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amatyultareIn Which I Babble At Length, Mostly About Books and Movies.
I actually got a few things done on Saturday, which was reassuring. Finally installed an actual bar to hang my hangers in my closet (before, I just had wire shelves installed, which I hung the hangers off of awkwardly. Not so convenient). I also finally got a full length mirror and put it up in my room. Now I can put on makeup in my room and actually see my whole outfit.
Sunday, on the other hand, was a waste of a day except for making it to the gym. After lunch I got sucked into a marathon of Bridezillas. What a depressing show. The ethos of every woman who appears on it seems to be 'my desire to have a good-looking and smooth-running event takes unquestioning priority over all of my relationships, including the one that the event is ostensibly celebrating/affirming.' And yet, I couldn't stop watching. I finally got a headache and went down to my room to read and go to bed.
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genkioriana loaned me some books, so I've been doing some reading (I need to break my embargo and start buying some new books myself...but I don't really have any room on my shelves...). They have all been interesting and good reads, but I have to give a special shout-out to World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War by Max Brooks. I cannot express strongly enough how much I recommend this book. It's written in a semi-academic style, like the kind of 'primary source collection' you would read in a college poli-sci or history class. I just...wow. International relations, political science, military strategy, and a healthy dose of applied science. It's fantastic.
In other media-type blathering -
Dollhouse, the one TV show I have committed myself to watching, is going...fairly well. Episode one was underwhelming, episode two was amazing. Episode three was blah, episode four (the latest one) I adored. I also have a theory that this is sort of Joss Whedon's 'Evangelion', particularly in character relationships and the lack of easily likeable/identifiable characters. Not that I think he was inspired by Eva, exactly...I need to flesh out this idea more.
I saw Coraline a while back and didn't post about it. I liked it; it was charming and creepy and pretty as all get-out. But for the sake of completeness, I also liked it when it was a live-action movie called MirrorMask. Just saying.
I also saw Street Fighter: Legend of Chun Li which was hilariously terrible. Gotta love a movie whose director clearly assumed the audience would be far to stupid to pick up on subtle clues after only four or five repetitions.
Finally, I saw Watchmen Saturday night. I never read the comic, but I weakened and read the Wikipedia summary of the plot beforehand, which was...an interesting way to go into the movie. In any case, I really enjoyed it, even with the extreme amounts of gore that occasionally made me cover my eyes (like the handsaw scene, AAAUUUUGGGGHHHHH). Also, people complain about the sex scenes, but the deconstruction of the genre evident in including an awkward, fumbling, not-idealized sexual encounter seemed to fit perfectly with the deconstruction-of-genre that is a major premise of the movie. Plus, it was hilarious.
One final note - all of this talk about movies has reminded me that I've officially signed up for NaNoWriMo's 'other' big event, Script Frenzy. And I am freaking terrified. Writing a script is SO MUCH harder than writing a novel (formatting! Lack of description! FORMATTING!). So I am toying heavily with the idea of writing an adaptation, so at least I have one less worry with the plot already there. I can easily name a dozen books I would love to see adapted to movie format.
I actually got a few things done on Saturday, which was reassuring. Finally installed an actual bar to hang my hangers in my closet (before, I just had wire shelves installed, which I hung the hangers off of awkwardly. Not so convenient). I also finally got a full length mirror and put it up in my room. Now I can put on makeup in my room and actually see my whole outfit.
Sunday, on the other hand, was a waste of a day except for making it to the gym. After lunch I got sucked into a marathon of Bridezillas. What a depressing show. The ethos of every woman who appears on it seems to be 'my desire to have a good-looking and smooth-running event takes unquestioning priority over all of my relationships, including the one that the event is ostensibly celebrating/affirming.' And yet, I couldn't stop watching. I finally got a headache and went down to my room to read and go to bed.
genkioriana loaned me some books, so I've been doing some reading (I need to break my embargo and start buying some new books myself...but I don't really have any room on my shelves...). They have all been interesting and good reads, but I have to give a special shout-out to World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War by Max Brooks. I cannot express strongly enough how much I recommend this book. It's written in a semi-academic style, like the kind of 'primary source collection' you would read in a college poli-sci or history class. I just...wow. International relations, political science, military strategy, and a healthy dose of applied science. It's fantastic.In other media-type blathering -
Dollhouse, the one TV show I have committed myself to watching, is going...fairly well. Episode one was underwhelming, episode two was amazing. Episode three was blah, episode four (the latest one) I adored. I also have a theory that this is sort of Joss Whedon's 'Evangelion', particularly in character relationships and the lack of easily likeable/identifiable characters. Not that I think he was inspired by Eva, exactly...I need to flesh out this idea more.
I saw Coraline a while back and didn't post about it. I liked it; it was charming and creepy and pretty as all get-out. But for the sake of completeness, I also liked it when it was a live-action movie called MirrorMask. Just saying.
I also saw Street Fighter: Legend of Chun Li which was hilariously terrible. Gotta love a movie whose director clearly assumed the audience would be far to stupid to pick up on subtle clues after only four or five repetitions.
Finally, I saw Watchmen Saturday night. I never read the comic, but I weakened and read the Wikipedia summary of the plot beforehand, which was...an interesting way to go into the movie. In any case, I really enjoyed it, even with the extreme amounts of gore that occasionally made me cover my eyes (like the handsaw scene, AAAUUUUGGGGHHHHH). Also, people complain about the sex scenes, but the deconstruction of the genre evident in including an awkward, fumbling, not-idealized sexual encounter seemed to fit perfectly with the deconstruction-of-genre that is a major premise of the movie. Plus, it was hilarious.
One final note - all of this talk about movies has reminded me that I've officially signed up for NaNoWriMo's 'other' big event, Script Frenzy. And I am freaking terrified. Writing a script is SO MUCH harder than writing a novel (formatting! Lack of description! FORMATTING!). So I am toying heavily with the idea of writing an adaptation, so at least I have one less worry with the plot already there. I can easily name a dozen books I would love to see adapted to movie format.
