despair at the rampant propagation of stereotypes (not just Asian, but the culturally-sensitive martial arts bloke, the geeky guy, the brilliant scholar who gives up a job for his principles, etc etc). In honour of a show that, in my youth, did a lot to skewer stereotypes, I give yous this: Goodness Gracious Me* and "Going out for an English".



* For those unfamiliar with GGM, check out Youtube for some classic clips. It ran for a few years in the mid-late 1990s and starred folks who would later go on to bigger (and better?) things.

Another one.

I swear this isn't a book review site (right, Bum? That's in the charter, right?). I just finished this book:



And I really enjoyed it. Everyone is unearthly beautiful and all that, but the characters are interesting. Generally flawed (with one noticeable exception) with (more or less) believable motivations. I was actually surprised right up until the denouement and with my jaded, I-saw-that-coming-a-mile-away attitude, that in itself was surprising. No spoilers, but there was a good tension going on and not quite sure which way the author was going to jump.

Was also impressed by the way the author described sex or sexuality or what's going on at the age of 16-20, when you're still and adolescent but dipping that toe into adult-ness (that's totally a word). It was handled with a certain discretion, without being coy, but there, no shying away from it. Plus I love tattooed boys burning with longing.

I am rabid to read the next one.


Not because I fell in love with any particular character or am invested in finding out the course of relationships, but because I am invested in this particular universe and want to see what's coming down the pike for this place and time (that takes place near Pittsburgh. Gotta love the hometown shout-out). What will happen next? I want to know.

Plus:

Dark Court King and tattoos and troubled bad girl?

Absolutely.

Dr. Horrible

Enjoy Neil Patrick Harris, Nathan Fillon and some redheaded woman in "Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog" here. All parts disappear tomorrow night so watch them now.

FYI (and spoilerish comment):
The feminist Interwebs have been frothing at the mouth about Penny's character development.

blogging bags and books

I went to shop for swimmers yesterday and, after visiting many many (okay, three. But it seemed like a lot) shops, I ended up with a bag instead.

Just like the one you see here, except mine is a darker red colour. Fanny'd tell you I'm really not a (posh) bag type of person and I admit I'm a bit scared of my new bag. I'll keep yous updated on its adventures.

Talking of adventures, I finished reading a book in which various totally sex-filled scenes occur, most of which are rather far-fetched.* But, loads of people getting it off in this book. To the extent that it was enough to make one want to go get a David Tennant of one's own (probably NSFW).




* In my admittedly non experiential basis--sex on a horse? Umm...no. I'm not that keen on horses to start off with and unless it's a gelding, wouldn't it get excited? (and that can't be good for all parties concerned).

voyeur

While having dinner at an excellent Thai restaurant on 4 July (and practicing my Thai language skills while I was at it. The owner was hugely impressed but I fear that may have been more due to the fact that I asked for this duck thing that I've been craving for ages and apparently it's not something most people at that place ask for. I'll always be known as the peht girl or duck girl, as it were), I realised I was the only person apart from a mid-50's-ish couple sat fairly close to me.

Two things about empty restaurants:
1. Sound carries
2. Can't avoid listening in, really.

Turns out Man and Woman had met on BigOnlineDatingSite (BODS!). They had had a "connection" (Woman's terms) and this was their first in-person date. They liked travelling and food (duh!) but the woman ordered a "mild very mild pad thai". Really, how can you have mild pad thai? Pad thai is mild enough to begin with. Anyway, the man asked for and went with the waitperson's recommendations. Nicely done, that.

As Fanny would tell you, I'm a very slow eater. During that time, I found out more about those two than I ever needed to know. It's good (or scary) to realise, though, that age doesn't make the dating process any easier or less awkward (especially if, like me, you are trying to do your best not to listen in while obviously being perfectly situated to do so)

back with a book.

I've realised that June was a rather lean month for Fanny and I. Not "lean" in the sense that we did anything (well, not sure about Fanny so let's talk about me for now)...I did anything that would make me lean (unless we are talking of the Tower of Pisa variety). Lean in the sense that blog posts were few and far between. But, fear not, we are back and posting and ready to regale yous with reams (bits? bytes?) of information that we feel is in your best interest to know.

Starting with this book: Fanny recommended the book to me and I went all the way to San Francisco (a rather expensive proposition, one which costs about as much, if not more, than buying a new paperback) to buy it and have just started reading it. However, I feel a bit like how historians/experts on X/whatnot might feel upon reading that the MainGuy first saw the MainWoman at the "train station in Kathmandu [Nepal]". A bit of research (Googling? Chatting up your local Nepali?) would have made it very clear that Kathmandu doesn't have a train station. In fact, Nepal doesn't have an (operational) railway at all.

I guess that's why I avoid political thrillers (especially nothing on terrorism, thank you) and stick to SFF. World-building, if done well, can't really go wrong. Real world geography can be nigglingly off.

Though now I'm reading about motorcycles in the Himalayas, so, perhaps, I should just take this as SFF as well and enjoy it that way. It is enjoyable so far.

I'll update yous when I've finished.

Update: Not much more on Nepal though the train trip is mentioned again. I liked it, overall, though I'm looking forward to the resolution.

One quibble. There was pretty much no reason to make MainWoman who she was i.e. some mountaineering, scary-dad-having woman from America. She could (and it'd have been lovely if she had been) have been Mingma's granddaughter or even the Rom girl (though a bit older, of course). This odd desire of authors to organise things so that a random American is doing things in "exotic" parts of the world becomes rather grating at times. It's not as if being American was necessary to this story in any way. Mingma's granddaughter would have been able to do everything this woman did--climb mountains, trek, clean up wounds, shag MainGuy, etc. Well, maybe not fly a plane but I'm sure that could have been easily sorted with a sentence like this: "Pemba took a one-year flying course in Kathmandu since she loved the mountains and wanted to be as close to them as possible" (okay, I'm not a writer. But you get my point). Most people there speak English fairly well and I'm sure the Living-in-Sedona part could also have been fudged easily enough. But, no, we needed some American to be conveniently wandering about so MainGuy could find her, bed her and get her into trouble.

Very Late Review - Harold and Kumar Escape Guantanamo Bay

Bum asked me to blog about this a while back. I only recently actually made it to the theater, as movie-watching seems to have fallen off my things to do, which is sad. Especially sad since I only see really bad movies when I do go (this weekend I saw Baby Mama. Enough said?).

I have been looking forward to the Harold & Kumar sequel for a very long time. I loved, loved, loved the first one. Thought it was so very funny, so very spot on with racial commentary in contemporary US culture. Also: someone has sex with a giant bag of weed. How does one not love it?

So...big expectations, but prepared to love, even if not so good. Like the way you kind of like the idiot brother of someone you really love. They share the same genes, so there's something there, right?


Except...oh, this was disappointing. It felt like the creators/directors/writers/whoever got a pile of money based on the cult status of the original and were determined to use every last dollar of that, to utterly shoot their load, Michael Bay-style, rather than sticking with what worked in the first one.

The White Castle one was, at its heart, kind of a sweet story about two friends on a pretty mundane adventure who get caught up in these absurd moments. And a lot of the charm was that they were so very different, but really got each other, had a backstory and a tolerance for each other's bullshit. My brain's not working very well, but it's kind of like the relationship in Good Will Hunting between Matt Damon and Ben Affleck. The background relationship between the two leads is an integral part of the story.

Guantanamo Bay...well, that's like John Candy and Steve Martin in Planes, Trains and Automobiles. They don't respect each other much, and like each other even less. It seems like Harold and Kumar are two people just kind of stuck together on this wacky, wacky adventure. It's all absurdist, there's nothing much relatable, because while I have been on road-trips to find the perfect food, I do not have friends who have bottom-less parties. Or at least friends who invite me to bottom-less parties. Thank you, friends.

There are funny moments in this film. There are. But there's no replacing the original.

However, Neil Patrick Harris rocks the house.