Carriers

Have you been feeling a little too happy lately? Do you need something to bring you down from the ever-fluffy cloud nine? If you answered yes to the preceding questions, please allow me to recommend a movie to you.

Carriers stars Chris Pine of Captain Kirk/Star Trek movie fame and a few other people I didn't recognize and that guy from law and order svu. The movie is about a journey to a beach where the two brothers (Chris Pine and another guy) spent parts of their childhood. The world has been wrecked by a nasty virus. Most people are dead or contagious. Think Zombieland minus the humor and, for the most part, the action.

The story is pretty much a downward spiral of crap, bad situations getting worse and worse. I won't get into specifics but this is not a feel good flick.

And I'm not sure the title actually fits. When I think disease and the word 'carrier', I think of someone that carries a disease but doesn't show any symptoms. At least that's what I remember from health class. Whoever came up with the title didn't mean it in that way. I guess the characters were being carried around in a vehicle. Does that count?

Carriers really goes out of its way to show how cold and heartless human beings can be. By the end of the movie, I was like yes I get it, please stop beating me over the head with your played out theme.

We were really torn when deciding whether to save the movie for saturday night or watch it Wednesday, send it back and risk the next movie not coming in time for saturday. I am glad we decided to take the risk because that would have been one downer of a party night.

miscellaneous friday updates

My daughter got braces this week. Aaack! I feel old. She looks cute. The gap in her front two teeth is gone already which is crazy. I swear it disappeared the day she got the braces.

Check out my totally awesome fingernails! I don't usually paint my nails but I was feeling fancy. I shall call this the urban goth mani.










That is flat grey (not silver) polish with black butterfly decals, hearts on the thumbs. Oh yea, I am stylin'.

We picked up young Sneaker the newly declawed feline from the vet today. No more trying to dig a hole to China through our carpet! Max has missed his baby. He's been crying all week, even more than usual. Sneaker seems to be doing reasonably well so far.

This weekend will involve lots of reading, lots and lots of reading. My sponsor has informed me that she is ordering isbn numbers this weekend. If all goes as planned, the book should be out in April or possibly May. I am both excited and terrified.

chortles delightedly

Ok, this truly caused me to laugh out loud. I have been following the olympics in a somewhat half-assed manner. I watch a few minutes here and there, I read the stories with interesting headlines.

This dude, Evgeni Plushenko from Russia, takes the crazy cake, nuts and all. Apparently he wasn't satisfied with winning a freaking SILVER MEDAL AT THE OLYMPICS and decided to make up and award himself a platinum medal. He has his web graphics person photoshop the imaginary medal and slap it up on his website! Oh, truly this brings the LOLs.

I love a good eccentric. They bring color to the world, don't they?

Hey, maybe I can make up a writing award for myself and photoshop/post it on my forthcoming website. And then maybe you can make up an award for reading my blog and I'll mention you. But don't stop there. We can be winners, winners I tell you, one and all! Muahahahaha!

















Here is the link for the olympics story for your reading enjoyment.

http://sports.yahoo.com/olympics/vancouver/blog/fourth_place_medal/post/In-Plushenko-s-mind-and-website-he-s-the-plat?urn=oly,221408

growl

I had a somewhat irritating day today. It wasn't really triggered by any event or person. I was just a super grouch. Things that I know I should be thankful for, my daily routines and so on just hit a nerve. I tried to read some of my writing and parts that I previously loved and accepted magically became crap. This is a mood in which no one should edit.

I choose to blame the February Indiana weather. My inner goth girl loves the dreariness, but, unfortunately, also sees it as an invitation to emerge.

Hoping for a more positive tomorrow...

The Wolfman

I saw The Wolfman over the weekend. It was very gothic, very Poe/House of Usher. I love that time period - the late 1800's. Stories set during that time are romantic, cold, and dreary and have this sort of shabby formality.

The Wolfman is old school but not only because it's set in Victorian Era Great Britain.

Movie werewolves have evolved over the years into something more beast than man. If you watch movies like An American Werewolf in Paris or even that New Moon movie, the beast form is truly a beast form. Very little, if any, of the person shows through after the transformation from man (or woman) into wolf. I blame overzealous special effects artists.

The Wolfman returns to the old days, the original wolfmen who looked more like 50% man and 50% wolf. It had classic horror movie ideals (this wolfman is a remake of the one that came out in 1941) mixed with current special effects technology. The transformation scenes were still bone crunchingly gruesome and pretty realistic but the end result was a wolfman reminiscent of black and white films.

Overall the movie was okay. The plot moved along at a good clip and the movie was well done. It was definitely worth seeing in the theater but I will not be purchasing the blu-ray.

One funny thing my husband pointed out that I should have noticed was a sign next to the road that said Blackmore was 5 miles away. That sign probably should have read kilometers instead of miles, Mr. Director.

Random Thoughts for Sunday

Quotes for the Week
“Ridicule is nothing to be scared of.” Adam Ant

“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” Eleanor Roosevelt

"It wasn't because I liked fighting, it was really just that people said things to me to which I felt the only reply was to hit them." Lucian Freud

End quotes for the week

Snoop Dogg is the only man on the planet that can mention his pedicure and not sound gay.

I heard a heavy metal version of Justin Timberlake’s Bringing Sexy Back song. I’m still not sure if the metal band was actually taking the song seriously or if they were mocking it. Regardless, I was cracking up the entire time I was listening to it.

Cardio + yoga before breakfast = bad idea

The aliens in the movie Avatar bear a striking resemblance to an X-Men character called Nightcrawler. My husband was actually the one to notice this, so I can’t take the credit.

Let’s compare. Blue skin, check. Pointy teeth, check. Long tail, check. Accent, check.

Here is a link to a bunch of versions of Nightcrawler –
http://marvel.wikia.com/Nightcrawler

That’s all I’ve got for now. Have a lovely week.

Did you know...

Unless you live in a cave, you have probably at least seen trailers for the Twilight movies. Taylor Lautner is the rather muscular young person who plays the lead werewolf.

Did you know that one of his previous roles was in a very awful children's movie called The Adventures of Shark Boy and Lava Girl? The boy in the picture below is Taylor Lautner from five short years ago. That's right. Young ladies (and maybe some older ladies) have been crushing on Shark Boy.

productive weekend

ah, sour monday feelings.

I was quite productive this weekend. I finished some book related content for the author website that I should be ready to launch some time within the next month or so. I created some graphics for aforementioned website, made some adjustments to the actual book. Overall, I was a good little author wannabe.

I went back through my research binder from way back in 2006, when I first started working on the novel. There was really a lot in there - website printouts, maps of Manhattan, character descriptions. There were also some hand-written scenes, one of which was written in first person. The finished novel is not in first person. I remember that I roughed out that scene in first person to get past a block I was having.

Anyway, I was amazed at how much I changed things. Some details were omitted. Some characters became completely different people. It was interesting to see how the story evolved from those beginning days of research and rough ideas.

I think I'm going to keep those files and files like that for future books. They might come in handy.

what freaks me out the most

Do you know what freaks me out the most about watching CSI? I really hate it when they peel back faces. [shiver]

The autopsy guy or lady, whoever, whichever CSI, usually does it to get to the brain. Ugh, it is the most disgusting thing. I can handle the rest -gut pieces picked out one at a time, blood, bone, puhlease. But there is something about the peeling of the face that freaks me the funk out. I have no idea why this is.

If I had to make a guess, I would say that it's probably because the face is really 90% of the person. I don't mean that as a physical measurement. What I mean is, most of our interaction with other people is with their faces. The face often tells us how people feel, what they're thinking. The stripping of the face is, in a way, the stripping of their humanity.

Plus it's really gross. I cringe and squeal like a little girl. I really wish they would stop doing that.

really?

I read an article today about Vanity Fair's New Hollywood issue. Apparently "New Hollywood" is all white and about 80 pounds. But hey, they have different hairstyles!

Racial and body diversity issues (which abound) aside, how freaking boring is this? Who wants to look at a bunch of girls who all look identical? They look like they all came out of the same little porcelain doll factory. I can't believe that no one at Vanity Fair looked at the photos from this shoot and asked themselves why.

On the bright side, it was probably really easy to cater this affair. All they had to do was set up a table with some diet cokes and cigarettes.

Here is a link to the article.

http://shine.yahoo.com/channel/beauty/vanity-fairs-quot-new-hollywood-quot-issue-completely-lacks-diversity-578862/

current location of my mind: in the gutter

So I was taking a shower and I noticed something about one of the many bottles in there. First a picture of the bottle in question.




I would guess that whoever decided to use this image intended for it to look like the torso of a woman in an evening dress. no arms.

Is it just me, or does that look a little like a picture of a, shall we say, um, a male organ in a red dress?

interesting.

regarding pajama pants in public

And now I present to you a rant. I keep seeing women wearing their pajama pants in public, and no, I don't mean sweatpants. I mean straight up jammies. I see people wearing their pajama pants at the walmart and the target, and it bothers me...a lot. This practice is both unbecoming and tacky as hell.

The only time anyone should wear pajama pants in public is if their house burns down with all of their pants in it and they are at the store buying new pants. Any situation less extreme does not warrant the wearing of bed clothes in public. If you are too lazy to get dressed, please stay home.

Thank you.