movies: spider-man - no way home

Have I mentioned how much I love Tom Holland? He's a delightful, cinnamon roll of a human... and I adore him. He's a mess and I love him for it. 

So, it's slightly disappointing that Spider-Man: No Way Home is the first of his Spider-Man movies that I've had an opportunity to review anywhere near the time it came out.

I left a very brief review of the first two in my New Years 2021 post, but I'd call that more of a passing mention than an actual review.

Know, though, that my love for Tom Holland and his portrayal of Spider-Man is deep and abiding. See also, my love for his butt in that spider-suit. And a shout-out to however made the decision to put him in his boxer shorts once again in this movie... for an extended period of time.

No Way Home feels like a natural end, as well as a beginning. It sits perfectly as the end of the "Home" trilogy (Homecoming and Far From Home), and by the end, Peter Parker is out of high school and in the world.

And it could equally be the end of Holland's run as our friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man or it could be the start of a new series of movies for him. Both scenarios work equally well. Don't get me wrong, I would very much like for him to continue in the role, but if you were going to stop, this would be the time to do it.

Before we get into too much spoiler territory (although, really, does anyone not know at least the major plot reveal in this movie at this point?), the fact that they were able to get all of the people in this movie IN this movie is testament to both the stupidly deep pockets that Marvel/Disney have and, seemingly, the amount of goodwill they've generated in the MCU in order to entice people back to be in this movie.

Which is impressive.

Also, the second half of this movie is... amazing. It's everything that was good and fun and heartfelt about the entire Spider-Franchise, going all the way back to 2002 and the original Tobey Maguire movie. I'll get into that in a second though.

I just need to say first up that if the second half of the movie wasn't as strong as it is, I could easily throw this whole movie on the "urgh, they fucked it all up" pile... you know, like the third Tobey Maguire movie and the second Andrew Garfield movie.

Because I hate a lot of the first half of this movie. For very specific reasons. I honestly didn't need the very shouty J. Jonah Jameson in this iteration of Spider-Man. I barely cared about him in the Maguire version. And when he popped up at the end of Far From Home, I think I rolled my eyes so hard that I saw my own brain.

Also, how does anyone actually believe anything that Mysterio said in the last movie? Why hasn't he been completely discredited as a former special effects technician who stole Stark technology and wrecked up several European cities pretending to be a hero? Why didn't that happen? SHIELD? I know you were probably busy with, you know, the half of all humanity who got dusted coming back to life and, also, seemingly, things involving aliens, but you couldn't put out a press release or something? Anything?

And why does everyone instantly believe that Spider-Man is a bad guy? He was part of the Avengers, he saved the fucking world, he stood against Thanos when it counted.

Jameson works when Spider-Man exists as the only superhero in his universe. Or comic book title. Or whatever. When Spider-Man is just doing Spider-Man things, Jameson trying to turn New York against him kinda works. It absolutely doesn't work in a world where Spider-Man is part of a wider group of superheroes. Because, sorry, you're cranky about Spider-Man doing a thing when the Avengers (by which I mean mostly Tony Stark) have blown up New York every 18 months or so for the last few years.

Makes no damn sense.

So the starting point already doesn't work for me. But that needs to have happened in order for the inciting incident of the movie to happen... 

And then, Holland's Peter Parker makes... all the wrong decisions. Yes, I realise that if he makes the smart choices then we don't have a movie and we don't necessarily get the second half of this movie... but still, it was infuriating to watch him make the dumb choices. Also, yes, yes, yes... empathy, etc, etc... but a lot of the first half of this movie is just frustrating.

Apologies to Jacob Batalon, but I still need to amount of Ned in these movies to be much closer to 0% than it currently is. Likewise Tony Revolori... his Flash is... essentially pointless, especially in this movie. See also, Jon Favreau and all of the Happy Hogan scenes. In a two and a half hour movie, think about if you REALLY need this scene in the movie.

There are basically a number of scenes in the first half of this movie that could have been left on the cutting room floor, mostly a lot of the cringy school stuff... because, I'm sorry, I don't what kind of shitty teacher you are, I don't think you're allowed to accuse your student of murder without at least a little bit of proof.

And as much as I love that they got five different villains from the Spider-Man franchise in this movie, when two of them are entirely CGI versions of the characters and one of them barely factors into the plot of the movie at all, you have to ask... did you really need them? It's fine, it makes sense, they got major villains from all three Maguire movies and both Garfield movies, so if you were missing one of them it would probably stand out.

Plus, Willem Dafoe only seems to have two speeds, Indy Grumpy or Over The Top Scenery Chewing, and he's definitely doing the latter here. It was a bit much in the original movie, and it feels even more overblown here. It's not bad... it's just... a different level. And, you know, maybe that works with the theme and context of this movie.

But, full spoiler warning here, the point at which this movie really becomes what it is and becomes memorable and manages to make movies that are between 7 and 19 years old so much better, is when the aforementioned two previous instances of Spider-Man, Andrew Garfield and Tobey Maguire show up as the Spider-Man from their part of the multiverse. In the most tonally perfect ways possible.

Because it's clear that the two of them have great affection for the character and for Holland's version and just the time they spent as everyone's favourite wall-crawler. And it comes through on screen. From them referencing moments their characters went through and having this movie pay those moments off in ways that are genuinely moving... to them being involved in shaping the story of what happened to those characters after we no longer were watching them... to some of my favourite moments being improvised by the actors on set.

And they clearly got along and liked each other. That completely shines through the screen.

It must be a weird situation to be in. You were well known at one point in your acting career as this one character, and then at a certain point, a new guy comes along and takes over and they throw your version of the character away and start again. And maybe you left under positive circumstances and maybe you left with bad feelings about the whole experience, but now you get to reprise that character, alongside two other actors who have been through a very similar experience to you... 

It must be weird, but it also much be really lovely, because all three actors seem like they're nice guys.

So, yes, you could get to the second half of this movie in different ways... and you might still get the same feeling... but, as much as I was not feeling the first half of this movie, if I need to sit through he first half in order to get the second half that we got... I can live with that. And, you know, maybe when I rewatch this movie, I'll just start it at the point that it gets good for me.

I don't want to finish this review without mentioning Holland's MJ, Zendaya. Due to the amount of characters in the movie, they don't give her that much to do, although the scene where she and Batalon meet Garfield is a standout... but the chemistry she has with Holland is evident on screen. And yes, part of that is because they were either already a couple or on their way to being a couple in real life. But like with a number of other movies where the two leads were romantically involved, you can feel it on screen.

As I mentioned at the start of this... I also like... well, like is a funny way of phrasing it... but the way that the movie ends is honestly the right way for it to have ended in my opinion. And I'm excited to see what they do next if Holland chooses to stay on for future movies.

Oh, and chef's kiss for the Tom Hardy post credit scene... I had been thinking about him all movie long, and they held off and used him in just the right way.

yani's rating: 3 magic spells out of 5

photo friday: bad moon rogue-ing

Remember last week when I threw around some ideas of the next character I might play for the Thursday games... 

A Dhampir Phantom Rogue was mentioned. Yeah, welcome to this week's DnD Character Colouring Book... and Agent 13. And the potential fleshing out of same. At least a little.

What I do know... Agent 13 (not his real name, obviously, but I could decide on a name, and I'd been reading a lot of the Grayson series of comic books where everyone is Agent Some Number, and it just struck me last Sunday on the walk to the bakery) went missing for several weeks, was found by a secret society, already having been turned into a dhampir... or an attempt was made to turn him full vampire and it failed.

I feel like, given his Phantom Rogue class, there are a couple of the dhampir origins that I can smash together... so either I go with the very predictable but safe option of "you survived being attacked by a vampire but were forever changed", or I go with something that makes more sense with the Phantom subclass and go with "a predatory spirit lives within you and you share it's hunger"... which I think makes more sense.

I could almost flavour that as a Venom for Spiderman idea honestly... which may actually be the reference the original list was making. And, having whole conversations with yourself in character has it's appeal. Plus it has the added bonus of freaking other players out at times.

As is the fact that he's a very tall character, even without the heels... and I'm picturing a possibly raspy or otherwise creepy English accent... and the fact he "feeds" on psychic energy/strong emotions as a way of preventing his need to feed on blood. Yeah... there's some definitely creepy factors there.

What I haven't fleshed out completely is the Secret Society. Could it be the same one as my Egyptian Inspired Boy, Captain Odell, from a few weeks back? Possibly, given they're wearing the same coat, shirt and boots. Also, they clearly have the same barber and crossbow supplier.

I do love an organisation that has a uniform, but only as far as the cut or style of the outfit, not the colour or details.

But clearly, they're an organisation that works separately as individual agents. Maybe they always went out into the world and found adventurers to aid them in "tracking down dangerous supernatural phenomena and preventing it from doing harm". Or maybe they used to actually be a team, but now 13 and Odell are the only two left.

Honestly, it would very much depend on what adventure we were playing as to how much fleshing out the story got. I also like the idea that he's lying about the whole thing, there is no group, there is just him and he's doing all this because of what was done to him.

But, at some point, I kind of want to play a game where everyone is just part of the same organisation at the beginning. You might know each other well, but you know each other enough to skip some of the getting to know you parts of the adventure.

Weirdly enough, a new book dropped this week, totally out of the blue (to me at least), Journey through the Radiant Citadel, and I love the idea of playing him in that. Actually, I love the idea of that generally. It sounds like it could be super fun.

We'll see. Anyway.

Monday was... actually kind of a write-off... I ended up spending most of the morning at Officeworks printing out the big old collection of DVD covers for the TV shows and things. And then most of the afternoon trimming them... which basically amounted to making almost 400 cuts. So, it took a hot minute.

Also, I fucked up a couple of the covers (always the way) and had to redo those ones and take a second trip to Officeworks in the afternoon.

They look sensational though.

Tuesday my replacement Ridge Wallet arrived. So now my wallet is all new and fancy and Burnt Titanium and has half as many cards in it. Woo.

Wednesday I took a trip to Bunnings to peruse their solar fairy lights... and went to a two storey one that happened to have a Cheap as Chips next door so that I could kill two birds with one stone.

I did the usual trick that I do when I'm struck with indecision. I perused the lights and then I picked up the thing I thought I wanted and walked around the store with it before going back to the fairy lights section, being indecisive about whether I wanted to get anything at all, before finally picking a different (read: cheaper) option than the one I'd wandered around the store with.

I then just wandered around the rest of the store for a while. And, I have to say that, as someone who doesn't have a garden, taking a wander around the Bunnings Plant Nursery is actually quite soothing and pleasant on a Wednesday afternoon.

Or, you know, whenever.

That was followed by a quick Cheap As Chips trip to pick up more plastic tubs for the linen closet... then home.

Thursday night DnD was finally the culmination of the adventure that took us three weeks to complete. And was so stuffed with magic items it was kind of ridiculous by the end. But the final fight was slightly irritating, but overly fairly quickly, all things considered. As I've said many times before, this particular group tends to specialise in their own areas and it makes any characters we play slightly scary at times. Also, there are currently 7 players, (which is about 2-3 more than my preferred group size, but it's kind of hard to throw someone out once they've been taken into the fold, unless they leave of their own volition) and that also makes us something of a murder machine.

Friday was Chiro Day... so, the usual trip into town. And I had a bunch of other places I wanted to stop in at... most of which turned out to not have what I was looking for... I mean, two of the places I mostly wanted to see what they had available.

But I did get some things for displaying some bits and pieces, so that was useful.

And then Fluffy came down a little earlier and we watched the third Tom Holland Spider-man movie... more on that in a bit... before heading out to Friday Night DnD.

An odd session. It's not every session that you get up from the table and play-act the end of Shrek inside of the already existing game. And then leave the recently raised from the dead Necromancer with his alleged Enchantress girlfriend when we were fairly sure she was some kind of monster, only to have it confirmed that she was, indeed, some kind of monster, and my character rushed off to try and save him.

So there's that.

Today was fairly low-key compared to the last few weeks.

We did the supermarket thing... it took me about 900 hours to unpack things, because I finally decided that I needed to reorganise the main shelf of the pantry shelves... and there were also many things to take out of ugly, ugly plastic packaging and put into pretty, pretty glass jars.

Also Ma finished the [redacted] I asked her to make for [redacted] this week... and it looks sensational... I cannot wait until I can give it to [redacted]. I need to do a little finishing on it... I just need to work out how to do that effectively... and properly. 

And yes, I know, that means nothing to nobody else... but possibly once I've given it to the intended recipient, I might come back and edit this post (odds are I will totally forget to do so, but, you know, good intentions and all that).

Next up we went to Officeworks (argh... again, I can't escape) to finally scan the documents for Ma we tried to print about a month back unsuccessfully. Also, it's always super fucking helpful when a scanner puts the scanned document into a folder on the USB rather than just on the USB... and you don't realise and when you go to check it, think the document isn't there and end up looking like a twat in front of the Weekend Print Shop Guy. Yay.

Then we did a loop around Spotlight, and I found a heavily reduced quilt cover set that I didn't hate. It's maybe not exactly my usual style, but honestly it's better than either of the other "winter" quilt covers I currently have and am thoroughly sick of. And it was like 66% off.

And that was it.

Current mood:

movies: no time to die

Fuck. This. Movie.

Fuck every single thing about this movie. Fuck this movie. Fuck you movie. Fuck off movie.

And by movie, clearly, I'm talking about No Time To Die.

Fuck this movie.

First off, this movie committed the ultimate sin of any action movie, let along a JAMES BOND movie. This movie is DULL. This movie is dull and boring and forgettable.

The movie tries to bank on you a) remembering and b) giving any kind of a shit about the female character from Spectre and c) caring AT ALL about the "love story" between the two.

And, I absolutely did not. Not only did I barely remember her character, or anything about her from the previous movie, I absolutely did not care about their love story.

Not least of all because at this point Daniel Craig actually looks like he is old enough to be Léa Seydoux's father. Yes, the age gap is only 17 years. But he looks old and haggard and she looks... about 12.

Also, in 2022, I'm no longer fucking here tolerating when the female love interest in a movie is excessively younger than her male counterpart. It's some bullshit, and I don't want to see it anymore, and, will henceforth be calling it out every single time I encounter it.

Fuck that noise. Do better.

Looking back on my review of Spectre, I liked Seydoux's character in that movie. I have no idea why, mostly because I barely remember that movie any more, but I was pretty much over her as soon as she showed up.

Wait. Hold on. Back up a second.

I know, 100%, the moment that this movie completely lost me.

This movie lost me, pretty much permanently, when they started playing the fucking love theme from On Her Majesty's Secret Service in the "pre-credit sequence". And then you're going to get character to DIRECTLY QUOTE the title of the song at the end of the movie and play it again then. Fuck you, movie.

They did that a few times, made references to older Bond movies. Not the Craig movies, the Connery and the Moore movies. Also, the Lazenby movie... for some reason.

Also I put "pre-credit sequence" in quotes because it wasn't an actual pre-credit sequence, it was just stuff. There's... some stunts. That I barely remember. There's a scene where the characters sit in a car and do nothing while James emotionally abuses the woman he's supposed to love while people shoot the car very many times with very big guns. Stuff.

This movie is 2 hours and 45 minutes long. It's very much overflowing with... stuff. And, I didn't, like, make a list or anything, but I would say that, at a bare minimum, there is at least a solid hour's worth of that "stuff" that absolutely does not to be in the fucking movie. And should not be in that movie.

Because this movie is BORING. This movie is DULL. And this movie is SLOW.

Remembering, also, that this movie is a JAMES BOND MOVIE.

It's also the rare beast of a movie that, the more I think about it afterwards, the more I fucking hate it.

Let's go through my particular gripes, shall we.

The opening title song. Boring and slow and bad. I love me some Billie Eilish, really, I do. I think she's super talented, I think she's amazing. This song is awful. I didn't like it before I saw it in context of the movie, but in context, it's perfect, because the movie is also awful.

The opening credit sequence. If you get deja vu watching it, congratulations. You're an actual human who has watched the previous Daniel Craig Bond movies. And you remember the opening title sequences for the last three movies, because it's exactly the fucking same as all of them. And, mostly, they were boring.

M. I have no issues with Ralph Fiennes, he's a fine actor. But now that M is no longer being played by Dame Judi Dench, the character doesn't need to be in the movies beyond five minutes at the start and for about 30 seconds for wrap up at the end.

What I don't need during a nearly three hour movie, is to cut back to M's office every 2 minutes to get a, frankly, pointless reaction shot from both M and fucking Tanner. Nobody cares about fucking TANNER. At all. Ever. Those scenes should have been on the cutting room floor.

Let's just talking about the writing for a second...

The writers on this were Neal Purvis, Robert Wade and Cary Joji Fukunaga, the latter is also the director. And they did a bad. They made a boring. Phoebe Waller-Bridge, late of Fleabag fame, did a punch up on the script from what I understand, and I'll go out on a limb and say that those few scenes that I actually liked were probably mostly her work. I'm guessing so anyway. Of course, the annoying fake Russian (?) scientist character and his expanded role could also be her writing and he was useless.

Sorry, David Dencik, you were badly overacting and your performance was annoying and your dialogue was badly written. Most of your performance, likewise, should have been on the cutting room floor.

Yeah, the writing... not good. I didn't care about the characters, the stakes were not made clear. I mean, yes, virus, world, also, not a great theme for your movie in these current times, but, you started this before the world fell apart, and that is a staple of Bond movies, I get it.

But, otherwise, they made the plot overly convoluted for no reason. Yes, previous movies in the franchise have done that, but in those cases, the actual stakes were clear. In this case... no, not at all.

Basically, when it comes to this movie's plot, you have to ask... what fucking plot? 

I have no fucking clue WHAT the Bond Villain was after. What was his plan? Couldn't tell you. Why was he doing it? No fucking clue. What did he want? Fuck knows. I mean, yes, I know, he stole the bio weapon thing and he was... making more of it. But, he took some of it, so he didn't already know how to make it, but he also took the... guy who developed it. So, why didn't he just take the guy... and have him make more... 

And what was his ultimate goal. Just to kill all of Spectre? He did that in the first third of the movie.

Oh, yeah, in case you didn't realise, we're in fucking spoiler territory now. I give no shits about most of the spoilers for this movie. So, he kills all of Spectre, because one Spectre guy, Seydoux's character's dad who is mentioned in the last movie, poisons his whole family. And Villain kills her mother. And comes to kill her dad. Where was the dad? No fucking idea, because I don't remember any of the useless plot from the last movie.

But then... he does, what, nothing for the next... thirty years?

Huh?

Also, if the Villain released the virus thingy in the room where Bond already was early in the movie, the one that targeted every member of Spectre, why did he then need to get that other character to apply the virus to themselves in order to try and kill Blofeld, when Bond was going to see Blofeld and he was already infected with the Kills Spectre Virus and they can't get rid of the virus, so why did that whole plotline that goes nowhere need to be in the movie?

Why is this movie nearly 3 hours long? Why is the plot/writing so fucking bad?

They also seemed to have decided that, because this was Craig's last entry in the franchise, and, honestly, maybe they were seeing the writing on the wall when it comes to James Bond movies (more on that by the end), but they essentially burn the whole fucking thing down and salt the ground behind them. They just started killing off recurring characters at a certain point. 

Well, you know, first off all of Spectre. Dead. Granted those are people we've never met and don't care about. But, in the context of the movie. They're all dead.

Blofeld. Who, also, didn't need to be in this movie. And was... pointless. Sure, sure, give Christoph Waltz a big fat check and put him in a box on wheels and have him in one scene and whatever. Give him all the moneys. But he exists in the movie only as a red herring and as a future dead body. Jeffrey Wright's Felix Leiter. Dead. See if you can follow the thought process of "many of the characters are just killed off" all the way through to it's logical conclusion. I'm not going to say it... but yes. That happens. No, not that... the other thing, the one you're thinking "he can't mean THAT". Yes. That.

Also, while we're talking about the villain.

I'm sure that Rami Malek is a lovely human being. I'm sure he's polite to old people, I bet he's kind to animals. He's probably a lovely man to have a beer with.

He's also, perpetually, creepy as fuck. Just as a human being in the world. There's almost always something... off... about him.

Which should 100% work for a Bond villain. And it might. If he was IN THE FUCKING MOVIE. Or the character was actually... a character.

He's in the movie maybe slightly more than, for example, Doctor No was in the very first Bond movie. Which is an apt comparison, because he's basically the same fucking character. I mean, technically he's not. But he basically is. He's all "slightly Japanese themed", and mostly ineffectual. But much more badly written than Doctor No was.

He's... lets just say it together... bad. Now, what I will say is that I'm sure that all of the actors in this movie where doing what they could with the material that they were given. However, like with every single fucking villain in the Daniel Craig era, the villain in this movie is bad. And not interesting.

I want a villain with some flair and some flavour and some style. I want somebody with a sense of drama. Give me... I dunno... Emma Thompson maybe. Someone who understands how to chew the scenery and be Capital E Evil. Give me... something... anything.

Also, this movie is so forgettable that I cannot, right now, remember the villain's name without looking it up. 

Sidebar... no fucking wonder I can't remember it... it's Lyutsifer Safin. Sorry, huh?

Moving on.

The costume design. If nothing else is true about a Bond movie, I should not have to complain about the FUCKING COSTUMES in a modern James Bond movie. Remember, like three movies ago, when Bonds entire wardrobe was provided by Tom Ford. Remember that?

This is not a full Tom Ford wardrobe. These clothes, with the exception of two of James's suits, a very beautiful midnight blue dress and... no, actually, that's it. The grey suit, the black tux (both of which are actually Tom Ford) and the dress (which is by Michael Lo Sordo Alexandra). That was basically the very short list of good clothes in this movie.

Oh, and Naomie Harris as Moneypenny. Harris looks fantastic throughout. Everything else. Terrible.

Like, think about that Suttirat Anne Larlarb, you failed, at a fundamental level, to make Lashana Lynch look fucking stunning. You have just failed at life. The last person to do that was the wig designer for Captain Marvel. But she wasn't playing a fucking Double O agent in that movie.

Wait, sorry... what's that? No... are you serious? They put Lashana Lynch in a Tom Ford in that movie and she still looked... that bad? That cannot be correct. Oh... that hideous white jacket abomination. That was a Tom Ford? And cost... how much? Well... fuck me I guess. Still hideous though.

But overall the costumes were awful. And boring. Not at all flattering or stylish. Honestly, not making Lynch look sen-fucking-sational in every scene she's in is possibly my biggest gripe. That and the fact that they just put Malek in... a kimono-y looking thing and called it a day.

Urgh. 

So, the very short list of things I liked...

They made Q canonically gay. Super fucking obvious, because he's being played by Ben Whishaw, who essentially plays him as "fussy gay" anyway. But good. I suspect Whishaw possibly had a hand in that decision, but don't know for certain. Also, who cares? But at the same time, good.

Eyeball Man. Listed in the credits as Primo (Cyclops)... but they never properly introduced him or had any other fucking character TALK TO HIM. So we never learn his name. And we called him Eyeball Man throughout. He was... somebody's henchman. Possibly Safin's henchman, pretending to be Blofeld's henchman. Don't ask me, this movie is badly written. 

Played by Dali Benssalah, and, for once, we get a henchman with a gimmick. It's only taken the, what, FIVE movies. They give him a fake eyeball. And make it plot related. And, also give him a super distinctive haircut, so you can actually identify him every time he shows up, even when you only see him from the back. I just wish I knew exactly whose henchman he was.

He was great, and Benssalah was eating what he did have up with a spoon. He just needed to have been given more... more of a character, more dialogue, more plot. Not sure which, but essentially he just needed a better Bond movie.

Tiny, little Lisa-Dorah Sonnet as the daughter of Seydoux's character. And yeah, do the math on that one. Given that I already said that Seydoux and Craig continue their love affair from the previous movie. So, the character, fucking annoying and pointless and didn't need to be in the movie and I fucking hated her. Sonnet, however, makes it through the movie with this perpetual look of WTF on her face, gets an "action" moment and somehow doesn't make the... first ever... child in a Bond movie annoying as a character.

Wait... can someone check that and get back to me... other than background extras or flashbacks... has there ever been an actual child character in a Bond movie before? I don't think that there has. And, probably, Mr Writer Director... for a very good FUCKING REASON.

However the existence of the character is, as I said, fucking stupid and shouldn't be in the movie. To be clear. Character bad. Sonnet good.

I already partially mentioned Lashana Lynch as the very first, on-screen, female Double O. And, she's exactly what she needs to be. A contrast to Bond and his style. A kickass character in her own right, albeit a character that doesn't... DO that much. She is, as generally happens in a Bond movie, scaffolding to prop up James and the plot, such as it is.

However.

She's not the best female character in the movie.

Enter Ana de Armas as Paolma. Wearer of the midnight blue dress. Kicker of asses. Displayer of cleavage. She is the single best character in this movie. And she's in it for like... 10 minutes. Fifteen at the most.

Did I mention that this movie is too fucking long? Much like this review at this point.

But de Armas is fucking amazing. She's... from a whole other Bond movie. Honestly. This is why I suspect that her character was both super punched up by Waller-Bridge, but also that de Armas understands what the character of a Bond sidekick is supposed to be, in a way that, clearly, the writers and director of this movie do not understand.

She even wrote the best line of her own dialogue. When her character mentions only having had three weeks training, that was because de Armas had only had three weeks worth of training for her action scenes and she kept saying that to the director Fukunaga until he told her to say it in character.

She's fantastic.

She's also, despite the appearance of that dress and that cleavage, not a Bond girl. Like I said before, she's a sidekick. Bond never hits on her, she never hits on him (comical misdirect notwithstanding), she leaves the movie with a handshake and a job well done. She's great.

And lastly... Billy Magnussen. He's very pretty. And is used either not enough, not effectively... or possibly exactly the right amount. Like many things in this movie, however, the character of Logan Ash is... pretty much pointless and doesn't need to really exist. Or, several other very similar characters should have been rolled into one character, saving us all time in our lives we won't be betting back after this movie.

Mostly, though, he's very pretty. And there's at least one scene where Daniel Craig, as Bond, is seriously thinking about fucking him. Serious. The bar scene in Jamaica. Go back and watch it. Watch the way Bond is just eye-fucking him/considering seducing him. It's all right there on the screen.

And now we come to the end of this movie. Which, if you haven't worked it out yet, I won't actually spoil. But, if you've been paying attention throughout the movie, you'll have seen it coming. Because it's legitimately the only way this movie could end.

However.

This seems like the perfect point for me to announce. I'm done with Bond movies. This is, potentially, the last Bond movie I'll ever bother watching.

For two reasons. Firstly, there are better movies in the world these days. Better action movies, better movies that are basically driving in the Bond lane. And we don't need Bond any more. Even current Bond is still a dick to women and a grumpy fuck. And I don't need him any more.

And secondly, given the end of this movie, if there was ever a time to get out of the Bond franchise, it's now. I'll still go back and watch the shit out of the old movies. But that's it for me.

I'm out.

Also, fuck you movie.

yani's rating: 1 stuffed rabbit out of 5

photo saturday: night bird

Most of the time I don't base my DnD characters on existing fictional characters. I mean, I've done it a little bit with the visuals a couple of times, but I don't tend to take a character and convert them over to DnD... and then want to play them.

Usually it's just a design experiment.

Today's DnD Character Colouring Book breaks that rule, and it's squarely the fault of the person who gave me a Nightwing graphic novel for my birthday.

So at the end of that, we end up with Kaulo Chiriclo... whose name may or may not translate to Night Bird.

Normally people think you need to make Nightwing/Dick Grayson a rogue. But that doesn't work for me for a number of reasons. Firstly, he's not a rogue. He's an acrobat. And yes, the Thief subclass would give him a climbing speed. But, second point, he uses Escrima sticks as he weapon, which are basically clubs. And because they're clubs, you don't get to use sneak attack while wielding them.

No, to me, Nightwing is a Monk. Either a Shadow Monk or a Kensei Monk, but Kensei made more sense to me... Shadow works, you just need to flavour all his spells as gadgets. But I like Kensei more. And you make him a variant human with the Athlete feat, which gives him a climb speed, lets him get up using on 5 feet of movement, and lets him jump slightly better.

The problem now is that I actually want to play Kaulo and turn him into a real character. But I wasn't looking to play a monk as the next character up on the roster. I had been leaning more heavily towards rogue. Or, possibly, some sort of dhampir character. Depends what the Thursday group ends up doing honestly.

We'll see.

And of course, anyone who has been paying attention can probably guess that I went off and did a quick possible dhampir rogue character right after I said that... and possibly a Phantom Rogue Dhampir, because that just has synergy.

That's probably next week's post... so stay tuned.

Anyway..,

Monday I pretty much covered already... birthday and all that.

Tuesday was Cleaning for Rental Inspection Lite. Yes, a month after I moved in. They decided that was a good time to do and inspection. Which happened in the Portrush Road house too. And when I was explaining it to someone later in the week, I realised why.

They want a baseline. They want to check that you didn't, like, put your head through the wall... or, you know, the non-weird equivalent to that. They wanna know you didn't wreck the place while moving in. I get it. It's still weird, but I get it.

So, I tidied some things away as best I could, reorganised the kitchen bench a little, cleaned the bathroom... then vacuumed and mopped the floor. Well, vacuumed all the floor and mopped everything that wasn't carpet. Because that makes sense.

It didn't take a ton of time... because, as previously stated, I've only been in the house for a month.

Wednesday was the inspection. So, I left the house first thing in the morning and went to run errands. Basically, I went to Officeworks to print off the last of the DVD covers, then took the empty moving boxes back to the moving company. And met the woman who I'd spoken to on the phone originally and right before the move... and she was pretty much exactly what I was expecting. Lovely, but, yeah.

And I got about $30 back for the boxes, which is better than the proverbial kick in the nuts.

Having done that, I detoured to Burnside Village to pick up my free Birthday Boost Juice and grab some lunch, since it was basically just past noon at that point, then headed home.

As I've said before, coming home after an inspection is the best feeling, because you get the benefit of clean house without having to worry about the inspection anymore.

Also, just after I got back it started to rain, so that was nice. And as I said to Fluffy, it's nice to be able to appreciate the rain without worrying it's going to come into your house uninvited.

I spent the rest of the day trimming up the DVD covers and putting them in the cases. Only to discover, as I put the very last one on the shelf, that for some reason, the spine text was... a completely different font. No idea why, no idea how that happened. But it did. And fuck.

So, I made the alterations to it and headed back out to print it. In the rain. And I got to Officeworks and was about to get out of the car and realised... "where's my mask". Yeah, I'd washed it when I got home, since I'd been wearing it a lot over the last week. So it wasn't where it usually was, and I totally forgot to grab one of the others.

Yeah, I turned around, came back home, grabbed a mask, and went back to Officeworks. Frustrating, but at least I got it all done.

Thursday I started organising the TV show DVDs... 

Thursday night DnD was pretty good... we continued the adventure for last week, and it looks like we'll be finishing it up next week. But overall, pretty good.

Friday, Fluffy came down early so we could watch the latest Bond movie. Oh, I have opinions about that. Stay tuned for that one later.

Also, putting a whole bag of chocolate buttons into a loaf of bread leads to some bread instability. But at least I didn't overcook it this time.

Friday night DnD was... also pretty good. Not much of huge import to report yet, but it was fun.

Today was... a lot of sound and fury signifying nothing.

We started with voting. Woo. Election. Urgh.

On the plus side, at least I wasn't completely out of my mind on cold and flu medication and I didn't yell at a sarcastic old volunteer lady. So, there's that.

It took about an hour all up. A lot of standing around... or, you know, queuing.

Finally it was done and we'd had our Democracy Sausage... actually for the first time, because normally either we've been too early for that or the places we've voted haven't been doing them. It was... fine.

After that we did the supermarket.

The plan after that was potentially to sort out the cardboard boxes of art and transfer them over, possibly, to the plastic tubs I already had. Or to go out and get new ones. So, I started looking at some boxes online... but got slightly distracted by looking at potential new TVs.

I did unpack a couple of the art boxes, found a piece that absolutely had to be out of the box, and then we headed out to look at plastic boxes.

We went to Big W and then Cheap as Chips to investigate boxes sizes and shapes. And... nothing. None of the ones we found were quite right, so in the end, we came back empty handed and ended up just repacking all the boxes that were already in the wardrobe.

So, that was, basically, a big fat nothing. At least the boxes got properly reorganised this time.

And it was like 4pm by the time Ma headed home.

So, not technically the most productive day... but, not so much.

Current mood:

it's my (48th) birthday

Some years, my birthday falls over the weekend or, in the Before Times, during peak Fringe activities or you know, whatever... some years, it just falls on the public holiday Monday and... nothing happens.

Guess what this year is. Yep... a Monday. And a Monday where I closed up the house at like 11am and put the aircon on. And have done... precisely... fuck all. Which is perfectly fine.

On the up side, at least its better than last year, when my mood could best be described as "fuck my birthday, fuck travelling around the sun in a prescribed orbit, fuck everything and fuck you". I didn't even bother with making one of these images last year.

And, speaking of which... a new challenger enters the ring this year. Well, not so much a "challenger", more so a new member of the March 14 Club. Johnny Flynn, who I had not actually heard of before I did my customary internet search for people also born the same day as me.

He is, according to the internet, an actor, musician, and singer-songwriter, and was in the 2020 adaptation of Emma, which is where the above image comes from. All stiff collars, linen and doing an allegedly "gratuitous" nude scene early in the movie where he flashes his butt while being dressed by his valet. Honestly, though... English period movies and male nudity... they go hand in hand, and if I could be bothered making a list I would. See also, pretty much anything by Merchant-Ivory Productions.

Happy Birthday Johnny. You join the list of famous faces that get birthday wishes from me for sharing my birthday... including, three-time featured Jamie Bell, Johan Paulik, Taylor Hanson, Michael Caine, Chris Klein, Albert Einstein, Corey Stoll, Daniel Gillies, Ansel Elgort, Demetrius Joyette, Stephen Curry and Antoni Porowski.

Happy Birthday gentlemen.

Current mood:

movies: the tragedy of macbeth

The Tragedy of Macbeth is the 11th film version of Shakespeare's Scottish play that I've watched and the 23rd version of the play I've seen overall.

It might also be the first version that I've seen where I declared part way through the movie that I wanted to make out with the costume designer. Then later the cinematographer. And later still the production designer. Mary Zophres, Bruno Delbonnel and Stefan Dechant respectively, for the record. Also, the entire team responsible for digital set extensions and just the CGI team generally.

Because this movie is SO FUCKING BEAUTIFUL.

It's stylised to within an inch of it's life, and it's shot in black and white... and actually shot that way, not desaturated later... so the costumes rely on texture and pattern and material instead of colour. Same with the sets and the lighting. It's all about geometry and lines and shadow.

Total artifice and wonderfully sparse, but beautifully done.

But you could very literally take almost any still from the movie, frame it and put it on the wall and it would be the most wonderful monochromatic art piece.

Okay, so... what did Joel Coen choose to do with with my favourite Shakespeare play to make it his own?

Interestingly, he beefed up the roll of Ross (Alex Hassell)... he turned Ross into more of a priest than just another nobleman and Hassell's performance rides the line where you never know whose side he's supposed to be on and he always seems... a little creepy and a little Machiavellian. And, spoilers for a more than 400 year old play, as well as the movie... the inference here is that Ross is the one who saves Fleance and pushes Lady Macbeth down the stairs at the end rather than her leaping from a tower. He's much more of a "string puller" in this version.

Which is a take I haven't seen before.

He also chose Kathryn Hunter as The Witches. You might not recognise the name, but she was in the start of the fifth Boy Wizard movies very briefly, but she has a distinctive face and I recognised her immediately. Turns out that she's well known as a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company and is a respected theatre director and actor.

She's also mesmerising as The Witches. Or, technically, I guess, The Witch. Because while there are often three bodies on screen, either they are all Hunter and composited together or they are Hunter plus two other people of similar height and build. Hunter does speak in different tonal registers to indicate the three personalities of the Witches... but I'll be honest, in some ways, I wished they'd leaned into it more... actually had Hunter play three different characters who are mostly identical but maybe wearing slightly different outfits.

Because, honestly, more Hunter would not have been a bad thing.

It's interesting that Coen both included a number of actors from the Boy Wizard movies, but also cast a number of American actors in minor roles. And all of the black actors in the movie are American. Which makes sense, given that your Macbeth is both black and American... so it makes sense that they're all "from the same place" in the world of the movie.

Oh, and I just need to say that the Hair and Makeup Department did Banquo kinda dirty, giving Bertie Carvel big, bushy, comedy eyebrows. It was a choice... I honestly don't think it was a great choice given the often intentionally harsh lighting... those things often look like big angry caterpillars attempting to leap off his face.

But, I hear you cry... what about Macbeth and Lady Macbeth?

First... let me say that in the production of Macbeth that lives, forever, in my head... Macbeth needs to be young. Mid twenties at the most. I feel like the combination of that amount of avarice makes more sense on a young man. And if Lady Macbeth is still of childbearing age, the revelation that Banquo will be the scion of a line of kings holds more bite to it, rather than Lady Macbeth being beyond the age where that's a possibility any more.

I also would love to lean into the idea of Duncan calling Macbeth "cousin" more literally, and have the king be early 30's at most and his sons in their teens.

But, this isn't the imaginary version I would put together... 

This version stars Denzel Washington as Macbeth and Frances McDormand as Lady Macbeth. So, while I personally think that the Macbeths should be younger than they're presented here, you have to balance this against the fact that it's Denzel and Frances. And, I mean, especially Frances, because she's fantastic always.

Which isn't to say that Denzel isn't good... I just haven't seen him in that many things.

He plays Macbeth wonderfully... and this is possibly the best version of "Macbeth loses his mind at the moment he stabs Duncan" that I've seen. Other versions have done great work with that idea, but nobody else has really got down into it like Denzel.

But... I'm going to say... as a couple who are supposed to be in love, Washington and McDormand didn't really give me much in the way of chemistry. As conniving, backstabbing pair of regicides (also, it's weird that the word for the act and the word for the person doing the thing is the same word, it feels like it shouldn't be), I 100% totally buy them. But as a couple of who love each other and will do this horrific thing because of how much they love each other, not so much.

Which isn't blatant in the text or anything, I just feel that if you have that, it does a lot of the heavy lifting for their decision making.

But, like I said, they're both fantastic in their roles. And I was legitimately sad when we hit the point in the play where Lady Macbeth shows up less... because that meant less McDormand.

There were also moments of gold in very, very small roles.

Jacob McCarthy as Wheyface, the unfortunate servant that comes to tell Macbeth that the wood is on the move only has two brief scenes, and he's doing a lot of floppy hair acting, but he was memorable... as was Ethan Hutchison as MacDuff's son, who got a much more dramatic death than he usually does... and was actually really good in his one scene.

At the end of the day though, while this movie has many, many strong performances, a fantastically talented actress as the Witch, and charismatic actors in the lead roles... the strength of this movie is in it's visuals and it's design.

Absolutely stunning.

yani's rating: 5 geometric patterns out of 5 

photo saturday: sartorial boy

So... Hero Forge is kinda killing it right now with new outfits. I was disappointed they didn't include much clothing during the Advent Calendar in December... but it that was because they were waiting until now to drop me clothes... I'm kind of okay with that.

Today's DnD Character Colouring Book was totally one where the outfit inspired the character, down to the colouring.

The tails of the coat just reminded me of scarab wings that you see in a lot of Egyptian art... so, I kinda worked backwards from there, and basically created a DnD version of an Egyptologist... or at the very least, someone who has been touched by the sands and the desert wind. So, what says Egyptologist more than blue and gold?

Honestly, that's it really, that's as much as I have... I know his first name is something Egyptian... I know he's part of an organisation that looks into weird occurrences or monsters... and I'm not sure he ever actually served with any military organisation, even though he calls himself Captain.

Also, you gotta love a man in eyeliner. It's the rules.

Anyway...

This week has been... full of excursions.

So, we started the week last Sunday with an early morning earthquake... a 3.8 magnitude quake in fact... whatever that means relatively speaking. Honestly, having lived next to a major highway that had giant trucks rumbling along it at all hours of the day and night, I didn't realise what it was to start with... it just felt like a big truck... except it didn't stop... for about 10-15 seconds anyway.

I knew it was something weird given that right after it went through, all the parrots in nearby trees took to their air and made their displeasure known.

Oh, and I'm done with the bakery at the end of the street. The pastry is too thick, so it's undercooked, and the pepper pie I had should be renamed to a salt and pepper pie. So I might have to try something else this coming week.

Then Monday I went out to grab some bits and pieces that I hadn't picked up over the weekend... house stuff... and test out some more printing at Officeworks.

Basically I came home with scissors to replace the ones I lost, a shower caddy, a storage bin for under the bed, a dish drainer, a box for the platform shoes that used to be Raury's, an extension cord with flat plug and the last of the Descendants movies, because sometimes you need to treat yo self and... printing of DVD covers that was now too fucking big.

Urgh. It looks right when I printed it. Until I got it home and immediately saw that, no, it was too big now. So I came home, checked all my measurements, tried putting the image as it was in a PDF and took things that were the correct size in to compare it with and headed back in. Still wrong on the test prints. I ended up talking to one of the women from the Print Counter who basically said "yeah, these machines are pretty basic, all they're really for is printing your tax returns and stuff... but if you maybe make the image full A4 size and put it in a PDF, then it might work".

Sage advice, random lady, sage advice.

And that's exactly what I did. Because as soon as she said it I went "dur, of course, if I want the image to print full size, I need to make it a full A4 image and THEN make it a PDF. So that was pretty much all of Monday night, converting all the images over.

Monday night I pulled all of the papers and DnD printing and things out from the magazine racks at the bottom of the bookcases near the door sorted them out, so it all makes more sense to me now. And I also threw away a bunch of stuff.

Later I decided, on a whim, to pull the two plastic tubs full of cleaning stuff that where amongst the last things to leave the old house, out and sort them into the things I need more frequently and the things I need only occasionally. And as I'm pulling things out... as, is always the way with shit like this... what do I see down the side of the green plastic tub... a flash of blue. Yep... for reasons that I don't fully understand, the blue handled scissors had not, in fact, been on my kitchen counter at any point, it seems like they'd never been anywhere in the new house other than the inside of the cupboard under the sink. Or, maybe I put them in the tub by mistake... I honestly couldn't tell you. And of course, I find them on the day that I buy a pair to replace them.

Fuckit... at least the replacement pair will be super useful for other things.

Tuesday it was back to Officeworks around lunch time I think. And the DVD covers were finally the right size. Yay! Commence all the printing. Well not all... I did some of the larger groupings and printed until my Officeworks card ran out of cash.

Then I came home and had to then trim all of the edges. And realised that while doing the very monotonous task of printing, my mind had wandered and I didn't print, for example, the fourth Disney cover in the list of seven. Grrr.

But they looked pretty damn good.

First thing on Wednesday, the multi-DVD cases I ordered last weekend showed up... like, really early... 8am early... so then I had to go back to Officeworks and a full batch. By which I mean filled out a number of the smaller width shelves and then printed other ones until the card ran out again. Then more trimming. There were also ones where when I went to print it, I went... why did you file THAT under drama and not comedy or action and not thriller or whatever... so those needed a redo...

I also compacted even more of my DVDs into some of the new cases and ended up with a bunch of free space at the end of the alphabet, which is always good.

So that I didn't end up taking up Thursday doing the same thing yet again, I headed back Wednesday afternoon for another batch. See also more trimming. Basically I used up the blades in two utility knives.

Thursday I wanted to try and make headway on the tchotchke storage situation... so I pulled everything out of the boxes, decided on what stayed and what needed to go, compacting things into less boxes and worked out that the art boxes what had been taking up space by the side of the bed would just squeeze into the bottom of the wardrobe. So yay.

They do need going through and possibly moving over to some more... permanent, non-cardboard boxes. But that's later. They can stay in the wardrobe for now.

I did end up doing an Officeworks run on my way out to Thursday night DnD... because once again, made more sense to do it while I was already headed out for something else... so, I printed the covers that I'd either missed or changed or had otherwise not previously done... and I printed out a new version of the photo of Mouja... which wasn't bad considering it wasn't a super high quality digital image.

Plus, a pack of replacement blades for the utility knives.

I still need to do one last trip... but that'll be Wednesday next week, because I need to be out of the house anyway. Did I mention they're doing a rental inspection a month after I move in... bitch, I haven't worked out where to put all my spoons yet... what are you talking about, inspection? Anyway...

Thursday night DnD was... somewhat chaos. Less chaos than last week, in that we didn't circumvent half of the adventure, but decisions where made that were... less than optimal, but still seemed to work for us in general. Plus, this time we had the chance to roleplay for like, the first third of the session. Which is always the right answer.

It was fun though. And we get to finish it off next week.

Friday was basically me attempting to tidy up the chaos from Thursday. I did pretty well honestly. I mean, things are still not all where they need to be, and won't be until I can get the dining table out of the house and put the chest of drawers from the bedroom in that spot.

I do need to work out what I'm doing with the bigger art pieces that are currently shoved in the corner of the bedroom. Some of them need new bubblewrap, some of them possibly need to go live at Ma's place for a while. But I also need to work out what pieces I still want to pull out before that happens. So, there's decisions to be made. And then I can start taking things that I randomly shoved into cupboards out, and putting them back in much more neatly.

That's all a problem for Future Yani though.

Present Yani is fairly pleased with the way things are coming together, even if he does also wish there was like... 30% more space or the cupboards make more sense.

Prior to Friday night DnD, Fluffy came down and we watched The Tragedy of Macbeth... and you better believe that there will be a review of that forthcoming after this post.

Then it was off to Friday Night DnD... to run away from the big monsters that we woke up last week, try and negotiate with some nasty folk and end up having to stomp them into the dirt, found a Cube of Permanent Australian Summer, encounter a creepy, creepy gnoll/vampire/werewolf and then find the final location, a big old creepy city, buried in an ice cave.

Fun times... fun times.

Also, because it's my birthday on Monday... Friday was a bit of a birthday celebration... there were presents (dice from Fluffy, Nightwing graphic novel and board games from Mr and Mrs... the DVD was from Ma today), there were cupcakes... there was bread with a bunch of pepperoni in it that I slightly overcooked.

In the Before Times... today would have involved some kind of Fringe show, or going out for lunch, or something. But no, not so much.

Instead we did the supermarket thing, came back here for the unpacking and whatnot and then headed down to Spotlight... mostly for some wool and some new pillows... and because they had a sale on, ended up with a full set of pillows and a new quilt... which ended up being my actual birthday present from Ma.

Then we went to Haighs, because the made the Milk Neapolitan Wafer Bar (or, basically their version of a Polly Waffle, or in the same neighbourhood anyway) a permanent edition, and because I missed out on them last year when they appeared for World Chocolate Day, I needed some now that they've become a permanent addition.

Also, sidebar... the Polly Waffle is coming back... I wasn't aware, but Menz, the makers of Fruchocs, bought the licence for both Violet Crumbles and Polly Waffles... but they need to build a completely new set of machinery for the Polly Waffle... and sadly, because of the world right now, it's been pushed back twice now... from 2020 to 2022 and now to 2023. So long as it ends up happening though, I'm good. It will be interesting to see if a different manufacturer makes a product that lives up to the memory that I and, seemingly many other people share of the Polly Waffle.

Only time will tell I guess.

When we got back here, I couldn't find my mask. What I should have done was actually move my car seat and look properly because it was in the car the whole time... but we ended up driving back to Haighs, not finding it, and then as soon as I looked properly in the car, I found it. It did eat up a chunk of time... and I'm annoyed with myself that I didn't spend more time looking for it.

But we were going to get food from somewhere on the Parade, but all the places we were considering didn't open until 4:30pm... so, fuck that... we ordered pizza instead.

And watched Encanto (which Ma hadn't seen yet). Which is just as good the second time around, and made me cry just as much.

When it was done, Ma shuffled off home.

So, not a bad way to spend a pre-birthday Saturday.

Current mood:

photo saturday: the last ranger

Here we have Brother Ardu... the last of the Icewind Dale Rangers (well, technically there's also an apprentice he went to fetch, but I don't have a model for him yet... well, I do... but not one I'm happy with)... currently south of the Dale and unable to return. Welcome to this week's DnD Character Colouring Book.

He's the answer to two questions... well, maybe three... firstly, how does Leif know how to speak Draconic. That's easy, there's another ranger who speaks it (it may not be how he learned it originally, but it's why he still speaks it), secondly, the Rangers definitely needed a cleric. And lastly... as I end up considering with all my characters, what's Leif's sexual orientation. Or, more accurately, what's his relationship with this particular dragonborn? Turns out, the answer is... it's complicated.

My thinking is that there is definitely a bromance going on... but neither of them have taken it beyond that, because they don't want to ruin what they have, but given that he's been trapped beyond the Dale for a couple of years at this point, who knows what happens when they're reunited.

DM Fluffy made Ardu the brother of one of the NPCs in the game, so now Leif has a greater connection with him... and a potential future brother-in-law. Where neither character really knows what the relationship between dwarf and dragonborn actually is, but also won't talk about it.

Also, this is what happens when Hero Forge drops a whole new outfit... I have to make something using that outfit, even if it's not a character I'm going to be playing... and they dropped a whole new Japanese samurai outfit... which is spectacular, so I had to use it for something.

Moving on...

Firstly, my knee is much better and my bruises are mostly faded. Granted, I also slipped slightly on the bathroom floor on Thursday afternoon and slammed into the door frame... so I have a lovely new bruise.

However, this week has been about getting things organised.

The first couple of days were about sorting out the things that were just sitting on counters or in the wrong spot after opening all the boxes and things last week. Mostly just to have space for the opening of other boxes. So things got put into drawers, boxes for flattened, surfaces were cleared.

I also spent a bit of time when I needed a rest from all the standing, I went through and created all the replacement DVD covers I want to use. I found this site ages ago and thought "that's cool, I should do that some day"... well... some day is... within the next month.

I made a few minor changes to the files... adding the year of the movie on the spine, the category to the cover, that kind of thing. It took a while to get through them all, especially as I had to add the blurbs to the back (which I did the easy way out for, and just looked them up online... the best way I found is to search for the movie title plus "summary".

Also, on Tuesday the landlord came over to fix the dripping tap, replace the shower head and take away the busted light bulb over the stove to get a replacement. With all the plumbing jiggery pokery, he was here for like two hours, but everything got done that needed to be done, and he just needs to get me the replacement bulb.

Sadly, while the shower head itself is a great improvement (in that it's basically just like the one from the old place), the water pressure still isn't great. Workable, but not great.

On Wednesday Mrs (from Friday DnD) sent me an morning message asking if I was up for a visitor... later that morning. I'm counting her as the first official visitor. I mean, technically, if you don't count the moving weekend, that was Fluffy last Friday... but that was more our regularly scheduled thing, same with Ma on both Saturdays, yes, she was the first person here after I was all moved in, but she was coming down regardless.

Anyway, it was nice to see her outside of our regularly scheduled Friday night game... and she brought those little Portuguese custard tarts, and I'm never going to turn away (almost) anybody who shows up at my door bearing those.

After she left, I took a trip down to Officeworks to do some printing of the DVD covers. Which I thought would be final versions, but which turned out to be test prints. Because I'd made one final change and added some additional space around the image, to bring it up to A4 size... forgetting that I would be printing it on a system that doesn't really let you do edge to edge printing, so everything came out a little too small.

Not the worst thing in the world, I printed a few of them, enough to do a proof of concept and to work out that I really, really love the way they look, and pick up a few issues on some of the ones that I had made (like, why did I put Priscilla, Queen of the Desert under Comedy and not Gay... because the gay covers are pink dammit).

So, some minor tweaks and maybe doing some math about what movie sets I can condense down into a single amaray case, and we're good to go.

Also, I finally replaced my very busted remote... the one that I had dropped on the floor a million billion times, including on the Thursday before the move, where it popped completely open and all the bits fell out. I got it back together, but definitely needed a replacement.

On Thursday I did the thing that I've been avoiding for a hot minute... I started unpacking all my tchotchkes... Because those were the three largest boxes left and they were in the way and getting on my nerves. Also, a bunch of the plastic storage bins what were clogging up the wardrobe needed to have stuff pulled out of them, and for a good day there, every surface in my house was coverered with all manner of knick knackage.

The apartment went from "yeah, this is starting to look pretty good, there's some space" to "WHY DO I OWN SO MUCH PLASTIC CRAP" very, very quickly.

I got about half of the way there on Thursday and then had to go out for our first Thursday night DnD game of 2022 (more on that in a second)... well... most of the way honestly. Honestly, Thursday and Friday have kind of merged into one giant day in my brain, so I'm not sure what happened when. But for the most part, I got the "putting out" portion done on Thursday, it was just the "finishing off" and the "putting stuff away" portion that took up a chunk of Friday.

I did get there though.

I'm calling it Version 1.0... there are things that need to be tweaked, a couple of spots that don't quite work yet, a couple of things that need to be changed over for something else, a couple of spaces for additional things if I find stuff while I'm sorting out what stuff can really be moved on for somebody else to love. Because there's a bunch of that stuff still in my house.

But by Friday afternoon, I was pretty much done.

And also exhausted.

Going back to Thursday night DnD... that was a fucking shit show. In a good way. It was nice to see everyone, it doesn't really feel like it's been all that long, because I'm been busy with other stuff, but it's been a while.

The adventure module didn't help... even though our DM of the Week had beefed up the enemies, we kind of circumvented the whole adventure, came at it from the final boss area, threw a summoned devil at him and took him out with relatively little worry. By which I mean, our min-maxer did his thing and murderised him with over 100 points of damage in a single turn. Which is a lot, by the way.

And then we peace-outed... peaced out... whatever... we left before the rest of the enemies got there.

But it was a fun way to spend three or four hours.

Friday night DnD was also pretty good... but in a very different way.

What's interesting is that right now, Leif doesn't really have a horse in the race... as in, he's not here to let the end of the world happen, but most of the rest of the stuff that's going on, he has no clue about.

He has his own reasons for helping the party, but he's coming in later in the game when all of the plot is already in motion, so he's just happy to go along with what is happening.

Which makes a change for how I get to interact with the world right now, and it gives the others a chance to step up a little more. And I'm totally fine with that, it's just a change from before.

Also, we started a dungeon... which is always slightly anxiety enduing, especially when you know that there are things that are going to eat your face off, you just don't know WHERE they are. And of course, we only found said gigantic face eaters right at the end of the session.

So now I have a week to work out how my new character works in combat. Good times, good times.

Speaking of Friday, I haven't completely nailed down the bread. It's like 95% of the way there. But I think, because the oven is smaller (and possibly also because it's electric), it seems to be cooking a little faster. So maybe we'll go with a shorter time next week, just to see how it all shakes out.

Today was... pretty much what I thought it would be.

We did the supermarket thing this morning... I'll say this... I'm looking forward to it being Soup Weather again... because I'm bored with cooking more than once a week... LOL.

After supermarketry, we came back here, I unpacked all the things, and then we headed off the the Land of the Blue and Yellow Meatball... IKEA.

I needed three things at IKEA. A new lamp, an umbrella stand and some sort of clock. It... didn't quite... work out like that. Not entirely.

I mean, I needed a holder for my kitchen roll. And I needed two more of those magazine box things. And I have been thinking about an iPhone stand for the console table behind my chair this week. I really didn't need the sign or the bag or the spatula. But the sign is super fucking cute tho.

I also could probably have lived with the old lamp. But I put another hole in the paper shade this week, because it's hard to get to the powerpoint behind it without moving it. 

Rolling back the tape... when I moved into the Wellington Square apartment I was obsessed for... actually quite a while... in getting some sort of umbrella stand... for, you know, the umbrellas.

Fast forward to today... I got an umbrella stand from IKEA that nestles snuggly in behind the front door and holds all of my umbrellys. Also, it was a whole $9. Reduced, I think, because it was white. But I have white walls... so, a white stand makes much more sense. It wasn't what I was originally thinking of, I was thinking more of a big cylinder essentially, but this definitely does the job.

And I put a sword in it. Because of course I did, and why wouldn't you?

I also have use of my cute little red laundry hamper/wheelie bin back, so bonus all around.

Not bad for a grand total of about $80... which I paid for out of my bond refund, because even though they never bothered to reply to the email I sent, I got my entire bond back from the old house, which is good.

Oh, and by the way, have you seen my blue handled scissors? You know, the ones that have the little case that goes over the blades. The ones I used at some point earlier in the week (actually, I don't remember when I used them, I thought it was Wednesday to cut the DVD covers, but I did that with a utility knife). Have you seen them? I have no fucking clue where the hell they've gone. And it's driving me a little nuts.

Like, they can't be that many places. They're sizable scissors and they're bright blue and they have been sitting on the fucking kitchen bench for the majority of the last week.

My fear is that, somehow, I accidently threw them out. That makes no fucking sense. And they'll probably turn up, like... inside some other container or when I move out, they'll be shoved between empty boxes in the wardrobe for some unknown reason. It'll be some completely ridiculous place that makes no fucking sense.

But they're the scissors I use for cutting paper, so I'm kinda bummed that they've gone walkabout.

Anyway... I need to go adjust the angle of the clock I bought so it's not directly reflecting the kitchen window the whole time, and then have some dinner.

Current mood: