Saturday, July 28, 2007

I Saw'r It!

Finally. (Sound off button in top right-hand corner.)
IN IMAX 3-D!!

Which was a joke. They might as well have said, "in SMELL-O-VISION!"

The opening scenes and about 20 minutes near the end does not, in my opinion, justify calling it 3-D. Not when you are part of the generation that got to watch JAWS 3-D!

Right, yes, fancier glasses (with RFID chips so you don't snag them) than when I was 8, but I'd happily go cross-eyed with the red/blue cardboard shades---that you got to keep as souvenirs, mind--if the ENTIRE MOVIE was the as-promised-but-not-delivered 3-D. Seeing as I was probably one of the only people there old enough to "remember when" 3-D movies were full-length, we went to a Friday night 10 PM showing, I kept my mouth quiet.

So the movie...(If you're waiting for the video, I'll let you know when to stop reading.)

Really, it is about what anyone can expect an 800+page book to be rendered into without having a Part I & II. It was far less disjointed than say, the second movie. I think it's a bad plan to read the book before you see the movie though because, like the annoying girl that sat next to me, you will be tempted to tell your friend with the broken feet EVERY SINGLE DEVIATION FROM THE NOVEL until the older lady sitting next to you elbows you accidentally, and when you drop your 3-d glasses in her lap, lets them fall to the floor and maybe steps on them before "accidentally" kicking them somewhere far away from her, ahem.

I come away from these last 3 films now with the same disappointment, though. I miss Richard Harris. Andy put it best--yes, he doesn't "get" the whole HP phenomena/cult, yet he will procure me a needed book, and go with me to the movies...kinda like a crack dealer or something:
Dumbledore looks like a young man playing an old man, and failing.

Kinda like in the movie version of Return of the King at the near end when EVERYONE (including the audience) is crying their eyes out and Bilbo is seen walking next to Gandalf as they are about to board the Elf boat off to the Grey Havens? The fellow is a bit overenthusiastic for a 130 year-old hobbit, or however old he was. It was a freaky transition from the old hobbling Bilbo of just seconds before. Maybe I'm the only one who noticed because everyone else was crying so hard?

Michael Gambon's entrances where he's plowing into a scene these last two movies...and he does PLOW, not strut, not amble, makes him seem like he's too young to be Albus. After all, the fact that Dummbly-dore was already a teacher when Tom Riddle went to Hogwarts 55 years prior, puts him at about a good 80 years young! I know a few 80 year olds, and as spritely as they can be? They have never PLOWED into a room like they're going so fast they will crash against the opposite wall. Well, maybe if they were wearing those new roller-sneakers. There were times when I thought he was skidding to a stop, so fast was his need to jump into a scene. Again, maybe it was the fact that I was watching Gambon on a screen 6 stories high, that his portrayal jumped out at me all wrong?

Though I can't blame anyone else of the same weird mannerisms. I mean, Alan Rickman's Snape has been funky/twitchy/melodramatic from the get go: Remember HP1 when he just about RUNS into his classroom--for the billowing robe effect--to introduce himself to his students for the very first time? (I was so tempted to do that back in my school-marmy days...Never did find the right cloak to pull it off in, though. I mean, you try that effect with muggle clothes and you just look plain silly.)

(Okay, from this point on there might be some spoilage about bits and pieces that differ from book to movie.)

It is rather odd to have the "wrong" people saying the "wrong" lines, at the oddest times...and a few of those "shortcuts" have now, actually, changed the story line ENTIRELY, for me at least. Hello? Can we say MIRROR, or um lack there of.

Did anyone catch the goat in the Boar's Head? OMG ROTFL! Or, rather, I would have been if I hadn't been at the last showing of the night with the dirt of the ages at our feet. But that was some great foreshadowing there.

Then there was Imelda Staunton's portrayal of Dolores Umbridge, wow. Pure concentrated evil brought to life. Someone has to mention it, and it might as well be me...okay, that scene where she's sitting on her throne while the kids are in detention? I mean I was almost squirming with the IMAX sound of all those kids getting hurt/hurting themselves, but um, was that an orgasm she was having? That was so very wrong on so many levels, and EVIL!

Paralleling that evil--Beatrix LeStrange. I didn't have "insane" in my descriptors of her, but I really should have. My only disappointment is that we didn't get to see more of her. I mean, within the first 3 minutes of her appearance in the books, you simply want to rip her throat out. You don't get that feeling in the film. She comes across as weak, though, and again, that bugs and makes me feel like the whole HP storyline has been altered. Cuz really, how will it look in times to come when the final (#7) showdown happens? A crazy, weak, stupid, though sexy looking Bea is not who I pictured AT ALL.

Okay, I'll stop now, lest I say too much.

Overall, yeah, the movie is "meh" compared to the one in my head...but nonetheless, entertaining on a number of sadomasochistic levels.

So, um, how many Umbridge pink cardigans with the plastic bow buttons will we be seeing this fall, hmmm? Have you all picked out your yarn yet?

Monday, July 23, 2007

No Really, Italy

I ran across this picture tonight and I had to try to figure out when I ended up in England... I love the fact that when you travel any and all thoughts you had in your head of what a place is "supposed" to be like get blown off into the um fog.

I'm at a loss for the name of the place...on the Island of Sicily...where the dracula castle was...starts with a "C" maybe?

Anyhow... this picture best describes how I felt this morning going in to work. I could have sworn I was back on the Big Island. It is so very humid and balmy and kinda that muggy feeling when the trade winds have stopped blowing before they took all the clouds away...

Maybe that's why I sneezed the other morning? Just the one time? Cuz my body thought there must be VOG around somewhere?

I dunno...

These are my 10:30 PM thoughts after my first almost full day back at work. I ducked out 1/2 hour early...72 hour recovery period? HA...Well, I am almost better...but it's that "almost" that changes everything when you are on the "having sneezed" side of the recovery window.

I'm not making sense. I am exhausted and to bed go I afore I make much more fun of myself.

Sunday, July 22, 2007

Update: Sunday...

On Not Being Dead Yet:
My mouth HURTS!

I wrote to the wonderful people I've been working with and described my status as feeling like a half chipmunk who's gathering nuts in one cheek and has just fallen out of her tree. (Under the wonderful influence of Vicodine, my savior.)

That was a few days ago and I had hoped to feel better by now.

Then...

This morning?...

I sneezed.

THE PAIN!


I did not cry, can you believe? Even after that tell-tale iron taste was in my mouth. By mid morning I was back to square one...yes, including the swelling. Urgh. At least there's no infection! Small recompense, but there's that.

I can't really afford to take more time off, so tomorrow I'm packing my ice packs and heading in to work, just call me chipmunk face!


On The Book That Shall Not be Named?
Andy traveled through the mugginess that has infected Seattle to bring it back to my sickbed. I tried to tell him the fog and muck was a by-product from Dementoid-breeding, but he just looked at me funny...I did say he never read the books.

Almost as soon as I opened the book, the skies opened up for a torrential shower, in July! I know, I know, I live in the land of rain and moss, but July? It's like God was crying his eyes out about the last book, I swear :). Anything to mess with the people who feel this book was written by Satan's sex slave, or whatever.

So here's the thing...no, no spoilers here, just a comment about the whole experience: It is just so odd to me... It's like I had to read it NOW NOW NOW! Finish it, finish it quickly! Like pulling off a band aid or something. Andy didn't believe me when I told him I'd finished it this morning (I didn't get it until yesterday after noon). Almost 800 pages, whoosh!

I'm going to re-read it now, slowly, like a normal person. Laugh at the little things, finding the grammatical nuances, think about how I'd have written a particular paragraph, or sentence, or word...you know, the usual thing I do with books. Doesn't everyone? I did share with you the fact that I was a literature major of the "deconstruction" era?

Lemme tell ya that it makes for absolutely poor training to go out and teach middle/high school literature. Possibly why if I ever teach again it will be English as a Second Language - period! Cuz you are never tempted to get into a philosophical debate about Mary Shelly's use of a particular word on a particular page when it's all about learning the language in the first place.

Right, where was I? Oh yeah, I'm off to go take some pain pills and dwell on page 92 or something.

Thursday, July 19, 2007

Kismet? or a Random Thursday...


  • Ever since I was lucky enough to score a super cheap little journal at the Pottery Barn (no link, it was on clearance) in which to scribble my wildly vivid dreams in, I've had the same dream over and over and over again:

      Me, lying in bed, writing out the dream I just had, and as I write, the dream vanishes.

    So when I wake up for real? I can't remember anything except my dreaming of me writing down my dreams. I know, I know, it's been established just how close to insanity I tread.

  • It's a couple hours, little less, before I go under the knife. Nervous is a word that pops into my head, "totally freaked out" is the going phrase. I guess that's what the Valium is for. Better living through Chemistry!

  • It's MJs Birthday today!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY MJ!


  • I am a sucker for nostalgia it seems. I'm part of an email list for a band I can never see live, seeing as they stick to venues in LA la land...but here, for the first time UTuBE wins my heart like no other. My favorite song by Windows to Sky (shall I pull a "hollyweird" and say I "knew them when"? I did say nostalgia, Ladies, gentlemen, "The Wall King":

Monday, July 16, 2007

I Got Nothin'

No, I have not seen the new Harry Potter flick, yet. So please please please don't spoil it for me :). Cuz it's not like I'm not rereading book #6 or anything right now...not like I haven't read #5 a couple/three times by now...I'm waiting patiently for it not to be sold out at my local iMax theatre. 3-D baybee, tha's what I'm talkin' 'bout. --Who said that? Sybil?

Nope, I don't have plans on any midnight unveiling of the latest book either...I hope to be deep in the throes of Vicodine at the time, actually, as on Thursday at my-god-too-early I will be having the much anticipated "lengthening" of my #18 molar. Yes, that's the nice way of saying they are going to take lots of evil looking sharp implements of destruction and cut away at my jaw! EEP!

I DO, however, have my name down at a tee-tiny local bookshop for the book that shall not be named. He'll have it on Saturday, and unless a miracle of modern capitalism occurs, I'll not get it at the whatever % discount all the big chains are offering, and I don't actually mind. See, I kinda want this guy to make as much money as he can so that he can continue to be the tee-tiny local bookstore in the area. Call me silly... Andy has said that if I am still too traumatized by the surgery, he'll pop on down and get the book for me.

Worry not, dear friends, he won't even be tempted to read it before me, he hateses the books. Nobody's perfect :).

I have a toe to graft, which takes far longer than knitting an actual sock, doesn't it? So soon I'll have another knitted item to brag about like the good little-old lady I'm becoming. Until then, I leave you with to watch some Onion. (My favorite bit is when he talks about Nigeria and their lost economy...and if you haven't been blessed by an email from Nigeria and monies that need an American bank account, I can send you one from my collection.

Friday, July 13, 2007

You See One Pantheon, You've Seen Them All

So the problem with working all day long at a computer...and mean really working, not taking breaks and foraying into the BBC, Digg, GoogleReader, etc, and et al, is that fulfilling your promise to your XMIL that you will gather together all the pictures from your trip and make it into something nice for her? Is difficult to say the least.

One picture at a time, right? Eventually it will happen. I have to keep telling this to myself.

This picture was me getting all artsy at the Pantheon. I love that hole up there...

One of the tour guides, I'm gonna guess Donato, told us that when it snowed in Rome a few years back, people nearly trampled over one another to get to the Pantheon just so they could see the snow come in through the "eye of god" ... um, or is it the column of light... I am far too unmotivated to do the research myself, so I leave that for you. You know, something to do instead of the work you're supposed to be doing :).

Happy Friday!

Thursday, July 12, 2007

Checking In to Hermitlandia

It's started again.
 
You know, I hope, that feeling of just wanting to hang out by myself and do nothing/read/maybe, gasp, knit?  The prevalent words being, by, my, and self?
 
A sure-fire way of getting Andy to laugh at me is to bust out, "All By Myself" by Eric Carmen in my best Eric CARTMAN voice whenever he's leaving me home alone for the evening.  Not that I really want to go out carousing with the guys at 9 PM on a weeknight, but you know, just to remind someone I'm there to hang out with too!  Just not as cool, and maybe not enough testosterone, nor do I drink as much as everyone else.  Right, that would be why he goes out.
 
Anyhow, I've really just wanted to chill by myself both at work and at home.  You know, eat lunch at my desk so I don't have to talk to anyone, actually say no to Andy when he asks if I want to go out and hang with people. 
 
I usually get this way in the middle of winter, though.  Maybe I'm having "climate changes" in my head to match what all is going on in the world?  I'm not what you'd call a big people person, but I'm not a hermit by any means.  I kinda need to talk to people to stay on the sane side of the spectrum.  Yet, if I talk to too many my brain feels too full and I want to go hide.
 
I think that's what's happening right now.  And maybe I'm not too far off the calendar either, if I consider the fact that in mid-July, if I was still doing the teaching thing, I'd have very little contact with anyone of any age in the middle of summer!  I'm justifying my feelings right now, I guess.
 
But see, even when I'd rather be all alone, I still post to keep my peeps in touch, homey, err, sorry, my inner gangsta' possessed my fingers just then.  Okay, going to go find a quiet place to take a break now.
 

Monday, July 09, 2007

Don't Say I Didn't Warn You

IN NO WAY SHAPE OR FORM IS THIS IS SAFE FOR WORK!
Read a Book
DO NOT PLAY THIS AT WORK! THERE ARE (as my students in Hilo would say)
PLENTY SWEAR WORDS!
And maybe really awful animated girls dancing in ways your bosses would not appreciate.

I actually first ran across this "song" while looking for that song Andy has been playing over and over and over and over...Then it was "dugg" the other day and well, I could not get it out of my head.

It's one of those times where I have to shake my head at the ridiculousness of it all, and then, having had 160 bright and shining "in the throws of puberty" faces in my classes...I shake my head even more and say, "Yeah boy!"

If all of my students had been told straight out by someone that they admired to read, drink water, take care of their kids, wear deodorant :), and BUY LAND, my job would have been done, or at least 1,000 times easier.

I've gone off about role models in the past...and am actually too lazy to link to it...but really, can't those wrestlers/rappers/sports people/movie stars/et al just stop and look at their fan base and drop a couple pearls of wisdom for their teaming masses? Or maybe just get caught by the paparazzi reading Dante, Cervantes, Bronte? Hell, I'll take Robert Ludlum even. "Not the sports page, not a magazine..."

Sigh...every day I get one step closer to being a full blown fuddy duddy adult, huh? eep.

Thursday, July 05, 2007

It Could Be Worse...

The pageantry, the spectacle, the noise, et. al., went on until after 1 AM. (Andy and Lev took some great fotos of the event and I will share them with you as soon as I can...)

I need to be at work right now...but am waiting for the signal from my brain saying it's safe for me to handle a vehicle this morning.

I didn't sleep well, and I need to be at work now...did I mention this already?

But it could be worse. I could be the candidate that agreed to come in and interview this morning...

Tuesday, July 03, 2007

Expiration Date-Nazi

Who knew I was so anal?
 
Wait!  Don't answer that!  RHETORICAL QUESTION, peoples.
 
So one of my coworkers needed some sugar, NOW, and found an old box of those 1000% sugar meringue-thingies in the little kitchen.  It was in the cabinet for food that's pretty much up for grabs.  She offered some to me but the cookies LOOKED stale so I read the "Best Before" date.  October, 2006. 
 
Her response?  "Twinkies have a 7 year lifespan."
 
Right.  Well.  When you gotta have it, you gotta have it, I guess.
 
Did I mention I don't eat Twinkies either?

Sunday, July 01, 2007

I Love the Internet

How did we get by before having access to all this information at our fingertips?

I'm so glad I grew up in this age...although I'll bet it's what would have steered me to be a reference Librarian in days of old. Or Maybe I'd have thrown my back out when last I moved, as I'd have to drag a library with me instead of my mini mac...(it sounds so much less McDonald-zy that way).

Ladies and Gents, the heretofore unnamed "etude" that Andy has been practicing vigilantly every day now is:

Let me just say that the fellow singing? He doesn't sound all that happy to me...kinda angry actually...but then, it is German. It's bound to sound at least a little odd to me.

Besides, to me, Hawaiian music? It all sounds really melancholy. Beautiful, but very melancholy. I mean, they could be singing about how happy they are to be hanging out at the beach with their family and friends and the beautiful flowers (cuz there's always something about beautiful flowers in those tunes), and to me it sounds as if they are lamenting something big.

Yeah I know, I'm weird that way.