Bloggy friend shenanigans

So Nikki came down from Sydney to stay for a few days, which explains my absence of late. She's about to leave Australia, so it seemed only appropriate that I insist upon her visiting me before she does so.

ANYWAY.

We did a bunch of stuff together, and I figured I'd tell you about it in no particular order:

• Played a LOT of Lego Hobbit on the XBox. Obviously, it involved accidentally killing each other a lot and generally being quite confused about what was happening.
• Went to the zoo. It was absolutely freezing, and the red panda was awake but lurking at the top of the highest tree in his enclosure, the jerk. BUT there weren't many people there, and the rest of the animals were in a far more obliging mood, no zoom lens necessary:

• Went down to Docklands to the Peruvian festival, which was being spruiked all over the newspaper. It turned out to be like five sad stalls at the side of the little theme park-y bit, which was rather disappointing, so we went out for lunch instead. 
• Made a vlog. When I manage to edit it from just under AN HOUR LONG to something people will actually watch, I'll let y'all know about it. 
• Went to see Les Miserables on stage. It was FANTASTIC, even though our seats were suuuuuuuuuuuuuper nosebleed-y and the people in front of us fidgeted for the entire three hours... I even enjoyed Bring Him Home, which is absolutely unheard of.
• Made a friend on the tram due to the following conversation:

Nikki: The ticket inspectors in Sydney are really aggressive. One of them once asked me "Why are you here?"Me: Maybe he was just being existential and wondering about the meaning of life?Random girl: *snorts with laughter* I'm so sorry. I'm not eavesdropping, but you guys are hilarious.Me: Don't sweat it. I once spent an entire bus trip messaging my friends about the fact that the girl opposite me was excited to see an IHOP because "OMG CHRISTIAN GREY!!!"Random girl: YOU HATE THAT BOOK TOO???????? Nikki: You have no idea. [insert 15 minute conversation about everything wrong with Fifty Shades of Grey here]

• Discovered that Kinder Surprise currently have a limited edition range of Marvel toys called Twistheads that require you to effectively remove the top of the toy's head, connect it to another toy, and then twist their bodies. It's as weird as it sounds, and they're all really creepy-looking. See?

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• Ate far too much. 
• Spent a lot of time on public transport. 
• Got to hang out for longer than anticipated because Melbourne decided that immense amounts of fog were necessary yesterday, and that resulted in Nikki's flight being cancelled. YAY!

So. That's what I did when I wasn't here. What's news with you guys?

K xx

Marauders Assemble

Remember how I said last week that I finally got a new phone? Yeah, I took full advantage of the fact that it's a fairly recent and pretty popular model to ACTUALLY GET A CASE FOR IT.

I tried to get a case for my old phone when I first got it, but because it had just been superseded by a new version, the only cases on the market were plain and boring. So I never bothered to get one. Which was fine, except that by the end of the two years, the camera was pretty scratched thanks to my tendency to slide my phone around on the bench...

NOT THIS TIME, THOUGH.

In my typical can-make-major-decisions-in-a-split-second-but-agonises-for-days-about-tiny-things fashion, I found THREE cases that I really liked and couldn't decide between them. So obviously, given that they were like $7-$15 each on Etsy, I bought all three of them.

And they are MAGICAL:

Poor Ben now has a camera flash for a face, because OBVIOUSLY I'm using the Lego Marvel one at the moment. I also find it oddly entertaining that you can see Spiderman's little legs swinging in from the top left corner.

Anyway, my plan at this stage is to change cases every month so that they all get equal amounts of love. I'm thinking the Marauder's Map will be next. Yes? Yes.

Which of these would you use first?

K xx

Movie Monday - the "what I saw over Easter" edition

Somehow, I managed to go to the movies three times over Easter. And, as usual, I had All The Thoughts about the movies I saw. So I figured that I'd just go ahead and discuss three movies at once.

The Grand Budapest Hotel

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I don't quite know how to start with this one. I enjoyed it. It was very pretty. It was well acted. It was funny. But the whole time I was enjoying it and laughing at the jokes and getting into the story, I hated myself for enjoying it and laughing at the jokes and getting into the story. Because it was really problematic.

There are a grand total of seven named female characters. Three are sisters, and have about as many lines between them. Two of them have only a single scene before they're killed off. Another is a French maid and has about two lines that aren't "Oui, monsieur". Which leaves one female character with more than one scene/half a dozen lines. And she dies too. The Bechdel test may not be the greatest thing in the world, but this movie fails it so hard that it barely even has named female characters TALKING, let alone talking about something that isn't men.

Furthermore, M. Gustave's sexuality - he's very stereotypically gay, but with a tendency to sleep with rich and insecure old ladies in the hopes of inheriting - is treated as a running joke throughout the film. Add in the fact that Zero's character is played by a brown guy when he's a poor young lobby boy and a white guy when he's a rich hotel owner, and I was on the train to I'm-Not-Okay-With-This-Ville. (Yes, I know that F. Murray Abraham is of Syrian descent. That doesn't change the fact that they cast the much-darker-skinned-and-of-Guatemalan-descent Tony Revolori as a younger version of the same character. Sigh.)

The Lego Movie

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I took Little Miss A to see this on Easter Saturday, and discovered that she eats popcorn in the most disgusting way ever (jams her hand in the tub, rummages around to get her hand covered in salt, licks her hand, returns it to the tub, actually eats very little popcorn). ANYWAY. I enjoyed the movie. The live action section gave me a lot of feels, and I actually enjoyed the story more after the live action part started than I did when it was just Lego. I loved all the little added touched for the adults in the audience - like the Millennium Falcon getting eaten - and the messages it conveyed to both kids and adults were good. Still, it was a little on the long side for a kids movie, and while I enjoyed it I'm not sure it's one I'll feel the need to rewatch in a hurry for reasons that I can't quite pin point...

Only Lovers Left Alive

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Doug and I went to see this on Tuesday, so admittedly it wasn't QUITE over Easter. But whatever. And yes, we mostly went because of Tom Hiddleston. It was...interesting. Definitely not your typical vampire film, that's for sure. It was very arthouse - you could basically have removed "blood" and replaced it with "drug of choice" and come out with something not unlike Trainspotting. In order to keep their cover, there were lots of shady backroom deals with hospitals and wearing sunglasses inside and dealing with the monumental cock ups of others of your kind and the desperate lengths that they'll go to for their next fix.

So it was a really interesting interpretation of the vampire legend. BUT. It felt longer than it was, and there were times when the plot dragged. I think it was partly an arthouse thing, but in the hands of a different editor, the pacing could have been improved quite a lot. Also, apparently being a vampire means never brushing your hair, because I spent about 75% of the movie wanting to jump into the movie and attack the characters with a hairbrush... Still, it had its entertaining and moving moments, and the acting was superb throughout, so...I guess it comes out in the win column???

Have you seen any of these? What did you think?

K xx

New Zealand - the "OMG LOOK AT THE KIWI" edition

Previously, I flew to Wellington to stay with Kim, and there was much rejoicing.

The day after we went to Te Papa and to see Thor: TDW, it rained. Like, a lot. All. Freaking. Day. And not even the kind of summery rain where it's still warm enough that you don't object to walking to the bus stop and going to do something indoors. Nope, the wintery kind where the rain is horizontal and it's freezing cold and all you want to do is curl up on the sofa under a blanket. Obviously, we stayed home, played Lego Marvel and ate an awful lot of junk food. We may also have watched an episode of Agents of SHIELD and mocked it for being terrible and contrivance-ridden.

My last full day in Wellington, luckily, featured no rain at all. Instead, it featured sunburn. Because when we left the house, it looked like it was about to pour with rain, so I put sunscreen on but didn't bother to take it with me. THEN THE SUN CAME OUT. Sigh...

Anyway, we caught the bus into the city, picked up some sandwiches, and walked the 4-ish kilometres to the zoo. We started out with a visit to the otters and the penguins, neither of whom were anywhere to be seen. So we headed up through the kiwi enclosure - also nowhere to be seen, but this was probably due to an extremely loud small child. Luckily, some of the teeny monkeys were more accommodating:

From there, we went to a display by a red-tailed black cockatoo who was zooming all over the arena and who could do little puzzles with stackable cups and things in order to get treats. Sadly, there was a VERY screamy small child present who desperately wanted to steal the cockatoo's toys and kept running across the floor towards it. This made the cockatoo and the zoo keepers very nervous, but apparently small child's parents had no fucks to give because they basically did nothing...

Our ears needed a break after that, and it was almost time for the chimpanzee talk, so we headed up to the top of the hill to eat our sandwiches and hang out with the chimpanzees and a great view of the city for a while:

We were basically the only ones there until about 30 seconds before the talk started when an entire class of unruly grade 1 kids turned up and swarmed all over the place. YAY... Luckily, the chimps getting their lunch was entertainment enough to shut them up a little. Said lunch consisted of the keeper tossing out pieces of fruit one at a time and the chimpanzees having to catch each piece. And let me tell you, those chimpanzees were EXCELLENT at it. They could easily play cricket with catching skills like that!

Other highlights of the afternoon included my all time favourites, the red pandas:

And the sunbear, who looked incredibly shocked about something:

We also saw a moronic 20-something guy banging on the glass of the baboon enclosure, causing a lot of the juvenile baboons to hurl themselves at the glass with their teeth bared. He thought it was hilarious. I'm still convinced that one day, he's going to wake up at 3am to find a baboon ripping his face off, because they were NOT impressed...

Eventually, we headed back to the kiwi house for the keeper talk. And it was FABULOUS. The kiwi that they had out only has one leg because he got stuck in a trap meant for feral cats (I think...) and it broke his leg so badly that it had to be amputated. They made him a prosthesis, but apparently he prefers to hop, which is basically the cutest thing ever. If you're interested, you can read more about Tahi here. Anyway, he was about a foot away from me and he was so stinking adorable that I probably could have watched him all day. So if you're ever in Wellington, you should go to the zoo and check out the kiwi keeper talk!

Also, you should go to the zoo because they have FABULOUS signage:

After a detour through the gift shop where I bought a kiwi shaped cookie cutter and a stuffed toy kiwi with wonky legs (I bought him for Little Miss A, but ended up keeping him myself because REASONS), we caught the bus back into town, grabbed ourselves a couple of scoops of ice cream, and walked around to Oriental Bay to sit on the beach for a little while. In keeping with my curse, there was naked New Zealander there, although this one was at least a small child rather than a creepy grown man...

We wandered back through the city and took a few obnoxious selfies on the way, because OBVS.

My flight the next day was at around lunchtime. It was insaaaaaaaaaaaanely windy so walking down the hill to the bus with my suitcase was a rather interesting experience - rather like being dragged along by a very enthusiastic dog... Still, we made it to the airport in plenty of time and, after getting rid of my suitcase and checking in, we headed to Donut King, because of reasons.

Stolen from Kim's Tumblr.

And then we sat there listening to flights being cancelled because the wind was reaching insane levels... Fortunately(??) for me, they were only cancelling the propeller flights, not the jet flights, so my flight wasn't cancelled. Takeoff, however, got a little bit interesting. Especially as I was trapped in a middle seat and the woman on the aisle demanded like 14 sick bags "just in case"... O.o

Eventually, I made it to Auckland, found my luggage, walked the million miles (read: 1km) to the international terminal, checked in, had lunch, abused the free wifi as much as possible, and flew back to Melbourne. THE END. And only four months after my trip ended! ;)

K xx

Marvel vs. DC - the Lego edition

I make absolutely no secret of the fact that when it comes to superheroes, I am one thousand percent a Marvel fangirl. I've never found Batman or Superman even remotely interesting in any format and, as discussed previously, I've mostly found the recent crop of DC movies to be far too serious and as a result, a little bit shit.

Last year, my brother C got me an XBox for my 30th birthday. And one of the games that he got me was Lego Batman 2: DC Superheroes. I played it, and it was fun and all. But there always seemed to be something missing for me. It wasn't until Lego Marvel Superheroes came out that I was able to put my finger on exactly what it was. Obviously, I vlogged about it.



And I'd like to once again thank Youtube for offering me a selection of delightful screencaps - two in which I had my eyes closed and one in which I looked like I was about to sneeze... Some day, decent screencap, you will be mine. SOME DAY...

Have you played these games? Would you agree?

K xx

Movie Monday: The "what I'm looking forward to in 2014" edition

Um. How is it the end of another year already?! I could have sworn that it was only about September last time I checked... Anyway, given that it's the end of the year, let's talk about the stuff I'm excited about seeing next year, shall we? I'll warn you now, it can pretty much be summed up as "Marvel movies and adaptations of YA books", because OBVIOUSLY.

The Fault in Our Stars
The poster that was released during the Project for Awesome gave me All the Feels, so I can't even begin to imagine how much of a trainwreck I'll be when the movie actually comes out...

Captain America: The Winter Soldier
You guys, I am SO EXCITED FOR THIS MOVIE OMFG. The trailer is so completely and utterly BAMF-tastic, and I've been fangirl flailing since it first came out.

The Monuments Men
Okay, so this looks a little bit like Ocean's Eleven set in World War II, but whatevs. It still looks pretty fun, and with a nice dose of history added in for good measure!

Divergent
Look, I'm still not convinced by the casting of Four. Theo James is literally the complete opposite of what I had in my head when it came to Four. But I'm still pretty excited about seeing this story come to life on the big screen.

X-Men: Days of Future Past
I'm a little unsure about this, because some of the shots in the trailer make it look like X-Men Go To The Disco. But whatever, it's Marvel so I'm still excited about the next installment of the story.

Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom
I saw the trailer for this when I went to see American Hustle the other day, and it looks pretty incredible. And there's no doubt in my mind that Idris Elba will do the role justice. This is also my personal reminder that I really do need to read Long Walk to Freedom one of these days...

The Amazing Spider-Man 2
Okay, so the trailer looks a little over the top, and some of the special effects are a little meh-tastic. But I really enjoyed the first one, and it's Marvel, so...yeah.

The Lego Movie
Oh my God. Words cannot describe how excited I am about this film. It's going to be completely ridiculous and utterly insane, and I am looking forward to it with every fibre of my being.

Mockingjay Part 1
I have yet to see Catching Fire, because I'm a bad fangirl (plus, it came out when I was in New Zealand and by the time I got home everyone else had already seen it). But I've heard nothing but good things about it. So I have high hopes for Mockingjay, especially seeing as according to IMDB, Danny Strong (Jonathan from Buffy) is writing the script.

Guardians of the Galaxy
I know almost nothing about the characters involved in this installment of the MCU, but I have no doubt in my mind that it will be fabulous.

What movies are you looking forward to seeing in 2014?

K xx

Updated to add: OH MY GOD, HOW DID I FORGET ABOUT THE VERONICA MARS MOVIE?!?!?!?!?!?!?! I CANNOT WAIT. 

Bloggy friends are the bestest friends

Whoops. It appears that I've been slacking off on blogging about my trip to the US. You know, the one I went on in JANUARY... #fail

Previously, HOGWARTS.

The day after the great Hogwarts expedition of 2013, Lor and I headed out to meet Emmy at a Starbucks somewhere near downtown Orlando. The three of us had absolutely no idea what to do that day - we spent some time abusing the free wifi at Starbucks looking up non-theme park related things to do in Orlando, but didn't come to any decisions. In the end, our lack of decisiveness was getting ridiculous, and time was rapidly ticking past. There was only one solution - send a text message to Gina:

Me: Giiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinaaaaaaaa. We don't know what to do today...
Gina: *immediately sends four responses each filled with well thought out suggestions even though it's barely 7am*

ACTUAL BEST.

Anyway, we ended up going to Downtown Disney. We wandered around some of the Disney themed shops, then bought some fudge because OBVIOUSLY. Somewhere along the way, we stumbled across a shop that sold nothing but dinosaur related stuff. It's possible that I Kermit flailed when I discovered that they had plastic velociraptors. And so it came to pass that Clever Girl joined our intrepid trio:

WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE.

We wandered through the Lego shop:

And then an enormous Disney Store, which included all kinds of complete insanity. We took advantage of the free wifi to tweet/Facebook a bunch of pictures:

Pregnant looking Ariel

Ho suspension Tink

Apparently in his spare time, Voldemort dresses up as Cinderella

After a while, we decided we were hungry, and that we should eat at the Rainforest Cafe because of reasons that now escape me. We ended up sitting at the bar on ridiculously high stools that had animal tails, which was kind of weird. On the plus side, RASPBERRY DAIQUIRI:

Yup. Lunch at the Rainforest Cafe requires booze.

After lunch, we wandered around some more, and then stumbled across a movie theatre. By a happy coincidence, a screening of Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters was about to start. I'm pretty sure my realisation of that went something like this:

Me: OHMIGOD JEREMY RENNER CAN WE PLEASE GO AND SEE JEREMY RENNER PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE??????
Emmy: I guess so?
Lor: Eh. Why not?
Me: YAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAY OHMIGOD I HAVE TO EMAIL KIM SHE'LL BE SO JEALOUS.

Yup. That pretty much happened.

I can't speak for the others, but I thought the movie was awesome. And not just because of Jeremy Renner. Sooner or later, I'll rewatch it and probably do a Movie Monday post on it. Because of reasons.

After the movie, we still had an hour or two to spare before we had to be at Alice's for dinner, so we headed back to the hotel, watched the previous day's installment of the Lizzie Bennet Diaries, and then sat watching Maury for an hour because that's what happens when you ask me to find something to watch on American television.

We ended up leaving a liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiittle later than we'd planned because.......well, we needed to know, dammit!

Yeah. That.

And of course then when we finally did get on the road and heading Alice's, there turned out to be a massive car accident on the freeway and instead of taking us like 20 minutes to get there, it took us the better part of an hour. Poor Alice, meanwhile, was slaving over a hot stove making us an incredible dinner as we texted her from the car, promising that we WERE in fact on our way.

Eventually, we got there and had an amazing evening of good food, good company, a little cider, and so much giggling that Alice's neighbours probably thought we were bonkers. I also turned up with a bag of dirty laundry - literally - and was all "OH HAI, BLOGGY FRIEND. Thanks for cooking me dinner! Can I use your washing machine?" Yup. That happened. 

Several hours later, our stomachs hurt from laughing and it was getting stupidly late, so Lor and I headed back to the hotel with a couple of "Whoops, we ignored the GPS and are now going totally the wrong way" detours because we were too busy giggling about everything that had happened that day.

Next up, Disneyworld and everything that happened. 

K xx

Turning 30? It's pretty great - Part 2

So. I already told you about my actual birthday. But I didn't tell you about the rest of the extra long weekend of awesomeness because I was a dirty slacker at the end of last week (aka I spent every night playing Lego Batman on my shiny new XBox and totally forgot that I had other stuff to do. Whoops?). So I shall rectify that now!

FRIDAY:
Got up stupidly early and headed into the city to meet Nikki. There was a small degree of excited flailing before we jumped on the train and headed down to Flinders Street. From there, we took a wee jaunt across the river to the Eureka Tower. Once we'd laughed ourselves stupid at how ridiculous the "look through this tube to see the thing we're talking about" viewers were (half of them need to be updated as new buildings are now in the way, and one was for the tram restaurant. Which moves...), we headed over to Crown to marvel at the hideous atrium. Sadly, I didn't time our visit properly so we didn't get to see the fountains in action.

From there, we hopped on the City Circle and up to Melbourne Central for a spot of lunch, before heading across to the State Library to ogle the La Trobe Reading Room and visit the exhibitions. Then we headed up to the Royal Exhibition Building, down to Elizabeth Street and Minotaur, and then home via Royal Arcade. The evening was spent playing Lego Pirates of the Caribbean on XBox because we're cool like that.

SATURDAY:
A slow start, followed by heading off to see Iron Man 3. It was completely phenomenal, and it's possible I ate an entire box of Junior Mints during the course of the film... That night was my proper 30th, which took place at a Mexican restaurant in the city with 22 of my bestest friends. It turned out to be happy hour when we arrived, which was very welcome news. It also led to one of the whopping TWO photos taken that night:

Yup. That happened. Also, mmmmmmm, daiquiri...

Dinner was delicious nachos, followed by fajitas, followed by churros. Om nom nom nom nom. Dinner was an absolute blast, and it meant I got to catch up with a bunch of people I don't get to see very often. Which, WIN. And because I'm totally geriatric now, we were home by just after midnight.

SUNDAY:
The morning started with a jaunt around the Tan, which took longer than it usually would on account of Little Miss A was with us, and she wanted to stop for hot chocolate/biscuits/a wander around the children's garden. After a wee sojourn at home with Lego Pirates of the Caribbean (because we're cool), we headed into the MCG to see Hawthorn play North Melbourne. I'm pretty sure Nikki was HORRIBLY confused, but it was a pretty great game. It was much less of a walkover than I'd expected, for starters! It pretty much came down to the final siren, so that was fun. Plus, there was a very vocal Hawthorn supporter behind us who kept yelling her advice to the players every couple of minutes. Hilarious.

MONDAY:
Nikki's flight back to Sydney wasn't until 8.45pm, so we headed into the city and went to the Hollywood costume exhibition at ACMI. It was AMAZING - definitely worth the money it cost to get in. It included costumes from The Wizard of Oz, Breakfast at Tiffany's, Braveheart, The Dark Knight Rises, Gone with the Wind, Gladiator, The Addams Family Values, Fight Club, Brokeback Mountain, The Queen, and Pirates of the Caribbean. And not costumes from the extras or anything. Costumes from the main characters - costumes that you recognise in a split second.

Personally, I thought the sound spill in the exhibition space could have been better controlled, but it was still complete and utterly incredible. Although Nikki and I did nearly die laughing when we realised that the mannequin they'd put Mel Gibson's Braveheart costume on had lady legs. How could we tell? First of all, they were very shapely. Secondly, they were doing that weird pose that's meant to make your legs look thinner but which mostly makes you look like you need to pee. You know, the one that actresses do on the red carpet all the time. Basically, picture Taylor Swift's legs on Mel Gibson's body. Yeeeeeeeah... We even went back to all the other male mannequins with exposed legs to check if they had lady legs too. And NOPE. Just Mel.

Then we had a wee spot of lunch on Degraves Street and headed for home, where we spent our last few hours of pretending we didn't have a million assignments to do playing Lego Pirates of the Caribbean. Because OBVIOUSLY. We also learnt that it's possible to kill someone through a jail cell door in the game. When you're a dog. (Sorry, Nikki.......)

So there you have it. I think I planned and executed a kickass 30th birthday pretty damned well, don't you?!

K xx

Turning 30? It's pretty great

#92 on my 101 in 1001 list was to plan a kickarse 30th birthday. I think I not only planned but executed said kickarse birthday in fine form. I mean, it pretty much went for five days, so how could it not be totally awesome?!

THURSDAY:
My actual birthday. I had grand plans for sleeping in, but some butthead down the street decided that 7.30am on a public holiday was an excellent time to use an angle grinder. FOR AN HOUR AND A HALF. So I wasn't particularly impressed about that. But it improved dramatically from there. After breakfast and presents (including the shiny new toy I showed off in yesterday's vlog), we headed down to St Kilda for lunch at Donovan's.

If you haven't been to Donovan's, you really have to. But for a special occasion, because it's not even remotely in the category of cheap. It's worth every penny though, because the food is AMAZING. While I neglected to take any photos of me hanging out with my favourite people on the planet, I *did* take quite a few photos of the food. Because OBVIOUSLY.

My entree - tomato, caramelised onion and goat's curd tart with balsamic reduction

My main - chicken and mushroom pie

Some kind of potato construction of awesomeness from Paulie's main course

The cake we brought with us

My dessert - jaffa fondant

The platter they put together for Em's little sister with no notice

The inside of my fondant. AMAZING.

And in the course of lunch, my little brother C gave me my birthday present, which came with a card that said "I hope Mum and Dad don't get too annoyed at me giving you this......" I opened the present to discover an XBox!! *flail* And then Paulie gave me a bunch of games for it. So obviously, once we got home from our over FOUR HOUR lunch, I set up the XBox and spent the night of my birthday playing Lego Batman 2. Because OBVIOUSLY.

Aaaaaaaaaaand now that I've made you all incredibly hungry and exposed just how much of a dork I secretly am, I think I'm going to split this into two parts or this is going to end up thesis length!

K xx

Movie Mondays: The Fellowship of the Ring

After guest blogging for Gina last week about why I'm doing Kermit flails of excitement over the forthcoming Hobbit movie (IS IT DECEMBER YET?!?!?!), I decided over the weekend to try and get myself through by rewatching The Lord of the Rings. Clearly, I'd forgotten just how very long each movie is, because I only made it through Fellowship of the Ring before the weekend was basically over. Okay, that may be a SMALL amount of hyperbole. Whatever.

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Anyway, I decided that the next three Movie Mondays are going to be LOTR central around here! (And considering Fellowship is like 85% wandering through the woods, 5% bromances, and 10% actual fighting and whatnot, it can only get better from here) Oh, and for once, I've decided that I'm going to reference characters as well as the actors who played them. Because my brain can separate the two for a change! Without further ado, let's get started, because this is going to be - rather like the film itself - a long one:

Reasons why Fellowship of the Ring is awesome:
1. Andy Serkis as Gollum, even if he's barely in this installment.
2. Ian McKellen. Total badass.
3. The scenery.
4. Merry and Pippin. They're Fred and George Weasley, only not.

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5. Legolas. He's inadvertently hilarious, mostly through stating the bleeding obvious. And has a never-ending supply of arrows.
6. Hugo Weaving as Elrond.
7. Ian Holm as Bilbo. Especially creepy Bilbo when he sees the ring again at Rivendell.

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8. While it was being filmed, New Zealand's cabinet included a "Minister for The Lord of the Rings". AWESOMENESS.
9. Personnel from the New Zealand armed forces were cast as extras for the fight scenes.
10. That they included Tolkien's original maps.
11. Gandalf's fireworks. AMAZING.

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12. The filming. Consistently incredible use of forced perspective.
13. The giant squid/octopus beastie outside the entrance to Moria.
14. The scene where they're all plowing through the snow, and Legolas is all "tralalala!" on top of the snow. It's in the book and I love that they did it that way in the movie.
15. The number of locations they went to solely for the sake of walking a few hundred metres for a montage sequence.

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16. Aragorn throwing a flaming torch at one of the Nazgûl.
17. Rivendell.
18. Christopher Lee.
19. The scene where the hobbits hide in the tree from the Nazgûl.

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20. Epic wizard fights.
21. Billowy cloaks of doom. You really can't go wrong with a billowy cloak of doom.
22. Cate Blanchett.
23. The music.
24. The number of memes it's spawned.

How could I not post this?! Also, source.

25. Gandalf trying to work out the password to get into Moria.

Plus, the following quotes:
- "You have my sword." "And you have my bow." "And MY axe!"
- "Fly, you fools!"
- "My precious."
- "The time would soon come when hobbits would shape the fortunes of all."
- "A wizard is never late, Frodo Baggins. Nor is he early. He arrives exactly when he means to."
- "Keep it secret. Keep it safe."
- "One ring to rule them all, one ring to find them. One ring to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them."
- "What's THAT?!" "This, my friend, is a pint." "It comes in PINTS?!?"
- "Are you frightened?" "Yes." "Not nearly frightened enough."
- "I don't think he knows about second breakfast, Pip." "What about elevensies? Luncheon? Afternoon tea? Dinner? Supper? He doesn't about them, doesn't he??" "I wouldn't count on it..."
- "YOU. SHALL NOT. PASS!"
- If you want him, come and claim him!"
- "They have a cave troll..."
- "I would rather spend one lifetime with you than face all the ages of this world alone."
- "One does not simply walk into Mordor!"
- "Anyway, you need people of intelligence on this sort of mission...quest...thing."
- "This is no mine. It's a tomb."
- "Fool of a Took!"
- "Go back, Sam. I'm going to Mordor alone." "Of course you are. And I'm coming with you."
- "Nobody tosses a dwarf!"
- "All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us."
- "It's a dangerous business, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep for feet, there's no telling where you might be swept off to."

Has anyone seen to extended editions with the cast commentaries? Apparently Billy Boyd and Dominic Monaghan's is HILARIOUS. I'm kind of tempted to rent them just so I can see for myself! Also, who's excited about Lego LOTR?? 

K xx

101 in 1001 #14 AND #76

Yes, I've had a HIGHLY productive day today - I crossed two things off my Day Zero list. The first was one I've been wanting to do for aaaaaaaaaaages. I bought this:

Hello, lover. It's a Nikon 50mm f1.8 G series lens, and it's so many kinds of shiny that it's not even funny. Here's what I got in a five minute walk around the front garden to test it out:

Like I said, shiny. (Bonus geek points if you know what that refers to) Oh, shallow depth of field. Where have you been all my life? I can't wait to have a proper play around with it in the US next week OH MY GOD I LEAVE FOR THE US NEXT WEEK ARGH ARGH AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!!!!!!!

Ahem. The other thing I accomplished involved less spending of money that I don't have and more sitting on my arse for days at a time. The benefit to unemployment, of course, is that I had more than enough time to do so. After several days of yelling "REDUCTOOOOOOOO!!" at the TV like a lunatic totally normal person, today I FINALLY achieved 100% on Lego Harry Potter (Years 1-4). Hurrah!!

Don't believe me? Here's the proof:

*heaves a sigh of relief* I think I might hold off on Lego Pirates of the Caribbean (which I bought C for his birthday) until after I get home at the end of September........... ;)

How was your Friday? :)

K xx