|
Never mess with the sacred chickens
|
|
|
| (no subject) |
[May. 29th, 2012|10:00 am] |
Oh dear; just saw the news from Italy. Another earthquake, with deaths. With this along with Greece, Spain, Portugal and Ireland all teetering on the edge of disaster (with Greece closer to that edge but none of us all that secure), it feels like Europe is just crumbling all around us.
And speaking of Greece: it was not all that impressive to watch Christine Lagarde lecturing Greeks about thrift and the evils of tax avoidance when she herself pays no tax on her salary of nearly $500,000 (with allowances it tops that amount). Yep, I bet there's a woman who can't sleep at night because of the plight of the world's poor (as long as they're not in Greece). |
|
|
| (no subject) |
[May. 29th, 2012|09:39 am] |
OH MY GOD THERE IS A NEW VERSION OF SINBAD WITH DODGY CGI AND NAVEEN ANDREWS. HE IS NOT SINBAD BUT I HAVE GREAT HOPES AND MAYBE HE WILL KILL THE REAL SINBAD WITH HIS ANKLES AND THROW HIM OVERBOARD AND TAKE HIS PLACE LIKE THE DREAD PIRATE ROBERTS.
I am going to watch every episode of this almost certain to be cancelled monstrosity. And post about it. POST POST POST. |
|
|
| Immortal words by the education board regarding the national school in Co. Longford |
[May. 24th, 2012|03:13 am] |
"Teacher George Clarke is a manure vendor. This does not interfere with the discharge of his school duties."
(14th June, 1895 <--- I guess there probably weren't too many sweet smelling peasants in that day, so a manure vendor might not have stood out smellwise even in a tiny national school)
I really, really want to know how that came up at the board meeting. |
|
|
| EUROVISION SEMI FINALS! |
[May. 22nd, 2012|11:48 am] |
It doesn't get much better than this except for the final...will Jedward go to the final and shame our once proud nation of Ireland one more time? What about the Russian grannies? IT'S ALL SO EXCITING. Eurovision is like half-Christmas, but with no religious baggage.
OH GOD I LOVE EUROVISION.
ETA: Montenegro. I was not expecting that. How could anyone expect that?
ETA 2: Finland. I can't work out if I like it or not (but go her! singing in Finnish!). But she has awesome eyeshadow and the streaming dress thing is rather mesmerizing.
ETA 3: I think I can see the cause of Europe's economic woes: the national budgets for hair extensions is clearly very high in many countries. Luckily many countries save by not using much cloth in dresses. Though some are strangely extravagant in the amount of captains caps that they splurge on. (They should totally hire me at the IMF. I could be sent around assessing excessive sartorial spending on a country by country basis.)
ETA 4: Dear Pip and Scrap, can your enmity not rest until after the Eurovision? PEACE AND LOVE EVEN BETWEEN DOGS AND CATS. (This has nothing to do with Eurovision and everything to do with dogs that cannot resist trying to sniff a cat's bottom and a cat that likes to once in a while take runs at said dog just for the fun of it.)
ETA 5: Moldova is up next. I have a savage, deep love for that country, a love purely based on the fact that once in Eurovision their act had a guy whose sole role was to be aged and dance around in the back shaking a stick. IT WAS BEAUTIFUL. I call him stick music guy and I salute him.
ETA 6: Jedward. What can I say except: oh Ireland. |
|
|
| The Avengers |
[May. 20th, 2012|09:11 am] |
Well, at least it's not going to give Ryan Reynolds'* superhero playing career a boost. So there's that.
I didn't hate it, but possibly my expectations were too high, because endless gratuitous bottom shots of Scarlett Johansson aside, it neither really thrilled or annoyed me. Well, I could have done less with archer boy, whose angst failed to convince in much the same way that the idea of a bow as an efficient armoured army of aliens repelling device did. And I'm one of those people who buy Katniss' magic bow powers in The Hunger Games, so I'm not picky about magic bows being awesome.
I did like the Hulk, though. And Black Widow.
*(I try not think of the fact that they're talking about casting him in the reboot of Highlander. I don't hate him, but people who think he's an action hero are, IMHO, delusional. It's like trying to argue Lindsay Lohan would be ideal to play Shakespeare's Juliet.) |
|
|
| I wish this fucking printer had feelings |
[May. 2nd, 2012|05:07 am] |
Because then I'd be able to kick the bejesus out of it and actually get some satisfaction. I have never hated any inanimate object the way I have hated this printer. It goes beyond reason, beyond sanity into a cold dark part of my soul. Let me tell you of the wonders of this printer (an Epson SX325w if you're interested in purchasing your very own tormenter. If you enjoy despair and pain then this is a MUST BUY for you).
First off, there is the fact that it cannot deal with about more than 10 pieces of paper in one go (well, it actually has problems with more than 2 pages but if you hold the pages just right you can get it up to 10). "No worry," you think because you are A DELUDED FOOL, "I'll just sit there and hold the paper and keep an eye on it as it prints this document." But once it has you there THIS SPAWN OF THE DEVIL springs its second delight: blank pages. Sometimes all of the pages are blank, sometimes only one or two. Of course, they are always the ones you really need it to print, because it is OF THE DEVIL AND HIS WORKS. It doesn't matter what the file is: if it is something you really need to print, the chances are it will be blanker than the part of a banker's mind devoted to ethics and the milk of human kindness.
Let me say here that this is the printer at its optimal level: most of the time it doesn't print at all. Nope; it just sits there blinking at you. There is no reason given, it's just enjoying screwing with you because that's what it does. It takes you, an adult human being of fairly solid sanity, and reduces you to a weeping gibbering fool who alternates between vicious swearing at it and pleading. (It is moved by neither.) Other times it likes not to recognize its ink cartridges, even when they have come from Epson. When it does recognize them, the moment is fleeting. If you do not seize it, it may well be gone for days, so gather ye print rosebuds while ye may. When the cartridge drops below half full it just stops printing. No faded pages for you! NO NOTHING FOR YOU BECAUSE THIS THING ONLY EXISTS TO BREAK THE HUMAN SPIRIT. You can tell there is ink in there because the supply level feature works, just so the thing can taunt you properly. You will scream, you will swear, you will plead, but that fucking ink light will just flash at you, secure in the knowledge that you can do nothing. So then you go and buy more ink, only to find IT WON'T LET YOU INSERT THEM. The ones in there are coy and like to hide and never move to the two inch space where you can actually get them out no matter how you press buttons, because that might make you happy. Though sometimes, just to fuck with you a little, they'll shoot out to that two inch strip for a second and then shoot back into the corner, because it hasn't done enough already.
Please! I do not want to hear stories of how your Epson printer works quite well, because that would send me over the edge. From now on I am dedicating my life to retelling this story and hoping that I can save others from my fate. And now I'm going to put on some heavy boots and kick it for a bit.
(I did have other things to say about the past month, but my hate for this printer is so overwhelming that I don't want to contaminate anything else by having it share this post.) |
|
|
| A Game of Thrones question |
[Apr. 1st, 2012|07:03 pm] |
|
So I haven't seen all the episodes of the first season and thus am missing a lot of background, but did Cersei never see Joffrey after she gave birth to him? Because otherwise her complete inability to handle him at all and her endless astonishment at his wankery makes very little sense. Or are the Lannisters - apart from Tyrion - not very bright? |
|
|
| Undone by a strumpet! |
[Apr. 1st, 2012|05:32 pm] |
I'm solely posting this as a warning against being undone by strumpets. BEWARE OF THEM. BEWARE!
ETA: I have spent most of today watching Game of Thrones on HBO. I'm enjoying it. Except (and I think this is unusual) for the Lannister centric stuff, apart from Tyrion. I think it might be my automatic dislike of people who are so clearly that aristocratic. I find even the incest not that interesting. Though maybe they get more interesting later? So far it's been incest, annoying Queen lady, and deer hunting which is not exactly luring me in. (Though Joffrey is sort of awesomely horrible. The Stark girl who is engaged to him is so far sadly not coming off well in the smarts department.) |
|
|
| Wrath of the Titans: I saw three people fall asleep |
[Mar. 31st, 2012|06:04 pm] |
I think I have pretty conclusively shown that I will watch almost anything. And that I have very low standards when it comes to films. Very, very low standards. Thus when I say a film is crap, I think you can believe that not only is it crap, but that it is crap on a hitherto unknown and unthought of level. Trust me on this: Wrath of the Titans makes such films as Hands of Manos look like works of genius. THREE PEOPLE IN MY SCANTILY OCCUPIED ROW FELL ASLEEP ABOUT HALFWAY THROUGH. And they were the lucky ones.
It's hard to know where to start on the awfulness of this film, which is entirely without charm, coherency, or entertainment value. I don't expect much of this sort of film, but I do expect a certain level of internal coherency from scene to scene. This film made whatever that abomination that was the most recent Transformer film look good in that department. Perseus, in between reverting to his Australian roots, managed to make the average rock look charismatic and intelligent, and the Greek gods turn out to be able to be killed by people just not being very interested in them for ten years. Despite the fact that they invented people. And there was some plot with a magic spear thing that could only be made out of various implements that involved Bill Nighy being completely wasted in a role that hopefully is paying off a tax bill or buying him a new house. And Liam Neeson channeled Aslan and whatever the name of that Jedi dude he played in the Star Wars prequels was in a way that reminded one of limp broccoli. AND ALL THE TIME MY BOREDOM BEAT AT MY SKULL. I CAN SAY NO MORE BECAUSE THE MEMORIES ARE SCARRING ME ONCE MORE.
Plus: Let me just suggest that facing off against a lava monster with a hoplite phalanx might not be the most sensible idea ever. You'd probably be better just jumping off cliffs and getting the whole thing over quickly.
In conclusion: DO NOT SEE THIS FILM UNLESS YOU HATE YOURSELF. If you do, then go right ahead |
|
|
| (no subject) |
[Mar. 28th, 2012|05:59 pm] |
Adrienne Rich has died. I don't read a lot of modern poetry but I used to read her work, but have since fallen out of the habit. I regret that, because she wrote poems like this:
I know you are reading this poem
late, before leaving your office
of the one intense yellow lamp-spot and the darkening window
in the lassitude of a building faded to quiet
long after rush-hour. I know you are reading this poem
standing up in a bookstore far from the ocean
on a grey day of early spring, faint flakes driven
across the plains' enormous spaces around you.
I know you are reading this poem
in a room where too much has happened for you to bear
where the bedclothes lie in stagnant coils on the bed
and the open valise speaks of flight
but you cannot leave yet. I know you are reading this poem
as the underground train loses momentum and before running
up the stairs
toward a new kind of love
your life has never allowed.
I know you are reading this poem by the light
of the television screen where soundless images jerk and slide
while you wait for the newscast from the intifada.
I know you are reading this poem in a waiting-room
of eyes met and unmeeting, of identity with strangers.
I know you are reading this poem by fluorescent light
in the boredom and fatigue of the young who are counted out,
count themselves out, at too early an age. I know
you are reading this poem through your failing sight, the thick
lens enlarging these letters beyond all meaning yet you read on
because even the alphabet is precious.
I know you are reading this poem as you pace beside the stove
warming milk, a crying child on your shoulder, a book in your
hand
because life is short and you too are thirsty.
I know you are reading this poem which is not in your language
guessing at some words while others keep you reading
and I want to know which words they are.
I know you are reading this poem listening for something, torn
between bitterness and hope
turning back once again to the task you cannot refuse.
I know you are reading this poem because there is nothing else
left to read
there where you have landed, stripped as you are.
I think this is one of the the most beautiful poems in the world. |
|
|
| navigation |
| [ |
viewing |
| |
most recent entries |
] |
| [ |
go |
| |
earlier |
] |
| |
|
|
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=92.1){kind=small}
lesbiassparrow's journal
