The Less Patient Fox

Carla Gugino is set to guest star in Justified in the coming season. WHOA. Sadly not as Karen Sisco (she's another US Marshal in an Elmore Leonard novel so I don't see why they can't do a proper cross-over, but whatev), but hey, I'll take my Gugino however I can. Especially if she's going to be having fraught and interesting UST with Timothy Olyphant.

The combined hotness of these two together in the same room is gonna be EPIC.

One day, I will make a proper post with cogent analysis and penetrating insights into... whatever. Today is not that day.

( random youtube media dump this way )

That was breathtaking.

Fetishization of despair is a von Trier hallmark, but instead of wanting to stick my head in an oven (what I felt like after Breaking the Waves and A Dancer in the Dark), I found this transporting. The opening few minutes, set wordlessly to the prelude to Tristan and Isolde, had some of the most gorgeous imageries I've seen in a long time. The music and images worked so well together, I started wondering if he decided on Tristan first before he formed the idea for the movie. The prelude and the liebestod are bookends, and are all about the ecstasy of self-annihilation (in the name of love) after all.

I'm usually the one to complain about the lack of logic in a film, but I put my hands over the ears and went "lalala" when my friend wouldn't stop complaining about the astronomy, which admittedly was ridiculous. "IT'S A METAPHOR!", I yelled. I did not want logic. I wanted to remain drunk for a while longer, in this illogical and sublime sensory and emotional feast. I'm not sure how those with actual experience of major depression might feel about the movie though. It's a Lars von Trier flick, so I guess that's a warning in itself.

Kirsten Dunst -- wow. Who knew she had this in her?

The Sing-off finale is tonight! Hopefully I can have my brain back once it's over. It's been disconcerting to have my internal radio hijacked by the show. I've got the new Florence + The Machine, the new Wilco and the latest Feist album on my iPod and have barely given them a listen because I'm been too busy watching TSO performances on repeat on youtube.

( more Sing-Off blather )

*counts the hours impatiently*

***

My Thanksgiving weekend was fairly sedate and relaxing. Not having family in town for Thanksgiving is always a bit of a bummer -- I guess I could have driven up to Toronto, but Canada had their TG Day a month ago so the whole thing was kinda moot. Anyway, Thanksgiving is one of those quintessential American holidays that doesn't translate very well elsewhere. I ended up going to a dinner at a friend's house where they cooked a 26-pound (!) turkey and we all stuffed ourselves to bursting, which was in the proper spirit of things. I STILL haven't recovered from the gluttony. I may need to hibernate for several weeks like a boa constrictor after a big meal.

The Black Friday insanity was fun to observe from a distance. Apparently some woman in Walmart pepper-sprayed her fellow-shoppers to get at a pile of Xbox? And the local department store opened their doors at MIDNIGHT, which sounded, uh, insane. I participated from the comfort of my living room and finally bit the bullet got myself a replacement washer and dryer for the broken-down 30-year-old unit I have in my place. WOO-HOO! I cannot wait to be able to do laundry without resorting to coin machines! (Seriously, it's the most exciting thing that has happened to me in months.)

Last bit: I was lackadaisically browsing The Sartorialist and came across this photo, which brightened up my day immediately. The most gorgeous smile ever, y/n? (Or the best advertisement for an orthodontist and teeth whitening products?)

Catch you all on the flipside!

I'm in the Fall TV 2011 remedial class. So behind! Probably will never catch up!

To sum up:

Community: I know there have been quite a few people who have been disappointed with this season, but I've been loving it dearly so far. The only ep I did not care for was the model UN episode. Everything else? Worked for me like gangbusters. Troy and Abed = hearts-eyes forever. Troy's plaintive "I want our Annie" = instant OT3. John Goodman = AWESOME. Dean Pelton = surprisingly cut! Troy/Britta = bring it on. Pierce = tolerable.

On the downside: I have been earwormed with "A pocketful of Hawthornes" for weeks.

Parks and Rec: watching this show is like sitting down in front of a toasty fire with a lovely cup of tea. It warms you up.

Also, I *need* that red coat Leslie was wearing in the last scene of the latest episode. I think it's the same one Angie from You Look Fab is wearing here, and of course J Crew happens to have a 25% coat promotion going on right now because the RampantConsumeristFairy loves/hates me. I do not need a new coat! I already have several! (But look at how pretty the colour is! Aw, man.)

Fringe. Can I have moar Amberverse Olivia/Lincoln now? And other stuff. Am confused and delighted about all the alternate timeline shenanigans. Talk to me after I've finished watching all four parts of the Nova series on quantum physics. Maybe I will magically understand everything after that!

Once Upon a Time: I've been watching and enjoying it OK. I want to support it for being an awesomely female-centric narrative but the writing is still kinda creaky and Robert Carlyle chews so much scenery, I worry about his digestive system. (Also: seriously? You had to name the most craven creature on the show "Mr. Gold" and have him be a pawnshop owner? So much facepalm that I can't even.)

Who is the sheriff supposed to be -- the Huntsman? On that note, I quite dig this trailer of the new Snow White and the Huntsman movie. Even though it left me with vague yen for Snow White/The Huntsman rather than that poor chump, Prince Charming. That's what you get for casting the Huntsman 20 years too young for the role.

Covert Affairs: continues to be brainless candy and OMG ODED FEHR, HOW SO HOT. I didn't even mind the contrivances or the manpainy plot because OMG ODED FEHR. He really has a ridiculous amount of chemistry with Piper Perabo. There is a reason why the producers keep bringing the character back, yo.

On the queue to be watched:

Homeland, about which I've been hearing some rhapsodic reviews, and The Good Wife, which I haven't even started watching this season.

And then there is The Sing-Off, with which I continue to be completely infatuated. Mostly, I have hearts-eyes for Pentatonix, a group of 5 kids from Arlington, Texas (wait -- I think Kevin, the beat boxer, is from LA or something; they found him through his youtube video), who has been blasting away the competition for the past several weeks running. I'm not quite writing RPF about the group members in my head, but it's dang close.

( embedded youtube clips of their performances so far )

Here's the set list for the songs the remaining 4 groups are performing tonight. I'm pretty psyched about Pentatonix's choices! Is it 8 pm yet??

I was a physics geek in high school. I was pretty good at the subject, too -- good enough to make it to the semi-finals at the Canadian Physics Olympiad in my first year of CEGEP (where I flamed out spectacularly -- boy, I thought I was smart; those other kids were ridiculous). Even though I never contemplated it seriously as a career path, I still think being a theoretical physicist is the coolest job in the world. I realize most physics grads end up going into engineering jobs or teaching or in some tech industry-related field, and it's only the rarefied few who have the ability and the opportunity to do the groundbreaking work that advances the basic understanding of our physical world. Still, one can't help feeling sort of wistful about it. (So instead, I became a sci-fi nerd. As you do.)

For that and for many other reasons, I quite enjoyed Brian Greene's PBS special based on his book, Elegant Universe, when it aired a few years ago. Quantum Physics for Dummies, as it were. I read parts of his follow-up, The Fabric of the Cosmos, but got hopelessly lost when he got past the basics and more heavily into string theory. Now, it appears Greene has made another NOVA program, this time a four-part special based on The Fabric of the Cosmos. With some fancy CGI work and the return of his goofy "Quantum Cafe" conceit, except now it's called "Quantum Club". But hey, it might be fun to hear an actual theoretical physicist try to explain the science behind The Multiverse Theory! (I wonder what Greene would think of Fringe...)

The first part of the special airs on PBS tonight, at 9 pm. Set your TiVo's. :)

I was catching up on Downton Abbey last night and it kept bugging me as to where I'd seen the evil Mrs. Bates before. I KNEW I'd seen her in something. But where?

... then I realized, OMFG it's Natalie from The Commitments! Dear God, I loved that movie. I listened to the soundtrack CD on loop for months, until I could sing along to every single song. The actress who played Natalie (Maria Doyle Kennedy) had such a terrific voice.



I cannot believe it's been 20 years since that movie came out. I feel so old. And... is that Glen freakin' Hansard from The Frames, playing the guitar?!! Holy shit, it is! WHAT.

I need to re-watch it, STAT.

Have misplaced fannishness. Thought was defriended by a bunch of people for being boring, but appears it may have something to do with the latest LJ-fuckery leading to several people deleting their journals? Contemplated briefly of Dreamwidth-migration but was trumped as usual by inertia and laziness. Pronouns are for wimps!

Sing-Off remains my shiny, happy place. Here's a terrific performance of Kanye West's "Love Lockdown" by Pentatonix, which just may be my favourite of the season so far. The two dudes who do the bass/drums are SO BADASS and everyone in the group is just so fucking fierce, y'all. I love how they're just *throwing* themselves into the performance.



Afro Blue and Pentatonix for the final two! I'm placing my bets right now.

***

Making a turtle-like progress on the Wimsey/Vane books. I loved Strong Poison, was confused by Have His Carcass (barely remember anything from the book other than the blazing row they have in Harriet's room, which was super-fantastic) and am slowly savouring Gaudy Night, which is lovely so far. I bought the DVDs of the Edward Petherbridge/Harriet Walter adaptation of the books and am looking forward to curling up with the show on a free weekend (which I won't have for a while).

***

Here are a handful of pictures from the trip to London & Paris:

( pics under the cut )

I have had a long, busy, frustrating work week while trying to recover from my vacation (getting cultured is hard work, yo). On Friday night, I faceplanted to bed a little after midnight and had a glorious night of unbroken sleep until 9:30 AM, undisturbed by coughing jags that had plagued me since early September. I hadn't had more than 5 hours of scattershot sleep a night for over a month. When I got up on Saturday, I was so happy to feel finally rested, I might have teared up a little.

My heart goes out to all the insomniacs out there. I had a brief taste of life without the restorative power of Morpheus and you know what? IT SUCKED.

*throws the bottle of codeine to the trash* (there is only one pill left so I don't think I can make much off it on the street)

***

The new pilot season has passed by me entirely. I can barely keep up with the shows I am already fannish about. I saw a half an episode of Ringer and one ep of The Secret Circle, and I'm happy to delete the rest of the episodes accumulating on my TiVo unwatched. I forgot to set a season pass for Terra Nova, which is just as well. I guess despite the powerhouse cast, the Gifted Man isn't all that? *deletes* I also seemed to have set a season pass for Pan Am for no reasons I could discern, and I haven't heard any rapturous reviews about it. The only thing I'm not deleting is Revenge, which sounds like it could be a trashy good time, maybe?

I did watch the first episode of Homeland, which was terrifically acted and complicated in a way that could prove to be very interesting indeed. I knew Damian Lewis could pull off moral ambiguity and even outright unpleasantness (oh, boy. The Forsyte Saga wrecked me). The last scene of the pilot really packed a punch. It's compelling, but difficult to watch, and maybe too intense for what I'm in the mood for. But I'll grab the eps as they air and catch up when I feel up to it.

Old shows:

Community: Latest ep was stuff of unparalleled brilliance. I actually loved the third ep in which the entire group acted appallingly (poor Todd!) but did not care for the UN episode. I am a weird shipper because all the lovey-dovey-ness between Jeff and Annie is setting my teeth at edge. I want them to be hot and wrong and dysfunctional! Not this "I care and am here for you" greeting card crap!

Parks and Rec: all the hearts-eyes for everyone! But especially for the friendship between Leslie and Ron, which is the awesomest thing in a show full of awesome things. OK, maybe next to Ben as the Depressed Batman.

Fringe: [spoiler redacted] I love ALL the Olivias in all permutations and combinations of universes. The end. More later when I'm less brain dead.

I have not watched any episode of The Good Wife this season. Bad fan! No cookie! I hope to marathon it in a free weekend at some point.

But for my stressed mind and body, the show that is greeted with the most happiness these days is... uh, Sing-Off (now in the third season!) I saw the first ep of the season before I left for vacation and mainlined everything that's aired so far after my return, and oh, man. The music makes me *so happy*. Which is weird because I tried American Idol and bounced HARD off the show. Something about the acapella format just works for me, I guess. I love the sounds these superb musicians make without the aid of any instruments, and there are some hugely talented groups in the competition this season. I love it enough that I can even tolerate Nick Lachey, who I can mostly ignore in favour of the three articulate, well-informed judges (Shawn Stockman from Boyz II Man, Sarah Bareilles, and Ben Folds.)

( a few links to youtube videos of the performances so far )

***

Last and most randomly: I have been quite happy with my Droid Incredible, but Shit That Siri Says is seriously making me want to switch to iPhone 4S, mostly because the programmers who worked on her seem to have a senses of humour. My favourite so far:



And yes, several people have already tried to make her sing "Daisy."

Oh my stars.

This is a fantastic bit of L.A. noir, cool and ultra-stylish, with blinding bursts of violence. I came home and read a few reviews, and critics kept mentioning early Michael Mann. The only 80's Mann film I watched was Manhunter, and I can see some of that. It's a very spare film, except when it revels in its excess. There are bits of tenderness there that you know to be fleeting -- rather like that scene of Joan Allen and the tiger from Manhunter (oh, I love that scene). Quite a bit of gore, too, but I was surprisingly OK with it. It serves a purpose.

The story itself is fairly bare-bones and nothing we haven't seen before: A near-sociopathic loner makes a rare human connection. He does something unselfish probably for the first time in his life, and everything goes to shit. Ryan Gosling is great in this -- taciturn, effortlessly charismatic, really fucking scary, and kind of an woobie. The director made a lot of interesting choices, I thought. Unusual camera angles, lighting that goes from moody to radiant and back, and juxtaposition of loveliness and horror. He ratchets up the tension marvellously, yet I would hesitate to call this a straightforward thriller. It tells a conventional story in an unconventional way.

The elevator scene. I can't get over it.

Loved the soundtrack as well, which had a lot of rather 80's-sounding new wave-y stuff. Minimalist electronics mixed with gorgeous shoegazy synths and dreamy vocals. I might need to get my hands on the music.

Just got home from a 2-week trip to UK + Paris. I have been to ALL THE MUSEUMS in London and several in Paris and feel this is the most cultured I have been in my entire life. Also, English history is fantastic and very confusing at the same time, what with all the kings having the same names. I developed a rather soft spot for the dude who kept having psychotic breaks whenever his side lost in the War of the Roses (one of the Henrys or the Edwards, I misremember) and his awesomely ruthless wife. Might consider doing a spot of quasi-serious reading on the topic, actually. Any recs?

We had ridiculously fine weather all through our stay in London -- apparently a record high for the last week of September -- and not a lick of rain. Everyone kept commenting on it. I packed all wrong and spent most of the first week sweltering, especially in the tube. Have met several lovely Londonistas (waves to hesychasm, samdonne and infinitemonkeys) for nice chats, and I kept having afternoon teas because I liked them so much. Am a convert! Must look around to see if I can find clotted cream at the local fancy-pants grocery store.

We saw two plays: Much Ado About Nothing at the Globe, which was just lovely and witty and tremendous, with great chemistry between Beatrice and Benedict, and an interesting yet incredibly problematic version of The Tempest at Haymarket, which had us blanching in horror at the magnitude of the racefail. Oh, dude. Not enough facepalm in the world.

High points of the trip:
Edinburgh Castle, especially the Scottish War Memorial
Victoria and Albert Museum OMG (I spent hours in British Galleries alone -- I long for those beautiful cabinets -- then went back to gawk at all the silver works and jewelry)
Sumptuous afternoon tea at the beautiful courtyard café at the Courtauld Gallery
The Roman bath museum in Bath
Much Ado
Tower of London, which despite being terribly touristy, met all my (bloodthirsty) expectations
The charming little place we had lunch in York (Grays Court Café), where we sadly had the worst weather during our trip. A nice little refuge from the wind and the cold
The Cult of Beauty exhibition in Musée d'Orsay
The Lady and the Unicorn tapestries in Musée de Cluny, which were probably the most beautiful things I saw in the entire trip, and I saw A LOT of things.
The excellent food in Paris. Both Minnow and I agreed that we probably had the best mashed potato of our lives in the city. I suspect the secret ingredient was butter. Lots and lots of butter.

Later on, there might be photos, but now I must crash! And possibly do laundry. Or not.

Also, I have to catch up on #!%*&@* amount of shows. (I was a terrible guest and sneakily downloaded episodes of Fringe and Haven using our London hotel's wi-fi, and I have a lot of !!!!-ish feelings about both! But those will have to wait.)

Hullo from London!

1. London has the most amazing underground system. Makes me right nostalgic about living in a city with good public transportation.

2. Still fighting the tail end of the Most Heinous Cold Ever (now going on three weeks!) and not being able to sleep properly due to coughing. Codeine is my best friend! I've turned into quite a druggie. It's been a struggle between my head who's all "Must! See! Everything!" and my body that just wants to return to the hotel and have a lie-down all the time. Bah.

3. We're staying in one of the small hotels near Russell Square. The British Museum is just 'round the corner, so I went for a (jet-lagged) peek for a couple of hours on my arrival on Sunday. The Rosetta Stone and the Elgin Marbles were all that, I suppose, but my favourite place was the Enlightenment Room. The orrery in the center of the room was particularly fine.

4. I've just come back from Edinburgh where I spent a couple of days. What a beautiful city! Have visited the famed Edinburgh Castle and looked upon the Stone of Scone (or "Stone of Destiny," which has the more proper ring to it), which is a big hunk of grey rock. I imagine "scone" here has some other meaning than the delicious pastry you eat with clotted cream -- I meant to ask one of the guides but forgot.

5. Of all the places I visited in Edinburgh, I loved St. Giles most of all. It's a beautiful church, but not ostentatious like many I have seen. I found myself returning to it whenever I felt weary. It had a magnificant-looking pipe organ -- I was sad not to have seen it in action.

6. I had some very dodgy pizza in The Elephant House, the cafe where J.K. Rowling wrote the first Harry Potter book. It gave me wicked indigestion all day yesterday. I guess she didn't frequent the cafe for its food. *rubs the still sore stomach*

7. After the train trip back, I took a luxurious 3 hour nap, smack in the middle of what looked like a gorgeous Indian Summer afternoon. I cannot feel too bad about it, as I feel quite refreshed now. Instead of trying to sightsee, I might go for a late afternoon tea and dig into Have His Carcass, while waiting for minnow1212 to arrive.

8. Of all the things, I forgot to pack the charger and the spare battery for my digital camera (a canon PowerShot model, SD750). Would anyone know a best place to go in town to get a spare charger?

More later!

September has been pretty unbearable (work drama + death-cold from hell that incapacitated me for two solid weeks and left me with residual hacking cough) and here I am, two days to go before I depart for my London trip. I need to pack for the damn trip and am a-flail with indecision!

I'm assuming fall in London would be sporadically rainy + veering wildly from balmy to frosty depending on its mood. For my two-week trip, so far I have:

1. Four pairs of pants (dark-wash boot-cut jeans + comfy but nice tapered black cotton work pants + casual light green cords + dark green skinnies for tucking into boots)
2. Two lightweight crease-proof cotton dresses, one of which is nice enough black one that could serve for going out to nice restaurants or to the theater
3. Four or five long-sleeved tops (a couple of patterned shlubby casual button-downs good for layering + 2 soft cotton long-Ts, one black and one green +/- one tissue-thin purple turtleneck)
4. Couple of short-sleeved tops for possible unexpected nice weather + two camis for layering.
5. Two soft cotton cardigans for layering (one grey, one brown)
6. One lightweight black jacket.
7. Super-comfy olive flats with good support, which I'll probably wear most of the time + sturdy pair of brown boots which can be dressed up and down, and will be good to stomp around in when it rains, etc.


Things that I am not sure about:
1. My favourite gold cotton skirt which I adore and goes with everything but will require ironing (augh)
2. Trusty khaki trench coat, which is fairly warm and will be nice to have if it's drafty and rainy, but it's kind of bulky to pack.
3. A nice pair of comfortable black heels for going out to theater or dinner (we've already bought tickets for a couple of plays).

I'm leaning toward leaving the skirt and taking the trench and the heels, but I feel like I'm over-packing and AUGH. Please to be helping me make up my mind, por favor!

There will also be some long train rides thus I need room for books. But how many books? I've started (finally) reading the Lord Peter Wimsey books after hearing so many things about them and am more than half way through Strong Poison. I can take Have His Carcass and Gaudy Night and maybe call it a day? I mean, I'm gonna be in freakin' London -- I can always buy more books.

ACCK! Also, EEEEEE!!

***

In other news, I am hopelessly behind on TV yet nonetheless managed to watch a handful of pilots.

Ringer - checked out for SMG, but found it almost unwatchable
New Girl - OMG SO TWEE GET IT AWAY FROM ME (and I am talking as someone who loved Pushing Daisies)
2 Broke Girls - Pro: Kat Denning is fun and charismatic, the chemistry between the two girls is pretty good. Female friendship as the core of the story - yay! Cons: super-cringey ethnic stereotyping OMG WHY. Plus I call moratorium on all comedy heroines dreaming of owning a cupcake business. It's a fucking cliché by now. DREAM BIGGER, COMEDY HEROINES.
The Secret Circle - uber WB-tastic but I enjoyed this one the most out of the lot, mostly for Thomas Dekker, who had a rather good chemistry with the Pouty Blonde Heroine. *mourns yet some more for Sarah Connor Chronicles* Could be brainless trashy fun. One the downside: boo, for starting YET another genre show with the protagonist's mother being set on fire.

The one that has me the most intrigued is the showtime drama with Claire Danes and Damien Lewis, except it deals with terrorism and is helmed by the dude behind 24. Which means I do not trust the politics behind it and I worry that it'll end up giving me rage blackouts. Hmmm.

Of course I went to see it on the opening night. Have you met me?

I enjoyed it thoroughly, although I don't know if it'd be for everyone. The film is quite dispassionate for all the carnage dealt by the virus, which pleased me. It has a huge cast of recognizable stars, but none of them is what I'd call a main character and there isn't much in the way of deep character development for any of them. The protagonist of the piece is the virus itself, a mysterious assassin that's really, really good at its job, which is to exist and propagate. (It even gets an origin story, just like a superhero! Or a supervillain, I guess.) It's not its fault -- after all, microbes are not evil, and human casualty is merely an accidental damage for being in their path.

The movie manages to navigate through many disparate yet entangled storylines with efficiency and skill, and actually does a competent job at epidemiology, although of course it takes some liberties here and there. But my nitpicks were minor and I only had one major "but it does not work that way!!" moment in the entire movie, which was impressive. Several characters, despite their limited screen time, were memorable. Kate Winslet plays Dr. Erin Meers, a quietly heroic EIS (Epidemic Intelligence Service) officer from CDC who's deployed to the center of the epidemic in its early days. (I thought about training to become an EIS oficer briefly during my school years. It sounded like such a cool job. But I fear I'm not detail-oriented enough to make a good epidemiologist.) Jennifer Ehle as a virologist in CDC working on the vaccine is also marvellous. I love her face, which is so full of wry intelligence. Afterward, one of my friends stumbled for words to describe her. "She always has this little smirk on her face," I said, to which he exclaimed, "Yes! She looks so self-satisfied, but you know, not in a bad way." I nodded, "it's like, we don't have to waste time talking about how awesome I am; I know. Let's just move onto more important stuff. Which somehow does not come across as smug, because well, she really is that awesome. She was like that as Elizabeth Bennet, too." Then my other friend yelled, "ELIZABETH FUCKING BENNET! THAT'S WHERE I KNOW HER FROM!!" Heh.

Also terrific: Matt Damon as Typhoid Gwynnie's grief-stricken husband, very good as a decent everyman, and Lawrence Fishburn as the director of CDC in charge of the investigation. Jude Law is convincingly sleazy as an unscrupulous blogger who tries to profit from the catastrophe. He's probably the most overt antagonist in the story, other than the virus itself. Funny how this contrasts to Deadline, which deals with another virally-mediated near-apocalypse in which bloggers are goddamned heroes.

Best of all is how plausible all this is. I tell you, we are all just a major antigenic shift away from being FUBAR. The movie posits a case fatality rate of 25% for the new virus, which is very high but not ridiculous. For example, the Influenza Pandemic of 1918 is presumed to have case fatality rate of > 2.5%, way above that of the regular seasonal flu, but it was probably still under 10% although nobody knows for sure. But it *is* theoretically possible that a novel virus, provided that it has somehow adapted enough to 1) efficiently infect humans, 2) enable facile human-to-human transmission, and 3) cause major illness through a cytokine storm, would infect and kill a huge number of people, even more than the Spanish Flu. The H5N1 bird flu had the rough estimate of 60% case fatality -- this is probably a big overestimation, due to the lack of detection of mild or subclinical cases, but even if you halve that, it's still a frightening number. The only reason it is not a huge menace right now is because it doesn't spread readily from birds to humans, or from humans to humans. But hey, that can change any time! *cackles*

Anyway, the movie is a cracking good time for microbiology geeks, hypochondriacs, fans of 70's-era star-studded disaster epics, and fans of apocalypse narratives -- I am all of those. Or you could just go see it to gawk at Paltrow dying horribly (I hear there is a rather large audience who'd appreciate that.)

My worst Vividon earworm has been Hollaback Girl. It's been difficult to maintain a serious face during academic staff meetings, when all I want to do is to yell out "This shit. Is Bananas! B-A-N-A-N-A-S!", especially given how appropriate that sentiment would have been in the context of many (many) meetings I had in the past week.

Today at work was particularly fuckwitted. I had the damn song running in my head the entire day.

***

I was in the bathroom during the earthquake and missed all the excitement. Yay?

***

Went to see It Happened One Night at the local rep theater on Sunday night. It'd been nearly a decade since I saw it last. The movie holds up surprisingly well, although the part where Clark Gable has Claudette Colbert slung across his shoulder like a potato sack while crossing the stream (and they have that super-cute "piggyback! Yr doing it wrong" argument), and spanks her on the bum to shut her up, made me go, "... seriously, did they just do that?!"

Well, it was 1934 and Ellie was kind of a brat.

Everything to do with the Wall of Jericho was still irresistibly charming. And young Clark Gable sure was a sight for sore eyes.

***

TeeVee:

I have no opinion on the current season of Project Runway (except to say Viktor is a whiny bitch and I quite like Anya despite her sketchy sewing skills -- Girlfriend has a good eye.) But this particular series of caps from Tom & Lorenzo re. the last week's episode is a thing of (hilarious) joy and beauty forever.

Still vaguely obsessed with Haven since the last week's ep. I've been nurturing a very X-Philesian craving for a post-episode tag all of a sudden. Oh, and here's an interesting interview about the Audrey-Nathan-Duke triptych with Sam Ernst, who is one of the showrunners. He appears to be an equal opportunity shipper. Or he really has fandom's number. :)

***

I've been looking for a sturdy, comfortable yet non-fugly pair of walking shoes that could go with both pants and skirts for the upcoming trip to Britain next month. But in lieu of practical stuff, Anthro's new fall shoes collection keeps distracting me with the shiny.

Like these, for example. Aren't they the most gorgeous pair of Oxfords you've ever seeeeeeen? That price tag is ridiculous and I am not buying them ('cause I am not! Nuh, nuh), but I keep going back to gaze at them worshipfully, like I'd do a work of art. The thing is, with that platform, they are probably reasonably comfy for that heel height.

Stupid shoes! (The gold polka dots! I DIE.)

Then there are these mustard beauties and these stylish tan heels that look like they would go with everything (even if they are too high.)

NO! Say NO to impractical heels! *resolve face* Damn it.

Aw, show! Did you just go and pop out a genuinely well-written and emotional episode? God knows I love this show, but usually I'm all, "err, just handwave through ridiculous plots and occasionally cringey dialog and concentrate on the characters! Who are adorable!" But this one was pretty awesome, y'all. Of course, it didn't hurt that the ep utilized one of my favourite SF tropes.

( Nathan's favourite Bill Murray movie -- Ghostbusters, or Stripes? )

( some stuff on the earlier episodes of the season )

*waves to the Boston contingent*

I'm trying to book a hotel for three-night stay in Boston for a conference in late October. It's in downtown (Copley/Back Bay area) and the hotels around the area are #&#*@&^$ expensive. My colleague who usually rooms with me has made other arrangements, and it's either I room with my boss (ahahaha, NO, but I'll consider it as the last resort) or find a cheap / clean / safe place, at preferably under $150 a night.

I've been looking and can't seem to find anything that's less than $250 a night. Anyone knows of any hidden gems around downtown? I would not be adverse to a short T-ride to get to the conference site but I don't want to be too far out.

I've been eying this website but the reviews of their services appear to be mixed... And there is always the bed and breakfast option. Hmm.