Showing posts with label birthday post. Show all posts
Showing posts with label birthday post. Show all posts

Sunday, November 18, 2007

Birthday post, Sam silliness and movie reviews

Happy Birthday, Nicole!! Good luck with that exam, huh *nudge nudge*

A couple of days ago Sam was folding himself feline-ly in the glass bowl mom used to use for decoration on the living room coffee table (and which is now a Sam bed) but was somehow unable to obtain his balance properly so he fell. The little guy was in a smeared state so he just spilled onto the table, folding himself up only when me and dad laughed enough. Here is the documentation of said event:

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Starting to gather his self dignity back
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"C'mon, you guys, leave me alone, will ye?"
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A perfectly elegant "'Gat a problem?"
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Watched:
1. Eastern Promises - Nice movie, though the plot's logical existence hangs on too thin a thread for my comfort. I liked how the movie insisted on showing everything as realistic as possible from slit throats to newborn babies and a fight scene with Viggo Mortensen completely nude (which was, I admit, distracting, like all nudity). The best thing was how the hidden world of the Russian mafia and its symbols were not views in a kind of tick-the-box way of characters naming every tattoo on each other to give explenations; the only character who explained tattoos was a coroner and explained only two tattoo's meanings, for the audience to understand that tattoos do mean something. There was no obvious effort by the script writer to say "Look! We did research 8D". Very not-Hollywood, this film, which was very refreshing.
2. Stardust - Can't say that many praises on this film as I did for the previous one, sadly. The plot was very interesting, despite the already well chewed subject of fairytales with princesses, magical creatures and witches, there were small details you just had to love, like the literally blue blooded princes or the lightning catchers. The film didn't lack its bursts of creativity and cleverness. The dialogs, however, could have used some more working on and some plot twists were just too abrupt, as if the plot's been crammed into too short a film. I mean, come on, if audiences tolerated films as long as Lord of the Rings, they can tolerate a slightly longer but better told plot, especially when the plot's much thicker and vital than LoRT's. The most unpleasant thing, however, were the final showdown with the witch (which I will not ruin but it's sufficed to say it could have ended wonderfully without her death) and Captain Shakespear's character; the stereotypical description of his behavior linked to his preference (trying not to spoil you guys) is insulting, really. Too Hollywood, I say, on this movie.

Last but not least. I've learned of a new animal today! The Binturong or bearcat. Look at that animal! Isn't it quaint?

Tuesday, November 13, 2007

Birthdays and books (and a rant)

It's happy birthday time for my good, wonderful, amazing, lovely and talented friend from Bohemia, Kiki, happy birthday, girl!

EDIT: my father advised me to remove the ranting bit about the research. Let us just say that one day I'll have my own lab and will be able to freely do what I wish to do. Ta, dad.

I meant to write a post about books, so, yeah. Books!
Finished Winston Churchill's The Second World War's first volume; The Gathering Storm. Lovely book, not only because of Churchill's writing style but also because of the way the translators to hebrew made an effort to upp the language level as much as possible. This being a book printed around the 50s here (the whole series belongs, actually, to my uncle who got it for his bar mitzva and never laid hand on it even once IMO) it means the language is already archaic. The result is a highly stylish and delightful to read extremely detailed account of the war.
I have to admit I didn't read all of it; Churchill spent the first few months of the war commanding the navy, which he loved with all his heart, and which I care very, very little of. I skipped a chapter or two, but the most I read quite happily.

Am now reading Hogfather which is the usual Pratchett delight; same old writing tricks pulled but ever new and entertaining. Talk about it when I'm done ^_^

BTW, I haven't seen Mr Poopy Pants in a couple of days now and I suspect Sam's got a paw in this; he'll hunt flies to such extent the little thing'd eat them dead off the floor, let alone a caterpillar...

Saturday, November 10, 2007

Birthday post

Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me, happy birthday to meeeeeeeeeeee *takes deep breath* happy birthday to me!

How did I celebrate the birthday? Well, last night I worked the night shift at the call center (where I work, BTW, helping people with leased company cars do all kinds of stuff to repair their stupidity's result with their vehicle). My old high school friend, Aran, came around with his laptop to make the night go faster as we played Bubble Bobble and first addition Prince of Persia until the morning.

Then, as I came home, me and the parents drove our ass to some half-remote new neighborhood in Jerusalem to go see Sam's new girlfriend, Scarlett The Lovely. I have to say it amazes me how clever these particular creatures are; both her and her brother had such piercing, investigating, looks in their eyes as we pranced around them (we're a cat-worshiping family - we prance around our devotion's subjects), like they were trying to understand what we were saying to them.
So, I promised pictures and I deliver!

Here's the lady held by her human mom;
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And here's dad with his catch, Scarlet the Lady;
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And now for a report of the most important part of birthdays; getting things from other people! This birthday the theme was on books and here's a full list:

From parents:
* Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk
* Portnoy's Complaint by Philip Roth
* The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
* The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley
* Witches Abroad & Hogfather by Terry Pratchett
* Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
* Day Watch & Twilight Watch by Sergey Lukyanenko

From Cait, the lovely beta:
* Ouran High School Host Club vol.1 by Bisco Hatori
* Hellsing vol. 8 by Kouta Hirano
* An End of Education - Redefining the Values of School - by Neil Postman

From myself to I (sad, I know):
* Following Alice - A Journey to the World of Lewis Carrol - by Haim Shapira
* Setting the Desert on Fire by James Barr
* History, Memory and Propaganda - The Historical Discipline at the Beginning of the 21st Century - by Yoav Gelber
* The Golden Warrior by the delightful-to-read Lawrence James
* Homosexuality & Civilization by Louis Crompton

AND there are more coming from the sister soon ^_^ all in all, quite a good catch, I'd say.

And now I think I'll get back to gaining back some sleeping hours...

Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Wishes wishes

First of all; HAPPY BIRTHDAY,JEN-JEN!!!

The second wish is for this to come to a successful end. We're already eating the sharks out of house and home and when we're not doing that we're making movies about them being ruthless killing machines (and getting their anatomy wrong = great whites don't have nostrils!) and make the world hate them - also known as Well Done, Steven Spielberg Moment #8 - so why use them for sports as well?!