I'm a cat person and all, but...

Posted by Bel. The time is ***:**am/pm here in Wellington, NZ.

Look at this. I was on Twitter and saw that someone appeared to be following (I am going to treat all these social networking jargony terms as if there were real words, just as we eventually got used to talking about 'friendsing' people, despite how moronic that sounded at first. And still does, when you think about it. As I am now. Friendsing. Dear god. This is our gift to the future?).

Where was I?! Oh yeah, it appears all these cats are Twittering. WTF!? I'm finding it annoying enough to keep up with Twitter as it is, since no one really seems to be into it - and yet out there a bunch of people are pretending to be their cats on the internet?? Why? Why oh why.

However in cat-orientated interweb behaviour I completely approve, ROLcats cannily translates the Russian version of LOLcats back into English for us Western capitalist bastards. Thus:

I can see someone’s misplaced Ushanka?
Careless fool, winter’s bitter fury will surely smother their spirit.


And:

Do you mistake us for sincere?
We adorn ourselves thus to mock the capitalist sacrament of annual materials exchange…

And so on. Much other such Soviet hilarity to be had here: http://rolcats.com At least they're not trying to pretend the cats write it themselves.

The Reader: Sex, lies and showercurtains

Posted by Bel. The time is 9:03pm here in Wellington, NZ.

Lou has already reviewed this over at reduced to banality and she may cross-post here. But I thought, as a connoisseur of WWII films thanks to my freakishly obsessed husband, I would rehash it too.

"The eggs are green? WTF?!"


I enjoyed director Stephen Daldry's film The Hours and I thought The Reader had a similar feel and colour palette - soft and unassuming, yet with strong emotional peaks. However both films left me unaffected in the long run, which is hugely disappointing, particularly when The Reader is dealing with such interesting subject matter.

I, of course, thought Ms Winslet was fab in this, mostly because she throws the viewer into such uncertain territory. Why do I feel sorry for a person who has committed such fucking despicable crimes, even as she stands in a courtroom, blabbering them out?! For the same reasons, I don't like her chances of finally nabbing that long-awaiting Oscar.

Daldry has copped a bit of flak for allowing an adapted tale of WWII to also be about sex and romance - with a Nazi - and for his lead female character (the aforementioned Nazi) to be portrayed in a 'sympathetic light'. I think we have grown past an age where we need to have the baddies wearing black cowboy hats and the goodies in white. If anything, it is more important now than ever, than we examine how such evil come to power and how normal everyday members of our societies were caught up amongst it.

"Where dreams become heart attacks"

Posted by Bel. The time is 8:37pm here in Wellington, NZ.

I can't direct you to this URL without causing some kind of offense, but I really do insist you check out: http://thisiswhyyourefat.com (no offense).

A lot of it made me feel quite nauseous, particularly as a vegetarian, but I'll tell ya what - that hot dog encased in shoestring fries might be a goer...

On again, off again

Posted by Bel. The time is 1:45pm here in Wellington, NZ.
Yes, doofus. I figured we'd put that at the top, so anyone reading would straight away know which of us was ranting. I put some codey stuff in the template so if you write on the next line down it is not so ittybittycommittee styles. CODE BITCHES!! I CAN DOS SUM!

The flat we were going to take fell through. They wanted us to sign the lease and hand over $3000 tomorrow. Um, hello? There's this trendy new thing out - you may have heard of it: the 'recession'? Hmm? Well we have jumped right on the band wagon and ain't no way I'm pulling that much cash out of my ass.
Honestly, real estate people are such scummers.