Viva Forever

Time is passing WAY WAY too quickly. Already three weeks into university?! WTF?

I’ve been getting really tired lately. And by lately, I mean it’s been like this for at least a year or two. Sure I sleep late, but I’m fortunately able to sleep in the next morning for most days of the week. I think I average about 8-9 hours of sleep which should be more than enough. And yet, I’m so drowsy during the day (even with a cup of coffee) and taking naps has been much too easy in the afternoons once classes are over. I don’t exercise too much, but I walk around a lot to and from my campus and the shopping complex nearby and I play my share of DDR, so I’m not a COMPLETE slug. My diet is okay, I try to eat something fruity everyday (whether it be orange juice or a fruit salad) and I try to avoid very fatty foods. I don’t often eat snacky foods either. When I sleep, I get vivid dreams all the time and I sometimes wake up all jittery and tired. Major suckage.

I watched Marie Antoinette the other day, and there’s only one word I could think of to describe it: empty. Oh yes, it was very pretty with all the beautiful costumes (and pastry!) but storyline-wise… it was slow and… lacking. It was really hard not to get bored during some sequences. It seems like the director focused so heavily on stylising the movie, they forgot about plot, dialogue and characterisation. Marie Antoinette was actually quite a remarkable historical figure and all the movie seemed to portray is her being bored, superficial and… empty.

I watched Amélie today and I really enjoyed it! It was probably the most quaint and delightfully imaginative thing I’ve seen in recent times. The directing was superb, the music was charming and Amélie is such an adorable, unique and interesting character. If you take all the adult themes out, she strikes me as a character that Roald Dahl would write in his children’s books. Lots of funny and clever moments. The movie gave me a happy, warm and fuzzy feeling, and a strong desire to eat a croissant.

Also, Tim bought me Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell the other day, I’ve heard lots of good things about it. It’s a dauntingly big read but I plan to get around to reading it soon. The idea of magic portrayed in a tongue-in-cheek way in times of Napoleon… that’s appealing in its own right!

Also I’m planning to implement a tag cloud plugin (on a separate page). That way I can make my categories more broad while getting to tag the many topics I blog about.

Edit: Ack sorry for the multiple entries, I didn’t realise that it had posted so many times (database was going screwy when I was trying to post it).

Watched it yesterday (well, technically two days ago) and it was way, WAY better than I expected! Having seen the trailers, I was incredibly put off by the seemingly over-the-top, slapstick, low-brow humour that made up the entire trailer (e.g. with the wrecking ball… did he NEED to swing between the rock and A Hard Place so many times? I think we get the joke!), and so I had low expectations for the movie.

But fortunately, I was proven wrong! The trailers, in my opinion, featured the least funny of the jokes in the movie. There’s plenty of wit and subtle humour in the actual film, my favourite scenes being the one with Homer and his “chainsaw” and the sequence of naked Bart on his skateboard. There were also a number of touching moments too. I do recommend people go see the movie. To me, it’s a win-win; if you hated the trailer, you might still enjoy the movie, if you liked the trailer, you would most likely enjoy the movie. It was a solid and entertaining film.

What I *didn’t* expect was a whole chunk of the credits going entirely to Korean people… they were the animators. Also, if you’re going to see the film, don’t leave straight after, there’s a silly “Simpsons anthem” towards the end of it.

Moved servers, my yearly plan on Dreamhost will be expiring in about a week. I’ve had a great run with them, not too many downtimes at all and the price was amazing for the amount of space/bandwidth I got. Still, I can’t afford to pay their non-discount price. Now I’m hosted by Dee on her reseller. Thanks Dee! There’s still many sites not uploaded yet, but I’m trying to get the important ones, such as Anne’s site, up and running ASAP.

I want to watch the BBC series of Pride and Prejudice (the one with Colin Firth). I’m trying to catch a good deal on ebay but I’m no good with that blasted site. -_-;

Oh I’m finally watching Moon Child (I’ve had it in my cupboard for about four years now) staring Gackt, Hyde and Lee-Hom Wang. The movie is set in the modern day, where they are VAMPIRES who are part of a GANG. And they use lots of guns. And Gackt is able to DODGE BULLETS when he’s a mortal, young, gangster. LOLOLOL.

Well there goes my “blog once every few days” record. No picture of the scarf yet, recharging camera batteries. Three of my friends are in Japan at the moment on their three week trip there, probably taking heaps of pictures of the wonderfully wacky people at Harajuku. *envy envy*

My holidays so far has been utter bliss. I’ve watched so many movies (most rented) and I’ve been knitting heaps.

Quick movie reviews
Riding in Cars With Boys - Wonderfully sad but adorable movie. Unlike what the Gilmore Girls might suggest, teen pregnancies are not a piece of cake. There is a terrible amount of sacrifice and lost opportunities involved. There were parts of the movie (like the wedding scene) that almost brought me to tears (and I don’t tear up often!) because of how understatedly tragic the whole thing was. Highly recommended.

The Boondock Saints - Quite a funny movie at parts. Very violent, but it’s just so… ODD to see Billy Connolly’s play an incredibly badass, gun-toting character. Willem Dafoe’s flamboyant cop character was pretty hilarious too. Still… I don’t quite agree with the ending, with it’s seeming advocacy of vigilante behaviour. It was a nice touch on the end of the movie of this acknowledge controversial stance. Recommended.

Bowling for Columbine - Nice documentary about gun control. The most striking part of the documentary was the parody cartoon that breezed through American history and highlighted the way fear had always played such a big role in American mentality. This could be one explanation of why so many people think guns are so important so to protect themselves. It seems that other nations do not share America’s quite unique paranoia about each other.

Requiem for a Dream - MOST DEPRESSING MOVIE I’VE EVER SEEN. Not a teary/sad kind of depressing, but the type that makes you agape and sickened by the sheer tragedy of it, giving you a punched-in-the-stomach feel that’s guaranteed to last the rest of the day. The movie isn’t just about “drugs are bad”, it’s about problems that exists for some people; loneliness, disconnection from the world, frustration and probably some degree of nihilism that make substance abuse so desirable. The results are devastating and life destroying. All four stories are distinct in their own way, but the one that Jennifer Connelly plays was the hardest to watch. It really struck a chord by how earlier in the movie, when she was relatively drug free, she said that money wasn’t want she wanted, contrasted with the ending where she’s blank, drugged up and defeated, rolled up and protectively clutching a wad of money. Highly recommended but don’t say I didn’t warn you!

I haven’t been commenting much on people’s blogs, doesn’t mean I don’t read them though!

Also I’ve closed down my writing site and plan to tweak it for this blog’s next layout. Yay, recycling. :P I’m half-contemplating actually moving this site (with a name change) to its own domain that was intended for the craft blog (and the craft blog becoming a subdomain). It’ll be quite a big step since this blog has been the way it has for about 4 years so I’m still uncertain. Also, will be changing hosts soon, might be going with Host Nine.