Rentboy

On Wednesday, I'm getting the keys to my very first apartment. I'm looking forward to a life revolving around making ends meet and eating cardboard seasoned with cardboard leftovers from the previous day.

It's a 10 minute walk from my parents', even closer to the public transport hubs, and a stone's throw away from the biggest local open-air market. It's smallish, but nice. I'm currently consumed with issues of Internet access and furniture - I need some sort of table/desk for The Room (there's only one, so I don't really know what to call it), and a sofa for the kitchen. I know it sounds weird, but the kitchen's kinda big, and when I went to see the apartment, instead of chairs, there was this purple sofa (unfortunately the previous tenant is taking it with him), and I just loved the idea.

Especially since you can bet I'll have Internet access in the kitchen as well. Even if it means wiring the whole place. I'll have to look into wifi. Can you have both? Reliable, cable broadband for the desktop, and magical airborne Internet for laptop youtube on the loo?

Luckily Demencja's a total ebay freak - seriously, to the point of being certifiable - and she's busy scouring the land for good deals. Actually, she already found a huge pine table for PLN 70 (USD 20, for my huge international readership).

Crazy, crazy stuff.

Shit I pilfered

I found this on gofugyourself a little while back. You can get a few good minutes of giggles out of it, and that's even before you start wondering why Mary-Kate's forehead was redacted.

Then there was this, but I don't remember where I stole it from.

And finally, my favorite movie poster of the year so far:

Kings and Fools

There's this new series called Kings, starring Ian McShane of Deadwood fame, and some other people. It is set in an alternate reality, in a small, fictional, and by all appearances pretty much absolute monarchy located on the eastern coast of North America (its capital is a NYC lookalike called Shiloh). Sounds pretty nifty, right? And it is. Unfortunately, it is also offensively stupid. In freezeframe it's resplendent, but the moment the subject comes back to life, there's gurgling, and drool, and quite possibly feces. And the setup was so promising. The visual tone of the show is pretty spectacular - the city seems quite otherworldly, even though it's obviously New York. A little dab of mysticism nicely rounds up the "dark fable" feel, and there's high politics and court intrigue aplenty. But the actual story...

*spoilers ahead*

The kingdom's embroiled in a positional war (how that's even possible with current technology - no idea, but whatever) with its military superior. The word "outgunned" makes several appearances in the pilot episode. But then it somehow forces its opponent into an armstice by way of a grand symbol - the destruction of one of its invincible Goliath tanks. A wee bit mythical, but fine. Then, the kingdom - for pretty plausible reasons I won't go into - executes a sneak attack against said miltarily superior nation, breaking the truce it just achieved. Fine. And then the kid who blew up their tank before, charges at the enemy lines with a bloody sheet (his brother just died, y'know), and delivers a mindbogglingly ridiculous speech about his nagging deathwish, which convinces them to sign a peace treaty.

Let me translate this into our reality for a moment. It's 1938. Poland, for some reason, invades Germany, and gets its ass handed to it on what used to be its silver platter. Then, a young,Slavic boy is spotted on the battlefield, brandishing a bloody rag. He spews gibberish. Hitler gives peace a chance.

That's not all. There is also a state luncheon scene, in which our young miracle worker of simple origins is addressed directly by a foreign head of state and - would you believe it? - deftly finds just the right response. Which involves saying his brother just died, while sporting an aw-shucks smirk*. I shit you not. And a scene in which the peace treaty doesn't get signed based on some technicality, AFTER which the boy wonder grabs the departing foreign head of state by their arm... and somehow that becomes why the treaty wasn't signed. And, finally, the king ordering the kid murdered, and then changing his mind because the episode is almost over and the writers haven't figured out a good reason for him to change his mind. I'm not sure if that explanation actually made its way into the dialogue, but neither did any other one, so...

Damn. And I really wanted to like it.

* which, granted, is an acting WTF, and shouldn't be blamed on the writers, unless the script actually instructed the guy to grin like an idiot

I dare you not to like this

The finale

I hate to break it to you, Gaius, but the things you mentioned? That's not God. Those are plot holes.

Why is everybody whispering?

Went to Ana's today. Marta made quite possibly the best soup I've ever eaten, and some Indian-style chicken. We stuffed ourselves full of it watching several episodes of the unintentionally hilarious La Femme Nikita (boy, it did not age well) punctuated by clips from 07 zglos sie and The Colbert Report. Good times.

The event was concluded with the following conversation:

me: ...I'm still waiting for a full list - I just know they're gonna show Savage Grace, which is a pretty bad movie.
marta: Is it the one about the family that invented bakelite?
me: What?! No! Why?
marta: Well I remember you telling me about a movie about the people who invented bakelite...
me: That wasn't me.
marta: I'm sure it was you.
me: That's impossible. I don't even know what bakelite is.
marta: It's this synthetic stuff... What's the movie about then?
me: Nothing, really. Incest and dysfunction for the most part. Mother-son stuff.
marta: And you're sure they didn't invent bakelite?
me: No! There's no mention of bakelite throughout the entire movie!
marta: Maybe they're the descendants of the people who invented bakelite?

At that point Marta's relentless pursuit of the bakelite angle overwhelmed me and I dissolved into hysterical laughter. The mystery of the bakelite movie remains unsolved.

Edit: Mystery solved. It was the bakelite movie. I'm stunned.

A world of yes

Photo by Hama Sanders. I love absolutely everything about it.

By the by

Let's talk terrible opening credit songs.

Dollhouse and United States of Tara.

There. I'm glad we had this chat.

Prepare to be routed

The router saga continues. In short, I bought a replacement, but was charged 199PLN instead of the 69PLN that I expected. Initially I went along with it (in my world, money < dealing with crap), but as the day went by I got increasingly annoyed - I mean, that's a LOT of breakfasts - and finally decided to go back and clear it up.

Turns out that brand of routers wasn't in the store's database, so the checkout girl had to input the code manually, or something, and by default charged me for a wifi router, even though I bought an arcane ADSL brick. I got my money back, but had to return the router too, and buy it all over again. And when I did, the lady at the cash register tried to charge me 199PLN for it. This time I was prepared though, and instantly sunk a shiv into her left eye.

Well, not really.

The best part is, I took a good look at all the routers this time, and yeah, they do offer a wifi model from that maker, but for 139PLN.

Nothing else to report.

Mutant update

Alanis Morissette - I Was Hoping

Some live kinda-sorta acoustic version, instead of the studio one. It's actually pretty good though, so no harm done.

No comment

My router is in its death throes, so I went online to check exactly what model it is and what kind of replacement I should be looking for. In the process I familiarized myself with its features, which as it turns out include "Spectral compatibility with POTS" and - more importantly - "Dying Gasp Support (Population Option)".

Err...

Watchmen

Just saw the movie. I tried not to read any reviews, and I didn't re-read the graphic novel beforehand (though I won't pretend the latter was some sort of premeditated move meant to render me as unbiased as possible - I just find it too depressing). I did, however, click on some link at one point and read a bit of someone's critique - mostly about the movie losing focus after the first 30 minutes, and how its "slavish" faithfulness to the source material made it aimless and chaotic.

Well.

I loved it. From start to finish, save for two scenes marred by words too big to fit on any screen (the "What happened to the American Dream?" exchange, and the "Rapists having babies is the shit" speech). I loved the sprawling tableau feel of it, the ambiance- and image-based narrative, the uneven pace, which gave me time to recover from seeing pregnant ladies get shot (someone should look into the therapeutic effects of contemplating Patrick Wilson's chest hair), the title sequence (obviously), the music (ditto), the acting... Jeffrey Dean Morgan was great. Jackie Earle Haley was just stellar. Patrick Wilson either has the best agent ever, or the casting directors for his movies are geniuses. I keep seeing him play basically a variation of the same guy, but he fits the bill every time. I don't know if it's still acting if you're a big blue gob of CGI, but I found myself spellbound by Dr. Manhattan's delivery, so bravo Billy Crudup. For some reason though, I was most impressed by Matthew Goode. I thought he was pitch-perfect, just oozing this larger than life, self-satisfied charisma. I had actually only seen the guy once before - in one of those NYT Style showcases - and remember finding him revoltingly narcissistic (seriously, you might need a palate cleanser after that one - have a Joseph, or a Rosario). So maybe it was just another case of perfect casting? No matter, I don't care. His Ozymandias was spot-on.

You should go see it. Just so it breaks even in overseas gross. It's the right thing to do.

Rapture is near

I can now claim to have worked on movies, comic books, and computer games - the geek triphecta. Ergo, I've peaked at 26, and it's all downhill from here.

Where's the lanky

Every time I see the Wolverine promo pictures I get angry at them for casting Taylor Kitsch (kudos for the last name though) as Gambit. Totally wrong body type and facial features.

I'm very particular about my favorite X-Man.

Terminator has gone preposterous, and Battlestar Galactica merely annoying. The utter self-indulgence of the piano bits in the last ep was so grating. And I can just imagine the circle-jerk over this superfluous bullshit the DVD commentary will inevitably turn into. I wouldn't be surprised if the creators ranked it as one of their favorite episodes, right up there with the god-awful "boxing and flashbacks" one.

Ok, I'm done.

Writing here still doesn't come naturally, but going back to the previous place seems silly. I'm in limbo. Had a remarkably nice week though, at least so far. With more amusement coming my way tomorrow. Who knows, maybe it'll even merit an update.

Birds