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food, Merlin, Dexter, House, Flash Forward, Grosse Point Blank, Surrogates, Steven Brust, etc Ooku
Dad and I stumbled upon a ridiculously good deal on Friday - two huge london broil steaks for $4.50 each. Even then, they were so big that Dad and I could only eat a quarter of them each, so we chowed down on london broil last night which cost a little over a dollar! So yummy.
Tv show wise: Merlin's latest ep annoyed me with all the false romance. I'd also find the Gwen/Arthur a lot more cute if they hadn't reset Merlin and Arthur's relationship back to near zero at the beginning of the season. I had better get a few eps of bromance (or, you know, subtext that will make me laugh) to make up for watching all this romantic crap.
Dexter is being very stupid this season, and there's a lot of little plot holes that annoy me (like, if Dexter is the one getting up every night for the baby, how can Rita say he's not doing anything for her? Does Rita still have a job? Why can Dexter only blend into society when the writers say he can? etc.)
House: I had hoped for something a bit less cliched dealing with House's hallucinations (which oddly enough, when they're caused by drug use, don't make you crazy, o writers, nor would you check into a mental hospital for them). Like most, I suffered through the crap in order to see House back at work. The verdict is still out on whether it caused any lasting change. Also, really don't care about the ducklings any more, much to my surprise.
Flash Forward: Dropped it. Much as I like John Cho, I disliked nearly everyone else in the show, especially the main character (so pretty, so hypocritical) and I've never seen such an interesting premise handled so boringly. Oh well.
Moviewise:
My Dad and I discovered Grosse Point Blanke which is quirky little movie about an assassin attending his high school reunion. It has some pretty funny moments, which carry you through any duller bits. Not bad.
We also saw Surrogates which I expected to be a bit more typical of Bruce Willis in the scifi genre (peers at The Fifth Element), but was actually a pretty good, serious scifi film that'd appeal to any old school scifi fan. I was pleasantly surprised. (though I could have done without killing all the black men, and making them both the villains *sigh*)
Reading wise, I've been dropping books left and right. I gave up on Steven Brust and his Vlad Taltos series, though I may be able to convince myself to read the other two books in my collection at a later date for politeness sake. I tried to read The Witches of Eastwick, but after slogging through the first twenty pages of weird similies and metaphors about boring characters, I decided I didn't care enough to finish. I feel vaguely guilty about this because it's supposed to be a great novel with fantastic writing, but it's obviously not my cup of tea.
What I did read that was amazing recently is a manga called Ooku. It's got a premise I really adore and had only seen in fanfic before now - namely, in the early years of the Tokugawa era, a fatal disease targets and wipes out 80% of the male population in Japan. It continues to do so, so women take over all the jobs men had from rice farmer to merchant to shogun, while any men who survive are cosseted and kept because even though they are still stronger physically, they have weak constitutions. Most women can't afford to marry so they pay men in brothels to impregnate them, and women sell nights with their sons for money. The story is set 80 years afterwards, and perhaps my only problem with it is that not only have the common people forgotten what it was like before the plague (which is somewhat understandable in a non-literary society) but so have the shogun and the high ranking samurai. While I'm sure there was a bit of a disconnect, I find it weird that they can't remember 80 years before, though I suppose they don't want to considering an old man is mentioned as being crazy and talking about days when men were in charge. If the first female shogun made a concerted effort to consolidate her reign by saying women had always been shoguns... On the other hand, if you know your history, discovering that men used to be in charge makes a very good parallel for the shogun and various high ranking people (plus the nobles and even the emperor) discovering that the emperor used to have power (which happened in real life around this time period and laid the seeds for the bakumatsu a century later).
You've got the female version of various historical people. Yoshimune was one of the most famous shoguns, and well known for his financial reforms and frugality which still shows up here, but is more awesome coming from a kick-ass woman *L* (to be fair, the reforms weren't enough in the end, but that's another story). Her advisor, Kano Hisamichi is a plain, humble looking woman, but wow is she cunning. She's great to watch.
These are, of course, all incidental details since the main story deals with a young man joining the inner court (ie, becoming a concubine to the shogun). It's well written and fascinating (god, I want to see a version of this set in the bakumatsu where the Shinsengumi are all female!) The extra chapter at the end is about the shogun herself, and provides a side splitting foreign account about meeting her. There are more volumes coming out, and considering how many awards this manga has already won, I highly recommend them all.
Anyway, I must go. I have a Japanese midterm to study for, and for some reason, I thought up an original scifi story plot last night and I'm trying to get it all down on paper today. Also have to work up the courage to email more people at post graduate places. Ja ne!
Tv show wise: Merlin's latest ep annoyed me with all the false romance. I'd also find the Gwen/Arthur a lot more cute if they hadn't reset Merlin and Arthur's relationship back to near zero at the beginning of the season. I had better get a few eps of bromance (or, you know, subtext that will make me laugh) to make up for watching all this romantic crap.
Dexter is being very stupid this season, and there's a lot of little plot holes that annoy me (like, if Dexter is the one getting up every night for the baby, how can Rita say he's not doing anything for her? Does Rita still have a job? Why can Dexter only blend into society when the writers say he can? etc.)
House: I had hoped for something a bit less cliched dealing with House's hallucinations (which oddly enough, when they're caused by drug use, don't make you crazy, o writers, nor would you check into a mental hospital for them). Like most, I suffered through the crap in order to see House back at work. The verdict is still out on whether it caused any lasting change. Also, really don't care about the ducklings any more, much to my surprise.
Flash Forward: Dropped it. Much as I like John Cho, I disliked nearly everyone else in the show, especially the main character (so pretty, so hypocritical) and I've never seen such an interesting premise handled so boringly. Oh well.
Moviewise:
My Dad and I discovered Grosse Point Blanke which is quirky little movie about an assassin attending his high school reunion. It has some pretty funny moments, which carry you through any duller bits. Not bad.
We also saw Surrogates which I expected to be a bit more typical of Bruce Willis in the scifi genre (peers at The Fifth Element), but was actually a pretty good, serious scifi film that'd appeal to any old school scifi fan. I was pleasantly surprised. (though I could have done without killing all the black men, and making them both the villains *sigh*)
Reading wise, I've been dropping books left and right. I gave up on Steven Brust and his Vlad Taltos series, though I may be able to convince myself to read the other two books in my collection at a later date for politeness sake. I tried to read The Witches of Eastwick, but after slogging through the first twenty pages of weird similies and metaphors about boring characters, I decided I didn't care enough to finish. I feel vaguely guilty about this because it's supposed to be a great novel with fantastic writing, but it's obviously not my cup of tea.
What I did read that was amazing recently is a manga called Ooku. It's got a premise I really adore and had only seen in fanfic before now - namely, in the early years of the Tokugawa era, a fatal disease targets and wipes out 80% of the male population in Japan. It continues to do so, so women take over all the jobs men had from rice farmer to merchant to shogun, while any men who survive are cosseted and kept because even though they are still stronger physically, they have weak constitutions. Most women can't afford to marry so they pay men in brothels to impregnate them, and women sell nights with their sons for money. The story is set 80 years afterwards, and perhaps my only problem with it is that not only have the common people forgotten what it was like before the plague (which is somewhat understandable in a non-literary society) but so have the shogun and the high ranking samurai. While I'm sure there was a bit of a disconnect, I find it weird that they can't remember 80 years before, though I suppose they don't want to considering an old man is mentioned as being crazy and talking about days when men were in charge. If the first female shogun made a concerted effort to consolidate her reign by saying women had always been shoguns... On the other hand, if you know your history, discovering that men used to be in charge makes a very good parallel for the shogun and various high ranking people (plus the nobles and even the emperor) discovering that the emperor used to have power (which happened in real life around this time period and laid the seeds for the bakumatsu a century later).
You've got the female version of various historical people. Yoshimune was one of the most famous shoguns, and well known for his financial reforms and frugality which still shows up here, but is more awesome coming from a kick-ass woman *L* (to be fair, the reforms weren't enough in the end, but that's another story). Her advisor, Kano Hisamichi is a plain, humble looking woman, but wow is she cunning. She's great to watch.
These are, of course, all incidental details since the main story deals with a young man joining the inner court (ie, becoming a concubine to the shogun). It's well written and fascinating (god, I want to see a version of this set in the bakumatsu where the Shinsengumi are all female!) The extra chapter at the end is about the shogun herself, and provides a side splitting foreign account about meeting her. There are more volumes coming out, and considering how many awards this manga has already won, I highly recommend them all.
Anyway, I must go. I have a Japanese midterm to study for, and for some reason, I thought up an original scifi story plot last night and I'm trying to get it all down on paper today. Also have to work up the courage to email more people at post graduate places. Ja ne!