twin high maintenance machines

yeah, so anyways, i reckon ive been seeing waaay too many movies at the mo. at least once a week at the cinemas, which is a hellofa lot more than what ive seen in the last 2 years put together. managed to catch jarhead. and it was fairly good. not profound or history-making in the way that i suppose full metal jacket was, but more contemporary and such. and i guess jake gyllenhaal was in it so that makes up for much.
and i reckon the guy that played troy - sarsgaard - has been taking lessons from john malkovich. hell, he even talks the same, that quiet kind of almost-evil thing, slightly schizo kinda feeling. loving it.

and now, the whole winter olympics thing.
ive heard people say that its crap, not real athleticism, doesnt have enough black people to be called 'international olympics' and other such crap, but its been a pretty good way to veg out on the couch late at night, seeing as how i cant even bring myself to watch ANY UStv anymore. like at all. like, not even numbers or house or without a trace (which i used to love and still consider fairly allright). it just hurts my brain. so - more reading and random tv-flicking for mels!
but olympics, yes. i, like most of the world, simply do not understand most of the sports there, but do you think that stopped me almost crying during pluschenko's short routine? hell no. (it was bleeding amazing) and not being able to tell the difference between moguls/slalom and skeleton/luge didnt stop me staying up till 1am watching the stuff on tv and rooting for someone from lithuania that i just picked out at random. its all good. esp now that there is practically no other sport on the box.

pissing me off at the mo:
ann sanders running a bulletin saying that mr howard knew all about the AWB shit loooong before it came out, and then moving on to her next story about chimpanzees without so much as a howdy-doody about what the ramifications of our PM's statement could be.
kelly clarkson cant sing, mores the pity. i was on my way to being converted by caz, but then i heard her sing that 'sidewalk' (or whatever...) song at torino and oh well. the gel maybe can hold a tune, but she doesnt have the vocal range to do that kinda dren in the snow.

enjoying:
ahardiharhar, harrison ford on rove. i dont like the new sets, and the live band is a bit too much 'the-footy-show', but any show where the the pilot of the millenium falcon chugs down m&ms and mutters 'i thought they shoulda killed the bastard', while saying indy4 is practically definitely happening, is awesome in my book.

something for kate are mastering the new album in NYC and it is really exciting to hear theyre coming back down and the album will be out soon. unfortunately theyre only playing wollongong O-week (damn), and the great escape festival, which i have no hope of getting to because life is a box of chocolates and this time i got stuck with carob.

carefully triangulated wisdom of the trichorder(2): council workers are funny.

mels

news ratings season

i never really thought about it, but networks must worry about ratings for news during ratings time. i mean, they fight over anchors and reporters, and little fuzzy stories about widdle animals being born. suddenly it is the time when viewer numbers count, and the world has just got a hell of a lot more interesting.

so i caught the new season on mediawatch, and man has that show gone to the dogs. i mean, i dont tune in to that show to watch articles on implausible messages in a bottle, or the danish cartoon thingy. maybe my standard has gone up, but the show lacks the bite it used to have. the hosts have gone from cynically sharp to sarcastic disbelief to giggling at the stories, and now the latest woman seems to not understand its meant to all be a very sarcastic show. it never used to take itself so seriously and its painful to watch.

http://americablog.blogspot.com/ have a good running story of the cheney shooting, and it would be funny if it wasnt so distressing and horrifying. like traumatic. the dude is in charge of the World, people. this dude. this one right here shooting people for no good reason. well at least i hope there was no reason. im not putting anything past this guy right now. if someone would just explain whats happening... and im just wondering, if mr whittington manages to die from the heart attack and such complications from bits of gunshot In His Heart, would that somehow mean a homicide? oh god this is painful. you never saw saddam try to cover up his personal killing of someone. not like this.

four corners last night caused no end of headache. all the hsc-learnt psychology was being countered by the fact that the peeps at the abc probably helped write that syllabus, and know all the loopholes. endless circles of counter-counter-anti-pro-psychologising of everything. and i noticed that the woman who was sposed to represent the greenhouse office (or the 'mafia', as the abc was calling them last night), was wearing a green singlet. i could write a whole essay on her choice to wear that singlet and its connotations. oh hell yeah im ready for uni. but the program was nothing new, and that young csiro guy is my hero. hah.

mels

moniker, amanda and god bless kurt

so anyways. apparently sydney is going through a bit of a baby boom, as evidenced by the sheer amount of Babies everywhere you turn.

even dewan was so packed that we couldnt hear what the speakers were saying. something about elephants and the rising cost of living i think. but yeah. and i dont think its just a local trend either. apparently i have at least 4 cousins in malaysia that i have never met, nor seen photos of, and what with the parentals going back in a month or two, i dont know if ill be able to con mum into making another trip back at the end of the year. ie. no cheap clothes for mels, and no little baby cousins to play with that i am actually related to.

speaking of cheap clothes, goshdamn you bec. the money that is not actually mine all spent on assorted clothements and old dvds that i cant really believe i dont already have.

and if you havent yet noticed i am practicing writing of long convoluted sentences. uni starts soo and i am re-learning how to think. all those months of my 'dan brown'-style thinking is killing my braincells. i havent had to put more than 3 thoughts together since before the hsc. and i read some of the stuff on the unisite and ow.

movies i have seen:
sound of music (commentary edition)
walk the line
casper (a-gain. and all i want to know is how you can get that movie mixed up with flubber. also, many plotholes begin to emerge when you are older than 7.)
centrestage (cos martina wanted to watch it a-gain at mary's. i just read that the choreographer - incidentally the only person involved in that movie who was worth anything - also did the producers on theatre. how awesome is that? some of the best sets and dance sequences i ever sawed)

also. firefly. the entire frelling series. in one go cos i always feel tetchy when borrowing stuffs off mary. i think you know what i mean *meaningful nod*. but it was fairly awesome. lots of western themes, and the strange underlying sense of 'america', even though they all tried their damnedest to use china-speak and china-clothes. even battlestar is less 'america'. but dont get me started. the effects were funky, i could live on serenity, and the peoples were good-for-looking. apparently river was meant to get more kickass in the second season, but sigh. liked the dialogue (although if you watch it after an ep of farscape it is only slightly better than nothing). i think i head more towards pomo humour than anything else. i cant handle things that take themselves too seriously, and although firefly was in no trouble of doing this, the whole 'america' thing began to put me off. not by much, but its not going to be my favourite show in the 'verse anytime soon. and it was all subconscious so shutups. kaylee made me giggle. and the jayne song was surely stuck in my head for a good long while. i still have nightmares of the theme song. but yes, it is a good song and yes, it does grow on you.

movies i wanna see:
the producers (i dont care i wanna watch)
jarhead

and i have 2 words for youse all: ratings. season.
although i cant even bring myself to watch ustv anymore (and it is freeing up no end of time), i gotsta be excited over specks, glasshouse, chaser, more rockwiz, and whatever else the abc is pulling out of its pants at the mo. yays. so much yays.

mels

crackers matter thiiiiiiiiis much

so. back again. although i dont know how long ill be able to keep this up. what with all of those uni horror stories, and the fact that i am both hopelessly unorganised and like to make things harder for myself that strictly necessary because i become an ugly, ugly person when i get bored. and i am also doing 2 simultaneous majors, and trying to learn a language. with a different alphabet.
also, johobo is doing yr11 this year, and if this week was anything to judge by, im gonna be needing to move out by term 3. she is the nightmare on 2 stompy, stompy feet. stress already and she hasnt even had to do any assessments yet. i am seriously afeared for my life. and mum and dad are like 'mel, you have the experience, help her through this'. but i like my head where it is, man.
and, how the hell am i sposed to remember yr11 3U maths? i can barely remember what i had for dinner last night.

actually, the only reason i DO remember what i had was that it was in north sydney with the cousins. a belated CNY dinner. that involved asian punch and homemade yee sang. and although i finished school already, i couldnt go out for icecream with the cuz' becuase joho had to go home and sleep (HAH! she came home and stayed on msn until 12am), and i had already eaten waaaaay too much. food matters but not that much dude. and i have a chronic inability to waste food so i always end up eating Everything. until it makes me feel physically and emotionally ill.

and then. http://www.crackercomedy.com/
go there to check on funnystuffs. tina is such a net research nerd now.

finally watched the entire film 'francesca e nunziata' in one sitting and i loved it to pieces. im running outta tapes so im going to have to tape over it, but it is sooooo good. Even the ending where sophia loren talks too much. and im now going through a raoul bova festival so leave me alone.
actually...

there you go. the whole moustache thing is beginning to freak me out. i mean, jake gyllenhaal, and then this show and then trying to watch coupling and trying to understand ben miles without his "monty" forsyte saga moustache...

anyways. top gear is on now so i have to go squee over cars i dont know anything about... yay!

mels

worlds enough and time

i know, awesome title. great book. if i had managed to think of an extension 2 title with as much poignancy as that or something like 'brokeback mountain', lets just say i would be a far richer person right now.
speaking of ext2... i wonder if and when we'll ever get our major works back. i want the bound one for safekeeping and maybe posterity. and maybe as cannon fodder, but whatever. i put hard (?) work into that thingy and i would like to have some record that i did it.

http://www.jaspermorello.com/gazette/
thats a nice site. apparently mr anthony lucas got nominated for an oscar for best animated short, which is very cool. the aussies'll start a trend.
other things which struck me as funny or odd in the oscars lineup this year (not that i pay all that much attention to those kinds of awards anyways), are that ms knightley got nominated for best actress, brokeback for music, and mr elsey got a nod for best makeup. yay. farscape 4eva, man. and murderball got nominated for the doco award. i liked the idea of that movie, and i only saw bits and pieces on the telly, but it seemed really good.

and thats another movie i wanna watch. 'the new world', which is sposed to be about pocahantas. remember the days when christian bale voiced the little scrawny idiot in the animated one with mel gibson? and now, apparently he is rolfe, who is sposed to stomp on into the movie and steal ickle pocahantas away from john smith and whisk her away to london. or something. anyways. according to the bible that is imdb.com, david thewlis, noah taylor, christopher plummer, jonathan pryce, kirk acevedo and ben mendelsohn are sposed to be in it - note all the aussie-ish names. in addition to farrell, bale and the new chick who plays pocahantas. so im kinda looking forward to it.

anyways. cricket and swimmings are on. which means lots of vicarious funs for the household. my fave moments include the breaking of world records, painful and stupid run-outs, and of course people with strange names (not that i can talk much, but anywhos), such as that swimmer named michael jackson, and doing my funny south african accent. i love how when aussies decide to put their mind to something they can really go all out. but when we dont care, exactly noone decides to participate. its awesome, it really is.

and, welcome back sydney community free-to-air network - TVS! ive been craving all of those badly shot ethnic home-cooking programs, and the bollywood video clip shows, and im now hooked on a car show called 'the c-word'.
also on the weekly programme: saturday night abc (my family and hardware), and wednesday night abc ( ab fab, some other shows i havent caught the name of, little britain), and tonight sbs are showing the sophia loren movie ive been waiting for for over a year. yay.

mels

righteous-ness is overrated

long story short, i had a really awesome post, and the computer ate it all up.

im not going to go through all that pain again, so ill just recap:
brokeback was o-kay, especially the mr ledger and mr gyllenhaal bits, and the ending, and anne hathaway, and michelle williams' new hair colour. admittedly, im am going through an anne hathaway phase, and i liked heath ledger in brothers grimm, so my opinion may not be altogether reliable.
not so gaga over ang lee however, because he coulda cut stuff out and cut stuff in a better and less abrupt way. also, the music was annoying as all hell because of that stoopid guitar strumm-y thing. migraine time.

ferris bueller is cool and cameron is me. mr broderick and mr ruck rock my socks and charlie sheen is the coolest. ben stein is my idol.

trains suck, and what is the difference between a 'railpass' and a 'travelpass'?

also, i am not afraid of terrorists, or the 'crazy people' my mum tells me are on late night trains at redfern, rather i am terrified of 14yr old girls with nothing better to do and no school to do it at.
and, i dont want cops on the street like that guy in california who had more communication problems than tina, and shot an iraqi vet for getting up after he told him to 'get up', while thinking he had said 'shut up'.

take that, pigeon farmers of the world, for breeding the pestilence of the skies, when the roof of their convention centre caved in on them underneath all that snow. pigeon poo woulda been more appropriate, but hey.

and please go here:
http://www.petitiononline.com/sa227rdw/petition.html
and sign the petition. i loved that show so much.

mels