Merry Christmas, everybody! By happy accident, Brenden received the best toy I have ever seen. On my recommendation his abuela and grandpa sent him the Imaginext Space Station. It included these horrible looking octopoid aliens as you can see above. Well as you can see in the picture below, they sit nciely on the play figures' heads. Brain-sucking space aliens for your preschooler! Fischer-Price FTW!
What I'm Watching:
Because of the enormous amount of time I've spent perusing Tv Tropes I'm afraid my reviews will never be the same. That site has become an enormous time waster resource for me. For instance, when I rambled about Kirk/Spock and Hector/Achilles I really, really wanted to do some quick Google searches to confirm my suspicions but didn't want to lose my remaining eye. Tv Tropes, thankfully, provided me with information about Rule 34 of the Internet without going into too many gory details. Their linktastic pages lead me to Ho Yay (which I find amusing and entertaining - I just don't want to read 40 pages of pr0n about it) and No Yay, which I will not link to because while the image on that page is SFW, I found it deeply, deeply disturbing. If you go to TV Tropes and search on that term, you will not be happy. You have been warned. Don't do it!
So anyways. I watched District 9 (the link contains spoilers!) last night, and while I don't particularly like Humans are Bastards stories, this one tells its story in a palatable manner (for me. I want to see Avatar sometime next week and I just know Cameron is going to beat me about the head and shoulders with the same Trope, which is why I didn't try to see it on opening night). It was palatable because the bastardry was mostly believable and because there's a scene when someone does their very best when things are at their very worst (That's a trope exemplified in John Carpenter's forgotten Starman - Big Damn Heroes might be the closest trope I found.) Collectively yeah we suck but we're not condemned to suckage at an individual level.
I just realized I haven't given a plot synopsis. An alien space ship hovers over Johannesburg, South Africa. The inhabitants come across as stupid, ugly insectoid aliens who quickly get sent to a JoBurg ghetto and cause problems. Finally after 20 years the aliens are to be rounded up and moved away from the city and most of the action takes place when a private company (an evil one, natch) sets out to herd them up and move them out. The protagonist, Wikus Van Der Merwe (Sharlto Copley, and I am on the give-him-an-Oscar bandwagon though it will never happen because this is SCIENCE FICTION), has been put in charge of this operation and this bland little Afrikaans twit has himself an interesting time. See the movie it's awesome. F-Bombs and splattage ahoy, though. Oh! and an awesome Macross Missile Massacre! SRSLY!
If you have seen it, here's a great review / examination from a South African's perspective.
Random bits:
Fringe had numerous Re-Animator references last episode. Considering the bad guy was someone whose head was re-attached they were hilariously appropriate.
I have read over 50 books since I got my Kindle in March. When I was in high school and college those numbers would have indicated a slow year. I think that's the most I've read in the last 5 years put together, and yes, I'm sad about that. I've totally fallen in love with reading again. The Kindle has 3 features I love: 1) Instant downloads, 2) book samples, and 3) large font sizes. Yes, my eyesight is going to crap again.
Brenden really loves cooking. We made cookies from scratch last weekend and I'm always looking for recipes he can help me with. I envision many holiday treats this coming holiday break.
While Christmas shopping I found the 1st season of Veronica Mars for $20 so I snagged it. I'm actually going to start re-watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer this weekend though. The reason is this website: TV Tropes. It contains many BtVS references (which made me want to start a rewatch) and is a huge timekiller. Don't say I didn't warn you though.
We watched Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince last night. I thought it was a pretty good adaptation of the movie despite all the missing scenes. Mrs. Damian Lewis, Helen McCrory, has a small part in it playing Narcissa Malfoy. There was no sign of Jason Isaacs or Ralph Fiennes, though. Pity.
Jon wanted to rent a movie and here were our choices:
Transformers II
G.I. Joe: Rise of the Cobra
Terminator: Salvation
Year 1
Land of the Lost
I voted for G.I. Joe. Even after watching it I still feel I made the wisest choice. The plot involved Chris Eccleston sporting a scottish accent that would make Mike Myers blush and he's a weapons dealer who is evil. And then there's Team America: World Police who trash Paris. Or was that a different movie? Paris does get trashed but the Joe team is multinational. I think - all the main characters were American. I was distracted by all the explosions. Pretty!
I cleaned the house Saturday and sunday to prep it for Christmas decorating. When I pulled the white christmas tree from the attic Brenden and both evil kittens were ecstatic. My blood pressure went through the roof trying to keep a small child and two large cats from climbing the tree. So far 11 or 12 ornaments have been broken and when I go replace them I'm going to buy plastic ones.
To top it off Brenden broke the screen on my Kindle Sunday. Fortunately it's still under warranty and the cheerful helpdesk guy at Amazon is sending me a new one and they're even paying the postage for when I return my old one. So Amazon's customer service gets a big "Hooray!" from me.
While watching the new Star Trek, the good chemistry between Chris Pine (Kirk) and Zachary Quinto(Spock) got me thinking, and scared, and I really don't want to go a-googling, but I'm betting that movie launched a billion slash fanfics. If you don't know what slash is, congradulate yourself and go look at some funny kittys. If you do know, and you read it (or even write it), hey - it's your thing and that's fine by me. I on the other hand accidentally read the beginning of one and an eye popped out of my face kind of like that scene in Friday the 13th 3D. I'm totally fascinated by the idea that people feel the need to write out and share certain scenarios but I have no desire to read them. Just - EWW!
That doesn't mean I don't understand the urge to write fan fiction. I don't write but I've read some (I've learned to look for sites that vet the material first). I understand the urge to change something or add something to a story because I understand the desire to make the story better (or at least less sucky - ask me someday for my very short version of Alien 3). For instance I've been reading all the Trojan War permutations I can find. I have disliked the fate of Troy ever since I read the Iliad, so the Aeneid at least makes up for their fate a little. I've been bothered by the death of Hector's son, Astyanax, so I was glad he gets to live in a movie variation, Troy. Hector still gets killed by Achilles though.
That leads me to David Gemmell's almost uniformly excellent Troy trilogy. It's biggest flaw is the hero, Helakion, A.K.A. Aeneas. He is nowhere near as interesting as Odysseus, Andromache, and an assortment of nifty made-up characters that populate the story. I was kind of put off by Andromache falling in love with this shmoe for unexplained reasons (other than he was hot). And, as if sensing his hero wasn't that great, Gemmell made Hektor an almost nonentity who people talk about but we rarely 'see' in action. But the narrative and the rest of the characters make up for the books. Hektor and Achilles' battle is pretty nifty with a twist I liked, and I could tell the legend of the trojan horse bothered Gemmell enough that he just had to change it. (SRSLY - any town stupid enough to let a hollow horse into their city walls after 10 years of battle pretty much deserves to be destroyed).
Then there's Dan Simmons' Ilium and Olympos which has to be read to be believed. I'll spoil just a little - Hector gets to live! Finally!! And Achilles' fate is well deserved and I'm still giggling about it.
So going back around to slash fanfic - are there any slash pieces about Hector and Achilles floating about? I would place money on it especially after Eric Bana and Brad Pitt got to play the characters in the movie but I'd rather cut out my remaining good eye with a dull spoon than go find out.
