Um… Big Brother?
Not sure that letting James have access to my blog was a good idea.
Anyway: my gosh, I can’t believe I watched Big Brother tonight (I blame James – truly) and I can’t believe that it was so bad. Fascinating as the idea of reality TV is, urgh. It was the first nominations night (so?!), and there were these people both nominating people to leave da House and trying to justify that they don’t dislike the person, it’s just that… blah blah. What a joke.
While on Channel 7, watching Las Vegas, we had to desperately avoid the ads for the third season of 24. Must not watch. Although we have already seen the face of Nina, we expected this anyway. And I just had to change the channel very quickly because it was about to start. However, that’s ok, because it’s now Enough Rope time; I like Denton, and tonight he is interviewing Hugh Jackman. =]
The Tank
I have the power to blog – And a new digital camera.
Hmm… more books
Went to Borders before church; browsed their 75% off table. I don’t know whether I was actually meant to get 75% off the sale price marked on the front of the books… but I did.
Who’s Afraid of Beowulf?
Love it. Tom Holt is often funnier than Terry Pratchett. So literary… so wonderful… look out for the Milk Board… at the price, could simply not be passed up.
A Parrot in the Pepper Tree
I’ve been looking around a bit for this, because I have read Driving over Lemons, Chris Stewart’s first, and I really liked it. It’s about an English couple who decide to go and live on a farm in Andalucia (hmmm… trend… travel-ish books… not that I’m unhappy here, of course).
The Botany of Desire
“A plant’s-eye view of the world,” apparently – apples, potatoes, marijuana (is that really “integral to our everyday lives”?) and tulips, and how they have “survived by satisfying one of humankind’s most basic desires.” I’m a little sceptical of this, but interested to read the histories of the four.
Drinking Midnight Wine
Simon Green… again, love it… have read part of one of his series, Deathstalker, but reluctant to continue because someone (Kate) told me it has a tragic end. Eventually I will have to, because it keeps plaguing me. This promises to be dark and magicky too.
Hyperion
Dan Simmons. I’ve read a book set after this one, not realising it was an ‘after the first set’ book, and I loved it – I almost cried when I finished it, knowing I had both books before and after to find and read. Sad but true. He’s excellent. Actually not a sale book, but I suddenly thought of it and had to get it.
Three films in a night
We visited a friend’s place last night: they have mad surround sound and a projector, so we often do this of a weekend, and watch movies till late (well, I watch; James sleeps). Anyway, last night we got wise for the first time, and started watching a movie before 7! Very clever.
Showtime
Poor Robert de Niro. You’d think he could get better roles. It was funny, but not something I’d watch again. Interesting take on reality TV, since I would have guessed it came out at the start of the boom; although probably it’s been around longer in the US.
Judge Dredd
Stallone is a meathead. It was so Blue Screen… so angular… so Star Wars I was surprised to find out it was made in the mid 90s. Half the guards looked like they’d just walked off as extra storm troopers, and there was even a chase scene taken straight from the Forest Moon of Endor (Ewoks, remember?) and dumped into a bad-futuristic scene.
Men in Black II
Love it. Very funny. Tommy Lee Jones is a star.
Christians and history
This is a short piece I wrote a while ago in response to a friend of mine asking me what the point of studying history was, as Christians (her questions are included; she was asking from the point of view of being pasionate about both).
Of rainbows, filters and carpet algae
James noticed a dead rainbow this morning. Ajax was very unimpressed when I took it away from him; he wanted to suck her dry, or something equally gross. Sigh… I hope this won’t become a trend… no obvious symptoms.
I was looking in the main tank and noticed that the disgusting algae on the plants and gravel was managing to get everywhere and not necessarily be anchored down. So I had this brilliant idea of pulling it up with the net, which I proceeded to carry out. It came away easily, and was quite disgusting; lots of poo everywhere. It also came off the plants easily. The tank consequently looks a whole lot brighter, because instead of dark green the bottom is white-ish.
We also decided to do a water change; I think we probably did 40%, because we hadn’t done one in a while. I did some pruning and aquascaping while the water was down… and James decided to put the other filter on. He figures it’s a waste not using it… and I think he just wanted to fiddle. So he rigged it up, and it blasted water out. He’s now made the holes in the spray bar a bit bigger so that it’s not quite so violent, but I’m still a little unsure of whether the fish are going to appreciate having two sets of water pouring onto them. It does mean the tank is being filtered 10 times an hour… not sure if this is excessive or not.
I moved an Algae Eater over, to start him doing his job. I couldn’t catch the other one and decided to leave it a while, so he doesn’t stress out too much.
Fed Square and its books
I have been looking forward to going to the Fed Square book market on a Saturday ever since I found out about it, a couple of months ago. I was imaging heaps of different booksellers, at least some selling things cut-price… I was a bit disappointed. There were less than ten booksellers. Admittedly a number did have cheap books, but they were mostly second-hand (which is still fine). I did buy four books, but three of those were from the stall set up by Andrew’s Books, which I go to in Lygon St all the time anyway. Sigh.
I got: Unnatural Fire, by Fidelis Morgan (cool name), which I started reading on the tram although I haven’t even finished Genghis Khan yet (thanks to also reading Lantia on the tram home after I bought it); it seems like a Restoration version of I, Claudia, which is just fine with me – female protagonist/detective, etc.
Limbo, by Andy Secombe; not sure whether this will turn out to be a waste of time or not.
The Stone of Heaven (Unearthing the Secret History of Imperial Green Jade), by Adrian Levy and Cathy Scott-Clark, which looks really cool.
On Histories and Stories, by AS Byatt, because I think I should get into more lit crit and I’ve heard of Byatt and she seems cool.
The Lost Kingdom of Lantia
Picked this up for $5; I knew it was going to be a kids’ book, but that’s partly why I got it – I’m realising I should teen fiction so that I can genuinely recommend books – current ones – to my students. Anyway; it’s by Maggie Hamilton, and I actually thought it was set in Melbourne, until at the end I read she’s based in Sydney so I guess it’s actually set there, although there was no mention of a bridge or Opera House which I thought was odd in a book about kids on holidays.
Overall I guess it was OK; as I read it I thought using the name Lantia was a bit dumb since it was quite obviously about Atlantis (magical kingdom destroyed by volcano) – at the end she does indeed say the book was inspired by her fascination by Atlantis, so I’m relieved the name wasn’t just a really poor way of covering it up. The writing was all right; I found it a bit basic, but I am well out of the target audience. The one thing I found incredibly annoying was her use of rhetorical questions all the time, and in italics. Why did she feel the need to do this? (Ha ha). It really, really got on my nerves.
I think I would recommend it to a kid; one who wasn’t a totally avid reader, but was looking for something fairly engaging and possibly a bit challenging, for younger teens.
Five neons
Yes, another two dead neons this morning. Very disappointing. All the fish in there are going to have to stay in there another week or so I think, because of this. It occurs to me that having so many fish doing quarantine together was not a remarkably good idea – I thought so at the time, too, I was just a bit greedy… ah well. Here’s hoping.
Randomly Yours, Alex 