A couple of colours in this one.

Really lethargic today. Got up at 3 something and had a two hour nap at 8. The time is currently 12:25am.

Who’s that guy that says “the time is currently…” I feel like there’s some radio guy that does that.

I imagine I’m mostly just worried about this brown discolouration at the base of my left hands middle finger. I just noticed it Monday- I’ll set up a doctors appointment tomorrow to get it checked out. Of course if I get any useful advice from my doctor it’ll be the first time. Yeesh. I’ll probably die of skin cancer and the guy’ll tell me to get some bed rest or something.

I’ve got a bunch more library comics to talk about, but I’m actually just about to start work on my weekly reviews, so I’ll hold off on that.

I spent about an hour at the gym today, from 10:45pm-11:45pm. Despite my lack of energy it was the best non running workout I’ve had in a long while. The music system played that “Boys of Summer” song, I’m not sure what it’s called, but I do love to hear it at this time of year. Maybe it’s a little late in the season to be listening to it- nah it’s still appropriate. I’m not entirely sure if it was the rockin’ out awesome version that I like, or the original- but if I’m not sure, then it was probably the new one. Whenever I hear the old one it’s super obvious it’s the old one. It’s the slower pace you see. The song feels more methodical then.

I also heard Pearl Jam’s “Alive” on the radio. I’d like to check out the lyrics sometime, it sounded like it’s about some guy who fails to perform with his girl (possibly because of some survivors guilt?), or else just isn’t excited at all to be with his girl. I don’t know, like I said, I’d like to check out the lyrics sometime.

This is my last post for September, finishing off my first month of blogging without actually having the internet at home. I’m surprised how well I did, a couple weeks back I thought for sure I wasn’t going to be able to meet my quota, but here I am, moonwalking across the finish line. Or whatever you do when you’re about to cross the finish line and are supremely confident about winning or something.

Oh, I beat Catherine last night. The last couple of levels I had a bit of coaching help, but that’s just because I wanted to be done with the whole thing. Other than maybe trying some versus mode, I’m done with that one.

Yesterday I had this dream where I was being pressured to take this drug that made you super smart and fit. I felt bad about it- but I did take a swig of that blue bottle, reminding me now of Alice’s various size changers. This led to me taking some brutal exercise course with, I suppose, whomever developed this system and a bunch of other class mates.

I remember this one old woman, slightly over-weight, who was having trouble breathing, that the instructor stopped to berate for not keeping up because she wasn’t using “all that strength she had to keep herself standing” for the exercise. I thought that was horrible and woke up soon after.

I thought there’d be potential for a story somewhere in that dream, and I guess there still is, but I realized it would just be a slightly modified version of Limitless- which I already thought was an awesome movie/story.

It’s 1am now, I’d better get on those comic reviews. I’ve got seven to do, which isn’t too bad at all.

Oh, yesterday after the rain there was a rainbow- how amazing is a universe that has rainbows? I totally get where double rainbow guy is coming from.

The good really does outweigh the bad

Well, that’s two really rough days at work over with. They had me sweating bullets, with the little juggling act I did with a CPU and pretending I wasn’t doing anything with the CPU. That took acting skills. I may have just earned a daytime emmy.

But there were some really nice things too. A gorgeous girl gave me chocolate and told me about an experiment involving neutrinos going faster than light. I’m pleased in that has-to-be-the-smartest-person-in-the-room jerk way that I already knew about that experiment, but it was still super great.

And a really nice resident gave me two chocolate bars just because. I haven’t eaten them yet, but still, really nice.

Man, that’s actually a lot of chocolate.

And today I found a perfect condition copy of Michael Chabon’s The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay that someone just left out to be recycled. I was like “… yeah, I’m taking this.”

It was at least at one point my buddy’s favourite book, and he even loaned me his copy so I could read it (I know, generous). That was actually back in that year of school when we lived together. That was a crazy time. A good time, now that I think back on it. Though I guess everything is relative.

AND someone was getting rid of some random weights! Now THAT’S crazy. Weights ain’t cheap, son! So now I’m the proud owner of a single 30lbs dumbbell, two 5lbs weights, a 7lbs weight, a 10lbs pound weight, and a bar for those weights to go on. Not sure how useful the SINGLE 7 and 10lbs weights will be, but we’ll see what happens.

Maybe they’re cursed weights.

Okay, so now I sound like a scavenger going through trash for this stuff- a thought that, trust me, I find pretty gross, germaphobe that I am, but the book was on top of a box, not on the gross ground at all, and it called to me.

The weights… well, weights are expensive! Also, it’s not like I trust the cleanliness of the weights at the gym anyways.

Enough of me being defensive.

I said I was going to talk about more of those library books I picked up, uh, but actually I’ve just got hit by the sleepys. I did only just now get back from my security shift- I think it’s legitimate for me to be tired!

It’s raining right now, which is good. It’s cooling. I feel like I’ve been stuck in sweat mode the last couple of nights trying to sleep. It’s gross.

And I see we’ve got daylight poking in the windows through the trees. I wonder what I’ll be up to today? Sleep first, find out later.

Looking at some books

Okay, let’s do a couple of blurbs on these comic book collections I picked up from the library. So, in not necessarily the order I read them in (so I may have forgot the order, so what?):

Vol. 7 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer “Season 8”
I picked up the first, I don’t know, 12-16 issues of this series for a friend- actually, I was just going to get her issue 1, but then I didn’t see her, so I picked up issue 2, then 3, etc. etc. so I got to read a fair amount of this series.

Volume 7 collects issues 31-35, so I’ve definitely missed a bunch. Mostly all the different things that Dawn has been transformed into, in a sort of running joke I guess (she started the comic series off as a giant!)

Eh. Buffy has awesome superman style powers in this book, which I take it most fans found sacriledge. I do agree that it changes the book too much, but obviously I don’t care all that much. Seeing Xander geek out over the powers was fun, and having a sour faced Dawn show up in panels repeating the idea that these powers are going to turn out to be bad was pretty funny.

The likenesses of the characters are captured pretty well- but sometimes not. Those are the stupid panels. And there’s an impossibly long sex scene in the book, so maybe go buy it for that.

The Goon vol. 10 Death’s Greedy Comeuppance
The Goon is an amazing series that I’ve somehow read entirely out of order. And by somehow, I mean I kept grabbing random collections out of the library. It’s written and illustrated by Eric Powell, and illustrated is definitely the right word, because his books are beautiful… which is an interesting counterpoint to the horror and dark (dark) humour of the books.

It’s that humour that sets the book apart. The Goon himself is so quiet that his sidekick (okay, I forget his sidekicks name at the moment…) does most of the talking, thereby elevating the silliness level. Again, I’d like to stress the darkness of the humour- this book series ain’t for the easily offended.

The backup story is about this deathless death-seeker named Buzzard, sort of an anti hero in the Goon books (uh, Goon is already an anti hero… so Buzzard is a super anti-hero? Buzzard is sort of a mostly good zombie, so take from that what you will.), travelling around with this kid on a quest to kill this monster that’s been terrorizing a village or somesuch.

In the end, Buzzard doesn’t die (which means he failed in his goal) and his travelling companion kid does get killed. It’s pretty sad. The kid’s last line is “I prefer to not know what it’s like to not be in awe of the stars.” On account of Buzzard mentioned that you get old enough things lose their shine and interest for you, the stars being the example he gave earlier in the book. But then Buzzard ends the tale looking up and “remembered a time when I was in awe of them.”

So those are two books, I’ve got a bunch more, but that can wait until tomorrow.

Complain complain

I’m so tired. I just finished my comic reviews, after giving up on sleep, a rough wake-up-a-lotty four hours isn’t going to cut it for today.

I had a terrible dream yesternight that I won’t go into, but I know exactly what it’s trying to tell me, and I’ve got to figure out what to do about it. I know, I know, my ambiguity is enthralling.

Returned Ulysses to its rightful owner. She’s moving to B.C., so I’ve got to find a new copy to read. Hopefully a similarly annotated version, even though it’s the fact that I’ve got those extra notes to read that really slows down my progress. I’m sure I’d understand it well enough if I plowed through, but so long as those notes exist I-MUST-READ. Them.

In the meantime, I picked up a bunch of comics from the Fairview library, which has a superior collection of comics. Before bed last night I read through the first volume of Jeff Smith’s Rasl, and then my body was all “wow, that was cool! You know what else is cool? Never sleeping again!”

So, my body is a big jerk.

Argh okay, I’m going to try for another hour. I’ve got plans at 2pm-ish, so this degree of tiredness is unacceptable.

I wanted to write more here, but this is going to have to be it.

Oh, but even as I was distressed by terrible dreams, yesterday I found attached to my toiletries bag (what, you don’t have a toiletries bag?) a little sticker looking thing of a dove. It was a good little calming message for me, so that was cool.

P.S.- I’ve now slept throw everything. That’s wonderful.

Drive

Drive was an amazing film. A lot of it was silence, a silence that was left to us to interpret, but that was a task that readily clicked into place.

What are the thoughts in those silences, what do they mean? If you didn’t think about the answers to those questions you weren’t actually watching this movie.

Not that this should be anything but obvious, but by not narrating everything, by not telling us what the characters are feeling (“That makes me feel angry!”) a multiplicity of meaning is opened up for us. The sort of inner dialogue that I privately infer won’t necessarily be the same that you hear in your mind.

And BAM, man, I love the strong silent type. This film makes me want to go hang out with a crowd of mostly strangers, since in that arena I usually slip into the silent role. Ah it’s so cool.

There was this cool 80’s thing going on with the lettering and music. Pink cursive writing, and I don’t even know what it was about the music that was 80’s to me, I forget, but it was.

Oh, here’s a tip going into it: Drive is a super hero movie. A violent, Punisher-esque super hero, but still. He’s even got a symbol, that giant scorpion on the back of his jacket!

The violence was a little much. When it finally kicked in this kid (or maybe just a fragile woman) started crying and had to leave the theatre. If it was a kid, hey parent, maybe don’t take your kid to a movie like this, and if a grown woman… uh, don’t take yourself to a movie like this.

I’m amazed (sure let’s talk about this some more) how well the silences worked here. It ratcheted up the tension to the umpteenth degree without being awkward (like that one long black screen in Captain America that was supposed to symbolize his hibernation, that got laughs from people due to awkwardness). There was, however, ONE scene where Gosling and Mulligan are looking at each other meaningfully and I was thinking “is- is she about to smile there? Or laugh or something? It doesn’t look like she can hold this silence much longer…” But it was just that bit that was a close call. Everything else was smooth, appropriately tense sailing.

And you know in real life the main character couldn’t just be about driving. He’d have a fishing hobby or something. But most of these characters have been boiled down to their basic archetypal essentials. Have you noticed I haven’t mentioned the Driver’s name yet? Either it wasn’t mentioned much, or it just wasn’t mentioned period. (I’m not sure)

The hero, the mentor, the love, the villain, the rival. Not so much ‘the kid’ though there is a kid there. Anyway, it’s a super economical film. I keep saying to people that the whole of the dialogue is probably only twenty pages of the total script.

I think that’s a good estimate for the sake of comically saying that there isn’t a lot of dialogue here… you know, if a script is usually about 110 pages or some such for a movie then, then 20 pages is a low percentage of pages is what I’m trying to say.

But yeah. Strong silent type. I’d love to hang out with someone and just be able to sit there with them. None of this talkin’ talkin’ talkin’ I usually do because I have to keep you entertained in me (or maybe just entertained period.). Let’s just be.

Brief look at Dillinger’s and Fatboys (that sounds weird)

I “borrowed” from the library two movies. And by that I mean I borrowed them legitimately with my library card and everything. Who’d steal from a library?

I guess you can mentally thrown in the appropriate dig at the Ford bros. right here. Ford bros.? Can you imagine if they made a Mario parody based on those guys?

I picked up the films Public Enemies and Run Fatboy Run.

For those not in the know, Public Enemies is based on the true story of depression era bank robber (I mean 1930’s, not Twentynow’s, even though the times have been increasingly blurred together) John Dillinger- possibly the best name for a bank robber ever- and the agent that’s on his trail, Marvin Purvis. You know they stuck with the real names when they make a movie with a “Marvin Purvis” in it.

Dillinger is a sort of Robin Hood figure, at least that’s how people idealize him. He takes only from the rich, but he doesn’t exactly give to the poor. He was really charming in that scene with the reporters after he was captured- which is a thing that really happened! - But for the most part he was a little on the creepy side. Dillinger was played by Johnny Depp, so maybe that’s just what I should’ve been expecting. Great in Edward Scissorhands though.

That said, when Dillinger became cut off from his support network because they’d found better ways to become rich than robbing banks, you felt for him. He was the last of a species, quickly becoming outpaced in a new age. Factor in the fact that he’d become such a liability partly because the syndicates were so eager to use him, making him a famous criminal that couldn’t hide out so well AND Dillinger only became a hardcore criminal after spending ten years in jail after he robbed a convenience store as a kid (it’s a good picture for jails as criminal factories) well, Dillinger really was a tragic figure. That’s how the movie plays it anyways.

Purvis is an excellent foil to Dillinger as another man out of time (and wonderfully played by Christian Bale who really did his homework on the man. Bale really is a great actor; I don’t care if you think his Batman voice is silly.). I thought the opposite at first- Purvis was a champion for new crime fighting technologies and strategies- he was very much on the cutting edge, but as his co-workers got increasingly desperate to capture Dillinger (a small fry in the grand scheme of things, but a famous one) Purvis felt more at odds with himself, that he was betraying his “southern gentleman” values.

In the end Purvis wasn’t the man to kill Dillinger- the perils of a chiefly accurate adaptation of real life- so no climactic gun battle here; Purvis, by that point, wanted to wash his hands of the matter anyways, so the films emphasis on Purvis not taking that final shot is a deliberate one.

Also, it gives more opportunity for Purvis’ right hand man to look cool. Seriously, that guy was amazing. My brother Simon thinks he was the evil general guy from Avatar. Yeah, you know, THAT guy.

I only just watched Run Fatboy Run yesterday, but man was it sweet. I was surprised by the degree to which I disliked the protagonist at the beginning, actually, I’m getting ahead of myself.

So the film is about a guy who left the love of his life at the altar, when she was pregnant, and five years later, threatened by the new man in her life who often brags about running in marathons, he decides to run in a marathon to show that he can be dedicated to something, a changed man.

The film is pretty formulaic, but comfortably so. It hit all the beats where I wanted the film to hit them- “and here’s the part where he decides he’s running for himself, his own self worth, instead of just for the girl”- and they were such that if the movie DIDN’T hit those beats I’d be disappointed. The story is more genuine and affecting for those beats.

I was surprised at the degree to which Hank Azaria’s “new boyfriend” role descended into villainy. Of course he seemed perfect at the start, but even before the actual race when he goes really bad you could see that he was too high strung, too forceful. Things were his way, or no way. (Conversely, the highway. Wait, I did that wrong…)

But having that guy be clearly bad makes it possible for a reconciliation between hero Danny Doyle and ex- fiancé Libby. It’s super sappy at the end of the race, but again, I liked it. And the sappiness is even pointed out in the film itself- when Danny finally crosses the finish line, collapsing into the waiting arms of Libby, with their five year old son also waiting to embrace dad, the scene cuts to Hank Azaria back in his own bed room (or someplace) looking at the news camera view of the scene shouting “I can’t beLIEVE this!” as the commentator says in a joyful tone “Doyle’s done it, oh and he has a son! Can you believe he has a son?” suggesting “isn’t this too perfect?”

Fortunately, the ex-couple aren’t just immediately back together afterwards. Life pretty much is back to normal except Danny now has a running hobby (I approve) and self respect. He asks Libby to dinner next week, she says okay, and we’ll see what happens in the future.

Reasons why I’m not an impartial reviewer for Run Fatboy Run: I like running, I like Simon Pegg and Simon Pegg movies. But I still recommend it.

Read that headline thing below in a nasal voice. You know the one.

I’ve been holding onto the Toronto Star’s Entertainment and Living section from last Tuesday’s paper because there’s a story in there that I found fascinating… and now that I’ve scanned the paper I re-remember what that was.

The article starts by outlining a typo an author made in her latest book that changes a sex scene (I assume it was a sex scene) from racy to racier. It’s like Speed Racy. I just wanted to say that.

(For the curious, she replaced “shifted” with “shitted” in the line “He stiffened for a moment but then she felt his muscles loosen as he shifted on the ground.”)

But from what was really a non event (HEADLINE: BOOKS LOOKS SPOOKS PALOOKS- this wasn’t actually the headline, to be clear, I just wanted to sound old time newsy) then gets turned into a quick look into a new reality in publishing, that of the too quick turnover, with little time for comprehensive copy editing.

As an additional example, the end of the article cites an Australian cook book, Pasta Bible, “whose recipe for spelt tagliatelle with sardines and prosciutto needed salt and pepper, but instead called for “salt and freshly ground black people.””

That- that isn’t a typo, that’s a whadaya call-it, a Freudian slip on the part of the writer. ‘Cause that example’s just crazy.

Past couple of days I was feeling down, but I put on my blue jacket, only the second time in the season I’d done that, and felt more truly myself. I guess there’s only so much of wearing someone else’s uniform, being someone else’s stooge, that a guy can take.

The stars were gorgeous the past couple of nights.

And going back to my old school diet of pasta and pumpkin seeds (plus raisins when I find some… and the concoction really does need the raisins) has been a book for my late nights. Where as just before I started this regimen I’d had some of the toughest times staying up in recent memory, with this new diet my last five shifts were pretty easy to get through.

Ulysses is still a rough read through, haven’t gotten very far and I’ll have to return the book to its owner soon.

Phoney Bone and the rest.

Feeling just a touch under the weather, so I’ll be keeping an eye on that. I’ll get cleaned up and go for a walk or something, but no gym excursions today. Yeah, yeah, now it sounds like I’m making excuses.

Last week I got to read Jeff Smith’s full collection of Bone (Jeff Smith signed my copy! Spelled my name right and everything!), the fantasy adventure/fish out of water tale of the cartoonish Bone cousins who find themselves in a valley (called the Valley) at the centre of a magical war between humankind and the rat creatures.

I kept going on about how I’d never read it, but for the first hundred pages (granted it’s a 13 hundred page book) I knew every panel. I read it in Disney Adventures magazine when I was little. Not that I’d ever forgotten that, but I just assumed I was getting things out of order, that I’d missed all the comics about the Bones adventures in Boneville, and other things like that. Nope, pretty much a straight line.

While normally I really don’t like the magic/fantasy thing, Bone is easily an exception. In most of my experience, let’s say, The Lord of the Rings books, the main character is always useless (even though everyone gushes about how important they are). Frodo carries the ring to Mordor, makes questionable decisions about the company he keeps, and keeps nearly falling into the clutches of evil. Yes, Gandalf said the ring would make him evil, but seriously, just hop on an eagle, fly to that volcano, and finish it up, bing bang boom.

Stupid giant Eagles. If they weren’t around, maybe I wouldn’t have this problem.

But yeah, in relation to Bone- sure, the Bone cousins don’t exactly bring a lot of skills to the table (although Phoney Bone’s deductive skill may have saved the whole universe at the end…) but that’s okay because the gag is those three characters are completely in the wrong strip. They should be in some gag a day comic, where the worst thing that happens is someone gets a delicious pie in the face, not facing off against a Locust possessed Dragon that created the world.

There’s a lot of exposition, but in the context of having nearly every page stand on its own, I’m very okay with it. There are a couple of times when the humans get a little angsty and therefore unhelpfully stupid, but I guess that’s the human condition.

I love how everyone’s so down on Phoney Bone for his various money making schemes, but when the chips are down he’s always there for his cousins. There’s always that beat panel where he looks at whatever treasure he’s about to sacrifice, but most times when that kind of character is around they really try to play it for drama and only barely make it in time to save the hero or whomever. Phoney Bone takes that beat to look at treasure, then immediately goes to help out with plenty of time to spare.

Rounding out the Bones is Phone Bone (specifically NOT Phoney Bone) and Smiley Bone, who sort of reminds me of Jeff Smith himself… just in that happy-go-lucky way about him. Though I’m sure he’d rather be emblematized by Phone Bone, that guy is the hero, more or less. The sensible one. The one that, apparently, COULD have stayed in the Valley to rule over it with the hot princess (!).

That was actually a big surprise- Phone Bone spent much of the book crazy about Thorn (the princess, not that they always knew that), and then nearing the end appeared to be really torn between going home to Boneville and staying in the Valley (with Thorn). But at the end he’s like “Of COURSE I’m going back to Boneville with you, Cousins!” And Thorn isn’t surprised at all- she must be amazingly humble- she’s like “oh yeah, I had the suspicion that you’d go back home with your cousins.”

I just think staying should have been considered a bit better is all, what with all the build up to leaving at the end.

No question, this was a great book. It’s interesting to see Jeff Smith’s (you can’t really call him “Jeff” or “Mr. Smith”… how would you know who I was talking about?) own interest in multiple worlds, the difference between what we’re told of Boneville versus the Valley, the physical world versus the dreaming/ghost realm, just because he’s delving into that even more with his follow up project “Rasl” about a dimension hopping art thief.

I wonder how long that story will go on for. It’s only really just started- Bone went for around 13 years!

I’m a little sad, by the way, that I’ve finished the main story of Bone. I think I heard there were some bonus material issues or something just for fun, but regardless, here’s this one huge comic, according to Time “one of the top ten Graphic Novels”… uh, maybe they said “in existence” that I’d never got to read… and now I have. There aren’t that many more sort of ultimate, history defining comic collections that I have to check out.

Even my missing Squadron Supreme has sort of turned up, in that my buddy now acknowledges that he must have it. That’s almost worth me having lost my origin of Impulse comic collection.

Slash trade paperback.

NOT slash graphic novel, which is a pretentious name for something that, sure, thinks poorly of itself and therefore tries to build itself up with a big name, but is really more than good enough to be considered on its own merits. “Graphic Novel”. A comic is a comic is a comic. And it’s a fantastic medium.

I’m biased maybe.

Argh this one girl, who I always take special care to speak to on her birthday to the point where she expects my call now, just fully wished some dude a happy birthday – while having forgotten mine for, what? The past two years?

What (also) really bothers me is the fact that I know I’d be less bothered by this if she weren’t so hot. So now I’M the jerk.

At least I have access to spell check.

So I have no internet right now, and it’s likely it’ll be awhile before that gets fixed. It’s not a huge huge deal. I can write my comic reviews same as ever (maybe a little faster even, what with the fewer distractions) but it’ll be a pain to go out to upload them.

And I miss dictionary.com. How am I supposed to know for sure what certain high falutin’ words that come to mind means and whether or not they’re actually appropriate in the context I want to use them in? (You may or may not be surprised by how often they are in fact appropriate).

I don’t usually get any important e-mail, so that’s all good. I’ll lose a bit of my hilarious presence on the facebook, but that’s really more everyone else’s loss.

Would you believe this word document I’m typing in tried to capitalize “facebook”? I have to continually go back to switch it back- I don’t care how insidious this thing is, if I don’t want to allow it the dignity of a capital letter then that’s how it’s going to be!

My last two days at work were ridiculously difficult to stay awake through. The second day had the extenuating circumstance of an earlier dentist’s trip in addition to being –again- the second day of work, but still, rough times. I gave up on keeping my sleep schedule in place on my days off, just did what my body wanted, and did nothing my first day off but snooze.

Huh. Just realized today is that decadeaversary of 9/11. Maybe tomorrow we won’t have to hear about peoples reflections on that day (seriously, why has the edge radio station been doing that? Not what I tune in for.) Of course MY story is kinda funny, while also painting me in a stupid light. Fortunately I am quite sure I’ve told it here before, so we’ll be skipping that.

That first day of rest has returned to me the ability to focus my eyes (that’s a keeper) and I had this cool dream that I was visiting London, England for no reason and I rode this convoluted transport system that I had a great time describing to my audience here (it required ‘VSHHHHT’ sound effects and hand motions, so yes, it’s harder to describe just in words. And not nearly as fun.)

Imagine you had a series of tracks in front of you, and with a sudden *insert that sound effect* a single row of flat seat bottoms appeared in front of you on the track by your feet. But before you could get on, and hopefully before you make a move to get on, a second row of seats appears in front of you, displacing that first row one column space away from you. This would keep happening until all the tracks (six? Seven?) had a row of seats. But that’s not all that was designed poorly! Because the dream English are CRAZY the tracks actually sloped up the further away from the platform they were, the effect being a flat seat on the first track, a sloped seat that was impossible to stay on, then a higher plateau seat, then another useless slope seat, then another plateau, etc. etc. until all the columns were filled up.

I got on a seat before all the rows were finished coming in, so my perfectly functional seat was now on an angle and I fell over.

Then I talked with these four women who invited me to stay at their place- so then I think I was immediately on a road on the way to their place. It was dark and snowy; I walked through the slush, careful not to kick it around. I was having trouble walking, but that was because I was (apparently) holding two pillows and a comforter between my legs. The houses around me were enormous, everything about their dimensions were twice as big as you’d expect in a normal house. I had the thought that of course this was just how you’d build a house in the old world, you had more space then.

I was coming to the realization that I had no idea which house was the correct one for me to visit when I saw all my friends from the train (I guess) station poke their heads out of a window. Excited to see what the inside of these houses looked like… I got woken up to eat food.

Well, it was a good snooze anyway.

My legs are sore from running a bunch yesterday- I’ve gotta get back into shape! Oh, not that the first thing ties into the second right there… my legs aren’t sore BECAUSE I’m out of shape, they’re sore because I did a decent amount of running. Glad to have cleared that misconception up.

Alright, that’s it, I’m showering and getting out of here. I’ll go upload this somewhere, maybe see if that one cyber café at Victoria Park and Lawrence is open and useful.

30 Minutes or Deathly Hallows

Went to see, in case it wasn't clear, 30 Minutes or Less and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part Two (aka, HPDHPT).

I had a lot of fun at both, but uhhh...

I went into 30 Minutes or Less with standards set WAY too high. This movie definitely isn't Zombieland (brilliant play on the genre). I was expecting a much greater emphasis on the driving aspect of the whole thing- that's what they always talked about in the interviews!- but no. Cool as it was, the chase scene was surprisingly short. The villains were not only sympathetic, but had their own character growth. And a happy ending!

The heroes drove off into the sunset with a hundred thousand dollars... but that still doesn't solve the deep set problems that had always held the main character back. I told my brother that, instead of a coda showing the villains getting a happy ending I'd rather see something about the future of the main characters, what they've learned from their experience and whatnot.

I guess I get it if the creators want a "30 Minutes or Less 2" but this film really doesn't warrant a sequel. Not that that's ever stopped anyone before.

Harry Potter was just dumb. I was expecting to be all touched and whatnot, and sure, they got me a little bit when Harry is talking to all of his dead family and friends via that resurrection stone, but most of the time I was laughing at how ridiculous it is.

Why did that happen?
Why did THAT happen?
Now why did THAT happen?

I know the whole setting is magic... but this just reminds me why I hate stories with magic. They don't bother to set up the rules of things more clearly, and so the plot moves forward just because.

Okay Hermione, destroy the Horcrux
No I can't
You have to
Okay then
*Stabs Horcrux*
*chamber gets flooded with water briefly*
*Hermione and Ron make out*

^- how do those events lead to the next? Stuff just happens!

At least Neville was rocking. I want the Neville movie.

And seriously, could people please just help the guy trying to stop the evil dark wizard without taking a million hours to act mysterious. Every time he needs help - I can't tell you (for some reason)- You'll see (after five minutes, so I'm just being dramatic)

Rrrr this movie. Not like it was even possible to end things satisfactorily. Lotta build up, that's all I'm saying.

"Bimbos of the Death Sun" (it's a book title! a book title!)

Still nothing for September yet, eh? And I still haven't done my write up of Fanexpo?!? Er, I suck- but also, pretty tired lately. I fell asleep a good 6 hours before I planned to just now, and can only hope I can get back to sleep because I need.. to stay awake.. at night.. for work.

Sharyn McCrumb's "Bimbos of the Death Sun" was a quick, easy read. It'd been a while since I had one of those, so in that sense the book was quite refreshing. And, good or bad, I could've easily finished it off in a night, so not a whole lot of torture there (as it stands I finished it in a night and some change.... I ended up with stuff to do that kept me from finishing right away)

The book mostly follows this engineering professor who got this idea for a hard science concept, made it into an SF story, then got published with the embarrassing title "Bimbos of the Death Sun". Naturally, this professor would rather his students not know he wrote it... and that seems easily done, since even no one at the science fiction convention (where the book takes place) has really heard of the book.

And that's an example of a detail that comes up that has no bearing on anything. If there were a bunch of students at the convention that he had to dodge, that'd be one thing, as it is there was ONE student there grom his class, and he almost immediately tells him why he's there ("It's a long story.." No, it isn't.) and gets the kid to promise to not tell anyone at school about his book. Zero conflict, a pointless little side note.

A quick little epilogue where he returns to class to find EVERYONE now knows about his book, because the kid spilled the beans, would've been really funny, and justified the set up. This book is touted as humourous, if the critics are to be believed: "Bar none, McCrumb is the funniest woman writing mysteries today." - Kirkus Reviews

"Funniest woman writing mysteries". How much competition is there for that title?

I wasn't pleased with the mystery of the story. The character that was supposed to die and kick things off (as reported by the back of the book) doesn't shed this mortal coil until after a hundred pages in! I was beginning to wonder if there'd been some terrible advertising mistake here! But when there was finally a mystery to be solved, it still didn't feel like there was one, because I honestly didn't care.

I told someone that the real killer was obvious, but now that I think about it, yeah, I just didn't care until the book made it ridiculously clear who the killer was near the end.

To catch the killer, our engineering prof hero runs an unfair D&D game to get the guy to slip up and confess. He DOESN'T tell the police officer chilling out with him this plan, which ended up being insanely dangerous (the cop ends up surprised, with a broken arm AND shot! I'd be super mad at the protagonist for doing that to me, but they play it off as if it's nothing.)

And the second we see the protagonist is now into the D&D thing, it was clear he was pulling the old Hamlet trick... but it isn't until the very end when the english professor girlfriend is like "Ah! The play's the thing! I get it!" Evidence would've also worked.

Augh, the book is all over the place. With an ending like THAT, and since everyone could've safely been "player-killed" in a Dungeons and Dragons game, they should have really pushed the Hamlet connection, but no, it was just a one off line.

This book won an Edgar award, I believe the award for mystery fiction.

Bimbos of the Death Sun was written in 1988, so I was prepared to cut it some slack for its age, until I remembered: What? Did Poe create the genre in 1980? Was 'A Study in Scarlet' written in '82? Did Ronald Reagan feature prominently in 'The Murder of Roger Ackroyd'?

No? You say the mystery genre has been around longer than that? Even if the science convention stuff seems weirdly archaic ("we already use 'electronic mail' in the engineering department... it'll be a big thing in the future" and the police have no idea how to copy info onto a computer disk) I'm okay with that, that tech world was legitimately new. I'm sure there was a time when the police department thought computers were an impossible nut to crack!

But the craft of the mystery should have been no such novelty to the writer.

She, uh, really doesn't portray science fiction and fantasy fans in a positive light. She's probably more right than wrong about them, especially back in the 80's.

And what was the deal with the scottish folksinger? Were we supposed to think he killed the guy? Sure, the police wouldn't know he was innocent, but we were very aware of his lack of motive. To justify his place in the book, he SHOULD have been guilty.

I don't plan on reading the sequel, "Zombies of the Gene Pool".