movies: fantastic beasts and where to find them

I'll admit, I was undecided about Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them... especially since it's based around a 128 page companion book to benefit a children's charity.

But then they announced it would be set in 1920's New York and star the very gorgeous Eddie Redmayne, so I was always going to see it, I just wasn't sure it was going to be any good.

And while it definitely has it's flaws, overall I was pleasantly surprised.

Let's get the bad stuff out of the way first... the story doesn't really know what it wants to be. There's two different stories happening, one around the aforementioned beasts and the finding thereof, and other completely unrelated story that has more to do with the wider Harry Potter universe.

Unfortunately the movie pays more attention to the second story at the expense of the first. What I really wanted from this movie was for Redmayne's character to be on the hunt for some amazing, or fantastic, if you will, beast in New York and the finding of same was where the movie really came into it's own.

But no, Rowling can't resist going back to the "dark wizard" well, and it was fairly obvious who that was from the beginning (I do wonder if it was supposed to be obvious... were you supposed to spend the whole movie knowing that X is Y... or was it just me?). Yes, the reveal is nice, but there's not a lot of subtlety at play here.

And given that this is going to be a series of, I think, 5 movies, it's pretty clear that it's the "dark wizard" plot that's going to be the through-line for them, rather than the beasts and the finding thereof. Which is a shame... if only because large chunks of this history has already been written, so we know where certain characters end up and who does what to who. It would have been nice to go the other way is all I'm saying.

On the flip side of that, I'm a little in love with (as I mentioned) the time period in the Potterverse. The location doesn't feel quite as much of a character as I was hoping it would, but that's mostly because they never left the UK, which is something of a shame.

What was also nice was that other than Redmayne, Colin Farrell and Samantha Morton there weren't any faces I instantly recognised, and the other main characters, Tina, Queenie and Jacob (played by Katherine Waterston, Alison Sudol and Dan Fogler respectively) felt very much of the period... especially Sudol (even if they did go to that well worn trope of gorgeous girl is instantly attracted to schlubby guy for no discernible reason). Redmayne does a great job with the character of Newt Scamander, making him this odd little man with a big heart who is clearly more comfortable with his beasts than with people.

Of course everyone was definitely help in looking the part by the always amazing costume designer, Colleen Atwood. She does make a nice outfit does Ms Atwood.

Overall the special effects are good... there are some "he's touching a tennis ball on a stick" moments when Redmayne is interacting with one of the larger creatures, but the beast itself is gorgeous. In fact all of the creatures look amazing (especially the aforementioned Thunderbird, and I did have a definite soft spot for the little Bowtruckle that lives in Newt's jacket). As does the city, a lot of which, I'm guessing, is also created inside the computer.

To sum up... it looks amazing, but the story isn't it's strongest element.

yani's rating: 3 niffers out of 5

photo saturday: beasts

Let's see... what do I know this week...

• Ma's operation is scheduled for this coming Thursday. She's going to stay with her friend for a few days afterwards, so I won't see her until Christmas day.
• I think I may have jammed up my knee at some point, it's been sore all week, mostly after I've been sitting for a while. I'll get my chiro to look at it this week.
• We're having The Nut House Christmas party next Sunday at H-San's place.
• If this week is anything to go by then the title of my autobiography will be "It's not even 8:20am and I've already had a brownie"... it's just what happens when I walk into work and there are already brownies on the table.
• Seeing people do a half-assed job at something design orientated makes me crazy... doubly so when those people are paid to be quote "designers" unquote.
• It's 14 days til Christmas.

Last Sunday I had to run some Christmas errands between booking all my Fringe tickets and making a slightly lackluster salad for the week's lunch. I mean the individual components were fine, it just didn't hold up to repeated servings.

Otherwise, beyond my knee playing up, the week was relatively okay all things considered.

Today I dragged my butt out of bed relatively early and while I didn't get to the supermarket right after it opened (which I'm definitely going to have to do on Christmas Eve, because otherwise yikes!), I was still nice and early and got back here just after 9am. I would have pretty much unpacked and turned around and headed off to Ma's place, but I had to pick up a parcel from the post office first.

It should have been a two minute job... but no, there was a line essentially out the door and many old people doing things they could have easily done during the week... or people doing things that are not core postal related activities. Urgh. Annoying.

Anyway, when I made it down to Ma's place we didn't do much before we headed out to the shopping centre to pick up a couple of things she wanted and then to the movies (more on that later), since there's actually stuff on and we haven't actually been for a while.

After that we had a pretty decent bento box lunch (mid afternoon lunch at that stage), picked up a few more things and headed back to her place.

Then it was time for me to come home again, home again, jiggity jig.

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my adelaide fringe picks 2017

The Fringe program dropped on Friday... after looking through the whole guide I ended up with a "shortlist" of 41 shows... that got culled down to about 34... and then this morning I went though them again, created a spreadsheet to work out my times (yes, I am that guy) and ended up with 22 shows on my final list.

And can I say... there's a LOT of Shakespeare this year... maybe a dozen shows... which doesn't sound like a lot, but other years I've had to really scrounge to find anything. And there's a Macbeth in there... Signifying Nothing (actually there's two Macbeth themed shows, but the other was all "zombie army"... so, yeah, no). In fact I'm starting and ending the Fringe with Shakespeare.

I was a little disappointed that there's no Le Gateau Chocolat this year... and I'm still waiting for Jethro Compton to bring one of his other shows down under. There also seems to be a dearth of improv theatre this time, beyond the UnPlotted Potter show.

On the up side, there's a Macbeth, Sound and Fury are bringing a brand new show and there's a lot of stuff that sounds like it has a really dark edge. Or maybe that's more about me this year... maybe I've just picked things that suit my overall mood. Also there seems like there's going to be some nudity along the way.

It also looks as though we're in some different places this year... Adelaide Oval, the German Club, the Botanical Gardens, Brick+Mortar... and surprisingly little Gluttony I think (I need to go through and pull out all the address details later).

I've also very much invoked Rule 2 from my "Getting the most out of the Fringe" list... there's a lot of new stuff. And stuff that was here before but I've always thought "I'll go to that another year".

I've also got enough wiggle room that if something amazing happens across my path, like last year's Fag/Stag (which ended up as my favourite show for the Fringe), I can take a chance.

So my final list for 2017 is...

• Hamlet: Making the bold decision to cast Hamlet as a young woman, and set during the end of the Viking era, an amazing window is opened on one of the Bard's most complex characters in a passionate and intimate setting.
• Panti Bliss - High Heels in Low Places: Hilarious and poignant, Panti traces her journey from small-town boy kicking against traditions to towering plastique woman in false lashes making history.
• Stories In The Dark: A gentle and joyous, musical and magical journey into the world of storytelling in the dark.
• Coral Browne - This F***ing Lady!: In the world premiere of this one-woman play, Genevieve Mooy brings Coral Browne to sparkling life and puts this Grande Dame back in the spotlight where she belongs.
• Blanc de Blanc: A blend of vintage glamour, high-end spectacle and titillating acts to infatuate, illuminate and delight. Anticipate big moves, great tunes, lots of skin, and more than a few surprises.
• Razi - Mesmerise: Razi performs with masks mesmerising his audience with his crystal ball and ring juggling, leaving you not wanting to take your eyes away for one second.
• Night Creature: The retelling of an Ancient Greek myth about a pretty nymph turned monster; a fable about losing yourself to the dark blue sea. Folklore and legend collide with the 21st century as the myth of Scylla is told through poetry, storytelling and a live electronic score.
• Fauna: A collaboration between 5 acrobats and a live musician, is an exploration into the similarities and contrasts between human movement and the instinctual, primal behaviours within the animal kingdom.
• Shakespeare's Waiting Room: In an open round performance space, much like the Globe Theatre, Shakespeare's most well known characters await.
• Puppetry of the Penis: Two near naked men (they wear shoes) manipulate their nether regions using the Ancient Art of Genital Origami, providing the audience with a hilarious array of shapes and impersonations.
• Half Hour Hamlet: Patrick Hercamp shall play many parts to uniquely present William Shakespeare's very own "Hamlet". Yet be forewarned, you may just learn to love the bard's plays in a way that makes you want to read them all!
• Sound and Fury's Sherlock Holmes: Sound and Fury bring back Sherlock Holmes to put him under the parody magnifying glass! Holmes and Watson mimp and muddle through a madcap maniacal murder, with a cumber-batch of new jokes!
• The Baby Farmer: Amidst an ever growing nightmare of premonitions, omens and visitations Agatha and Winnifred's darkened world slowly begins to unravel when a shadowy stranger with a sinister agenda appears on the streets of Whitechapel.
• Altar Girl: Shakespeare's Othello as told by teenage girls out for revenge. A deeply reminiscent piece about the darker side of high school, for all those who suffered under a cruel queen with a deceptively kind smile.
• Concrete: A quick-witted collision between the hysterical and serious, the classy and trashy and the clever and well...?
• UnPlotted Potter: We go off the Marauder’s Map and into the forbidden forest of supporting characters to explore previously untold stories of the Potterverse. You choose the character, we tell you their story.
• Barbu Electro Trad Cabaret: Bold, absurd, and sexy as hell, Barbu conjures a strange and wonderful world, fusing traditional and contemporary circus with a beautiful irreverence.
• The Chemsex Monologues: A nameless narrator, a sexy boy, a fag hag, and a sexual health worker explore the high world of chillouts.
• Elixir: Follow 3 (very handsome) scientists as they attempt to create the elixir of life and escape from trouble in the ensuing circus madness. It's uninhibited, it's bold and it's hilarious.
• The Package: Revealing a woman's inner journey as she faces death, this poignant, surreal work pitches institutionalisation against memory and the human spirit.
• Shakespeare's Ménage a Trois: Four actors present 20 minute vignettes from the Bard's 3 best plays.
• Signifying Nothing: In an imagined Australia where The Republic is approaching like a train, Paul and Lainey MacBeth are the ultimate power couple.

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photo saturday: xmas trees

These are the things I know to be true right now...

• Ma will need to have an operation on her shoulder otherwise she'll never have full use of it back.
• We don't know when that operation will be, but the sooner the better in the scheme of things.
• The Fringe program went live yesterday and my first "shortlist" had 41 shows on it.
• I'm taking time off between Christmas and New Year, the first time I've done that since I started back at The Nuthouse. I really need the break.
• I signed the paperwork, so I'll be staying in my apartment for another 12 months.
• I put Christmas decorations up for the first time properly in three years.
• I was definitely not into putting up the tree at Ma's place today.

So that's what's true right now. Let me rewind a little and fill in the gaps.

Sunday I dragged my printer out from under the bed and went about printing up Ma's calendar, this year with the theme of sculpture (but surprisingly with a minimal number of shots from Sculpture By The Sea, since I've used those in a number of other calendars).

The printer paper I used isn't quite as good I don't think, or something happened with the print, I don't know, but the text seems a little soft.

Once I was done with printing, I bundled up the pages and headed off to the closest Officeworks (which is, obviously, a completely different one from the one I've got every other calendar bound at). And I don't know if it was because it was a different place, but halfway through the process the very nice gentleman asked me if I wanted the half circle hanger added to the calendar.

The obvious answer... "FUCK YES". Not what I said, but I thought it pretty hard. So after 9 years of making these things, it looks fully professional with the little half-circle cut out of the top and a hanger. It's the epitome of "easily pleased", but I really am thrillled he suggested it and that it works.

Also, at least he did it properly this time, not like the screw up from last year.

After I came back from Officeworks I went across to the Village to get my hair cut (actually, I made a booking and went back 45 minutes later)... there's definitely a difference between getting a haircut from the person who's been doing it for probably the better part of a decade and some random...

It's not a bad cut, it's just not up to the Tink standard.

I made an Asian inspired salad for lunch this week... rice, marinated beef, baby corn, snow peas, haloumi, spring onion, red onion, baby spinach and a mango and lime dressing. One of the better ones I've made since I switched over to salads to be honest.

Work was... functional. We had 2 different birthdays, which meant 2 sets of donuts. I was a little tweaked on sugar by the second day to be honest.

I took my little gay pink glitter tinsel Christmas tree to work a couple of weeks ago, but didn't put it out on my desk until Thursday when the calendar finally rolled around to December.

And then I came home, dragged my Christmas supplies out from under the bed and went though them, picking out some stuff to make the house look slightly festive.

The two major things were the neon Christmas tree I've had for a few years now... just the pink and green neon make it feel more Christmasy, I have no idea why. The other was the off brand building brick pixel wreath I picked up on sale last year. It didn't arrive until after Christmas, so this is the first time I've had the chance to put it together.

It's definitely an off brand brick... it doesn't go together smooth like LEGO, but it's pretty sturdy. I wanted to put it on the door, but that wasn't as easy as it seemed, so I went with one of the existing nails in the wall.

Friday was Fringe Day. I had a couple of things I needed to do as soon as I got to work... and when they wrapped up, the guide had dropped... and I'll admit, I took some time out to go through it.

And my first "shortlist", as I mentioned before, was 41 shows. Partly due to the fact that there was a metric fuckton of Shakespeare this year. After a couple of revisions (one at lunch and one when I got home) I got the list down to about 25... but after showing the list to Ma earlier, I think I killed another few off.

So tomorrow morning I'll sit down and plot everything out, get my timings sorted (I also need to plug in the two Festival shows we already have tickets for), and then go ahead and book the tickets.

Ah, Fringe time.

Anyway... after work I just needed some retail therapy... and I had an order that had come in at the comic book store, so I figured let's just go do some shopping.

Yeah, Friday night shopping... in the city... in December... on the same day as the Fringe launch party. Yes, I do need my head examined, thank you for asking.

I picked up the last couple of things I need for Ma, a decidedly 1960's Christmas CD, my graphic novel (and ordered way too many more LOL) and stopped off to pick up the artwork I bought at the last Peanut Gallery show.

And then I walked my very, very tired feet home and ordered a pizza.

Today I was much more organised than I've been the last few weeks... partly because I realised that the Foodland at Norwood opens at 7:30, so if I got my crap together I could be there, shop, come back and be on my way to Ma's without losing an entire half of the day.

Granted, I wasn't spot on time, but I was definitely earlier than I have been.

For some reason I spent much more than usual, although I bought a metric fuckton of bacon (it was on special) and the makings for two lots of Rocky Road.

After I'd done everything I needed to do, I headed off to Ma's.

We didn't have a plan... at some earlier point she'd said something about not knowing whether she wanted to put the tree up at all... and I'll admit, I was fairly ambivalent about the whole thing. It's also not a decision I could make for her... but by the time we started thinking about it it was already lunch time and, obviously, Ma hadn't done any of the things she usually does to get ready for putting the tree up...

In the end she decided that we should put it up... so we did.

Like I said, I wasn't particularly into it... yes, it was good we did it, it looks good (we got some new brightly coloured ornaments that look pretty damn good on the white tree), but I wasn't really in the right headspace.

But we got there.

Fortunately there wasn't a lot of wrapping of presents... Ma has already done a bit, and some of the people she would normally buy for she's just sending money or whatever, so we put together the presents for Princess T and Miss Oh.

I think we did pretty good with our choice of packaging this time around... we usually put their presents into some kind of box and wrap it all up like a hamper... but this year we bought them "beach bags"... I mean they're really just big tote bags, but it's the beach kind of idea. And then we've filled them with all manner of stuff.

But usually we would just have left everything open and accessible... but no, I was in charge this year, so we did my usual trick for Ma's presents... I wrapped everything with tissue paper and wrapped it with some curly ribbon.

They think getting into Ma's presents takes some times... wait until they get a load of me (and yes, that was a Jack Nicholson/Joker reference).

So that was it really... I got there at, I dunno, not quite 11am and left at not quite 6pm.

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photo saturday: swell

First things first... Ma is doing better. She has an appointment on Monday when she'll know more, including when she's allowed to drive again, but overall she's good. I've been checking in with her roughly once a day, just to ensure she's okay.

Sunday I spent the morning cleaning the bathroom and kitchen and then vacuuming and mopping the floors. You know, all the fun stuff. I do enjoy coming home to a very clean house though.

And it's always challenging to have cleaned your kitchen, especially the stove, and then use it to cook chicken and boil eggs and fry bacon. Also, it's only been a couple of weeks of salad and I already miss soup weather... or rather I miss the process of making soup, which is so much more interesting and enjoyable than making salad. Not to mention it's way more work at the other end when I'm making my lunch.

Anyway.

The inspection, unsurprisingly, went fine. So much so that she left me a little "thank you" card... which was lovely, but a little bit overkill.

Work was fine this week... it's definitely calmed down, thus beings the slow descent into the Christmas season. At least I hope it's mostly a descent... I'm hoping there's not a big unexpected spike at any point.

Friday morning I was standing in the shower, literally not moving, when the muscles in my back locked up one after another. Not all of them, just a small section on the left side, but I wasn't even moving. What even is my life, seriously. Thankfully I already had an appointment with my chiro... but still.

So, yeah, my chiro appointment was at midday, so I did something I don't normally do and had an actual lunch break where I went places and did things.

Today was pretty much a rinse and repeat of last Saturday... well it would have been completely so had it not been for the Norwood Christmas Pageant. Now it's my own fault... I knew the pageant was on, I should have gone to the other Foodland... but I didn't want to (it's still not the "best" anything). Plus I should have been more organised and left the house earlier, but the pageant wasn't until 10:30, so I had a bunch of time. I figured, how complicated can it be, surely they just close off the Parade, put barricades up to stop you getting from the cross streets to the Parade... easy.

Like fuck.

First off, they close all the side streets off bar a couple, which is just plain madness. Even if they want to stop people from parking, just put up no parking signs for fuck's sake.

Getting in, once I found a road I could actually go down, was relatively fine... I got to the car park no problem, I made it across the road to get bread, no problem... and there were less people actually at the supermarket than usual, so massive bonus there.

No, the problem came when I tried to leave.

The problem with closing off all roads into or out of that part of Norwood is that the cars that do want to come in can only do it via those one or two roads that are open. And they do. Also, a lot of them were driving 4WD's, in the suburbs... so, yeah, do the math on that one.

It would have been okay if I didn't have to turn across a lane of traffic and if a seemingly never-ending stream of people weren't trying to turn into the street I was in, thereby blocking me in essentially.

Something that normally takes 2 minutes tops, to get from the supermarket to the end of the Parade, took over 15 minutes. And then because there were traffic cones and signs, every halfwit on the road was either doing stupid things or driving slower than necessary.

Suffice to say, not a fun time. And the halfwittery continued... all the way down to Ma's place people where driving 10km slower than the speed limit, for no discernibile reason.

Anyway... deep, cleansing breaths. Many, many deep cleansing breaths.

I wasn't sure what we would be doing when I got to Ma's... and I did float the idea of going to the movies, but I think she's been sitting around watching movies quite a lot, so it didn't really appeal. But we went to the shopping centre near her, just to get her out of the house and to pick up a few non-supermarket things she wanted.

It was better than last week, if only because I wasn't constantly worried someone would bang into her and injure her shoulder... but I did need to keep checking where she was whenever she went out of my line of vision.

But it was good to get her out of the house... I didn't really hang around for very long after we got back though.

We'll see what this next week brings.

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lego minifigure series - the lego batman movie

When I bought the last set of Lego minifigures, the guy who owns the store told me that the next set was going to be themed for the Lego Batman Movie which comes out in the USA in February, but from what I can tell doesn't come out here until the end of March (the figures, however, should start appearing in January).

Part of me was kind of hoping that it would just be a full range of different Batman outfits... and they're definitely there... but so are a number of second and probably ninth string villains (I've put links to most of them below... one was so esoteric she didn't even have a listing).

We're also getting 20 figures instead of the usual 16...

• Mime
• Zodiac Master
• Catman
• March Harriet
• Calculator
• Commissioner Gordon
• Clan of the Cave Batman
• Barbara Gordon
• Eraser
• Glam Metal Batman
• Orca
• Fairy Batman
• Nurse Harley Quinn
• Red Hood
• Arkham Asylum Joker 
• Lobster-Lovin’ Batman
• Dick Grayson
• Pink Power Batgirl
• Vacation Batman
• King Tut

My favourites out of this set are without a doubt Joker and Harley... I love the Joker's look in this movie incarnation (and I'm very tempted by the Joker Notorious Lowrider set), from the hairstyle to the snaggletooth... and Harley's twisty pigtails are gorgeous... plus they match really nicely in their Arkham costumes.

As far as the Batman costumes go it's a definite toss up between Fairy Batman and Vacation Batman... with Glam Metal Batman running a very close third. And hopefully there's some portion of the movie where Fairy Batman teams up with Pink Power Batgirl.

I'll also be interested to see if there's a face under the Red Hood costume. Especially given who the original Hood is.

I would also have preferred some more Batman outfit variations... not to mention some other villains... but I'm guessing they're saving the recognisable ones for the full sets (like The Scuttler, which I really love), which is understandable.

But it's still an interesting looking set (and better than the set from the first Lego movie)... although I'm not sure how I feel about these sets that have more than 16 in them.

Oh, and as (mostly) always, here's the full review of the minifigs from WhiteFang on the Eurobricks website.

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photo saturday: shoulders

Okay, so I'm going to preface this by saying that everybody is fine, everyone is okay, we're good.

This is also going to be an atypical weekly round-up in that I'm going to jump straight to the major thing that happened and then come back and see if I can be bothered with any of the rest of it.

Ma fell this week. Now for anyone who has followed the blog for a while, me falling is not uncommon... and there's a genetic legacy there... when I was a kid Ma used to fall about as often as I do now. And when we were in Sydney in 2013 she fell and bruised up her eye (how I'm still not entirely certain). But this time was worse... and she somehow managed to dislocate her shoulder.

Again, genetic legacy, since I've dislocated my shoulder three times and ended up with a reconstruction (and then there was that time I popped my knee out of, and then back into, the socket).

But rolling back slightly... just after lunch on Tuesday I get a phonecall from a number I don't know... answer it and it's the big boss from Ma's work, calling to tell me that she's had a fall, dislocated her shoulder and they've taken her off to the emergency room.

As soon as I realised she was from Ma's work, before she'd even gotten to the why, I knew it wasn't good... I mean people never use your emergency contact number to tell you there are puppies and kittens and rainbows. No, it's for emergencies.

So as soon as I get off the phone with her, I try and call Ma, and there's some phone juggling when someone I don't know answers and then they hand me over to her. She sounded a little out of it... I'm guessing that was probably a combination of shock and really good pain meds. I asked her if she wanted me to come to the hospital, but she said no, a woman from work was with her and she was okay all things considered.

I stayed put, but I will say that I had trouble actually making coherent thoughts for the rest of the afternoon, and even for me I was probably a little more brusk in some of my emails than normal.

Hometime came around and I hadn't heard anything, so I messaged her to see where she's at... she calls me and tells me they think it's only a sprain/strain, but they want to do one last scan before they release her. This is good news. I much prefer this news.

So I walk home, stop to get some hayfever eyedrops and many things made of chocolate from the supermarket.

I texted her on the way home and the reply didn't make a ton of sense, but I figured she's distracted or can't type with her good hand... one of those things.

When I'm walking up to my building, she calls me. Turns out the shoulder was actually only half dislocated, when the doctor when to rotate it in the CT scan it popped out of the joint properly. So in the time it took me to walk home and do shopping, they'd scanned her, popped the joint out, put her under and fixed it... and she'd regained the land of the living. Which is probably why her reply didn't make a ton of sense.

She was going to get her sister to come and get her... which would have been fine, but anyone who's read the blog for more than about five minutes knows that if it had been me, she would have left work after the first phone call and come down... just like she has done for every single other disaster (like when I did my back in originally)... so I couldn't just dump this is someone else's lap.

So I got changed, pulled up the directions in my phone and set off for the hospital.

By the time I got there it was around 7pm, and she'd been at the hospital since around 1:30pm. And it was around 8:30pm before I got her home. Not that there was much to do once I got there, the woman from work who had kept her company, I think until I said I was on my way, had gone... she was just waiting for one last visit from the doctor and then she was good to go.

You know those times when your brain goes to the disaster place... even when logically you know that everything is survivable and not anywhere near that bad, but your brain just goes to that "she's hasn't called me, she'd dead in a ditch somewhere" place. Yeah, that was pretty much me between that second phone call and when I walked into the emergency room. I don't even want to write all the words down for what I'm talking about because then that will mean that they're not safely locked away in my head, but out there in the world, and if they're out there, they might happen.

You know?

Anyway, turns out Ma did what both she and I have done about a bazillion times between us, she tripped over a raised paver that she's walked over or past a hundred times before and caught her foot in just the wrong way... and down she went.

But she didn't put her arm out enough or something and landed on the arm or shoulder in the wrong way... kerblammo.

The doctor eventually showed up (terribly British woman), we got all the lovely drugs, Ma got dressed and I took her back to her place.

I tidied some stuff up for her so she wouldn't trip over things, made sure she was okay and settled and then headed off home.

And because I actually haven't driven to her place since I moved into this apartment, and it was dark and I was a little stressed... I got lost. Yes, I could have stopped and turned my GPS on... but I figured I knew where I was going... turns out not so much and I got turned around at a certain point and started going away from where I was supposed to be headed. Eventually I stopped and got myself sorted though... but it added another ten or fifteen minutes to my trip.

Between then and now I've been checking in with her about twice a day, morning and night, just to see how she is.

I also ordered some flowers for the woman she works with who sat with her all afternoon... and some chocolates to share with the other people in the office, since they all arranged to move Ma's car from work to home, and generally just looked after her before she went to the hospital. I also wrote an appropriately appreciative card to go along with them.

Today I did some shopping for Ma, and then headed up to her place after I'd unpacked my shopping and dropped some books off at the Oxfam shop.

And knowing that it's not any fun to be confined to the house for a week after you've injured yourself, I took her out to the shopping centre near her, if for no other reason than so she could get out of the house. It turned out to be pretty much the right thing to do though, since we ran into her co-worker who sat with her.

Now I've never met this woman before, but as soon as Ma introduced us we both moved to hug each other, her I think to thank me for the flowers, me to thank her for what the flowers were for, looking after Ma.

Ma has an appointment with her doctor tomorrow (yes, he works Sundays, but he's around 300 years old and only works a couple of days a week now) and then an appointment at the hospital a week on Monday. So we'll know at that stage when she can drive again... and when she's gets to go back to work.

Given that they're talking about no driving and being off work and seeing a physio, the only thing I can think is that she dislocated her shoulder in a much more serious way than I did any of the three times I did mine before the reconstruction. In fact in at least two of those cases I drove my car home after going to the emergency room... and in one of those I then drove to both get my hair did and then go to La Cousina's (first) wedding the following day. Granted that's partly because she'll be 70 next year and I was, I dunno... mid 20's. But this is much more like when I had my reconstruction to be honest.

But, like I said, other than being sore (and actually surprisingly unsorry for herself, compared to how I would probably be feeling in her place) and unable to do some stuff, she's doing okay.

Compared with that the rest of the week was fairly dull.

Getting in the car, driving for 40 minutes, sitting in a hospital chair then getting in the car and driving for about 50 minutes all while somewhat stressed and tense did something of a number on my back and after I put my socks on on Wednesday morning, I stood up and where was some serious twinge activity.

I had a chiro appointment scheduled for Friday anyway, but called up to see if they could slot me in for an unscheduled one... and they got me straight in which was great. And I'm going back next Friday for a follow-up.

Thankfully I did all of the tidying up for this coming week's rental inspection on Sunday. I still need to clean some stuff, but everything is tidy, which makes the biggest difference. It will also hopefully cut what I need to do tomorrow down to only a couple of hours.

I also discovered that I'm fresh out of the really good quality photo paper for printing Ma's calendar... and they don't make it anymore... so on the way home today I stopped in at Officeworks and bought a new kind... so we'll see how that goes. I also bought some adhesive paper so I may need to make more pasteup stickers. Maybe I'll finally get around to making the fish version of my eyeBird.

The major downside to driving to Ma's place is that the sun ends up against me... as in, it's coming in through the driver's window in both directions, which doesn't happen when Ma comes here... and given that it was a hotter day than I thought it was going to be... I ended up with the first sunburn of the season on the inside of my elbow.

That's about all of it I think... hopefully there won't be a week this "hectic" for quite a while.

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photo saturday: street faces

First up... anyone who's read the blog for a while knows I'm not someone who discusses politics... but I just have to say WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK AMERICA!?!

There are two sides of history... one is the correct side, the side that advances society, that makes things more inclusive and safe for people to live their lives and protect those that are unable to protect themselves. If you're on the other side of that, history will judge you harshly and accordingly.

And history will judge America for the next four years.

But getting back to less serious matters...

This week saw the start of the salad season. It wasn't too bad for the first attempt... I ended up using the sandwich press at work to grill a peach each day to add to the salad which was nice. As I think I said last week though, the main thing is really getting the dressing right and while this was just a simple dijon vinaigrette, I used raspberry vinegar so it was really tasty.

I'll be honest, the first part of this week passed without much of an impact, but Wednesday afternoon was pretty much a write-off with watching the progress of the train wreck that was the American election. At one point I had four different websites up (The Guardian, The New York Times, ABC and FiveThirtyEight)... and none of the numbers agreed with each other, however as soon as it was clear that Florida was lost and the election was going down the toilet it was really hard to concentrate on anything else.

Of course that was in addition to explaining how the US elections work to a number of my co-workers (thanks to seven seasons of The West Wing).

And then I came home, stopped off at the supermarket, bought faux Magnum icecreams, went to the bottle shop for Kahlua... added them both to the blender and made myself a little alcoholic milkshake. It was really tasty too... I may try it again with some frozen berries to just add a little thickness... but it's definitely worth repeating.

Friday was fine right up until I left work to go home.

I thought that the forecast was that the day was going to be pretty damn warm, then overnight a change was coming through. So I didn't take an umbrella or anything, not even the emergency one I often keep in my bag. Which would have been fine if not for the thunderstorm that rolled across the state.

When the big fat rain started I took shelter under a tree, which was fine for a few minutes until the rain started leaking through the leaves.

And then the hail started.

Yeah, the temperature went from 30°C to hail within a few minutes. And I just tried not to get hit too many times under the tree. I'll be honest, I was essentially soaked through to the skin by this point anyway... but when the rain slacked off a little bit I made a dash for the verandah over the back of the hospital across the street.

Would have been fine if the verandah wasn't made of that corrugated plastic and essentially full of holes. I did find one spot that was relatively dry though and hung out for a while longer while listening to the hail bang on the roof.

Finally there was a break in the clouds, so I just gave in and headed off. Fortunately the rain did start breaking up at that point, but when the sun came out it was a little bit of a "fuck you" from the universe. I was totally drenched at this point... so much so that I was able to wring the hem of my shirt out.

Anyway, I got home and everything was fine, no leaks, no broken windows (I was a little worried about the hail and my open kitchen window). So I peeled off my soaked clothes, had a shower and ordered a pizza because I couldn't be bothered doing a damn thing.

Ma was having her hair did this morning, so I was left to my own devices. I slept in a little, then went off to the supermarket and did my shopping.

I still managed to come home, unpack and do some reading before Ma got here. She'd finally taken my advice and got her hairdresser to put some pink streaks in her hair and the colour looked amazing.

We didn't really have anything we needed to do today and we definitely wanted to avoid the city given that today was the Christmas Pageant, so we just ended up heading down to Kmart for a bit of a poke around. And then we called into Big W on the way back to my place. Technically an unfruitful day, but it was fine.

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movies: doctor strange

Doctor Strange is the latest outing from Marvel Studios, and while it was a character that I had heard of, he's also one I know next to nothing about beyond a few references on one of the podcasts I listen to.

What it turned out to be is a very visually spectacular movie and a somewhat interesting character.

Let's get my only major nitpick out of the way first though. While I love what Marvel does with their movies, they have yet to create a half decent villain that isn't Loki. The problem as always is that you either need to have the villain escape at the end, or die in such a way that he could return, or use a villain who is good enough to move the plot along but who doesn't need to be there by the end of the movie (or he's some giant galactic heavy who's pulling everyone's strings, but that's another story).

And in this case, Kaecilius played by Mads Mikkelsen, it's the third one. He's also basically a cult leader/religion zealot whose motivations are maybe a little muddy.

There is also the major drama that happened before the movie had even finished filming, where characters who where ethnic minorities in the original stories had been turned into white characters, or, more accurately, whitewashing. And I can see the problem, I understand why it's a problem, it would be much better if it didn't happen to the degree that it does... but I'll be honest, it didn't really bother my enjoyment of it all that much. The movie also doesn't even pass the Bechdel–Wallace test for goodness sake, not really surprising given that there are only two major female characters, and they never meet.

Getting back to the good stuff though. As I said, I was pleasantly surprised by this movie, especially from the amount and quality of special effects on show. It's funny, something like Iron Man or Captain America probably has as many effects shots, but they're not trying to break reality, so they don't call attention to themselves, whereas here they've just thrown the who CGI toybox on the floor and gone to town with it. Think Inception, but ramped up to about 100.

And watching all those effects happen was gorgeous... and I will definitely want to watch that again at some point just to pick up everything I inevitably missed.

Doctor Strange is played by Benedict Cumberbund, who I'll admit I'm not a huge fan of and who definitely suffers from a bad case of "they-want-to-put-him-in-everything-itis" which means he's a little overexposed. But having said that he does a fairly good job with Strange, which is interesting because the character makes it really, really, really easy to dislike him for the first part of the movie, and it's a flaw that could be hard to recover from... and I'm still not completely sure how he managed it to be honest.

I was also impressed by Rachel McAdams who performs some of the weightier emotional moments at the beginning of the movie as Dr Palmer, Strange's ex-girlfriend.

And when you need an ancient, unnamed sorcerer supreme, who else would you go to other than Tilda Swinton (her role of The Ancient One is the one that had accusations of whitewashing, which is a shame, because she's great in the role, and a kick-ass female character to boot.

Like all origin stories, the plot has to find those familiar beats of character's life being changed, character finds their new path, character passes through their on personal trials, character meets adversary, character learns something, character conquers the aforementioned adversary, roll credits. There's no major diversions from that here, and they do make it perhaps a little more on the serious side than some of the other Marvel movies, but it does use levity very well (as Marvel movies always do).

But at it's core, this is more of a visual experience than anything else, and on that front it succeeds beautifully. All in all though, it surprised me a little bit... while there is a certain standard I've come to expect from Marvel movies, this one was better than I was expecting.

yani's rating: 3 sling rings out of 5

photo saturday: squares and circles

This week has been one of those weeks where everybody wants something and it often look longer than it should, involved more people than it needed to and made me more than a little nuts.

On the up side, as always with that kind of week, the days flew by.

Rolling back to Sunday... I made what was definitely the best tomato soup I've made yet... Jamie Oliver's roast tomato and bread soup. Yes, those are the two main ingredients, roasted tomatoes and bread. I will admit I was more than a little sceptical, but the bread adds a nice texture, the salt and pepper I put on the tomatoes before I roasted them added a lot of great flavour and the splash of red wine vinegar at the end makes it the tastiest tomato soup. That's definitely a recipe that's going on the list.

Otherwise Sunday really got away from me. It was 3pm before I knew it and I hadn't even had any lunch, then the day was over before I knew it.

The rest of the week was, as mentioned, somewhat nutty. Although, given that, everything else was quite dull.

This week marks the point where I'm going to finally switch back to salads... I had some success with one during the week, so we'll give it a go for work and see what happens.

And because of that I kept it simple at the supermarket this week... potato, green beans, lettuce, tomato, tuna and one of three possible cheese choices. I'll also have to experiment with salad dressings again, which to be honest, was often the most interesting part of the salad experience, mixing random things together and concocting something tasty.

Anyway, when we were finished at the supermarket, it was back here for the usual unpackery, then finally we wanted to go to the movies, but first wanted to look at a couple of things in the city, so we headed in.

While I always know that the reason that I want us to be finished with Christmas shopping well before December rolls around is because the weekends fill up with other things like Christmas trees and making goodies, but also because people be crazy and useless and don't pay attention... more so at Christmas than at any other time. And it's already going on.

I found a really nice snowman brooch for Ma, from Erstwilder (the same company as the lighthouse brooch I bought her last Christmas) and the nice woman in the store helped me cover it up from Ma (if "you can't look at these things here because of reasons" and "yeah, what he said" essentially amounts to "covering it up") and wrapped it up nicely in a gift box for me.

From there we had a poke around both David Jones and Myer's Christmas decoration sections... we bought some really pretty plain coloured glass baubles from DJ's, including some clear ones (but coloured clear, if that makes sense). We still don't exactly know what we're doing with the tree this year... we may have to play it by ear.

Myer has essentially turned their entire top floor into some for of Christmas bazaar/circus/explosion which is a little overwhelming but also full of all kinds of interesting stuff. So we spent a little longer than we probably should have done wandering around.

And then we high-tailed it back to the car and moved it around to a car park closer to the cinema.

I will say that I hope they're getting more people in on other days, because the place just seemed pretty dead again this time. Yes, last time was the Saturday after they opened, but it wasn't much better this time around... which makes me wonder if people actually know it's there and if it's going to last all that long.

When we were done, we came back to my neighbourhood and went to Enzio's for some lunch, which was quite nice... I may have to treat myself to breakfast there at some stage.

So that was that really...

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