Very old but I'm hitting publish anyway

Scarina of Scarina's Scary Vault of Scariness blog has nominated me for the Liebster Award/chain letter. If you’re nominated for a Liebster then you automatically win. Also, you have to answer eleven questions about yourself and nominate eleven blogs for a Liebster. 

1. What angers you the most when watching a movie in theaters?
Noisy people and those that play on their phone. Can we just talk about how it has taken over peoples lives? Ten years ago we all got along fine without everyone knowing what we were doing at every moment in time. Taking public transport everyone is on their phones. It depresses me, especially for the Z generation who have not even known a time when this was not the way of life.
2. What do you love about watching movies in theaters?
Comedies are just funnier and I've always bonded with my girlfriends at the movies.
3. Name a movie you never want to watch. Ever.
IT, I am scared for life following an incident when I was younger.
4. Name a movie you’re ashamed you haven’t seen yet.
Die Hard
5. Favorite weekend hangout?
My couch.
6. Favorite band or music artist for the past week?
I have not been listening to anything in particular this week, but always Sia.
7. 3D. Yay or Nay?
Nah.
8. Name a movie you wish you could have been on the set while it was filming.

9. How do you stream movies (Computer, Blu-ray Player, Game Consoles like PS4 and Wii)?
Computer mostly.
10. What are your top five favorite movie podcasts to listen to?
N/A
11. Who is your movie celebrity crush? You have to answer for both guys and girls.
Henry Cavill and Romola Garai - coincidentially both in I Capture the Castle.

Double creature feature

Wow, where the hell did 2014 go? I got married which was nice, but other than everything involved with that, I'm not sure what else has happened. I'm still fostering, but had to cut back over the wedding period, but of course have now just taken on a mum cat and her 5 kittens who unfortunately have ringworm. Ah well back to the grind.

In what feels like ages ago, our local station played 2 Australian creature features back to back (and no ads being the public broadcaster!) and I thought they were worth a mention.

The Reef
Released in 2010, friends on a boat which of course capsizes and they need to swim to the nearest island. This has obvious similarities to Open Water but I connected more to the characters in this one. I thought the effects were quite good, it was creepy, it really looked like the actors were swimming with sharks, and put yourself in the water with them. Living in a country that mostly populates the coast, I can't help but think of sharks when swimming. Particularly as there have been a few deaths in the last 3 year and we were named as one of two international hot spots for shark attacks (http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-02-12/wa-identified-as-one-of-two-shark-hotspots/4514138). Obligatory Jaws reference: I also have a black dog, though not named Pippit.

Black Water
Released in 2007, and based on a true story: http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/12/23/1071941726873.html
This time the terror is crocodilian. An older sister, her husband and the younger sister go on a fishing trip in  Northern Australia, and a crocodile capsizes their dinghy and kills the guide. The rest then have to survive the stalking crocodile.
I liked this film but didn't feel as much for the characters, I'm not sure if the threat just didn't feel as real to me, maybe because I don't have such a greater fear of crocodiles or the scares in The Reef just felt more real. I thought the ending was just a bit unbelievable too. But hey what do I know about crocodiles!? For another Australian crocodile movie but with an American lead actor, check out Rogue (2007).

 

 

 

Ode to Toby

We got Toby from a friend my dad played football with. Back then I was 10 and we didn’t know about rescue or adopting an animal. Someone’s cat would have babies and that’s how we got a kitten. My brother and I picked a kitten but we were only getting one and for some reason that was the little girl my brother had picked out. He was 8. Apparently she was a boy though, so we went with our theme of T names for our pets to join Thomas an older cat and Tess our kelpie cross dog. Luckily Toby is a unisex name and it stuck once we took her to the vet for a check up.

Toby was part tortoiseshell and the term fiery tortie (or naughty tortie) was apt. Though I looked up a pet star sign guide when I was in my teens and she was a Libra and a trait of theirs was quick to anger and quick to forgive which was also apt. She had a habit in her later years of having a swipe at you from the kitchen bench where she liked to lay, as you mindlessly walked past to go down the hallway or to the fridge.

She had supermodel looks we always said in her younger years with her gorgeous half orange face, mostly dark back and then her undercarriage consisted on mostly white curly fur which I love to pat, but which she didn’t allow for very long.

She started putting on weight in her retirement years and she got the affectionate name of Jub Jub which I believe was stolen from The Simpsons (Selma has an iguana called Jub Jub for reasons I don’t understand). During her retirement years she pretty much lived on the kitchen bench with her own special bed by the wall phone.

She seemed to have a touch of dementia, often wailing in the middle of the night for short bursts, maybe wanting food, attention or seemingly she was not sure.

Last year she would have got to the age of 19. One of her eyes had a burst blood vessel so my mum took her to the vet. There wasn’t much else they could do as she had cancer behind her eye.

The decision was made on a weekday, knowing I would not be able to handle being at work I took an annual leave day and spent it mostly at my mum and dads. She was fiery right to the end which was her truth at that stage in her life. I gave her multiple last pats and hugs when she would allow it and kisses. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to be there when they returned with her in the shoebox but I had with all our previous pets and thought it would provide closure.

I stayed with her while they dug outside and I looked at her and patted her, with a fresh wave of tears. She did look peaceful and she was wrapped in a nice tablecloth inside the box.

Outside my dad didn’t dig a big enough hole and I felt like he was trying to jam the box in “Be careful” I yelled out. I didn’t want any dirt getting into the box. My dad and fiancée weren’t crying but my mum and I were. My brother was away on his fly in, fly out job, we had the dogs out the front with us. Goodnight Tobes.

Long Weekend (1978)

This film is regarded as Ozploitation.

Ozploitation (a portmanteau of Australia and exploitation) films are a type of low budget horror, comedy and action films made in Australia after the introduction of the R rating in 1971. The year also marked the beginnings of the Australian New Wave movement, and the Ozploitation style peaked within the same time frame (early 1970s to late 1980s). Ozploitation is often considered a smaller wave within the New Wave, "a time when break-neck-action, schlock-horror, ocker comedy and frisky sex romps joined a uniquely antipodean wave in exploitation (Thanks Wikipedia).

 

Quentin Tarrantino is interviewed quite extensively in the documentary Not Quite Hollywood: The Wild, Untold Story of Ozploitation!, as he is a big fan of Australian films like these especially from the 1970’s.

 

 

The plot is fairly simple, a couple and their dog, Cricket, (the couple barely able to contain their antagonistic, bitter relationship) go out for a trip to the beach, camping for a long weekend.

Peter pushes Marcia into going, but there’s obviously some deep rooted bitterness over something that has happened with their friends recently. Marcia doesn’t like the outdoors, and doesn’t want to be intimate with Peter. She also keeps hearing an unsettling noise throughout the night, like a baby’s cry. Soon it is revealed what the couple are fighting about, and Marcia just wants to go home.

 

From the beginning the couple show no respect for nature, Peter runs over a kangaroo (seen here a lot, very common unfortunately), ditches his cigarette butt into the bush and goes Rambo style shooting at ducks when they arrive for seemingly no reason. There is a sense of unease about the whole movie. They are the odd ones out in the environment but show it no respect.

The animals in the environment all stand up to the test of time for realism, though the eagle attack looked a bit dodgy. I had to laugh at the use of the Tasmanian devil, as they are not found in mainland Australia, only Tasmania. An Australian crew would know this, so I found this a strange choice. Although this film did do well internationally (but not at home), so most international audiences would not know what animal is native or not to particular regions of the country.

All in all though the animal attacks do not harm Peter or Marcia in any substantial way, but they create a sense of unease and adds to the realism of the situation. Are these attacks co-incidental or is nature fighting back?

Neither Peter nor Marcia is very likeable but we’re not really sure what we want to happen to them. Peter sees some fellow campers and then goes back to check on them the following day as he thought they were completely alone, but then that storyline and what has happened to those other campers doesn’t really get explained or investigated as much as it could.

The film has some problems, at times it felt very slow and we are forced to watch two characters for the majority of a movie who are hard to relate to in a traditional sense. In saying that though, their unlikeability was quite realistic in a sad sort of way.

All in all this was an interesting and in parts unsettling film. The last twenty minutes is devoid of dialogue and I honestly didn’t know how it was going to end.

The actors are good, as unlikeable as they were, and I did want them to get out of their long weekend hell.

A remake was made in 2008 starring an Australian actress and an American actor in the lead roles, but I haven’t seen it so can’t comment. I have an aversion to most remakes however, and the reviews I’ve read have not been unfavourable but most recommend sticking to the original as it just took the best parts from it.

Poor old Cricket, I like to think she survived. She was the only sweet character.

 

The real hero of Jaws 2

The first Jaws movie is my dad’s favourite movie of all time, I would have to say. As such it was a bit of an institution in our household growing up where I saw it at a young age. Apparently my dad’s uncle took him and his friend to see it when it came out to the cinemas when they were about 13.

And then we were introduced to the box set of the Jaws movies (this of course excluded Jaws 4 which is ridiculous and what the hell was Michael Caine thinking?!) on VHS.

Jaws is obviously the best and cannot be topped by any sequels and just generally a top movie due to reasons anyone who has seen the movie knows (great character development, tense scenes despite not seeing the bloody shark until half way into the movie, great actors). Jaws 2 and 3 on the other hand, well what can you say. Jaws 2 essentially took components of Jaws but with less character development, an even more unbelievable ending and an implausible character flaw in Michael Brody (would you really ever be getting back in the water after such a close call with a shark as happened in the first film?).

 

 

In case you didn’t live in a Jaws box set loving family like mine, basic plot is there’s another shark terrorising the peeps of Amity Island about 5 years after the last movie. And amazingly Mike (Chief Brody’s son) now a teenager wants to go sailing with his mates in the open water, which his parents have forbidden because as you know, they’re shark fearing normal parents after the events of Jaws. Why didn’t they move away though, to take away the temptation you ask? Ask away but it won’t get you a sequel. And then Sean, Michael’s younger brother sneaks away with Michael and his friends one day on a sailing trip. And you know trouble ensues.

 

Nevertheless I enjoyed it, particularly when I was younger, maybe because I liked the teenagers in it, maybe because it terrified me that you weren’t even safe in a boat (or a helicopter!) anymore in the Jaws world (to add, in Jaws 4 you are not even safe leaning over the side of a boat…yeesh).

But Jaws 2 had this habit of killing off the likeable helpful characters and keeping the more annoying ones alive. Yeah you know who I mean, the crying, constantly screaming girl, Jackie. I’m not denying if this shit was happening to me in real life I would totally be Jackie as well. Blubbering, wailing generally being annoying anytime that shark showed it’s slimy fin. But ugh why not let the shark take her, instead of Marge, or that guy going out with Tina or that kindly helicopter pilot who tries to help those kids?

 

Nooooooooo...also my grandad has that beard

It’s a cruel world and so instead Jackie goes on wailing her head off, while Marge saves Sean and then gets eaten when she can’t get a grip on her slippery upturned boat. Did I mention that she was one who let Sean come with her, since Michael pretty much gives up responsibility rights to Sean as soon as they arrive on the dock? Speaking of Michael is a pretty useless brother all round, he manages to get himself knocked unconscious and his friends have to babysit him for most of the movie. And then as adults in Jaws 4 (you know that sequel that doesn’t exist?) he lets Sean have a job as some kind of sea faring police dude and he promptly gets eaten. To be fair though the whole experience as a child really should have kept Sean also off the water for life, but maybe these Brody boys have sea water on the brain or something.

Anyway back to Martyr Marge, I salute you. And wish that your alter ego (actor Martha Swatek) had actually appeared in more movies but I guess you’ll stay a hero forever on screen.

 

So some housekeeping: I have been a bad blogger, agreed but no one wants to read that. So let’s say I have secured a permanent position finally, no more temping, I can finally have sick and holiday pay.

Leo has found a home, I still have Kasey and Donna, who are no longer little kittens but still adorable.

Mylo went on trial to a new home and then escaped on the 3^rd day. My partner and I rushed out there (about 30 minutes away) and after 2 hours we got a lead that he was spotted in the next suburb (thanks Lost and Found Pets Facebook!) and we found him. The family who were looking after him also were there but he came back to our voices, and they have since decided not to have him back. So he is recuperating with his scratches from his adventure and I’m not sure what his future is, as he doesn’t seem happy with anyone but us so far, but he really needs someone who is home a lot.

Oh and I got engaged. Never having been the type of girl who dreamt of her dream wedding from a young age, it has been an experience looking at venues, dresses and thinking about things like paying for consumption of drinks versus a drinks package.

 

Blue Lagoon - The Awakening

Don’t ask me how I came to be watching Blue Lagoon: The Awakening (2012) as I am not entirely sure myself. I was looking for the original for some good old fashioned nostalgia but had to know what they had done for a 2012 version. Well they did some contrived sap but I didn’t hate it.

Emma (Emmaline, yes just like the original) is a popular senior at high school who has a friend who cares way too much about the quarterback (Jake from Glee) potentially liking and de-virginating her. Anyway you may ask how does this high school setting suddenly end up on a deserted island? Well via a contrived party boat for Carnivale. You see, the students head to the Caribbean to help build houses (including a nice cameo for Christopher Atkins as a teacher, the original Richard in The Blue Lagoon, he of the so blonde-almost-white curls), and on their last night, Emma is persuaded by her friends to board this party boat. Dean, who for some reason is an outsider who thinks his father doesn’t love him or something is also on this boat. Whilst partying away (and seeing the quarterback kissing another girl), Emma falls off the boat, while a police boat is nearing the party boat and escorts the party boat back to shore. Dean is the only one who notices and jumps in after her, they get into a lifeboat and stay quiet. You see Dean, who previously got in trouble for dangling a knife not at all menacingly on a cafeteria table, does not want to get into trouble again and so he says they will follow the police boat back in a minute. But then the boat doesn’t have a motor. And only one paddle. So they end up on a deserted island. So completely plausible I guess.

There’s a lot of slow motion beachy type activity happening here, similar to the original but with a lot less nudity. It is after all, a TV movie. The two eventually fall in love, working through his issues about his mother dying and him being the freak of the school and her the supposed prom queen. The leads are likeable enough and coincidentally both Australian and had roles on the Australian soap, Home and Away which is set in a beach side town.

There's also a truly random big cat storyline, I guess this version has to have the 'scary unknown' aspect like the original

In the end though I don’t know why they remade it (Which is really all it is, albeit set in present day not in the early 20^th century), except perhaps to market it to the teen set who haven’t seen the original.

 

And it ended with this, a deviation from the original.

 

Heatwave

I’ll admit an untimely fact. I never watched An Inconvenient Truth.

I wouldn’t say I was a global warming sceptic, but I had my doubts.

But over Christmas we suffered through the hottest Christmas period of awful hot days in a row than I can remember. We’re talking about 7 days in a row with it being over 38C (100F) and going into 42C (107F), I’m not usually a whinger, I live in Australia we always have hot Summers and we’re used to little or no rainfall but I think because of how long it went on, it got unbearable. I had my much anticipated 2 weeks off over Christmas with a lot of big plans but it was literally too hot to do much of anything that didn’t involve air conditioning or a body of water. I’m taking my holidays in autumn next time. Our weather chart had to be altered to include a new colour (purple) for temperatures 50C and above. Yikes.

 

So I guess I’m a believer now, which fits in with my generally hippy ideals anyway.

In other news…

My litter feral (I now know is a girl) Kasey has come out of her shell in leaps and bounds. While still frightened to enjoy being picked up for long, she loves a pat and purrs! This is amazing to me.

From this grumpy girl...

To this purr machine!

And her foster sibling, Leo. I also have Donna, not pictured. 

 

Merry Christmas from Australia...it will happen first here remember

I was going to write up a post reviewing The Woman in Black, The Moth Diaries, and The Awakening as a alternative to the Christmas fare offered up. But last night I watched on YouTube a cartoon from my childhood - Cabbage Patch Kids: First Christmas and I realised I love that schmaltzy fare.


Spoiler alert - the two gingers get adopted

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVXUkUm25Ss



Merry Christmas everyone, it's going to be 39C here tomorrow.

Adventureland (2009)

Insert obligatory comment about having been away so long and being a bad blogger. And thanks to certain bloggers for not taking a break and still entertaining me. I have been lurking and not always commenting.

The way Kristen Stewart is gazing adoringly at Jesse Einsenberg is misleading. I'm pretty sure she doesn't gaze at anyone. Ever.

So Adventureland...I find Kirsten Stewart annoying. I can’t help it, I know she just wants to lead a normal life and blah blah. But when you star in one of the biggest (for better or worst) pop culture book adaptations you are going to be in for a whole lot of fame. Instead of smiling and declining questions about her personal life, she seems to sulk and basically seem like a spoiled brat.
In saying all this, I recently watched Adventureland and I’m not sure if it was the inclusion of Jesse Eisenberg who I just find adorable but I found myself not dwelling on Kirsten’s personal life in this movie and just enjoyed her as an actor. And yes she is good at playing the sullen teen which she has done a few times over now, but it works in this movie.

Set in the 1980’s, for whatever reason –it’s not completely clear to me- but Jesse got to keep his normal hair so that is a bonus, Eiseneberg plays a grad student looking to move to New York with his friend in the new school year intending on using money from his parents to supplement the move and school and a European Summer holiday. Unfortunately it is revealed that Dad recently was demoted and the money is no longer there. So Jesse (okay character name James) needs to get a Summer job.

So serious

He is qualified for nothing and so is hired immediately by Adventureland’s owners (played by Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig in rather underused roles) to work the games area of the amusement park. There he meets Kristen’s character of Em, also working the games, Martin Starr (Freaks and Geeks alumni! I’m always so excited when I see anyone from that show except Jason Segal, James Franco and Seth Rogan working…and when you look back, it’s weird that Rogan has done so well, whatever happened to little John Francis Daley) shows up as a bit of an outcast James befriends along with Em. Ryan Reynolds also stars as the park’s handyman/lothario. So that is the basic storyline, a summer of lessons etc. I’ve been meaning to watch this for a while and it happened to be on one night while I was babysitting, waiting for the mum to return home (she was waiting for a taxi for 1.5 hours). I felt like this film could have done a bit more with its actors, but I liked its underrated qualities.

On a different tangent: John Francis Daley is a Dr on Bones...is this even logistically possible given his age?

And back to me...in my time of supreme blogger laziness, I fostered one yellow Labrador named Buddy who my in laws have now adopted. He was the most gentle, easy going foster and I have no idea how he ended up in a country pound, but he now lives the luxury life, so all ends well.
I've also been holiday fostering this lovely lady, Evie who has been in foster care for a year.

Why yes that teddy does need an eye mask

A week ago I obtained one pretty feral little kitten, who I have named Kasey as I'm not sure of the sex at this time. A person called our rescue, asking for help for a few kittens who were living in her neighbours backyard (he is on holidays). She believed a stray mother had birthed in the backyard as he has no other animals and it is a pretty cosy set up. Long story short, I only managed to trap 1 of the kittens before the rest either moved on or perhaps ate some rat poison that was in the backyard that we didn't discover until later.

We definitely saw at least 4 kittens the first time we went into the backyard but they got quite elusive after that.

So I am at the stage of forcing Kasey to be patted while in a towel and his little heart his beating so fast, but he needs to get used to human touch.

Thankfully (I hope) we are getting 2 other surrended kittens this Saturday who might bring him out of his shell. I could post some pictures of Kasey but he looks so terrified, I'm not sure he brings enough of the cute factor yet.

Must go, Love Actually is on TV for the 70th time and I must watch, it is the season.

Puberty Blues

Although it is a naff title the book was anything but innocent, and was an eye opener for a naïve young 14 year old (me).

Set in the 1970s and following 2 best friends Sue and Debbie as they navigate trying to get into the ‘cool’ group. What follows is a lot of pashing, sex in the back of panel vans and gratuitous use of slang of the day such as moll, rack off etc. Quintessentially Australian some of this will indeed sound foreign to those not born here or indeed not born close enough to that golden era. I, being a lone wolf (sorry caught a bit of the Hangover the other night) sought out different and unusual reading choices in my teens and I stumbled upon this one, maybe because it had a new introduction by Kylie Minogue!

What follows is how the girls do make it into the cool group but a lot of the time this involves spending hours on the beach, guarding their man’s towel while he surfs all day and then fetching milkshakes and chiko rolls from the deli at his beck and call. They do not eat in front of the boys or surf themselves; there is also some hard drug use in amongst the gang, abortions and hints of gang rape. The book has feminist tones by the end though as Sue and Debbie learn to surf and leave the gang behind. It is a cult classic in Australia, released in 1979 and turned into a movie in 1981.

Apparently they rode horses too...

 

It has now been heavily promoted as a television miniseries and I will be very interested as to how they present some of the darker material at a prime time slot. I am loving the promos though and the use of the Dragon song, Are You Old Enough? while quite disturbing when you actually listen to the lyrics it is just so damn catchy. Plus the sequences of the girls wearing cheezels ontheir fingers, talking on a green curly corded telephone and the outfits warm my nostalgic heart.

 

When friends meant more than Facebook (actual caption)

 

There has been a bit of banter on talk back radio lately (yes I am a 60 year old man thanks for asking) about whether the 70s were actually that good or do we just look at the past through rose coloured glasses. I think it was a creative time for Australian cinema with films like Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975), My Brillant Career (1979), Mad Max (1979) and Storm Boy (1977) plus leading onto other classics in the early 80s such as Gallipoli (1981). Their success paved the way for Australian directors and actors such as Gillian Anderson, Peter Weir, George Miller and Judy Davis to have international careers.

And of course who can forget the first Australian to win a Grammy and top the US charts, Helen Reddy, who also had film roles including a nun in Airport 1975 and in my own kids favourite Pete’s Dragon. She wrote I Am Woman in 1972, the hugely popular feminist chart topper which I’ll admit to still loving today.

But the fact that Reddy felt a song like that was needed shows how the time was not all flares and flicked out hair.

Foster update:

I am currently foster less, it has been 3 weeks since my last litter all found homes, and I’m missing them. I worked out their approximate birthday to be the same as mine which was a cute surprise.

Widget, Shelly, Josie, Bubbles and Butch. It was a windy day, they were watching the leaves.

 

 

Even my boyfriend thinks I'm a midget

Our Ikea bathroom (well sink, vanity and mirror) has been built into our bathroom very slowly. I.e. the boyfriend was taking his sweet ass time on his days off doing it, and since he doesn't have every weekend off, it was slow going indeed.

So imagine my delight when I got him to promise to install the last piece of our bathroom puzzle on his day off yesterday - the mirror cabinet. It just needed to be screwed into the wall and hey presto! I would have a mirror in the bathroom for the first time in 2 years.

This is what I encountered when I went to put on a face masque. My boyfriend is 6'6 and his dad who helped, not much shorter. Apparently they must have overestimated my height though. How sweet.



I was offered a step

Babies on the brain

I had a dream I gave birth to a baby dolphin the other night. It was quite cute and cool because I didn’t have to worry about dropping it in the water. I looked up dreaming of dolphins and dreammoods.com tells me:

To see a dolphin in your dream symbolizes spiritual guidance, intellect, mental attributes and emotional trust. The dream is usually an inspirational one, encouraging you to utilize your mind to its capacity and move upward in life. Alternatively, it suggests that a line of communication has been established between the conscious and subconscious aspects of yourself. Dolphins represent your willingness and ability to explore and navigate through your emotions.

My boyfriend told me I’m a freak who had sex with a dolphin.

Then a few nights later I had a dream I had a baby girl (human) and it was a very lovely experience. I couldn’t remember the trauma of the birth I was just all new mum happy, plus constantly worrying about her floppy neck.
So completely unlike previous dreams I’ve had about babies, which are at the least terrifying. Am I finally heading into my baby gaga years?
In reality I think no, I’m still not sure I want kids, but then some days I think okay maybe just 1 (unless it’s a boy).
I have been reading a lot of the hideous named ‘mommy blogs’ lately and while some out there can only be relate able to other mums some are just entertaining on their own, so I'll blame this.

Some more comings and goings from my world lately...

I mixed this henna up last weekend from Lush and then plopped it on my head for 3 hours (you have to let it fester for a minimum of 2). I thought it would be worse but I managed to have a half hour nap during the footy half time with it on. It smells like coffee, I don’t drink coffee but it was okay.

Looks like the cooking I used to do as a kid

Winter has finally come. I love walking through parks with ponds in the rain because the people are all huddling and trying to stay dry and the ducks are all the world is my oyster now bitches and they’re loving it.

There are 2 black swans living in this inner city park near my work at the moment and they have 4 cygnets. I have to get pictures soon, they are so cute.

Meh I always sign up for these runs (and then I walk them) and then regret when it stops becoming fun after 4kilometres. This run walk was 14k in total. It was cool walking through the usually car only tunnel.

The cats can finally get their vet work done …hallejula. Hence they can get adopted as soon as this is done. I love them to pieces but feeding 5 growing kitties is putting a strain on finances.

Widget and Bubbles

Okay last night I had a dream my dog rode a shark. What is with me and the marine life?

Close...maybe what I will dream of tonight.

M Letter Characters

Mallory Pike – Junior babysitter, The Baby-Sitters Club book series

Ah Mallory the often maligned and ignored member of The Babysitters Club books I used to read many moons ago.

Mallory was not my favourite character (Dawn was) but I didn’t hate on her because she loved to read and draw and adored horses.

I related as she had so many siblings – not because I did, but because I am the oldest and I related to that responsibility thing that always got heaped on her. Mallory’s best friend was Jessi and it was mentioned every book that Mallory was white and Jessi black. One of my favourite ‘Mallory’ books was Mallory and the Mystery Diary.

They really gave Mallory the triple trifecta of ugliness for a pre teen girl – red curly hair, glasses and braces. Poor old Mal always looks the fugliest of all the sitters on the covers, except for California Girls, one of the Super Specials where she looks about 20 and smokin hot.

What most BSC fans would know as Mallory Pike.

In the middle in the red swimsuit...surely some continuity errors with the illustrator?

Max from the television show,  2 Broke Girls

This show is ridiculous, sexist, misogynist, etc but still I have come to watch every episode. I think I got hooked on it during a time when I had nothing else to watch (maybe after I exhausted all my True Blood episodes after I got into that late).

Maybe it is the power of Max Black (and in particular Kat Dennings the actress who plays her) one of the aforementioned broke girls. There is no way I can relate to her, I need to be liked by some people, and although I complain of having a tiny house I’m not exactly living in squalor. I love her sassiness and her snarky love of horses (I’m sensing a theme) and her hatred of hipsters is always entertaining. She also shows me how to dress huge boobs.

Miranda from the television show, Sex and the City

I loved the television series and still watch re runs happily, but I always hated being the ‘Miranda’ amongst my group of friends.
I do act the snarky one who doesn’t like too much affection, which seemed really boring – I think most people would want to be compared to Carrie, not the lawyer who rocked some seriously bad hair and outfits in season 1.

But hell I got used to it and could seriously relate to her honeymoon episode where she is aghast that she is just expected to lay in bed 80% of the time.
I”ve always seen her as Carrie’s closest friend too, and there are definitely more layers to her character than I believe Sam or Charlotte has.

A favourite line:

"I said no white, no ivory, no nothing that says ‘virgin’. I have a child. The jig is up." –Miranda
The Ick Factor – Series 6

*Stolen from Nikki at http://whatireadbackthen.wordpress.com/. Let me know if I can give you a letter to re post.

My version of the Barbie Dreamhouse

I went looking at display homes yesterday which is always a bad bad idea and always makes going home to my boyfriends 3x1 appalling.

I’m not sure why I go, except I like looking at pretty perfect things. But even I found myself yesterday getting a bit sick of the sameness and perfection. I can’t help but be dragged back to the reality of what 3 dogs would do to that carpet or if that was my laundry I’d need extra cupboards for kitty litter and I’d probably have kitty poo up those lovely walls.

Some things I learned:

Owls are the new thing for little girls bedrooms

A study in the middle of the childrens bedrooms is a dumb idea

Scullerys are making a comeback

A lot of people designers do like having large windows in their showers

Stock of Marilyn Monroe paraphernalia is doing well from display homes decorators budgets

But I guess it gives ideas of what I like or don’t. So I get it, they are for ‘display purposes only’. Even the other houses on the street which were new and obviously based on some of the designs I’d just seen didn’t have that same gloss. The landscaping was non existent, the finishing touches not there.
But I can dream.

I love this bath/master bedroom setup. Reminds me of a hotel I've stayed in. How decadent to have a bath in your ensuite.
I love it.

This looked better in person but the purple theme is my style and the lights were cool.

Also better in person but it is wall art with water bubbling on a neat little deck from the master bedroom.

Beautiful outside seating idea except for the artificial turf. Blerg.

I wanted to get married here. Can you believe we're a month away from Winter?

A Birthday Wish

While celebrating over the required cake when it is your birthday at work, a co-worker was asked what she was doing that night to celebrate her 28th birthday.
"I'm going to make my boyfriend watch Little Women. I think he'll like it."

Yes indeed Jo.

The cuteness, I cannot handle it. Also my manky foot.

Semi Ferals

After going to a funeral last Thursday I got a text from our rescues president about a group of kittens and mum in some elderly dudes backyard in my suburb. We had to travel about 2 hours each way for the funeral but I couldn’t leave it to the next day knowing the kids were living in a wood pile under some tin sheeting.

The man was about 80 and very security conscious which was a good thing but didn’t make me feel too good about my neighbourhood. Anywho he took me out the back where I saw the mum cat and the kittens. Mum, a tortoiseshell, hissed and rang away pretty quickly and the kittens I could just see under the tin. On closer inspection they weren’t as tiny as I thought they’d be as they were moving around and seemed in good health. We lifted the tin shed and they moved into a second wood pile where they were actually in amongst the wood planks not just on top of them. Lots of cockroaches emerged as we lifted planks of wood to get to them all. There was a bit of hissing and scratching as I deposited into the cat cage I had bought just in case. I was meant to be going to assess the kittens and the mum who apparently was in poor condition but the man wanted them gone (not a huge animal lover but at least he called us) and I couldn’t leave them. There were 2 gingers in the litter, I couldn’t resist.

We had been hearing a mewing coming from somewhere else in the backyard or the next backyard over and when I’d gotten the 4 out of the woodpile I tried to find the fifth. We ventured next door which was vacant and I headed to the shed which was near the fence line. I heard the mewing very loud in the shed but the shed was devoid of kittens and full of crap.
Trying to navigate my way around the perimeter of the shed was difficult and the mewing was no longer being made. I was worried but saw a pile of bricks against the shed which had those hollow innards. I just started pulling some away as I didn’t know where else to look. Well of course there was a tiny black and white kitten trapped between the shed and pile of bricks, a tiny space. I was just so glad I found him or her, but of course I got scratched for my troubles.

I took them home and put them in the bathroom. At the moment Choco and Grayson are in the spare/study/kitty room so that only leaves the main bedroom and the spare bedroom which is where I sleep when the boyfriend is working nights on call.

First or second day of living in a house

Poor little guys pretty much stayed in their cat cage for a long time at first, I put a towel next to it but they just used that instead of the litterbox.
I’ve had them nearly 2 weeks now and one of the little black and white ones has come out all of a sudden and doesn’t run away when I open the door and lets my boyfriend and I pat him or her. I don’t know if it is the one stuck next to the shed as there are 2 black and white ones nearly identical although this smoochy one does seem to be the runt of the litter, so maybe it is as it was stuck in the tiny space and maybe missed out on feedings.

Widgit doing his best old man with food on his face impression

Just the last few days nearly all of them are a lot better. I've named the two gingers Butch and Bubbles (both boys) and Widget is the original friendly black and white boy. I'm still yet to name the female other black and white kitten and the tortie who is still very shy and I'm not sure of the sex.

They are beautiful little things and I’m not sure what to do. I would love to foster them full time and see their progress but realistically they can’t really live in the bathroom for a long time – we only have one and we are in the midst of sanding the walls and replacing the basin and cupboard. If only I had a McMansion with a million bathrooms and bedrooms.

I don’t believe I updated that Wesley found a forever home, with a lovely couple who saw his youtube video and loved him (and their dog does too).

So any name suggestions for a black and white female and tortoiseshell (probaly) male? They need to be a bit unusual as we have had our fair shares of Max's, Coco's, Tom's etc.

Loser

I was flicking idly the other night and 2000’s Loser came on. I had forgotten about this movie and time hasn’t been its kindest friend, not that it was Amy Heckerlings best work to begin with.


I’m actually surprised Heckerling directed (and wrote), but not surprised her old buddy Twink Caplan showed up in this film (see also Look Who’s Talking, and Clueless).

Seeing Mena Suvari and Jason Biggs together in this film is akin to seeing Judd Nelson and Ally Sheedy together in St Elmo’s Fire – it just seems weird when compared to their previous more popular films and pairings (American Pie and The Breakfast Club respectively).

American Pie was a huge movie when it came out. I loved it, never mind that it was nothing like my Australian high school experience (and I’m sure plenty of other American high school experiences too).

I remember the L loser signal when it was really popular. I remember it was around 2001 as I recall my cousin being born and we all thought it was hilarious that he learnt how to make the signal and use it to refer to my dad or mum when he was a toddler. It dates this movie of course, but I guess Heckerling has been about filming in the moment or just creating her own hyper stylised version of the current culture (hello Clueless!).
Mostly what I remembered from this movie is the pairing of the 2 American Pie stars, the L sign and Jason Biggs hunting style hat which hipsters will probably start wearing again. I watched about half of Loser before going to bed, so it may have had some good moral lessons but I missed them.

Speaking of American Pie, I call shenanigans (which was also the name of a past social netball team I was on – fun fact netball used to be called girls basketball in Australia until 1970) on the fact that the American Pie crew are having their reunion in 2012. I was sure I saw the original American Pie film when I was in 15 and I went to my ten year reunion last year hence they should have had their reunion in 2009. Unless it's not a class reunion per say. And then I'd look pretty silly.