mid-week mmm

Just came back from seeing Redbelt. Loved it-cheesiness and all. Especially loved how many times Mr. Ejiofor managed to take his top off.

FYI: Nicked the "midweek mmm" idea from here.

best(est) thing ever

aka "Vampires are made of win"

So much so that a famous professorial type has noticed the trend in vampire-ish books and has blogged about it.

Of course, most of the commenters seem like pretentious wankers (FYI, people, vampires have been around forever. Hee. See? vampires! forever!!) and slag off vampire-ish books as though there were no variety among them.

I do like these comments though:

Comment 1: "I live in Portland, Oregon and recently overheard two Powell's employees discussing this phenomenon. One was explaining to his new-hire charge that "Supernatural Romance" is the largest growing, hottest selling category in fiction right now, a subgenre he described as "women committing every imaginable act of lust and perversion with vampires, werewolves, demons, Lovecraftian tentacled rape gods, basically anything you can imagine as long as it's not a normal human man."

(another person responds):"So, kind of like anime, then?"

Yay person no. 2! I like how science-y types seem to reckon anime and suchlike (comics, graphic novels) are oh-so-cool while, at the same time, being pretentious twats about this...the point being, you can find dreadfully-written books in any shape/style/genre.

Friday Frivolity: Google love.

These make me giggle. And waste time. Two very excellent things, and like a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup, even better together.

Type in the terms in the Google search box, hit "I'm Feeling Lucky."

• google pirate
• google ninja
• google light
  
• elgoog
• google goth
  
• google emo (This one is for the Bum.)
• google black
• google fudd
• google pig latin
• google 1337
• google linux
• google redneck
• google klingon
• google easter egg
  
• google chuck norris

There are some others of questionable taste. Will not add those here. No Hello Kitty one yet.

Yet.

Best. Thing. Ever.

Everyone knows I love The Hills, right? I've moved past my secret shame, my self-mocking shame, my cultural zeitgeist shame, and right into whole-hearted, affectionate love. Don't judge me.

So tonight was the finale. Which is a bizarre concept because who has finales of lives? Also, who makes such poor decisions in their lives?

Anyway.

There was a commercial for this (from Broadcasting & Cable):

MTV plans Exiled!, an eight-episode documentary series that will ship the mini-divas from its Super Sweet 16 series to indigenous tribes in far-off lands like Africa and Antarctica for the chance -- their parents hope -- of gaining an altered world view.

Basically, this seems like a big Fuck you, Princess.

I cannot wait. (Squueeeeeeee)

My fervent wish is that this will maybe be the beginning of an antidote to the materialistic, fame-mongering, elitist, unexamined life attitude that's so disturbingly pervasive (and please don't take this as proselytizing. Remember: I adore The Hills).

My dread is that this project will make these people look like jack-asses who manage to offend people around the world and objectify other world cultures into sideshows.

I live in hope.

food blogging

Participated in the first of what is going to be a recurring series of brunches today. The plan (such as there is) being that we all meet every couple of weeks, bring food/drinks and eat/drink our way through the day.

Today's food* consisted of potato and egg (do all of them have eggs? is that redundant?) frittata; spinach (Fanny would have approved ), cheese and eggs casserole thingy; kielbasa (Polish sausage thingy); an extremely yummy french toast (with raisins and berries); potato salad; bagels, cream cheese, salmon; homemade bread(s); cookies; various fruit dishes; homemade chocolate cookies; 4 bottles of champagnes (with associated fixings for mimosas and bellinis); vodka (with fixings for Bloody Mary); daiquiri (with fresh strawberries).

We sat around, ate and drank and talked about jobs, schooling, punctuation, films, media, and just general silliness. An excellent time was had by all.

Btw, no prizes for guessing my contribution to this endeavour**. In the future, though, I plan to make the only brekkie dish I do know how to make: pikelets.

I'll put up pictures if I can snag them off one of the others.


* I apologise here for my lack of knowledge of food names/compositions.
** Alcohol, of course.

news you all should know

Finished grading. Went to catch up with news and found the BBC's "most read" story was this:

"Great tits cope well with warming"

Indeed.

Popeye.

I have recently become obsessed with spinach. I'm trying to find ways to stuff pounds of it into my body and I'm not sure why. Everything is better with spinach! Soup? Dump some spinach in! Eating pasta? Why, a little green would perk that right up! Any kind of meat? A bed of spinach would be so decorative!

Fascinated by the way it wilts down into itty-bitty nothingness. Think it's fantastic that I can buy a pound of it fresh and be perfectly comfortable eating they whole pound cooked. Find it fabulous that I can pretend I'm being terribly, terribly healthy by stuffing mass quantities of it down my throat.

Perhaps I have an iron deficiency. Which means I should go eat more spinach!

It started out with this lovely creamed spinach recipe from Ree the Pioneer Woman. It's completely snowballed from there.

Do you think this counteracts the Cheet-o addiction?

i kicked the cobblestones today...

...22,000 dead in a land far away
It seemed as though the world was going astray
So what do I do?
Walk around without a shoe*

And here's what happened:

I walked around barefoot**
I did walk barefoot
I’m sorry but it’s true

I walked around barefoot
Oh yes, I walked around barefoot
I didn’t put on any shoes

I walked around barefoot
On the street, on the floor,
On a carpet near the door
It was gross, it was neat
I was doing it with bare feet

I walked the streets without shoes
Oh yes, that's big news
While yous are drinking tonic and gin
I did this thing that was made of win?

I said I was walking with feet unshod
On the bus, on the metro, on the way over to uni
People stood, people stared
People thought I was a bit loony

Naked feet, naked soles
Traipsing up and down the ‘ments
Keep eyes down, keep them there
Otherwise beware

But, yes!
I walked around barefoot all day
No shoes, no sandals, that was my way
It was fun, it was odd
To see my feet, see them unshod

On the road, on the stairs,
Everywhere (if you care)
It was warm, there was no harm
On the grass, in the lift
While reading Jon Swift
In the cafe, on my trip
I had no flops, nor a flip

* Apologies to the Beatles
** Apologies to Sarah Silverman/Matt Damon


X-posted

Slow down.

You move too fast
Got to make the morning last
Just kicking down the cobblestones
Looking for fun and feeling groovy

I am suspecting, in my incredibly profound way, that Bum and I need to kick down the cobblestones some more. What do people do to kick down the cobblestones, let alone feel groovy?

Busy, busy, busy.

All the time busy.

When did it become like this? When did we not have deadlines and looming obligations and stuff to do right now? I think I will blame academia.

It makes it easier for me, instead of looking to the culprit of poor time management and inability to say no. I have not, in almost a year, been able to carve out the time to visit Bum in the magical land of cherry blossoms and grotty, yummy Thai restaurants. There's something wrong with that.

But what can I say? The Hills is on.

next stop: cover of Vogue

Fanny's inspired me to do some non-fluffy blogging. Hopefully. But not now. Not this week when I have over 30 twenty-page papers to grade by Friday and a journal issue to finish editing (due to publishers' by next week, thanks) and a chapter to finish revising (due to advisor also by next week).

So what do I do when not wondering whether a quick trip to the local cave to be a hermit might not be a bad idea after all? I do online tests. I'm actually rather obsessed by online tests. I take them wherever and whenever I can. And, sometimes, they turn out funny.

Fanny will prob laugh her fanny off at this (I promise I didn't actually lie about any of the answers. I think the test is broken):

Catwalk God(ess) 64% Flamboyance, 67% Originality, 52% Deliberateness, 59% Sexiness

[Flamboyant Original Deliberate Sexy] You know fashion inside out but you're far from being its slave. To you fashion is what you decide to wear. You've got great, if unconventional, taste and plenty of courage to put your ideas into practice, which inspires admiration; but few have guts to copycat you. I suppose it doesn't worry you because to you originality counts. You are self-confident, perhaps even arrogant, and consider a day wasted when no one gives you an interested or shocked look. Great job. The opposite style from yours is Librarian [Tasteful Conventional Random Prissy]. All the categories: Librarian Sporty Hottie Office Master Uptown Girl/ Boy Brainy Student Movie Star Fashionista Glamorous Soul Fashion Enemy Bar Cruiser Kid Next Door Sex Bomb Hippie Kid Fashion Rebel Fashion Artist Catwalk God(ess)

This test tracked 4 variables. How the score compared to the other people's:

	Higher than 87% on Flamboyance
	Higher than 85% on Originality
	Higher than 30% on Deliberateness
	Higher than 67% on Sexiness

Link: The Fashion Style Test written by mari-e on Ok Cupid View My Profile(mari-e)