Still alive and kicking.

Here ya go.

Buffy v. Edward. You know it's true.

I want to update, but it's been unweathering like crazy here and there's a new front rolling in and I'm afraid my laptop will get fried in the process. So I'm logging off.

WIKIPEDIA MEME

Wikipedia: useful tool or addictive timewaster? Maybe it's both! If you love information that is silly, or serious, or sometimes supported by multiple sources, or sometimes completely unverifiable, you've probably stumbled across Wikipedia more than once.

If this is the case, pick ten random Wikipedia entries from your browsing history and post them on your LJ. Then, ask your friends to do the same on their LJs, if they feel so inclined. Maybe you'll find you have something in common!

What I've been reading:

1. Swat, Pakistan
2. September 11 attacks
3. Liberal Party, UK
4. Koninginnedag

I regularly delete my history, so this is all I've got.

I can haz colour coordination?

Sat in the sun all day while reading 400 pages worth of stuff. Lit, Civil war stuff, you name it. And then I gave myself the night off to watch 24 and 30 Rock. Always a good thing. But this does mean I don't really have anything to say. So...










This random selection of pictures was brought to you by my LOL folder.

This morning I was cycling to the station, and suddenly the idea struck me to blog in pictures today. Microblogging to the extreme, darlings. Sorry to subject you to this.

( There be a lot of pictures under here! )

No Nigerian prince ever contacted me, but this is almost as awesome!


Dear Friend,
As you read this, I don't want you to feel sorry for me, because, I believe everyone will die someday.
 
My name is Shadak Shari, a merchant in Dubai, in the U.A.E.I have been diagnosed with Esophageal cancer .It has defiled a ll forms of medica l treatment, and right now I have on ly about a few months to live, according to medical experts.
 
I have not particularly lived my life so we ll, as I never really cared for anyone (not even myself)but my business. Though I am very rich, I was never generous, I was always hostile t o people and on ly focused on my business as that was the only thing I cared for. Bu t now I regret all this as I now know that there is more to life than just wanting to have or make all the money in the world.
 
I believe when God gives me a second chance to come to this world I would live my life a different way from how I have lived it. Now that God has called me, I have willed and given most of my property and assets to my immediate and extended family members as well as a few close frie nds.
 
I want God to be merciful to me and accept my soul so, I have decided to give alms to charity organizations, as I want this to be one of the las t good deeds I do on earth. So far, I have distributed money to some charity o rganizations in the U.A.E, Algeria and & lt; SPAN Malaysia. Now that my health has deteriorated so badly, I cannot do t his myself anymore.
 
I once asked member s of my family to close one of my accounts and distribute the money which I have there to charity organization in Bulgaria and Pakistan; they refused and kept the money to themselves. Hence, I do not trust them anymore, as they seem not to be contended with what I have left for them.
 
The last of my money which no one knows of is the huge cash deposit of Ten million dollars $10,000,000 that I have with a finance/ Secur ity Company abroad. I wi ll want you to help me coll ect this deposit and dispatched it to charity organizations.
 
I have set aside 20% for you for your time and patience. Please send a reply through this email address (fromshadakshari) with your full contact information for more private and confidential communication.
 
God be with you.
 
Shadak Shari

I'm taking a little break from academia by reading my sister's fun collection of coroner fiction. The latest Kay Scarpetta book was godawful, but I was sort of expecting that, since everyone was running around screaming bloody murder about it.

Yesterday I start Karin Slaughter's Blindsighted, and oh dear God, that book has so many issues. The first thing I noticed was the complete passivity ascribed to the blind woman who is brutally raped and murdered at the beginning of the book. It's like her blindness prevented her from fighting off her attacker, and everyone seems to agree with that point of view. The coronor, Sara Linton, repeatedly asks herself how it must have been for Sibyl, the murdered woman, to be stabbed, "gut-raped" (I did not make this up - the stab wound was raped, and this is how they call it) and then raped vaginally. She asks herself what must have gone through her mind, having this happen to her and not being able to see.
Now excuse me if I'm wrong, but she would have felt the stabbing same as any other person, and she would've shown SOME SORT OF FUCKING RESPONSE. She would not have remained seated on the toilet (which is what happens in the story).
There are no fingernail scrapings, because she did not lash out at her attacker, BECAUSE SHE DIDN'T KNOW WHAT WAS HAPPENING TO HER. I need bigger caps. FOR THE FUCK OF SHIT!

Like that isn't enough, the whole book is dripping with homophobia. Because you see, Sibyl was not just a blind woman - she was a blind lesbian woman. And the fact that her sister worries the cops won't do their best on the case if they find out she was a lesbian is just sickening to me. I know the book is set in a small town in Georgia, and that it's all about The South, but no town, no police force would really be this backwards, right?
I don't know. Perhaps I have higher expectations of humanity. I do know that I still have about 300 pages to go, and if this book keeps rubbing me the wrong way to such a tremendous degree, there's a good chance I won't finish it. And that rarely happens. Your book has to really suck for me to give up completely.

Now that I got that rant out of my system, have some Milow:



Original by 50 Cent: But Milow's version is much better, I think.

I'm minding my own business, catching up on South Park (useful, I know!), when suddenly this double episode "Pandemic" shows up, and Stan's family rushes out of Best Buy, where they've been hiding from the giant guinea pigs, and then in the distance it shows itself. It's pink and purple. It's horrific. It cannot be killed. It's the Guineasaurus-Rex.
I laughed so hard, it was really quite embarrassing.

God, sometimes I love South Park. I got two new icons out of this. I couldn't get the colouring nice on Guineasaurus-Rex, but I still love it.
Also, guineapirate.



Now I'm off to eat cheese fondue.

You know what I thoroughly dislike about some movies? When it starts of with some Very Important Plot Point, and you know the people are involved are important, but you only see them for like two seconds, and you try your best to remember their faces but OMG HARD! So then when you're watching the movie you keep wondering "Was that Plot Point Man?" "Was that him?" "Is it racist that I'm not sure if that black man was featured before? Does it mean I can't recognize black faces?"
Case in point, The Interpreter. Two people, what seemed to be a local man and a journalist, were shot dead. A photographer hid in the bushes and took pictures of some suited guy getting out of a car. I assumed he was the "teacher" referenced by the boy who murdered them. But then later it didn't seem like it was. And then I couldn't really remember what he looked like. And it's SO ANNOYING watching a movie like that.

Rant over. Thank you for listening.

WHERE [ARE?] MY DOGS AT?!  So awesome, OMG.

To be fair, they could have a video of her walking down the street, and I'd still love it.

I have, yet again, become the feminist of the group. This time it's of my British Literature group.
The tutor asked who liked Jane Eyre (both the story and the character) and who didn't. He then proceeded to ask one of the guys (who didn't like it), if he didn't like it because it was written from a woman's perspective, with a female protagonist.
I actually apologized for being a feminist ("Sorry to sound all feminist"), and asked him if he would ask the same of us about a story from a male POV with a male protagonist. Because in my 18 months at Leiden uni, with 2 literature classes per semester (so that makes 6 so far) this has never been asked of the tutors.
Of course I now met the one tutor who WOULD ask this (one of the students who'd had him as a tutor previously corroborated this). *headdesk* But afterwards, every time he referred to feminist readings of Jane Eyre, he'd look at me. I'm the go-to, token feminist again.

No matter what way you flip it though, male protagonist or female protagonist, it's still sexist. And it bugs me that my classmates laugh at me when I make these types of comments. I don't dislike a character because of their sex/gender. I don't dislike them because their sex/gender keeps me from identifying with them. I dislike characters because I dislike their character/opinions/behaviour. If you've a problem with understanding/liking/being interested in a protagonist because of their sex/gender, it's not because of their sex/gender, it's because you're a bad, shallow reader with a limited understanding of the world.

Aaaah, it feels good to get all that out. I wasn't able to do so in class.

School today wasn't too horrible. I slept almost 12 hours last night, and felt a lot better when I woke up this morning. I'm incredibly tired and a bit feverish still, but generally I'm not doing too shabby. Which is basically miraculous, because I felt so horrible last night.

I ran into Jonie yesterday, and she told me that Wicked might be coming to The Netherlands (as you already might have read). Internet says yes. Joop van den Ende (the big musical cheese in our little country) acquired the rights in 2007, and it seems like it should be coming somewhere in 2010. Of course this has brought on a lot of fretting about casting and translations. But seeing some of the German stuff has made me hopeful. I like the translation of Defying Gravity (Frei und Schwerelos has a nice ring, I think), and they have a spectacular Elphaba. Best thing? She's Dutch. So there's a good chance she might be cast as the first Dutch Elphaba.
The only think that makes me worry is Chantal Janzen. The internet says she's Van den Ende's pick for Glinda (really, she's his pick for a lot of leads, which is odd, since she's not that good), which kind of fits, because she's cutesy, freckled and very blonde. But she's not a soprano. In the past, scores have been adapted just to suit her voice. But Glinda has some fucking high notes to hit, and these are in harmony with bits the other casts sings, and those are much lower. In short, lowering HER notes would mean fucking up the harmony. Add to that that I completely despise Chantal Janzen, and you might see why this is all quite troubling to me.
I hope they'll do a BBC-"How do you solve a problem like Maria"-type thing for the part. They've done that for Evita and Joseph (amazing technicolour etc.) here, and I think it's worked quite well.

Okay, end of my obsessing. Sort of. Ahead be German!

I wondered if I'd gone insane, Pushing Daisies-wise, but no..

"The last scheduled episode of Pushing Daisies aired on December 17, 2008, while three episodes remain unaired. ABC will reportedly air them in the summer of 2009.According to Chenoweth, these episodes will not provide a narrative conclusion to the series."

Fucking assholish bastards. I really don't care they won't "provide a narrative conclusion", I just want to see the last few episodes. After a heartbreaking cancellation (yes, heartbreaking, okay!) the least they could have done is give us the last bit. How seriously cold.
At least my Wicked sleuthing was good for something (e.g. informing me of this). I have spent the last 90 minutes doing nothing but watching Wicked videos. The ones of Kristin Chenoweth's last performance are seriously adorable, with the off-key singing and the crying and the laughing and seriously, you can actually see teardrops falling off her cheek at the end of "For Good".

Anyway, one day I will own Pushing Daisies on DVD and every time I will lament the fact that ABC sucks.
 

So long. See you on Saturday!