And really bad eggs

On a tip from Muzekez, I went in search of Buffy and Angel DVDs on the cheap at Kmart yesterday. What luck! They had Angel season 4 and Buffy season 7 part 2. Each for $33. The cheapest I've ever seen them. So Angel went onto layby and Buffy went home with me. I was rather irritated they didn't have part 1 of Buffy, but that's life in the regional world.

I also found Cirque Du Soleil's Journey of Man on DVD in Big W, meaning I could tell Target to stop not looking for the missing disk.

So I spent the better part of today watching Buffy special features and a few eps. Of course, that had nothing to do with the fact that last night I was rather ill and I'm still not the best. So a day on the couch was unavoidable (I'll keep telling myself that).

It occurred to me recently that I have a blog named after Buffy (that's not the revelation), and I've not yet done a post about the show. I feel inspired to and will get to it soon no doubt.

One of the special features on the disks was Joss' Top Ten favourite eps. All of them were eps he wrote and directed. No surprise there, but it got me thinking about my faves. I realised that there are eps that are fantastic, but they aren't my five. So I've decided to come up with my own 'Best of'  and a 'Favourites' list.

On a completely different topic, as of the word 'tip' in the first line of this post, I've written 20000 words. It's a very strange feeling knowing that I've inflicted that much of my verbal drivel on the world. I was kind of hoping that it would coincide with my 100th post, but I wasn't able to hold out that long. 

I received an email today that was one of those quiz lists. Where you answer a long list of questions about yourself and then email it to all your friends. I was mentioned as the most blonde and the funniest to this person. I'm rather happy with those. Neither are bad things. The point of this story is I often think I am perceived as an odd person, I'm ok with it, and sometimes I actually foster this perception. So I was a bit surprised I wasn't listed as the 'strangest' in this persons list and the person who was would not have occurred to me. I always find peoples perceptions of other people very interesting, and this just adds to the mystery.

To explain the title of this post. Bad eggs aren't why I'm ill, I've had the song from The Pirates of the Caribbean in my head all night.

Everything at Once

I've got blogblock. I've got a bunch of things I want to post about but can't actually start any of them. I just sit and stare at the screen. Maybe I have burnout? Unlikely. Perhaps it's daunting because I've created a list and the pressure of having the list is affecting my willingness to complete the list? Am I have blog performance anxiety?

Or maybe I should get to the point.


Paper Cuts - Monster Island
I've started the next Buffy novel. Monster Island by Christopher Golden and Thomas E. Sniegoski. It's a crossover novel, so to anticipate multiple story lines and more characters than I could poke a stake at is wise. I'm still in the first couple of chapters and haven't left Sunnydale yet. I like what I have read so far. The vomiting bug demon was a low point.

In most of the novels, a 'Historian's Note' is added in one of the first pages of the book. Giving an indication of when the story is set. Usually something like 'set in the first half of season 2 of Buffy'. The fun part of this is working out exactly where the book fits. From the events and current position of relationships you can usually whittle it down to a point between 2 episodes. Sounds a bit fanatical, but that's what I'm like. Monster Island doesn't have this little hint as to time. So it's set a bigger challenge for me no hint at all. It's not hard to guess that it's in Buffy season 6 and Angel season 3. So far it's before 'Once More, With Feeling' and after 'Life Serial'.


Paper Cuts - Wicked Wisdom
A book I had seen around and added to my want list. Wicked Wisdom: A Cynic's Dictionary is a dictionary in the sense that is has words listed in alphabetical order, but rather than traditional definitions it features quotes that give a different perspective on the word. The quotes are from the famous and not so.

I was given this book last week. My Mum bought it to put away for Christmas, but as happens so often with us, we can't wait that long. So I have it to enjoy now.

Some excerpts:

Easter
A national celebration of chocolate. Mike Barfield.

Pessimist
A man who thinks everyone is as nasty as himself, and hates them for it. George Bernard Shaw.

Pun
The lowest form of wit - unless you thought of it first. Anon.

Thinking
The hardest work there is, which is probably why so few engage in it. Henry Ford.

It's very amusing.


DVD Additions
I've finally been able to pay off a Layby of DVDs. Dark Angel season 2 parts 1 & 2, and Futurama season 2. Woohoo!

I think a new section should be added to the Blogger profile page. Favourite TV addictions.

I got each set for just over $30. So I grabbed them then and laybyed away.

Futurama is excellent and the commentaries for every ep are always a laugh. Occasionally funnier than the ep itself.

Dark Angel season 2 is very good. This series is strange. Had places to go, then James Cameron up and left. There's some good stuff in the second season, but it seems to have been grasping at straws for places to go.


The end
For a post that I had troubles starting, I managed to blab on enough. I feel better now.

T.R.U. Phone Home

So. Last week Miss Match and Tru Calling were replaced by a crappy Goldie Horn film. They had advertised Tru Calling throughout the week. I check my TV week to see that this week there is another movie on this Friday night too. What does this mean? Channel 7 have screwed us AGAIN.

I didn't mind Miss Match. A no brainer show that I was here nor there about. It even had Charisma Carpenter guest star. Tru Calling was on the verge of joining my 'must watch every episode ever' category.

The crunch of the matter is, both shows were looking like they were sitting on the chopping block in the USA. Miss Match got chopped. Tru Calling, to the surprise of many, didn't. Jane Espenson, who wrote many Buffy eps, has even joined the staff for the next season.

7's 'Girl power' Friday had it's midsection dismissed. How stupid was that promotional campaign anyway. Three totally unrelated shows, a renovation show, a romcom, and a supernatural drama, all grouped because they all starred women. It made sense to schedule them adjacent because hopefully the earlier would lead into the latter, but it was clear that they were trying too hard to make it work.

Prime time Friday never really works for any series. Football dominates Friday nights. It's a sad fact. Also, according to audience analysts, no one is home on Friday night. NO ONE.

So I am no one. I've known it for a while now, but thankfully TV audience analysts have confirmed it for me. But. If no one is home, who is watching the Football?

So I'm not just a no one, I'm doubly the no one, because I'm frequently home on a Friday night AND I'm not watching the Football (which no one is home to watch).

So, in despair, I look to my TV Week in the vein hope that at least Tru Calling has been sent to the 10.30 slot it deserves. Nope.

My next point of call is, of course, the net. See if anyone knows anything. No. Just lots of complaining about it's absence. Last point of call, which should have been my first, was Buffy.com.au forums. The story is 7 has taken the shows off because the Olympics are coming. They intend to resume showing the series afterwards.

What a ridiculous notion. 'The Olympics are coming'? They have to stop airing shows that are watchable, so, by the time the Olympics are on and we've got nothing else to watch we are used to 7 having nothing on? It is strangely logical.

There were three Fridays that could have aired episodes. Instead we have the decision to not watch 7 made for us.

Maybe I'll go out.

Paper Cuts - Doomsday Deck

A short book that took me far to long to read. Every time I went to read it I was interrupted, fell asleep (I read mostly before sleepin) or wasn't able to because of unfavourable circumstances. It is not that the book wasn't interesting, simply a series of unfortunate events that resulted in a long read of a short book (sounds like something from Jasper Fforde!).

Doomsday Deck is one of three Buffy books Diana G Gallagher has written (re: Obsidian Fate). 193 pages makes a concise story that doesn't stray from the main plot at all. There isn't room for any deep delving into the thoughts of characters or deviations into established relationships.

Thankfully there weren't any references to Angelus. Otherwise I would no doubt be complaining about misspeling again.

A good distraction from my ongoing indecisiveness about what to read, but not the most memorable Buffy novel.

I, Robot

No, I'm not talking about the season 1 episode of Buffy, I'm talking about the movie where Robots go bad.

I had relatively low expectations for this film. Not that it was going to be bad, that it was going to be 'robots are going to kill us all'. I'm not for that (I don't want robots to kill anyone).

Director Alex Proyas is an Australian who has headed up 2 previous flicks filmed here: Dark City and Garage Days. This was the reason I went to see the film. I was hoping to like it.

I did. I don't think it will be a film that everyone will enjoy. It's varied in it's approach to the story. The plot is rather simple and the plot twists are not very twisty, but I never felt bored by it.

If you like Will Smith because of his talent, it is a nice change to see him play an angry cop. If you like Will Smith because of his 'talent', then you will probably really enjoy the first 5 minutes where he shows a lot of skin.

It was the things that surprised me that made me like it. I felt like it was a quiet film. It's not, there aren't noisy bits, but it had an lower overall volume intensity (I'm not talking purely sound level here). It's promoted like an action film but it doesn't really fit that category exactly. I'm not giving anything away by saying Will doesn't have sex with the leading lady. There was a moment when I thought 'If you kiss her and sleep with her now, I'm leaving'. He didn't and I stayed. So that was good.

I was surprised by the tenseness of the first half, it fell away once the robots went psycho. Unexpected to actually have that from the very start. So often the ominous feeling has to be built up, because the concept is so flimsy 30 minutes of mind numbing 'character histories' are shown so we are concerned when they get the crap beaten out of them by the big bad.

I really liked the robots designs and how they were created. I actually stopped thinking of them as CG characters. I was never distracted by 'real' actors eye lines being wrong and physical with actors contact was excellent. They were nicely creepy.

I do admit to thinking about the similarities between the Terminator bots and these bots. We're taking over the world. A different bent of course, but it's hard to miss.

I certainly have a new respect for ants.

There were a couple of shots in the final battle thing where the camera did some big loop-the-loops round the action. Like being on a theme park ride. I gripped my seat, not from feeling ill or woozy, but from the extra punch they added. They are some of my strongest mental images from it.

I'll put on it my DVDs to buy list.

Tools

While composing posts of late, I have discovered I have a need to search for topics I've talked about before. I tried using the premade Google thingy and nothing I searched for was found. That wasn't going to do. So I used Google for it's proper function and searched for a search tool.
 
The one I chose to use is pretty amazing, even most the basic functions available with the free account are enough to make my brain melt.
 
I don't really expect anyone to use it, I added it purely for my own needs. Who else better to provide for than myself, I say.
 
And just to see if it was truly a good search tool, I had to make sure that 'Helen Mirrens Breasts' and 'Pregnant Delivery Pictures' produced results...

Exotic Death Test

I will mauled by a mob of midgets.



How will you die? Take the Exotic Cause of Death Test

There are somethings in life just worth doing. I think this is far more reliable than any TV show 'Life Expectancy Test'.

I discovered this through a blog I've added as a link: The Idle Thoughts of an Idle Person...

Paper Cuts - Soul Trade

Set back at the start of Angel's season 1, Soul Trade was a good remedy for the show's finale. Oddly enough, it's about black market souls collection and trading. With only three main characters to play with the plot was kept very simplistic, yet I was never bored with it.

When I recall the events of the book it seems as if it should have been very short, not over 300 pages. Perhaps it is the way Thomas E. Sniegoski crafts the tale that makes it zoom. This is the same feeling I got when reading the middle volumes of Christopher Golden's The Lost Slayer series which were under 150 pages each. They have collaborated a number of times, so it's not surprising there is a similarity.

A good, simple, quick read. No serious problems with characters or dialogue. Well, except that Doyle says 'ye' a little too often.

I have moved back to Buffy now. Doomsday Deck by Diana G. Gallagher. At under 200 pages. It hardly feels like a book at all. Season 3 turmoil as per normal, and Xander's is enthralled by a lovely female artist. A quarter way in and it's been one brief read.

I think I'll keep plodding through my novels till I finally decide what other book to read.

DVD Goodies

Ezydvd are having a sale in October. They are selling all current seasons of Buffy and Angel at $59 for a complete season. I don't have Buffy s7 or Angel s4 on DVD yet, so I thing this is my opportunity to get them cheap.  The catch is that they are in one case rather than three. I'm ok with that.

I have been fortunate with the DVD's I have. For the 17 packs I have, I think they cost me less than $50 per pack.

Wow, that's the first time I've thought of them as a whole. That's a lot of money...

They are worth it.

Chaos Bleeds

At last, after many months, I have finished Buffy:Chaos Bleeds Xbox game. There are many bad things about this game that I could go on for hours about. Things like Willow's voice replacement, stupidly hard puzzles to get past, and bad fighting flaws. Now that I have finished it, kicked Ethan Rayne's butt, I have that nice sense of accomplishment you get when you have beaten something you had nearly given up on.

I have to admit that I did have a little help from a walk through we found online. That's how tough a couple of the puzzles were. As I am not a fanatic gamer, nor a game designer, I just don't think the same way they do. If I push this block over there, it will stop that from going down so I can go under it. Simple. Besides the fact that I didn't know I could push that block.

For me, the first Buffy game is the way to go, it's got all the cool things you want to see in a Buffy game, good game play, scary demons, and well, it's a Buffy game. What more can you ask for?

How would I Murder?

Imagine my surprise when this was the result:

Vampire...
Weapons are not your thing. You would prefer to
pummel your opponent to death with your fists
and feet. You show a lot of Honor but some
power still eludes you. I can give you this
power, I can make you stronger, join me.

Click Here for the picture

How would you Murder?

Angel Tidbit

The plot thickens around the still hot topic of Angel's cancellation. It's been quite a while now since the news broke of the chop, so The WB has decided to pass the buck of blame for cancelling the series to 20th Century Fox who produced Buffy and Angel. Apparently they were 'pressured' into making a decision early, and if they had the chance to wait till the end of the season 'perhaps' the decision may have been different.
 
TOO LATE!
 
So The WB are eager to have Joss and David B sign on to do some mini-series. Lets hope they wait long enough to let them happen.

Helpful Helpers

I've discovered a couple of really helpful little programs recently.
 
The first is one I've only just installed. MSG Plus is an add on to MSN messenger that lets you do all sort of helpful things like change your status settings to personalised things like 'gone to the loo', write longer messages, control pretty much everything you want. It also has 'Boss Protection' so if you're chatting at work, a couple of key presses will hide all windows and change the msn icon to something else. Tricky.
 
The other is some thing I've found endlessly helpful writing posts here. IEspell adds an extra line to your Right Click menu that lets you check the spelling of anything you've typed into an Internet Explorer window. I know Blogger has spell check, but IEspell is more customisable for the words that I tend to make up.

Blocked

Instant Messaging. A wonderful technological advance that I can use to keep in contact with my friends who live around the country and the world.
 
The problem with it is that it can become too demanding. Every time I get on-line MSN log's-in. Fine. Most of the time I'm interested to see who is on-line the same time as me so I've got someone to chat to while I blog, surf or email. Sometimes, though, I want to get something done, or just chat to a single person. What do I do? Appear as away or simply block the people I don't currently want to chat too. It's usually nothing personal, simply a way of controlling how my attention is divided.
 
Tonight I was informed I was being blocked by a 'friend'. Now, as I've just said, I've got no beef with blocking, but to tell me that I am being blocked and no real explanation given is the reason why you don't tell people you are blocking them. No matter what, you will make them feel really crappy.
 
To add insult to injury, I didn't even start the conversation. So colour me stumped.

Mood Swing

I have been, unsurprisingly, in a bit of a low mood for the past couple of days. Was just listening to Josh Groban. A very talented young man. Bastard.

Anyway. It is a very good cd, but when in the wrong mood, it can make things feel sadder. So I changed to Bond. If you've not heard of them, I'm not overly surprised. A string quartet who play famous classical pieces with a fresh look. Some of it is a bit doof doof, but it's times like tonight that I have them for.

The reason for this post is this mood change helper reminded me of a book I bought years ago. The Tao of Music by John M Ortiz. Looking at it again, it does seem quite self-helpy. Thankfully I've not turned into a complete loon. I just find it interesting to look at how music can be used to help. I actually considered Music Therapy as a career. Briefly.

Oh Blother

Love Blogger. Love all the recent updates.

Now they've changed the create post section and it's making my life harder. All the new functions and tweaks are great, except I can't help but tinker in the 'edit HTML' section. So a post that I could write and edit in 10 minutes, now takes 20 because I have to tinker. I hate messy code. So once I've finished writing I'll go through and clean up the code.

It's very bad.

Paper Cuts - Obsidian Fate

I've moved on from Obsidian Fate to Angel's Soul Trade, finally. Took me too long to read a book that short.

Obsidian Fate by Diana G Gallagher is quite a good Buffy novel. Set about two thirds of the way through season 3, it has all the old gang together. There's the Angel/Buffy and Cordelia/Xander/Willow/Oz (not a foursome btw) relationships. Giles, sadly, is still alone and is manipulated by a woman who looks 'similar' to Jenny Calendar.

There are a few new characters that we'll only meet in this story. Thankfully they aren't all killed off, and none of them were irritating like some novel characters can be. I was thinking that I would liked to have seen one of the new high school characters appear on the show. Too late for that now. Unless there's hope for the cartoon.

I was still appalled every time 'Angeles' was mentioned... It's Angelus!
 
Soul Trade by Thomas E Sniegoski is enjoyable so far. Angel is trying to be inconspicuous with Cordelia doing distraction stunts and Doyle's in trouble. All is normal. I am glad to be taken back this far as to not link too much in with the finale's events.
 
The first thing I noticed when I opened this book was in the Acknowledgements Joss Whedon is thanked as Joss Whedan. Whoops.

Inconsolable

In no way is this going to be a coherent blab about Angel's finale. I am still in shock and can hardly think about certain scenes without getting bleary eyed.

If you've not seen the finale don't read on. I'm likely to ruin any surprise for you.

I have not made it a secret that I've been a little disappointed how this year was rounding out. I still think it was clunky and rushed. Forget it all. None of it matters now.

I was speechless for the last 15 minutes I think. I kept making incomprehensible noises though.

Spike's set up like he was about to brawl, but reads his poem to Cecily instead, had to be his best moment ever.

Wesley tending to Illyria because there was nothing else for him broke my heart.

The moment Lorne shot Lindsay was when I lost the plot (mine not the shows). The horror, surprise and complete loss really blew me away.

Unfortunately I came across an article that revealed that Wesley was going to die some time ago. I was really angry, not because they were going to kill him, but that I found out. Although, in hindsight, the lessened shock may have been a good thing. Only so many things my brain can handle at once.

So yeah, I was a blithering mess when Joss' name flashed at the end. I am glad I watched it alone.

Pregnant Delivery Pictures

hmm.

My Netstat counter tells me all sorts of info about you, my reader. Nothing personal, scandalous or truly interesting, just tidbits about the you computer etc. It also tells me the country you are from and how you got here, i.e. what link you clicked.

It tells me what things you searched for to get my site as a link. So I've been linked to from Google for searches about Shrek 2, Cirque Du Soleil and Angel. Today I was listed under a very bizarre search, one that I can't help but laugh (right now, that's a good thing. re: the above post).

So someone, for some reason, needed to find sites about...

Pregnant Delivery Pictures.

I'm not hiding anything here. There aren't any secret password protected areas that feature gigs of bizarre fetish porn.

So the only plausible explanation is that I mentioned Jaime Bergman's guest role as the pregnant woman in the Angel ep 'Time Bomb'.

This will amuse me for a while.

As will the searches I will appear in now that I've written the words bizarre fetish porn.

Argg! There I go again. There's going to be a lot of very disappointed fetish-types out there.

1380

The number of minutes before we are plunged into the dark unenviable world of Whedon-free TV.

Mean Girls

In recent history I have been going to films multiple times. Don't know why exactly. The films were very good or I went with one person then with another (That makes me sound popular, I'm not), or I was bored and there was nothing else worth seeing.

Last Friday I went with a friend to see 'Mean Girls'. The non-teen movie. Well it is a teen movie, but it's a teen movie with a real twist. As is the habit with this type of film, stereotypes aren't relied upon to make jokes, they are leant upon so hard the stereotype is shown for what it really is, mean. That is where Mean Girls varies from the rest. It presents the stereotypes in similar circumstances, but goes further and tips them on their head.

Traditionally minor characters are 'unfortunate' in some way, unsurprisingly, due to their appearance. What Mean Girls does is introduces them, treats them the same, but by the end rewards these people with the respect they deserve as people.

Lindsay Lohan plays Cady with convincing innocence, but not slipping into cliche stupidity. Rachel McAdams as Regina, Lacey Chabert as Gretchen Wieners  and Amanda Seyfried as Karen Smith as the three 'plastics' played up the laughs well. Lizzy Caplan as Janis Ian was a fresh look at the crazy outsider with Daniel Franzese as Damien. There wasn't one of them I didn't like by the end of the film. Which says heaps because typically I can't stand any of the characters by the end.

Tina Fey, of Saturday Night Live fame, adapted the script for Mean Girls from a book called 'Queen Bees and Wannabes: Helping Your Daughter Survive Cliques, Gossip, Boyfriends, and Other Realities of Adolescence', apparently it has helped millions of girls in America survive school. Fey also plays Math Teacher and , of course, has given herself a very good part.

Janis' comment, 'Seeing a teacher outside of school is like watching a dog walk on it's back legs.' Is one of my favourites. Also, Cady's 'She's like the Barbie I never had'.

Cady's internal monologues proved that she wasn't completely possessed and provided more comic moments. The animal-like safari scenes were amazingly precise at representing what was going on. And truely funny.

It's not necessarily a cinema flick, but I recommend watching it in whatever format suits.

Attend the tale of...

Sweeney Todd. One of my favourite musicals.

ABC recently aired the concert version and I, being a fan, taped it. I have had the main theme in my head for a few days now, and having the opportunity to do some work in front of the TV I put it in. Sweeney Todd In Concert is still just as creepy and thrilling as the show itself. Patti Lupone as Mrs Lovett and George Hearn as Sweeney. Both are amazing.

Last year I saw a production of it by the Opera Queensland and it was brilliant. Never have I entered an auditorium that had a strange air of tension about it. This show is a thriller in every aspect. Music, content, design all amplify it. Judi Connelli played Mrs Lovett and thrived in the role. Steven Page was adequate as Sweeney, I didn't feel he had the right energy. Which is strange because he's played Todd hundreds of times around the world. The rest of the cast were fantastic. It's a show I'll look back on with great memories.

In the Concert version, Patti LuPone is a powerhouse performer, she takes on Lovett with an amazing gusto and verve. You can't help but like her.

It certainly makes you think twice about eating meat pies.

Doesn't stop me though.

Angel - 5.21 'Power Play'

Well, after last week's frivolities, it was expected that this week be far more serious in tone. If it wasn't, I would be worried what new drugs the writers were taking. With very little build-up (a couple of obvious evil type decisions) Angel is suddenly this uber wheel'n'dealer who doesn't care about the little people and abandons his friends. Huh?

It just didn't seem to fit. Too fast change, this is.

The only thing I liked about this teaser opening was the pay off later on, when I discovered the scrawny guy who Angel bites is Drogyn.

Angel finally gets to have sex. Anticlimactic and seemingly false. Used to show that Angel hadn't gone completely bad, the Nina relationship subplot is a waste to use on obvious plot devices.

Loved the Illyria and Spike banter about haunting the halls of Wolfram and Hart. Illyria and Drogyn playing an Xbox was also a hoot. If only they had discovered where Spike hid the two Buffy games.

I got the inkling that someone may die next week. There may have been a hint about that, or a howler.

Wesley's deterioration is expertly played by Alexis Denisof. It was a very smart move by Joss and Co to bring him on as a regular way back when. He's rarely let the ball drop. I just hope he survives. I would be sad to see any of the regulars get done in, but Wesley's death would cut the deepest.

I was interested in what happened to Lindsay. I don't know if I mentioned it in here, but they sacrificed a lot to bring him back, to only let him speak a few doom and gloom lines. I didn't understand why they would waste such an opportunity to find out everything he knows. Surely they have access to the best ways of making someone talk.

If Marcus Hamilton's super-abilities weren't already established, he's got to go beat the crap out of Illyria and drog, sorry, drag off Drogyn. The liaison to the Senior Partners has been a mystery that I'm comfortable not knowing. A child of the Senior Partners Eve once said. Her superpower must have been the ability to irritate in a single sound.

Thus, we find Angel is in the 'gang' now. The Circle of the Blackthorn. Surely, a sudden change of heart by the noble Angel is going to be seen through like a Matrix extra's wardrobe. These people are the oil in the cogs, so one could assume they are smart and distrustful enough to doubt the change. There's that clunky forced feeling I've been getting again.

So it all leads up to an epic battle to come. Everyone is in on the deal. Did Lorne actually raise his hand?

Just for kicks

Click here and read The Slayer Library in Spanish!

Or

La Biblioteca del Asesino.

It makes me wonder how well what I write translates into another language. How do words like humna and whatna translate?

This will keep me amused for a very long time.

Burnout

A very interesting article about blogging. I am still new to this game and enjoy the freedom I have in writing what I want, and the contact with others.

I think I am not going to have to worry about getting burnout somehow. I don't think my posts will become so important that I'll get emails wondering if I am ill. In fact, I expect to get emails asking me to stop posting!

Currently, if I don't post for more than a few days, chances are my brain has melted and I'm head-down drooling on my keyboard from playing BookWorm for 38 hours straight.

Life Expectancy Test

Channel 7 devoted a couple of hours to this complete waste of time tonight. Surely, I am not the only one who thought that this was the biggest bad idea since Australian Survivor. I am sure it got the viewership it targeted.

The whole concept of the night was, you purchased a local Sunday paper that had a answer sheet in it, then spend Sunday night watching morning TV hosts ask you the multiple choice questions.

I did not watch the show as a whole, I switched over to it during ads of other stations.

They started with basic questions questions like sex, weight, heartrate. Which make sense if your looking at someone's health and longevity. Then onto questions about diet and lifestyle. Still reasonably relevant to life.

Then came the corkers.

'Do you ride or are a passenger on a motorcycle?' What!

'Do you talk on a hand-held mobile phone while driving?' Huh?

I immediately switched over and never went back after that. Ok, riding a motorcycle can be dangerous, mostly because of other drivers, but being a statistic used in your life expectancy? If anything it's going to knock a lot more than a couple of 'points' from your age.

Same with mobile phones. Talking while driving is stupid. And lots of us do it. When it's looked at properly, if you are talking, or worse, texting while driving, chances are you'll kill someone else rather than yourself. So the marks should be taken off those random people on the street.

I think that this type of thing is just asking for trouble. How many people are unstable enough to take this sort of thing seriously and go off the rails? I certainly think it's a good way to get therapists on side, they are likely to be very busy this week.

Mortality is something we all have to deal with and ultimately face, but it's up to each individual to come to it in their own way, not have it thrown in their face by a statistic based, non individual, guessing game, ratings machine.

Only when we take the road of Gattaca will life expectancy predictions be worth paying attention to. Even then, taken with a grain of salt.

Who knows what tomorrow will bring.

Oh, the evil of it all.

I believe that evil exists. Not that's it's founded by or controlled by any dominant power. Just that it exists.

The most recent revealing of this evil is in the form of Book Worm. A little game that asks you to find words in the random combination of letters. You score points for longer words and more points for harder letters. It all seems quite innocent.

It's NOT!

This game eats up time. In the way it makes you go through every possible combination of letters you can think of, it opens up a black hole and just sucks time away from you. It was too the point before, that I had to sternly tell myself that I should stop. I needed to get away otherwise I would end up wasting my life in front of it. Just like the Mirror of Erised, I could go mad looking at it all day.

I'll write another post. Then, I've got words to keep finding.

Evil.

Serenity

Joss Whedon's failed series 'Firefly' is being continued on the big screen. Titled Serenity , it is currently filming in LA with Joss as director.

It's his first feature film as director. He's written a few others but Buffy has given him the reputation that he needed to get support for a film.

Universal is releasing it late April 2005.

Run Forest!! Run!!

Quizzes are very funny indeed. This one selects the movie that you should be IN. Apparently, I should be in....



Forrest Gump! HA!


What movie Do you Belong in?

Harry Potter 6

I know I'm a bit behind the ball, but I've just found out the new title of HP6.

Harry Potter and The Half Blood Prince.

Two things strike me after reading this; 1) It's not the greatest title to say or read; 2) I don't recall any mention of royalty in any of the books. Unless we're talking about dark lords, kings of darkness etc. Colour me confused.

When I read the books again later this year I will certainly be paying more attention to characters and being more aware of subtle setups for future use.

I have spent a bit of time tonight wandering around JK Rowling's Official Site. It is well designed and, although it seems a little dull to start with, has a bunch of easter eggs waiting to be found. The hunting is more fun than the prize at the moment. I have come to a stand still right now. I can get no further. Somehow I knocked over the cup of pens and pencils and I can't do it again. I also don't know what that did for me. I left it and decided to go back later. Or I'll do a search and see if I can find a walkthrough.

Half Blood Prince. I don't see it sitting right for me until I discover more details.

Paper Cuts

As expected I chose a Buffy book to read next. Obsidian Fate by Daina G. Gallagher was on the top of my pile. I'm about 1/3 through and it's not bad. The story is acceptable and characters believable. She hasn't wasted alot of time on characters that will soon be dead. So it's good.

Except.

She can't spell Angelus. Angeles!! Indeed.

It is rather important to gain the trust of your reader by showing that you know the characters inside and out. The most obvious way to achieve this would be to spell their names correctly. It is an error possibly made by any number of people, but it does not reflect well on the author. I cringe everytime I come across the word. It is similar to a soloist fudging a note, it scrapes the spine.

I hope there are no more references to Angelus.

Roving with Spike

Last night, as some may already know, James Marsters was on Rove. An opportunity for we of the Southern hemisphere to see him sans Spike.

It was an interesting 5 minutes, not from anything the Rove asked but watching the James the person. Boy does he fidget. I am known for my inability to sit still and accept it in others, but he was bouncing around like a child on red cordial. He claims to have been nervous. That may account for hiding his mouth and having a very itchy chin, but I suspect that it was the serious nicotine he was absorbing through his arms that had him so restless.

He talked about amazingly interesting things like the phrase 'how you going', his nicotine patch addiction, and being recognised, but that's Rove's forte. He seemed to have an odd regard for Australians. I think it is a good opinion of us, but he also seemed like he might be a little scared of us. Which is strange. Admittedly I don't think we get star struck a lot, perhaps that is why. He feels he has to prove himself. I think that's a good thing.

The really interesting part of the interview, of course, was when he divulged a bit of goss about the future of Whedon-world. He's agreed to do a Spike TV movie. No details unfortunately only that it depended upon other actors signing on to return to their parts because it will be one of FOUR TV movies. Happy will I be if that happens.

Hopefully it will be three other characters worth my attention. I'll ponder the four I would like.

If you want more details on James' time in Australia go to Buffy.com.au. They have reports from those who attended events.



To see more images click here.

Paper Cuts

I've finally completed Robin Hobb's Fool's Fate. A fitting finale to a wonderful series. These are the books I love to read. The feeling of contentment while reading is a strange feeling, chiefly because it is so rarely felt. I love reading and do it constantly because I enjoy it. Perhaps the reason why I devote so much time to reading is the search for that buzz of enjoyment. Something I'll ponder further.

Fool's Fate closes out the Tawny Man series quite completely. Every loose end is tied up. I mean every. Not just from this series, but from the Farseer Trilogy as well. When you read the last line it does ring quite true. Thankfully it's not all too easily done. As is the way of this tale, everything is hard and no choice is made or acted upon without a series of unforeseen consequences.

I am thankful that it finished with sufficient opportunities that a third series may be possible. It is unlikely, I think, to happen in the near future. Perhaps one day Robin Hobb will concoct a story to take us on a new ride with Fitz. I certainly hope so.

I am in the 'what to read' zone again. My habit of late has been to read a Buffy or Angel novel between other fiction. That seems the easiest choice for now.

Quizzes

I love these things as much as the next person. Here's my result from this one.

"You are an SEDF--Sober Emotional Destructive Follower. This makes you an evil genius. You are extremely focused and difficult to distract from your tasks. With luck, you have learned to channel your energies into improving your intellect, rather than destroying the weak and unsuspecting.

Your friends may find you remote and a hard nut to crack. Few of your peers know you very well--even those you have known a long time--because you have expert control of the face you put forth to the world. You prefer to observe, calculate, discern and decide. Your decisions are final, and your desire to be right is impenetrable.

You are not to be messed with. You may explode."

HA!

Calendar Girls

Last Wednesday after seeing Spidey with a couple of friends then wandering aimlessly around shopping, we retreated to one of their homes to make pizzas and watch a vid.

Calendar Girls was the flick. A stock standard English film based on a true story. It's all warm and fuzzies. Good for a bit of light excapism. Helen Mirren and Julie Walters are a great duo and remind us that good actors should have comic timing as well as good drama skills. I did find that I kept picturing Mrs Weasley alot while watching Julie Walters, but that's to be expected.

Watch it if your in need of a good laugh and don't mind heavy English accents. Be warned that you need to prepare yourself to see Helen Mirren's breasts.

Fun with Photos

While browsing for Spiderman pictures, I found this one. It's just funny.

Spiderman 2 - The Amazing Spiderman

In the 5 days it has been open, I've been twice. That doesn't happen to me very often, but I liked it enough to be willing to go twice in close succession.

Spiderman 2 begins 2 years after the events of Spiderman 1. Not that hard to grasp. Peter Parker is struggling to maintain his grades at college, trying to keep a pizza delivery job and, you know, save people. Life's not great. Harry Osborn has taken over Oscorp Industries. He's still in mourning over his Father's death, and takes to the bottle for solace. His hatred and sworn vengeance for Spiderman is intensified by his alcoholism. Mary-Jane Watson is a successful actor and model. Her face appears on billboards around New York. She still loves Peter but that doesn't stop her from dating.

Spiderman 2 is visually a big step up from the first. Sam Raimi has shaken loose the studio reins and takes the camera further than before. I dare anyone not to be impressed by the web slinging sequences. If you felt like you were flying in the first, then you'd better hold onto your armrests, because you will be flying along with Spiderman again.

The Big Bad is Doc Ock. A man who has 4 mechanical arms attached to his back. I am unfamiliar with the comic, and don't know the history of the characters, so I assumed that Doc Ock was going to be another bad guy who did something monstrous to himself because of his lust for power, like the Green Goblin. This doesn't lend itself to creating an opponent who can easily be feared. I find most of them weak and annoying. Doc Ock isn't one of that ilk. In fact, he's hardly a nemesis to Spiderman at all. He only hunts him down when he has something to gain from it.

Alfred Molina portrays a likeable and very human Otto Octavius. His role as the Comte De Reynaud in Chocolat is the role I remember the best. I was glad to see him cast as Doc Ock. The mechanical arms attached to his back are amazing. A combination of CGI, puppetry and animatronics, the arms are a character in their own right. By combining the three techniques to bring them to life means I could rarely tell what was real or not.

The arms bring me to one of the things I didn't like about this film.

The danger of giving a director more freedom is they can make a bad choice. This bad choice was to feature so many to-the-camera close-up screams. This sort of technique should be left to schlock horror and parodies like Scary Movie. Rather than intensify the horror of the moment it detracted from it.

The train fight sequence was excellent. Fighting on a train, with all the dangers therein, created an intense, well choreographed and executed sequence. A lady sitting at the end of my row was vocalising her reactions all through this part. It wasn't distracting, in fact it made the scene more enjoyable, because I was thinking the ooh and eeks she was saying.

Peter Parker's story is the ups and downs of being a masked superhero. Trying to find a balance. Something most of us are likely to be doing. I fully understand why chose to give up the super business (being a superhero myself. Shhh!) and how rough the guilt about not helping must be.

Tobey Maguire delivers an excellent performance, as is expected. There were a few for many lingering close-ups of Peter looking forlorn, but that's easily forgiven.

Kirsten Dunst needs to re-evaluate her hair and makeup team. She should be the 'girl next door'. Instead, for most of the film she looks like they stopped doing her hair and makeup halfway. It is brought more into focus because the first shot of the film is a billboard image that is airbrushed beyond belief. No one can stand up to that comparison. Perhaps it should be a new clause in stars' contracts that beauty should be evenly presented throughout a film.

Spoiler Alert for those who know nothing about the film.

The wedding sequence at the end was a complete waste of time. It oozed cliche. Spiderman saved MJ during the night. Sure that was enough time, probably 12 hours, to make her decision not to get hitched. Yet, she still waits to get into the dress before she runs away. Ridiculous. It served no purpose but to pay off a caviar joke.

Spoiler Over

A very enjoyable film that is a worthy sequel of the first. It lags a little in the middle, but not enough to induce sleep. With the set for film three quite concrete, three years is going to be a long wait for the next one.

(All pictures copyright Sony Pictures)

Webhosting

After a long time of separation with my free web space from my ISP I have been reunited with it. What does this mean?

I can put pictures here.

Create other pages that won't disappear after a week.

Expansion all over.

Just not me.

Tru Calling

Tru Calling had a lot to live up to. Whether they were fair expectations or not, I wanted this show to be good enough for Eliza Dushku not to do a Faith based series. I am glad that it has proven itself to be worth my viewership.

It must have proven itself to be popular because channel 7 decided to air another episode at 9.30pm last night. I didn't see any advertising for it. When I switched over from At The Movies, and saw Tru I frantically through a tape into my machine and press record.

Having missed the set up it took me a bit to catch on. Missing the first run of the day makes the rest of the ep no less uninteresting or more confusing but you don't get the things Tru has changed to make everyone's lives better.

So at 9.30pm tonight I'll be ready for it.

I feel that the show has a lot of potential and many directions it could explore. I hope it keeps it's standards up.

Angel - 5.20 'The Girl in Question'

Welcome back David Greenwalt. Absent since the end of series three, having him back to direct is like a breath of fresh air. His rhythmic and whimsical direction style bring back the life Angel had when it started.

This was the episode that had to happen. This was the episode that she was not in.

We have already had the Angel/Spike throw-down this year, so it was unlikely that it was going to happen again. And if it came to that chances are Buffy would have found a way of slapping them both down (while being off camera the whole time). For those of us that had read any of the wide-spread media coverage that Sarah wasn't going to appear on Angel, we knew from the outset that they were never going to find her. Which made the whole episode seem pointless.

Sending Spike and Angel off on an international hunt for a loosely introduced demon type, then giving the flash backs to back it up, was all the more pointless. Yes, the threat of a demon war in LA is serious, but it all seemed too manufactured. The cracks are really starting to show that the last episodes were drastically altered to end the series. This type of episode rarely is so close to the end of the season unless it serves a purpose. The purpose wasn't clear.

Back to the good. With Greenwalt at the helm this was definitely going to be an episode that contrasts. Angel and Spike in Italy posed limitless opportunities for laughs. My favourite was Angel's jacket. The comic timing they have is excellent. The slow motion fight with completely opposing music for a nightclub brawl is a great example of Greenwalt's work.

It is always a good thing to see our old pals Darla and Drusilla back. Neither really had a lot to do or say but each had one thing that made them memorable as usual. Darla's 'fornication' delivery and the flashback of Spike and Dru in 1950's Rome saying 'ciao. ciao. ciao. ciao' was a crack up.

Andrew lacked anything really funny to say. No fault of Tom Lenk's, his performance was right on the mark as usual. He just didn't have anything to play with.

Harmony and Lorne are underused as per normal. Why bring Mercedes McNab on as a regular and then do nothing with her?

Gunn is back to annoying me again. Is he doing his old job? Or just moping around the office? Leave that to Angel I say.

Wesley and Illyria provide the serious arc and what a downer it is. I was talking at the TV again when the Burkle's walked out of the lift. My face was making the same expression as Wesley's. Of course my next thought was 'how is he going to tell them?' My jaw was ajar when Fred walked into the room. I knew instantly that it had to be Illyria but for that moment it was a little heartbreaking. Followed quickly by unease. Illyria acting like Fred was weird. It was a perfect performance by Amy Acker, but it seemed very unnatural. Precisely the way it is meant to feel.

If Fred had been all close to her parents since she returned from Pylea, then would they not have tried to contact her in the past month that she's been gone? A bit odd.

One of the most enjoyable episodes this season, even if it didn't fit into the scheme of things. I wish that David Greenwalt had come back to visit Angel sooner.

Calendars

I only just discovered that it is now July. How can this be? Where has this year gone? I'm rapidly heading towards middle age!

I'd better go change all the calendars.