#260: Blob
For the last month, I’ve had exactly one hour of paid work a week.
You know how holidays go – for the first few days it’s the best time ever. You see old friends, or do stuff you’ve been meaning to do for six months. Then the first few days are gone, and your level of maturity comes into play.
Child: Immediate boredom; begging for candy ensues.
Teenager: Immediate boredom; buying of candy ensues. The allure of candy soon wears off and you fall into a torpid half-life until school resumes.
Adult: You keep doing the stuff. . . for a while.
Today I stopped doing the stuff.
Which is, in its own way, awesome. But until I get off my sit-upon once more, here’s a random film review.
Moulin Rouge!
If you don’t already know all about this film, I’m stunned. It really is spectacular spectacular.
If you haven’t seen it – yes, the rumours are true; it’s a musical. But not the kind of musical where the plot stops and you have time to go the bathroom, buy some more candy, and catch up on your email before the movie gets good again. It’s the kind where (a) the songs are either short, intercut with action elsewhere, or both, and (b) the movie wouldn’t actually make sense without the songs. Also, the songs are good. You’ve heard all of them before, so if you must, you can just think of those sections as an especially well-done film clip.
This is a HIGH ENERGY movie!!! It’s frenetic and fast-moving and the visual style is manic. It is an epic, tragic romance set in sumptuous times with everything you could possibly want: comedic misunderstandings, eye candy of both genders, Moulin rouge dancers, life-and-death chase scenes, slimy villains, and death. When it first came out I predicted a slew of imitations. I was wrong – presumably because no-one dared try.
Nicole Kidman’s waist has never been so small, and Ewan Macgregor has a startlingly good voice – the sound track is behind compare. It is impossible not to watch this movie and fall in love at least a little bit. It is a story about Truth, Beauty, and above all, LOVE.
#259: Locked room mystery
I had a plan for today’s blog – a good one.
Today I had an interview for a job minding two small children one day a week. Since I’m planning to eventually have two small children of my own, this was enormously appealing – and it was also very good in terms of location and hours. That’s a rare combination.
I have an advantage in the tutoring/babysitting field, because it’s such badly-paid work that I’m much, much more experienced than the average applicant. (Yay?) I’ve always been good at getting people to trust and respect me almost instantly (I made hundreds of dollars selling fundraising chocolate as a kid, which I believe is ideal preparation for any writer who wants to someday promote their own books).
So today was going to be #259: Do something I’m good at.
Now the interview itself went fairly well. I really, REALLY liked the family, so I hope that means we have things in common and they liked me too. Who knows?
There was just one teensy problem.
Crime.
The family lives in a secure apartment block, and I had some difficulty finding a park. To be honest, I had trouble finding the apartment block. At last I found what was almost certainly the right driveway, and drove down it.
It had a roller door. A locked roller door. As I stared at it stupidly, someone pulled in behind me. From that instant I was trapped; I was lost; I was going to be late – and I still really wanted this job.
I wound down my window and made a gesture of, “Look, I’m an idiot and I don’t know where I am and please don’t ram me but just back up and let me out of this semi-hysterical nightmare.”
Nothing happened. Perhaps I should have made a different kind of gesture.
The driveway was steep, and in my efforts to evade the 4WD behind me I’d driven right smack-bang up to the locked door. I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to reverse upward again without smashing something.
Then a miracle happened. The door rolled slowly open.
I told myself it was on a sensor, and it was just slow-moving. I told myself all was well.
I drove into the secure carpark, and casually stole the spot of someone who could arrive at any moment (and then call the fuzz to drag me and/or my car away).
Carefully turning off my phone (I’d hate to be impolite), I walked through a door I’d never seen before, up some stairs, and into a large shared courtyard featuring a swimming pool.
Careful not to think about what I’d done, I found the right apartment number and knocked on the door – hoping I hadn’t just broken into the wrong apartment block.
“Louise?” said the nice lady.
“Yes!”
“Was the front door open?”
“I. . . uh. . . followed someone in.”
And so our interview began.
It ended outside, with the charming three-year old showing me the pool. The mum saw me walk off towards the stairs that had let me in, and corrected me so I walked out the pedestrian front door (which was large, clearly labelled, and virtually unmissable by anyone who isn’t me).
I found myself on the street. It was at this point that I realised the entire length of the street is designated parking. It would have been so handy to notice that earlier.
I wandered along the footpath and found myself at the next number along. Oops. I walked back the other way, desperately hoping the nice lady wasn’t looking out her window.
I re-discovered the steep driveway entrance to the carpark, and walked down it. There was no handy person-sized side door. Uh-oh.
I walked back to the front door to the courtyard, and discovered it was locked. Of course it was – that would be the “locked front door” the lady had mentioned. And the last person to automatically lock it was me.
Brilliant.
It was at roughly this point I realised that I’d locked my car inside a secure facility, and myself outside. And, in other news, I had a ten-year old student coming to my house in less than an hour.
Hmm.
I could call the nice lady, explain myself, and make her let me out – probably waking her baby in the process, and making things awkward with the 3-year old (who isn’t good at goodbyes).
I could call my existing employer, and explain that I would be rather late for the lesson in my home due to the fact that, when under pressure, my first instincts always turn to crime.
Or I could break back in – on purpose this time.
I cased the joint more thoroughly, looking for a weakness – and I found one.
I smiled sweetly at a man taking out his rubbish, and slid past him through a side gate (as all fantasy writers know, there’s ALWAYS a side gate). I walked the long way around the flats, looking innocent as I passed through a whole lot of backyards. Having successfully found the original staircase, I tried the door to get back into the carpark.
It was locked.
Arg!!
So now my car and I were both locked in, but in distinct sections -different cells of the dungeon, if you like.
Luckily, a nice lady passed by and I confessed everything. She let me into the carpark, and then out into the sweet expanse of blessed escape.
And then I drove home.
I hope, dear reader, that you do not live in a secure apartment. And I leave you now with a question for further reflection:
Would YOU trust this face?
I’ll let you know (probably in a week or two) if I got the job.
S#80: Sparklers
My Indonesian uncle had never seen sparklers before, so he had another new experience (24 hours after his introduction to sushi). You can hear and see him oohing, ahing and laughing.
Reviews of films I haven’t seen
Here in Canberra, the ANU runs a brilliant film club. One of the cool things is that they release a book each semester filled with reviews. I helped them with reviews a little this year, but due to release dates there were two I had to – not to put too fine a point on it – make up. As is, perhaps, immediately obvious.
Gnomeo and Juliet
Okay. Try to stay calm. I know it’s hideously offensive that we’re now getting Shakespeare’s tragedies in animated comic form, but don’t worry – it’s really not anything to do with “Romeo and Juliet”. Sure, the tale involves two cute kids from feuding families, but other than the names, this is a completely original film. Oh, and as you’ve probably gathered from the posters, all the main characters are gnomes who only move when the humans aren’t watching. Mr Shakespeare didn’t come up with a great gimmick like that – more’s the pity.
It’s as funny as kids’ movies need to be to please the parents; Juliet gets a lot more action (not THAT kind you sickos); and the animation is what you’d expect from Touchstone. Gnomes are just like humans in terms of facial expressions, which is guaranteed to make a better film than trying to make cars or other objects interesting.
The voice cast is what you’d want in any film, which is to say James McAvoy, Emily Blunt, Michael Caine, Jason Statham, Patrick Stewart and. . . Ozzy Osbourne (why not?) Elton John features in the sound track, with at least one original song. He and Lady Gaga sing a duet, too.
Come and see it for your kids, for the music, for the over-the-top animated action scenes, and for the laughs.
And for once, you don’t know how it’ll end.
I Am Number Four
The hero here knows he’s probably going to be killed, and he has to live with a reasonably uncool nickname – but it could have been the movie I Am Number Two which would be worse. So that’s a relief.
Alex Pettyfer plays an alien, AKA our hero. His planet has been blown up by a bunch of tougher aliens, and only he and his eight co-survivors are left. Make that seven. No, six. No, five. Since the aliens are teenagers (like puberty wasn’t bad enough by itself), they pretend to be ordinary humans going to high school (where, as you know, all the most imaginative super powers are conceived). Unfortunately, the bad aliens have already messily disposed of numbers One, Two (another reason being named after a euphemism is a bad idea), and Three. For some wacky reason, Number Four thinks perhaps his life is in danger. It is.
The movie is based on a young adult novel of the same name, written by Pittacus Lore. It’s high-action, with cool alien super powers and a good-looking alien hero who runs around a lot. The visual and special effects are just as shiny and dark as one could hope for, and the baddies are properly bad.
If that’s not enough for you to come and see it, I don’t know what is.
#258: Cake and Chopsticks
This was so cool!
Inspired by being told that Chinese people eat cake with chopsticks, reader W suggested that I do the same. Since I ended up with a decent bunch of people at my house last night (my Indonesian uncle had sushi for the first time), I ordered them all to obey yet another peculiar whim “for the internet” (my aunt took photos and giggled).
The “Before” shot:
The moment we all dived in:
Matters devolved more or less instantly:
The Gentleman On The Left (or GOTL) was evidently not someone who had chosen to use chopsticks often in his life. He more than made up for the lack of experience, however, by choosing to believe he could invent better chopstick techniques than those favoured by hundreds of years of tradition.
When the cake was largely vanished (ie, after a few moments), the GOTL realised that he had made rather more of a mess than the rest of us.
It was at that moment he discoved that a single chopstick is super handy for flicking chunks of cake to other parts of the table.
Battle commenced at once.
At last it was all over, and time for the “After” shot.
“Quick everyone,” I said, “look innocent.”
You can judge our success for yourself.
The event was also blogged about at http://sorryihaveaheadache.blogspot.com/2011/01/cake-and-chopsticks.html
#257: Mix it up
I have an Indonesian uncle, and he and his wife called me this morning asking if I was free tonight. I’m not – I’m so very not. But they live in Perth, so. . .
Tonight my aunt and uncle are coming to my sushi/Bible study/cake-and-chopsticks extravaganza. So is an atheist friend of mine. (If memory serves, my uncle is Muslim.) My aunt and uncle, like all my relations, are charmingly eccentic. My uncle speaks with a strong Indonesian accent. One of my friends has a habit of loudly moaning and/or sighing and then contemptously “correcting” anyone – and I do mean anyone – who disagrees with him.
This should be interesting 🙂
S#93: Collect Something Interesting
This one had me stumped for a while, since I dislike collections of physical objects. I decided to collect the “Samurai Kids” series by the brilliant and compassionate Sandy Fussell (books have a clear and excellent function, so I like collecting them), but then I had another idea.
As you know, I recently had a sushi epiphany. I’m still flying high.
A lot of food is international, no matter where in the world you are (but perhaps especially in Australia, where we’re linked historically to Europe, politically to America, and physically to Asia).
Here is a list of the meals CJ and I regularly cook (usually mangled beyond recognition, because that’s the multicultural way), with the country that instantly comes to mind (this is my mind, which is going to be wrong on plenty of these):
-Lasagna (Italy)
-Stir fry (generic Asia)
-Soto/Javanese chicken soup (Indonesia)
-Ravioli (Italy)
-Fish and Chips (UK)
-Hamburgers (USA)
-Sushi (Japan)
-Lamb chops (Australia, yay!)
-Tuna Mornay (actually, I don’t know)
-Roast dinner (UK)
-Fettucini bolognaise (Italian)
-Shepherds’ pie (UK, although it could be Germanic)
-Souffle (France)
-Fried rice (Indonesia)
-Beef stroganoff (Russia)
-Salad with fetta (Greece)
-Yum cha (China)
So I decided to collect famous foods from EVERY CONTINENT ON EARTH and serve them all at once, making sure the world is as well-represented as possible. Naturally, I’d only eat delicious things (eg I don’t like curry, so I chose butter chicken for India), and I’d have to fudge in places (Africa was hard, particularly since I cordially dislike most vegies) – but I’d try to be as stereotypical as possible.
Historically, practically everything we eat comes originally from the Americas – but from so long ago that we don’t associate most of it with America any more.
I had to make some tough calls for the UK, Italy, India, and China (sooooo much deliciousness), and leave out a lot of Europe for the sake of variety.
This is one draft of what I came up with:
Isn’t it a beautiful thing? Making this map made me incredibly proud of how international our world really is.
I deliberately focused on dishes that are very much a part of ordinary Australian life (I have eaten absolutely every item on this map, and have cooked almost all of them).
Papua New Guinea makes a drink that is clearly lemonade – which it isn’t well known for, but it’s delicious and easy to prep ahead of time – and I wanted to represent PNG since I lived there for two years (but don’t have an underground mumu oven, which would be really handy right now).
Halva is a kind of sweet.
I actually plan to do this thing for real next month – and blog about it in detail, of course! How will sushi taste after a mouthful of butter chicken? Does satay taste good with mashed potato, or is it better with pate? I plan to find out.
For my own amusement, I did another map with stereotypical booze by continent (from roughly left to right: Tequila; a genuine South American phrase that means “the dregs of everyone else’s drink, given to some poor drunk fool who doesn’t know any better”; Baileys & red wine; beer in Egypt; vodka & sake; and white wine for Australia).
I don’t think I’ll ever try that one in real life though.
I’m working on a final list for the food that is as simple as possible (eg France is pate rather than souffle, USA is coke rather than hamburgers, and I’ll do caviar instead of beef stronanoff for Russia). Everything that requires cooking will be cooked by me or by my friends.
I can’t wait!
Can anyone else think of a food (like “Turkish Delight” or “Brazil nuts”) that we actually name after a country?
S#2: Sushi
This certainly was a long time coming.
I don’t like salty food. Salt – sure, I like it. But I hate olives, anchovies, pepperoni, and all that icky stuff. I also loathe spicy food, and have never voluntarily eaten anything that was pickled (yuck!). So I had a fairly good idea of what my reaction to sushi would be. There is absolutely no way I’d have eaten sushi if it wasn’t on the steffmetal.com list.
I’m also not huge on anime either (I like plots to make sense, and breasts to obey the laws of nature), but we watched “Read or Die” which has one of the best heroines ever invented anywhere. (She find and buys a rare book that it turns out the baddies need in order to kill all humans. They steal it, so she has all kinds of amazing magical action sequences, and as she’s flying through the air getting shot at she says to the baddie, “Excuse me, can I have my book back? I haven’t finished reading it.”)
Fay gathered the ingredients: sushi rice, sushi powder (basically vinegar), nori (seaweed sheets), some fresh vegetables, soy sauce, chicken, tinned fish, mayonaisse, pickled ginger, and wasabi. All of the ingredients were on the shelves in a major supermarket (which apparently used to stock Asian mayonaisse, but doesn’t any more).
We cooked the rice, fried the chicken in garlic, and chopped the vegies.
I was getting pretty hungry, but no more enthusiastic than before. Cucumber? Yuck!
Fay rolled out the bamboo mat and laid a sheet of nori on top. Once she’d demonstrated what to do, I took over. I spread out the rice, pushing it down, and put mayonaisse on top.
I laid vegetables long-wise, and pieces of chicken (thinly sliced), and rolled it up as tightly as I could, pressing down at the end so the empty bit of seaweed stuck to the roll. Then I sliced it.
I took a piece, added soy sauce and (gulp) pickled ginger, and. . . ate it.
Madness! Chaos! The destruction of all I once knew!
The world is cute and round and saltily wonderful. Sushi is delicious and I can’t for the life of me figure out why. It’s as satisfying as eating chips, but with a symphony of flavours and colours that makes the saltiness sing.
Turns out I adore pickled ginger (strangely sweet in combination, but with a nasty bite when I tried it on its own), too.
We all had a go at the curiously satisfying construction, and tried different flavour combinations (avocado and chicken is good, but it’s actually better with more vegetables, especially cucumber – HAS THE WORLD GONE MAD???)
I gathered my scattered wits and courage, and tried one with wasabi and. . . luckily (for the sake of all that is solid in the world) I didn’t like it.
But I wants me more more sushi. Right now.
Actually, CJ and I will probably have some for lunch. That leaves just three more hours until I gets me some more sweet sweet sushi.
mmMMMMmmm
S#19: Bells
Today I wore bells around my ankle (not bells technically – two bracelets hooked together – but they jingle). Every time I move, they make noise.
The best part is how both my cats (who each have a bell of their own) freak out every single time.
Torturing cats: It’s what I do.
– – –
Many many years ago, when I was but a girl, some Japanese students visited my high school. The girls were tiny and adorable; the teachers joyfully mangled ocker Australian phrases; it was all going so well.
And then they hosted a party, and I ate sashimi (sushi with raw fish) for the first time. I’d never eaten any kind of sushi before.
That was not a good experience, my peeps. It was not good at all.
Tonight my friend Fay is coming over to make sushi for CJ and I (hopefully while we all watch anime). Fay is going to Japan herself in a matter of weeks, and she and CJ are totally thrilled. They’ve been looking forward to this for nine months – ever since I decided to partake of Every Single Item on steffmetal.com’s awesome list.
I’m still nauseous from going to Indonesia a year ago. Will tonight’s sushi experience redeem these “roundels of heaven” forever? Or will sushi make me hideously ill – again?
I’ll let you know. . . tomorrow.
PS Those Scott Westerfeld reviews I’ve been promising have been written and posted just below this entry.
YA steampunk trilogy *swoon*
As you can tell from the title, this trilogy is good. Really, really good.
Well, probably.
See, only two of the books are out so far. It’s theoretically possible that the final book in the series will RUIN EVERYTHING. But, to be honest, I don’t think so.
Before I get distracted: The books are stunningly illustrated by Keith Thompson, so make sure you don’t get gypped by a cheapo version – just check the inside cover for the maps, and you’ll know instantly if it’s sheer awesome or not. (CJ insisted we buy them in hardcover, and I have to admit it’s justified.)
Scott Westerfeld has written quite a few books – the “Uglies” series is excellent – but this series is something else.
Those who know me will know that I love Garth Nix’s “Old Kingdom” trilogy with a passion bordering on the pathological. So you’ll understand what I mean when I say that this trilogy might – might – be even better.
It all depends on the last book.
Also, it’s mildly annoying that you really need to read the whole trilogy (whereas Nix’s “Sabriel” can easily stand alone).
Sorry, what’s that? You’d like to actually hear something about the books?
Fine.
The books are YA steampunk (technically dieselpunk, since they’re set in the early 1900s during the leadup – and desperate attempts at the prevention of – World War 1). They have the feel of steampunk, with fantastical machines that are works of art and fantasy combined with functionality. But they go so much further than that.
The central conflict of the alternate world is “clankers” (those with mechanical machines) versus “Darwinists” (those with living ecosystems as their machines). The clankers have zeppelins. . . the Darwinists have “Leviathan”, which is sort of a giant flying whale, but it’s much more complicated (and brilliant) than that.
As far as world-building goes, this series is sublime. Breathtakingly original, fascinating, and it all makes sense too.
There are two main characters – one a high-class clanker boy, the other an ordinary Darwinist midshipman (except that she is secretly a midshipwoman, which is most certainly not allowed). Both are quite young, and very likeable. I liked them even more in the second book. There’s also a lady boffin, a Tasmanian tiger, a devious Count, and many more.
The action is fast and dramatic, and often funny.
Rating: PG for violence.
“Load the cannon!” Master Klopp cried to the men below.
Alek found himself deposited into the commander’s chair as the machine began to move. He struggled with the seat straps, but a terrible thought took hold of his mind, freezing his fingers.
If they’re trying to kill me. . . it’s all true.
Count Volger crouched beside him, yelling over the rumble of engines and gunfire.
“Take heart at this impoliteness, Alek. It proves that you are still a threat to the throne.”
PS Mark (who commented below) has a great steampunk/writing blog (and links) so I’m inserting it into this post because (a) it’s related and (b) more people should know about it. As far as I can tell, it’s G-rated.
http://brassbolts.blogspot.com/
PPS The third book is reviewed here.
Felicity Banks 