EMAs
Watching the EMAs on the teev. How the hell does Greenday beat the Foo Fighters to Best Rock of 2005?? Beating U2 I’m fine with – they’re really on the cusp of rock, I think – but the Foos?? As if.
And right now the Gorillaz are ‘performing live’. I had wondered how they would do that – in fact, the sis and I had a discussion about it not two days ago – and now I know; presumably some sort of hologram type thing on stage (I don’t know, but you get the idea), or the people actually there were stooged and we in TV land are the only ones to get the benefit.
The lead singer of System of a Down is a weird looking man.
Since when were The White Stripes alternative?? Goldfrapp, yes; not convinced by Beck being alternative, either, but maybe that’s just me.
The “compere” for the EMAs is really, really bloody annoying.
Inkspell
This is the sequel to Inkheart – I’m sure I’ve raved about Cornelia Funke. I intro’d someone at work to her, he read the first, and then bought the sequel still in hardback (mind you, kids’ books are sooo much cheaper!). He gave it to me, and … well, it is of course brilliant. She certainly doesn’t pull any punches, though. No holding back on tricky issues and not too soppy about some of the characters, either! The feelings of Dustfinger for Resa, and Fenoglio for one of his characters, are certainly not straight forward. I think this is good; it’s real, anyway, which I think is good in a fantasy for kids – helps to think through these things in a less threatening way, or sonething (eh; what do I know).
Aqua Grandparents. Again.
Once again, they have laid eggs when we weren’t looking and they’ve hatched, too. I thought yesterday that they were looking protective, but I didn’t look closely enough. This time they have been laid on the filter intake. And interestingly, there are stacks of unfertilised eggs, too – lots more than there were last time. J wants to save them, but at the moment that would be quite an undertaking – I think that scraping them off the pipe would be more detrimental than beneficial. Maybe when they are free-swimming, if we can get to them before they start dying, or being et.
Empire #2
Oooooookay… I am not sure now that I do want to watch this show. It seems that it will be all about poor little Octavian, the weight of saving Rome on his back, and how he overcomes those nasty Republican types. Now, Cassius and Brutus et al may not have been the nicest of people, and sure they were almost certainly more concerned with preserving their own power than preserving whatever the Republic of Rome was meant to stand for, but still!! Octavian, the poor little boy needing looking after? Octavian, the great hero of a mini-series? No, no, no. Bad nasty bad.
Octavian was a power-hungry, ambitious, nasty little man. I am seriously having second thoughts about watching the whole series now. One more episode…
Empire
I am watching the first episode of Empire, a new TV series on for the summer. It looks all right, mostly – I like the costumes, and the sets are pretty impressive. It starts with Caesar dying – a fictional slave, Tyrannus, is the main character: he is a gladiator chosen to be Caesar’s bodyguard, but he is distracted – obviously – and isn’t there when It happens. Tyrannus then becomes Octavian’s bodyguard.
However. This is a big However. They say Octavian is Caesar’s nephew. I thought I was going a bit mad for a while, until I found a family tree – I was right – Octavian was actually Caesar’s grand-nephew. It may seem a small thing, but to me it is a fairly significant thing to get wrong. And makes the whole thing taste a little sour, sadly.
Hydrangeas
I bought a lovely hydrangea the other day, which I was very excited about. It’s a blue one, which means I need to go buy some make-hydrangeas-blue powder, otherwise it will turn into pink hydrangeas, and we can’t be having that. I’ve put it in the lovely terracotta pot Mum gave us as a housewarming present. it used to have the lavender she also gave us, but I’ve taken that out and put it in the front, in the vain hope that a little more sun will make it come back alive… I fear that my hope is illusory, however. I don’t think it actually will come back to life. Very, very sad about that.
The hydrangeas, though. They’re special.
Alias
When Alias started on TV, we had just got married and did not own a TV. We thought it looked great, but obviously couldn’t watch it. We have, on and off, considered finding the DVDs to watch, but have never got around to it. Until last night, when we hired the first two discs of the first season. It was excellent. We had heard quite conflicting reports from different people, so it was nice not to be disappointed. It could be that as the series progresses, it gets more painful – I can easily imagine that the plot would gt jaded and (dare I say?!) unrealistic, but I really hope they manage to sustain it.
We only watched three episodes. Well; I watched three; J saw two and a half. Which was a real pain, since the third episode ends in a cliff-hanger (I think this clause should end with “of course”; I get the feeling this is going to be something we get used to, and will make us glad that we have the next episode all ready to watch rather than waiting for a week!)… and because I am nice, I decided I couldn’t watch the next episode without him, so I stopped. (He had fallen asleep, in case that wasn’t obvious).
Inkspell
I have just started reading Inkspell, the sequel to Inkheart, by Cornelia Funke. I didn’t buy it; I told a fellow English teacher at school about her, and he read the first one weekend, and then the next week came to school and announced he had bought the sequel and was getting through it, too. (As an aside, I love kids’ books; they’re cheaper than adult books, even when they are the same length!) It is, of course, fantastic, and the style is as enchanting as ever. And I really must make a list of the books quoted at the start of the chapters and find them.
I am still entertained by the publishing house , too – called The Chicken House – and its web address, http://www.doublecluck.com. Tee hee.
Flight of the Phoenix
J will never let me live this one down. We didn’t see it at the movies because he was still too cut at Dennis Quaid for being a wuss in The Day after Tomorrow. I got it out, though, because I had always thought it looked good from the poster, and because the blurb said it was “action-packed”. Yes; well. It wasn’t toooo bad… Miranda Otto was ok, in her bit-part… ok, it was a really average movie. I would not recommend anyone to see it. However, I found out one reason why it seemed appealing and didn’t deliver; it’s a re-make. The original had Peter Finch, Richard Attenborough, James Stewart and Ernest Borgnine!!! Kat says it is fantastic, so maybe I will watch it tomake it up to mysellf… but I don’t think I will suggest it to J.
The Transporter
Watching it at the moment; stars Handsome Rob from the remake of The Italian Job. It only just manages to stay this side of Jackie Chan, but it is totally cool. It’s got the best-shot car chases since Ronin, and an awesome soundtrack too. Certainly manages to pack a lot into 80 minutes! The grease scene is brilliant. There’s a sequel just out recently – not sure if it’s out on DVD yet, hope it’s not too far away.
Randomly Yours, Alex 