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Sep. 6th, 2010 08:20 pm
wickedwords: (wickedwords blue and gold skies)
Previously, my car's radiator had exploded while in the taco time drive through, my boob was declared 'non-lethal', and my son took second place in his sparring group at his karate tournament. In current news, a new ford fusion hybrid has been purchased to replace the car with the exploded radiator, my son started back to school, and I have finally been allowed to take a bath! On the horizon: apparent credit card fraud to be sorted through, my son is moving into the second largest bedroom so he has more space, and lar is doing use it or lose it vacation this week.

For myself, nothing really tops that whole 'not lethal' thing, but I did drive down to my dad's place for the long weekend. Wow, did the ride feel smooth; my old car was 12 years old and had about 100K miles on it, so things have changed a lot since it was new. The hybrid's quiet and easy to handle, and I surprised myself by actually liking to drive it. I was really happy to take the trip. There's a little fall out from the whole 'new car' thing -- the seal on the trunk needs re-glued, and the USB port is loose, so it doesn't have a good connection to my phone -- but I got 44 MPG with in on the trip, which seems amazing to me. I'm still in the excited first-love stage now that that we have the financing straightened out, and part of me wants to name the car 'Sherlock'. Not sure I can sell the family on that, though you never know.

Speaking of sells, we all watched movie #29 "Kick Ass" (movie #27 was Salt and #28 was Murder on the Orient Express) together before I left town. It was bloody and violent, and full of wicked fun. We'd had a conversation a while back where lar had said "everyone's the hero of their own story", and ev had countered it saying that he wasn't the hero. "Look, all of the heroes are screwed up. Their parents are dead, traumatic childhoods, stuff like that. I'd rather be the cool-and-competent ally that joins the hero part way through their journey than be the hero himself."

And if you look at Kick Ass, it goes with that same definition. The protagonist, kick ass, isn't the hero in a classic sense -- that's hit girl. She's the hero with the tragic past, hell bent on revenge for her parents death, while kick ass turns into her sidekick over the course of the movie. I thought that was an real interesting to see Ev's theory played out in a film, and wondered what that said about our cultural conscious right now. I have no good thoughts on it, but I think there's something in it that needs to percolate a bit before it comes out.

I also think I need to add more journey to my car tunes playlist. I need to go find it.
wickedwords: (Default)
Of the good: Car fixed and paid for, so I can use it again, yay.

Of the not-so-good: My mammogram came back with a few scattered microcalcifications and a spot of increased blood flow right in the area where the lumpectomy was done. They did an MRI and weren't able to rule anything out, so on Monday, I am scheduled for another biopsy. *ugh* I am hoping it comes back fat necrosis and scar tissue, which is the current popular bet among my care team, however there is some percentage chance that it is something else. I'm working on ignoring it.

Of the fun and awesome: Vividcon! I had a hard day my first day, but by the second one, I was well into the groove. I did feel like I was in fannish dating mode, though, since I didn't have a lot of Seattleites around. I could totally have been the poster child for 'hanging around at the corners of conversations, too intimidated to join in' but by the end of the con, I was working my small pool of extroversion a lot more. I'm afraid that's as much of a con report as I can manage this time, but I loved seeing everyone and talking about vids.

Of the 'gasp! how can you say that': Still haven't seen Sherlock. Have downloaded it, but need to watch it, which is apparently more difficult than it seems.

What I am reading: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I downloaded it in case I ran out of reading material on my way to Vividcon, and I only just started it, so I should be set for a few days.

Most recently watched movie (Movie #11): The Losers. This was a lot of fun, and I adored it. I have a thing for the Jeffrey Dean Morgan, and my husband rented this on demand, while I was at vividcon. So when I got back, he said he'd watched this fun flick and I really had to see it, but that it expired in 4 hours...I gave a little yip-squeak and scuttled over to the couch to watch. I mean, I have my priorities.

(Other movies seen this year: 2012, Ghost Writer, Alice in Wonderland, How to Train Your Dragon, Clash of the Titans, Iron Man 2, Despicable Me, Karate Kid, Shutter Island and Inception which are a great double feature, Mr. Brooks, The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus, and then a set of Sci Fi classics: The Time Machine, The Thing from Another World, and The Land that Time Forgot. So I am up to 26 movies, close to where I want to be. I just realized I was never going to get around to writing about them. Ah Well.)

I also had my 25th wedding anniversary and my birthday in the past couple of weeks. For the anniversary, we went out to Cafe Juanita, which is owned and operated by Chef Holly, who competed on 'The Next Iron Chef' last year. She made it to the finals, and it was awesome to eat someplace that served those kind of fine dining meals. oh, and Lar tried the 'Peach Belini with lardo crostini' since he wanted to try lardo after reading a description of it in the book 'Heat'; he said it tasted the exact way it was described in the book.

Sorry to have been so quiet lately! I don't promise to post more, since I seem to be bad about that, but I am dropping into LJ more and reading again, which is nice. It's good to see that everyone else is having lives too.
wickedwords: (Default)
I've been very bad about recording what movies I've watched this year, and I was only up to #7 when I left off. So I have a whole lot to cover, and thought I'd start with some of the mysteries I watched with my dad this spring. He likes to record his favorites, and then shows them to me when I come to visit, so I never know what's gonna be on offer.

Margaret Rutherford's Miss Marple was the cornerstone of movies #8 Murder, she said and #9 Murder at the Gallop. Gosh, but they were delightful! I've never seen her version of Jane Marple before, but Miss Marple was always my favorite of Agatha Christie's characters. And goodness, she was a perfect Miss Marple! She personified the character, from her looks and her attitude, to, well, everything about her. The other amazing thing to me was how in modern movie casting there is almost no way she would have been allowed to play the character, not with her aging bloodhound looks and portly manner. But she was so charming and delightful, I loved every moment she was on screen. *pfft* to modern casting.

Movie #10 was a Hercule Pirot movie, "Cat Among the Pigeons", and I loved the English schoolgirl setting. But I'm afraid that I don't remember much about it, as the plot was interesting but not terribly creative; I remember guessing things a little bit before each piece of the plot was revealed. So I wasn't ahead of the movie by leaps and bounds, but it was pretty predictable overall.
wickedwords: (reading)
I haven't been reading LJ/DW for a while, and I think I'm just going to have to call it. Anything that has happened in the past week has passed me by, so let me know of the significant-to-you things that I have missed.

Otherwise...I finished Radiation Treatment on Monday! So that's it for me, other than the standard follow-on care. I am done, done, done! with cancer treatment. I have my 3-month appt with my medical oncologist next week, and after that, it is on to Escapade! I am so looking forward to seeing everyone at the con. I'm gonna be dead tired by Sunday, which is when my panels are, but it's gonna be worth it.

Other things that have happened: Evan got his purple belt in Kempo, and has moved up to both the adult class and the advanced class. He's really taking this seriously and starting to do very well. Who knew that he needed a paramilitary dojo to make him buckle down?

We also went to see Percy Jackson this weekend, so that's movie #7 for the year. It was okay, but not great; it also has some issues that made me roll my eyes a lot and come close to laughing out loud in an inappropriate way. It did have the prettiest people ever in the film, though. Man, the cast is pretty.

The Seattle Children's theater production of "In the Northern Lands: Nordic Myths" was incredible on Sunday. The cast had to learn acrobatic work for it, as the production used ropes for all the aerial work showing people climbing mountains and falling from the sky. The occasional puppets-- Odin's raven, a serpent, the wolf -- were cool, designed to look like old Nordic carvings. We really enjoyed it.

I think that's it. "Seven Year Itch" is on at redwood theatre, so I helped out with ushering one night. I'm unemployed at the moment, so I said I'd help co-ordinate volunteers for the show; I'm currently procrastinating on both phone calls and submitting another application somewhere.

No wonder I feel so tired.
wickedwords: (wendy lacey chair)
Unlike a lot of my friends, I don't watch a lot of movies. I watch a lot of tv, but it's mostly episodic rather than the self-contained flick. So this year as a family we set a goal of seeing 50 movies, whether on TV or in the theaters, just for the heck of it. So far, we have managed to see one a week, but I thought I better write them down before I forget.

1. Sherlock Holmes
The first movie of the year, and a pretty good choice, too. I liked the movie, but didn't love it, even though I very much wanted to. I really didn't like Irene, and the focus on her bugged the heck out of me, but I liked Holmes, Watson and Mary. I liked the steampunk elements, and the quasi-Cthulian story, but I never identified with the characters. So it was something I watched and enjoyed, but felt no huge attachment to.

2. Duplicity
This was fun, a good caper flick, but the ending soured it for me. I felt like I had the rug tugged out from under me there at the end, and really did not like it.

3. G Force
This one we saw on-demand, and I kinda had one eye on it and one eye on my iPhone throughout the flick. It was fun and undemanding, plus there were a lot of pop culture references which was cute. Not a stellar flick, but entertaining.

4. Up in the Air
I totally loved this movie. I believed in the characters and their journey, and I loved Ryan's mentor relationship with Natalie and his friends-with-benefits relationship with Alex. I was involved with them all and watched them change and grow--or not--and I was with them every step of the way. I think this one will go on my favorite movies list.

5. Stand and Deliver
I love this movie and it is one of my all-time favorites. So when I saw that it was on the free movie list, I could not pass it up. I love underdog academic movies, and Edward James Olmos is brilliant in this; Evan could not believe it was the same guy that played Commander Adama at first. (And Lou Diamond Philips was such a baby back then! He looks so different now on SGU.) Evan got completely wrapped up in it, and he reacted as deeply as he does when he's wrapped up in a good book or manga. This was a complete win for all of us.

6. The Birds
Neither Lar nor Evan had seen the full movie, and it was just as tense and unsettling as I remembered. This is probably the most intense edge of the horror genre that we can watch as a family, but we all enjoyed it. Then we sat around a bit and compared it with the zombie genre that is currently popular, along with all of the sci fi "nature hates you" movies.

So 6 down, 44 to go. So far, we're doing well

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