Absconding With The Tontine Funds

I'm siiick.

I've been sick for about two weeks with a cold and this is the third time I've left work early. Ugh. I hate burning through my sick leave, even though I have plenty; I just like the idea of hoarding them to the point where I could take two straight months off work if I wanted to. And I think I'm just not getting better because everyone else around me is sick too, especially the childrens who don't know how to not cough and sneeze directly on other people. Pleh.

Now I am at home in sweatpants (cue Karl Lagerfeld: "Sweatpants are a sign of defeat. You lost control of your life so you bought some sweatpants" LOL) and watching The Princess Bride, the movie that still holds up even on one's thirty-ninth viewing.

Last weekend sarea_okelani and I went to see The King, a Korean movie about the 1% in politics in the 1990s -- a subsection of prosecutors who game the system so they can live in luxury. Though we were both impressed that it managed to make it all the way up here (and not even just LA and New York), and my current one true love Ryu Junyeol is beautiful and effective in it, it was, unlike The Princess Bride, not a great movie.

( And here is why )

I've also watched the last series of Sherlock, finally. ( It was a slog )

On gealach_ros's enthusiastic rec, I watched the pilot of Sleepy Hollow today. It's fairly solid; I'm interested in seeing more. The special effects aren't great, but whatever; if I had a bar for good SFX I'd have never made it past Merlin S1. Anyway, I really like Abbie. She's kick-ass. Ichabod Crane is fine so far (and also fine); the little, befuddled reactions he has to being in the 21st century are very amusing.

My shoulders hurt like hell, on account of having to carry my 500lb. laptop around everyday. It's pretty much neck-and-neck right now with stress to see which one will fell me first. A couple of days ago, one of our professors took one look at the class and expressed genuine concern about how worn out we all looked. It's the second week of school. Gah.

Let me expound instead on the 1D This is Us movie. accordingtomel and I went on the first day of public school, which meant that the theatre was almost completely empty. Two fellow ancient fangirls sat a few rows in front of us, and that was it. Good times! As for the film itself, it was forgettable. I mean, listen, I will gladly watch the 1D boys gambol about for hours on end -- they are truly hysterical, precious little peanuts -- but as a documentary, especially a documentary directed by someone of Morgan Spurlock's caliber, it was underwhelming. It was all very superficial and kind of staged, full of soundbites we've heard before. Meh.

The best part about the movie existing was basically that the theatre had a life-sized promotional stand that you could take a picture with. When the DG girls went to see City of Bones a couple weeks before, sarea_okelani went in first to grab seats for us while we waited for everyone to arrive. I was standing out by the ticketing area, and suddenly I heard her hollering at me that the 1D stand was in there, so naturally I abandoned the other girls to get all up in there. There was a space for you to stand, and Liam with his elbow out as if leaning chummily on you. I am very short; it pretty much looked like he was about to knock my head off. (Sadly, by the time Mel got into town, the stand was gone.) Here's a picture:



That's obviously not me, as I'm pretty sure I'm not a distinguished English actor. (I checked.) You can imagine me in Ian McKellen's place if you'd like, but honestly, why would you want to?

I have things to do today, so naturally I'm updating my LJ instead of doing them. I sort of feel like I have earned a little bit of slacking off, though; this is the first weekend in about a month and a half that I haven't had to spend my Saturday at school or with study groups. We have tomorrow off, too, for Presidents Day, but I still have to go to campus to do things, ugh. How sad that it's only when there's a three-day weekend that I get an actual weekend! But I have gotten to sleep in for two days straight and it's been glorious. On top of that, last night I dreamt I totally made out with Jack Whitehall. Good job, brain! o/\o

In other news, this WSJ article tickles me to no end: It Takes Planning, Caution to Avoid Being 'It' -- Group of Men Have Played Game of Tag for 23 Years; Hiding in Bushes, Cars. Doesn't that sound epically awesome? I've convinced three of my high school friends to do this with me. Hee!

In a fit of nostalgia last night I reread some of the last D/G fic I wrote, Miles to Go Before I Sleep, which I never finished because of reasons (mostly because my computer crashed and I lost a ton of notes and writings). I really wish I had finished, though... I want to know what happens! Lol. I can't believe that was almost four years ago now. Yikes. I've been in fandom for forever. I AM SO OLD.

For the friends who responded to the mail call from a couple weeks ago, I haven't forgotten! I've enveloped and taped and addressed everything, and will get it all sent out later this week!

Saw Warm Bodies last week with sarea_okelani and slitherhither; it was enjoyable, and followed the book fairly faithfully, though lacked some of the depth the book had. I'm not sure how much it was missed if you hadn't read the book. Also I feel a little bit frowny at Nora's casting -- not the actress herself; she did a fine job. But seriously, are there zero black actresses who could have filled the role equally well? That said, I really liked the movie overall; it's funny and fun, and the leads were great together. Nicholas Hoult, as has been established multiple times on my LJ, is such a gem; he's so expressive and I loved the way he moved as a zombie. We also saw a trailer beforehand for Jack the Giant Slayer, which looks terrible, but I may have to see it anyway because he's in it. The following Monday, a classmate mentioned that she had gone to see Warm Bodies over the weekend too, so I was all ready to go YAY, LET'S TALK ABOUT IT but then she said that it sucked and only teenagers would like it, so that was that. Thank goodness for fandom friends. :)

Why is gas so expensiiiive? D:

Met up with lyndsiefenele and sarea_okelani yesterday to see No Strings Attached, which was enjoyable enough. By no means a cinemastic masterpiece, but it was cute and had a few funny moments, so that pretty much meets my expectations for romcoms. I didn't understand the point of Cary Elwes' character, though I'm not complaining, as I am always happy to see Cary Elwes. Incidentally, why don't I have any Princess Bride icons?

Sarea also passed me S1 and S2 of Misfits, which I am tres excited to watch, since everybody seems to love it.

PBS is currently airing Downton Abbey; I missed the first couple of episodes, so am catching up at the Masterpiece website. I'm in the middle of what I think is originally ep 4 (PBS squishes the eps together to make one hour-and-a-half episode), and ( here be spoilers )

On dragonsangel68's recommendation, I rented Definitely, Maybe a couple of days ago. I'd been wanting to see it for a while, but also kind of avoiding it because I really don't care for Elizabeth Banks, not since she Mary Sued it up on Scrubs (which I recognise is not necessarily her fault because she wasn't the one who wrote the character, but writers don't have faces and I need someone to blame, and irrationality is complicated). Anyway. Good call, Jen. Thank you. It was such a sweet movie, and really pleasantly atypical for a romantic comedy while still fulfilling the requirements of the genre.And now for something completely different.