footlong or six inch?

You Are a Sub

You are casual but a bit picky. You know what you like, and you know what you hate. If you're able to do things your way, then you can relax. You like to have a say. You love variety and adventure. You get bored easily if nothing changes. You're always looking for the next new thing. You tend to get creative and think outside the box.

What Kind of Fast Food Are You?

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big bold red cliffs complete with flying doves

Take a chunk of the plot from Troy, add a touch of Seven Samurai, the tiniest hint of possible magic, season liberally with director John Woo's visual trademarks and you have Red Cliff.

It's a long movie, I'm not going to lie... although from what I understand it's even longer in Asian where it's been split into two separate movies, whereas we're getting the condensed 2¾ hour version.

Actually in some ways that makes me a little sad, because even though I did get the fidgets a number of times (but that was more about my knee twitching for no good reason and the chair being slightly uncomfortable) it was a very interesting movie and I think I would have been up for the double movie treatment (just not all at once)... but then I guess that's what DVD is for and hopefully I can get my hands on the extended editions at some point.

I knew that it was a John Woo film going in, and even though I think I've only seen one or two other Woo movies, I knew there were certain things I could expect... flying doves (one of them even serves a purpose to the plot), gravity and physics defying action, intense battles and slow motion/freezeframe. Some of that is to be expected from this kind of Chinese quasi-historical drama (the middle two mostly), although unlike many of the other CQHD we've seen, this one didn't end really strangely with everybody on screen dying. So big thumbs up there! But after a quick Google for John Woo trademarks I realised just how many of them this movie gets a tick for (numbers 1, 2 but with swords, 3, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12 and 13... just in case you're interested).

It's not as lush a movie as something like Hero or House of Flying Daggers, but it does make up for it in terms of action and these almost odd (but not unwelcome) little moments of peace within an otherwise fast paced movie. There's a little bit of everything really... action (with plenty of CGI bloodspray for the gory-minded), a romance/love story, dark humour and as I mentioned before, some mild supernatural themes. Actually that last one is very much up to the viewer... I thought there was a whiff of magic about one of the characters (as did Ma), but you could just as easily say that he was just very observant.

One of the biggest flaws with the movie though is that a number of the actors looked very similar, and when they're dressed in very similar armour it can be a little difficult to tell them apart... plus, even with the very helpful introductory names and ranks that appear on screen as we meet a number of the main characters (who are mostly generals for one side or the other), I really have only the vaguest idea of what anybody's name was by the end of the movie (and it doesn't help when one of my favourite characters had a distinctive name in the movie but it doesn't appear on the IMDB list).

But none of that stopped me from enjoying the movie.

Its big, its bold, its brash, its beautiful, it has lots of big booms... and I definitely would have gone to see it even if I hadn't won free tickets!

yani's rating: 9 bird's wing fans out of 10

another very long saturday

Lordy, lordy, lordy... it's been another very long Saturday...

I mean I knew it was going to have to be because we had the movie at 3pm, but I "overslept" this morning, so I was only just dressed by the time Ma got down here and didn't get much of a chance to do anything else (thank goodness I actually wrote my blogiversary post last night), so I felt a little behind the 8 Ball.

But there also seemed to be a lot of "spouzdas" going on today (that's "supposed to's" by the way)... We were just spouzda be where we ended up when we ended up there, so that was nice.

This morning's Supermarket Safari was as painless as supermarket shopping ever is and contained much discussion of So You Think You Can Dance (it's going to be a theme for the next seven or eight weeks, a bit like me settling down on a Friday evening to watch it after finishing my Photo Friday post). Oh, before I forget... Baker's Delight Cranberry and Fruit Loaf... yummy!

Then, after unpacking and suchlike we headed into town to check out the Waterhouse Natural History Art Prize exhibition at the Museum. I'm not sure if it's on earlier than normal this year or what, or if we just haven't gotten around to it until later the last two years, but we didn't go and see those until August...

Once we finally got into the gallery (there was a whole thing with Ma putting her cloakroom token into the turnstile instead of the token... blah blah blah *rolls eyes affectionately*) there seemed to be a lot more entries than what I remember from previous years (although I could be imagining things), but I don't know that the quality was as high. And oddly there wasn't any one or two entries where I could automatically say "that's my favourite" (because that helps with the filling out of the People's Choice entry form)... it was more, for both Ma and me, a case of "well I like these ones"... but nothing outstanding. But there were also a number of entries that seemed extremely below average, and I did wonder why they were picked as finalists.

It's like the winner... none of the entries that have won the major prize for the last three years has really been that great in my opinion... and this year there were definitely a ton of entries that were so much better than the piece that won.

Neither of our People's Choice picks are in the image at the top of the post... mine (Little Red by Simon Ward) had a crappy photo that wouldn't have cropped well and Ma's (Totem for the Transient II by Roh Singh) didn't photograph all that well. But the top three shots are from my "runner up" choices, while the bottom one was one of Ma's faves.

Once we'd finished wandering around the exhibit and had dropped our People's Choice entry in the little box we headed back to the car and tootled down to Marion (since it was the only place that was showing Red Cliff this weekend).

Actually we didn't go straight for the shopping centre, we stopped off at the Marion Cultural Centre (which is a photography excursion just waiting to happen... the building is amazing) to take a look at the exhibition in Gallery M. I'd seen it advertised somewhere, but only paid enough attention to work out where it was, I hadn't actually paid that much attention to what the exhibition was...

Turns out it was the Blake Prize (Exploring the Religious and Spiritual in Art)... and to be honest the Gallery gift shop was kinda more interesting than the exhibition...

Anyway, I think it was close to 1pm by the time we finally got into Marion, leaving us a couple of hours to wander around before the movie. Perfect.

And wander we did... Ma found a new watch with a big clear face and big visible numbers (woohoo, finally!) from one of those $20 watch stalls... I found (actually Ma found it but I would have gotten there eventually) a classic Soundwave teeshirt (woooooohooooo! It's actually the same image as the Gen 1 box art image on the Wiki page, although much paler... and yes, I am indeed aware of how monumentally dorky I am), some black and red striped real live actual authentic football socks to wear with my Croc boots (I know, how butch, right? *grin*) as well as finding, completely by accident since it was a case of "should we go up to the cinema now, or look in this bookshop first... oh let's look in the bookshop" a book of male nudes photos by Francois Rousseau (he of Dieux du Stade fame) for under half price!

Interestingly it was also Redheaded Guy's Day Out... I swear that somebody left the cage door open because there were a plethora of redheaded guys of varying ages at Marion... it started out with one in Big W with deathmetal hair and then I kept seeing them everywhere... and mostly true redheads too... none of this strawberry blonde or dark auburn crap. And we all know how I love a cute Ginger... so I was a very happy camper.

Then it was time for the movie... which, as usual, I will prattle on about in another post in a little bit. I will say though that I'm not completely sure why it is that the inhabitants of Crazytown seem compelled to come to the same movies as Ma and me, but I wish they'd stop! Also, who sits through two and a half hours of a two and three quarter hour movie and then gets up and walks out about fifteen minutes before the end? Seriously!? Enquiring minds really want to know!

Once the movie was over we headed down to Spago to get some dinner (mmmm I have not had tortellini alla pana in the loooongest time) before driving back here about eleven hours after we started out...

Granted it's not the longest Saturday we've had in recent weeks, but it has to be up there...

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fourth blogiversary

Last week I posted the following comment as part of a meme...

Today 4 years ago: I start a blog. I have no idea that it will happen or what it will mean.

I've tweaked it so that it still makes sense today, because it was one of those sentences that leapt into my brain fully formed and I honestly didn't realise what I'd written until I stopped and reread it.

My blog did quite literally sneak up on me out of nowhere. I didn't wait until the first of the month or the first of the year or even pick a favourite numbered day to start it... I'd been cleaning/clearing up all day and as far as I remember, halfway through whatever job I was doing I sat down at the computer, typed in the address for Blogger, and boom, I had a blog.

If you'd told me way back when that I would have a blog and I would post something everyday I would most likely have laughed at you. Now here I am, 1860 posts later (that's about 8.5 posts a week)...

And if you'd told me that it would keep me sane and prod my creativity and connect me with some amazing people... well that I might have believed, having had similar experiences with other websites. But when I sat down to type those fateful words "Okay... here we are... I finally have a blog" I had no idea how much the blog or the people I met through it would invade my life.

I guess what I'm saying is this... thank you all for coming along for the ride... I know it hasn't always been earth-shatteringly important or exciting, but I guess that's just me really. And while some people have disappeared along the way (and I still think about some of them from time to time), I'm glad you've all been around!

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photo friday: pizza pie

That'sa good lookin' pizza pie...

Actually that's possibly the best looking pizza I've ever made... and altogether the most "gourmet"... prosciutto, roma tomatoes, fresh basil and bocconcini... what can I say, I had this craving for both pizza and tomato/basil and it kind of invented itself from there...

Other than that, it's been a bit of a non-event Friday... H-San was already nuts when I got to work (normally I'm in before him but I had bus related issues), but I did a stupid thing and warmed Sugarmonkey when he got in that H-San was the Mayor of Crazytown, so of course H-San made me look like the crazy one by behaving perfectly normally... grrr...

My shoulder is still a little "tweaky"... only at certain points, but its still freaking me out every time it happens.

I also had something of a battle between my ability to nitpick fine detail and my oft-times "it'll do" attitude which meant that I ended up fixing different bits of formatting on the same dozen or so documents on and off all day. I'd fix one bit, upload all the changed documents again, then notice something else and start all over again. Productive and satisfying... but also annoying.

But, yeah... a very quiet day... so quiet in fact that Ugly Mutant Woman from the other side of the floor came over and asked us to keep the noise down... actually she said that the story H-San was telling could be heard "all the way over there"... pffft, fuck off, it's an open plan office, it's Friday and you're just jealous you don't have the conversations we do.

Thankfully, I have the pizza, followed by So You Think You Can Dance and Haighs Peppermint Pastilles to finish off my Friday...

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boxes, straws and shoulders

You know how they say "no good deed ever goes unpunished"?

Welcome to my day...

Actually it may have been the Universe's way of telling me to quit goofing off and get back to work, but either way I'm not impressed.

The workgroup in the pod across the way from The Nut House were on a cleaning frenzy today... not completely sure why, but they were... and at some point in their frenzy a box of stationary and associated crap belonging to us showed up... I have no idea why or how, but it did.

So I took it upon myself to sort out said box (and lock and label our storage cupboards properly just in case they got any funny ideas, or that was where they'd been sticking their noses and found said box)... which then led to my looking at some of the boxes we have in those cupboards and wondering just why we were keeping a lot of that stuff... so I started with the lightest and most interesting box and progressed up to a couple of boxes that had been filled by a former employee who clearly had a paper/printing fetish... seriously, every email, every document, every minor bit of random dross and she'd printed it out and put it in a folder. Cue one very full confidential paper bin.

But somewhere between the first giant box full of that stuff and the second giant box full of very similar stuff that was even heavier, I did a silly thing. Well, a silly thing happened, whether or not I actively caused it is open to debate.

I tweaked something in my shoulder.

That isn't good.

It's the same shoulder that I've dislocated three times and have had reconstructed once. I don't think it was just the boxes though... part of it has to be that it's my dominant arm, as well as the fact that I've been throwing my Crumpler bag up and over my head with that arm for months and months now... but the boxes seem to have been the final camel-adjacent straw... so I'm being very, very, very, very careful with my right arm at the moment. Even the memory of the pain of not only dislocating my arm, but also having the reconstruction done is enough to make me cringe. Not something I want to experience again.

You would think that the Glucosamine I've been taking would have helped in some way (even though it mentions just about every other body part except the shoulder on the side of the bottle)... but if anything I think it's having the opposite effect, not just on my shoulder, but in general... *sigh*... or it feels like that anyway...

Or is there some sort of karmic payback happening for an incident I'm not currently aware of?

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random zacquatic hotness

There's no particular reason for the bumper Random Hotness this week, other than the fact that I couldn't just pick two of these shots...

Given that it's been particularly wet over the last week, the whole "wet businesswear" theme seemed appropriate (I have no idea where they're from originally, I could attempt looking it up, but I just can't be bothered right now)...

And I'll freely admit that like half of the 'mo population, I do have a bit of a thing for Zac Efron... I resisted it (and by extension resisted seeing any of the High School Musical movies) for a long time, but you just reach a point where you have to stop and say "Yes please, I like 'em twinkaliscous and athletic but of questionable acting skill"...

Plus, look at that smile...

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wild things mural

Bless the panorama making software that came with my digital camera... doubly so because rather than using the camera's panorama mode which overlaps the end of each shot so you can see what you've already taken, I did this one by hand (as it were).

This is, in fact, the entire length of the mural, and the entire length of the wall if it comes to that... and it's from my last trip down to Glenelg (although I did feature the blue beastie with the pink balloon at the right hand end back at Easter).

Other than that trip down mural-related memory lane, there isn't much going on with me.

I got the free pass to Red Cliff in the mail today and I'm still none the wiser about where the hell it is. I think it's anywhere that's having a preview screening, so I'll have to take a look tomorrow and see where that might be. Which also means that'll tweak whatever we end up doing on Saturday.

I held the fort at work for a couple of hours this afternoon... everybody else went off to have lunch with a former team member but honestly I couldn't be bothered (it was Nasal Bitch... and although we parted on good terms, can you really blame me), plus I was more or less officially broke until payday tomorrow, so I stayed behind. And you know what... not a damn thing happened the whole time... not a phonecall, nothing...

And I'm so glad I bought that new umbrella on the weekend... we've had buckets and buckets of rain this week... although fortunately most of it has been while I've been indoors.

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coco avant chanel

I don't think there could have been a greater contrast between this week's movie, Coco Avant Chanel (or Coco Before Chanel), and last week's movie...

Unlike last week's exploding robotfest, this was a somewhat quiet, slightly slow and very character orientated movie. Now, other than the fact that she made fabulous clothes (and possibly the most famous perfume in all the world), I don't know a damn thing about Coco Chanel... and while I'm still not sure I know that much about her once she became THE Coco Chanel, it was an interesting look into her background... however accurate or invented it may have been.

It does make me want to find a Coco Chanel biography though...

One of the downsides was that because it was focussed on a particular period of her life before she really became successful, it had to gloss over how she got from where she was to who she became and it was really only covered in a brief montage at the end. So a touch disappointing in that regard.

Audrey Tautou was wonderful as always as Coco, although it was about as far away from as you could every hope to get from Amélie... Coco is a much more prickly character and you often don't get a sense of what she's thinking or feeling (I did wonder at one point whether narration would have helped, although it might just have been because I've seen Audrey in a few things that have narration).

Her co-stars are excellent as well, particularly Benoît Poelvoorde as Balsan, who goes from likeable to repellent and most of the way back again... but then that's people for you... they're very seldom always one thing forever in real life.

I'm also having a big ol crush on the very European sounding but American born Alessandro Nivola, even with the little moustache...

I will say though, that for a movie about one of the most stylish women ever, the clothes (while I'm sure they're completely accurate and appropriate to the period) are actually fairly awful. There are a few stand-out pieces... the "first ever little black dress", and a number of her outfits towards the end, as well as the fashion show right at the end... must it was a little disappointing from that perspective.

I also have to give a big fat brickbat to the focus puller, Hugues Espinasse, who couldn't seem to grasp the concept of his job... and whoever was responsible for the subtitles, because they weren't the best I've ever seen.

But even with those minor complaints, it was still an interesting movie.

yani's rating: 7 chapeau out of 10

unconscious mutterings 337

It's been an eventful little Monday... I delayed going out for my walk for so long this morning that I ended up doing a super shortened version (down to Montefiore Hill, past the Cathedral, across the street, up around the back of the hospital and up the hill), which meant that I had TONS of time at my disposal this morning. I got to work about 15 minutes early (and left 15 minutes late) so I'm putting the extra time in "the bank" for when we go away to Melbourne (La Ninj said I could).

Then I discovered that I won tickets to Red Cliff next weekend. A simple phone call to my agency about pay slips not looking the same means that I'm now signed up to do my timesheet online (woohoo).

And I'm pretty sure there was something else good, but I can't remember what right now... so behold, the Mutterings of the Unconscious...

1. Sister :: Nun
2. Talks :: Incessantly
3. Electric! :: Boogaloo!
4. Corner :: Office
5. Turnstile :: Showground
6. Swap :: Wife
7. Young :: Dumb and full of cum
8. Horrific :: Accident
9. Block :: Party
10. Wind :: Machine

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