Best of 2014: The worst of everything

We've already talked about my favourite books, movies, TV shows, and music for 2014. Now it's time for the opposite end of the scale: the stuff that brought nothing but pain and suffering, the stuff that months later, you still wish would go and die in a fire. Thankfully, there was nothing on the music side of things as horrific as last year's Blurred Lines (or at least nothing that gained as much hype), and the worst thing I could think of on the music spectrum this year was the Frozen soundtrack, and that's mostly because I work in a primary school and so I had to hear it on a NEVER ENDING LOOP FOR THE ENTIRE YEAR. Anyway, on with the rest of the terrible things that should die in a fire.

I Know Who Killed Me
Oh, God, this film. This film was hands down the worst thing I've ever seen in my life. For starters, it features double Lindsay Lohan. And not in a The Parent Trap kind of a way. It was basically non-stop torture porn, and at one point she tries to duct-tape her severed fingers back on. I'm really not sure who picked it for #snarkathon, but they should be banished to the Shame Corner forever. Worst. Worst worst worst.

Platoon
Sweet mother of Jeebus, I hated this film. I actually stopped watching part way through because I was crying and fighting the urge to throw up, and life is too short for that. But the parts I did see? Were either incredibly brutal or incredibly boring. Probably a lot like the Vietnam War itself, if the truth be told, but I just couldn't take it any more.

The True Believers series
I'd heard good things about these books on Goodreads and at an industry event I went to. So when I found that they were only like $2 each, I bought all four of them on a whim, figuring I'd need books to read on the plane to London. Instead, what they brought me was rage and the desire to reach into my Kindle and punch fictional characters in the face. Rape is thrown around like it's nothing, all the main characters are in possession of magic vaginas that cure bad boys of their badness, there were non-stop cliches, and it made me want to throw things. Avoid at all costs. (Although they DID prove to be excellent #stupidbookisstupid fodder, so...there's that)

The Selection
This book seems to be pretty polarising. People either love it or they hate it, and I fell into the latter camp because it made me rage like nothing else. It's billed as a dystopian novel, but it's essentially the teenage girl version of The Bachelor in which you get to marry a prince. The writing was clunky, the characters were two dimensional, America Singer is possibly the dumbest girl to ever walk the pages of fiction, and don't even get me started on the fact that the "contestants" are made property of the state and have to prove their virginity in order to compete for the prince's heart. Basically, the world in which the book is set (which was poorly created) is riddled with misogyny and uuuuuuuuuugh.

Her
Reviewers have been raving about this movie all year, but I mostly thought it was gross. I mean, a guy falling in love with his computer operating system and ending up IN A SEXUAL RELATIONSHIP WITH IT?!?!?! What the hell even is that? It was just...no. No no no no no.

Charmed season 8
I didn't see this when it aired (and I have yet to post my thoughts on it. Or several of the previous seasons, for that matter...), but I'd heard that it wasn't great. Yeah, people really weren't kidding about how not great it was. It seemed to drag on forever, and then suddenly the show wasn't getting renewed and they had to try and tie everything up in a handful of episodes, and it just........ugh. Snore.

Get Him to the Greek
I really liked Russell Brand's character in Forgetting Sarah Marshall. So I thought that him reprising the role here would be a good thing. Yeah, no. The added Jonah Hill factor was too much for me to deal with, and I gave up on the movie about 20 minutes in. Which, given that I made it through the whole of I Know Who Killed Me, is really saying something.

Winter Be My Shield
I bought this book in a Kindle sale for $1.99. And it may only be me who had problems with it, because the vast majority of reviewers on Goodreads seemed to love it. But for me? It was indescribably boring and dragged on for a thousand years. Seriously. I'd hit the "next page" button about fifty times on my Kindle and have only read about five pages. There's endless rape and torture, paedophilia and slavery. There's an incredibly complex society that's never properly explained, and very little world building. Essentially, it was about 350 pages of people wandering about in the snow and making big plans, and just over 100 pages of stuff that wasn't mind-numbingly boring but WAS kind of squicky.

In short, these things caused me to have one of two reactions:

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Sometimes both at once, now that I think about it...

And there we have it. What things are on your WORST OF EVER list from this year?

K xx

Bookish questions, part the second

I was going to write the next instalment of my trip today but somehow it's already after 5pm and that's far too much like hard work at this time of day. So you can have tomorrow's post a day early instead - the second half of the questions from last week's bookish Q&A!

28. Favourite reading snack?
Chocolate, probably?? I would say biscuits, but then you get crumbs stuck in the spine and that leads to disaster...

29. Name a case in which hype ruined your reading experience.
I wouldn't say it RUINED my experience, but I'd heard so many amazing things about Elizabeth May's The Falconer. And when I read it, I enjoyed it. But it didn't QUITE live up to what I was expecting.

30. How often do you agree with critics about a book?
If we're talking critics as in the people who work for newspapers and magazines, then I have no idea because I tend to skim through the newspaper as quickly as possible, and the only time I read magazines is when I'm at the hairdresser. So, like, once a year.

31. How do you feel about giving bad/negative reviews?
I know I should probably be nicer because authors have poured their heart and souls into these books. But sometimes, the book is just so awful that I have to tear it to shreds. ESPECIALLY if it's riddled with typos and grammatical errors. Good Lord, people. Get an editor...

32. If you could read in a foreign language, which language would you choose?
Um. Didn't we already cover this before with Gallifreyan?! If we're talking real languages, I guess it would be ALL OF THEM so I could read books in their original, untranslated forms. Because things always lose something in translation.

33. Most intimidating book you've ever read?
A tie between Bleak House and Les Miserables.

34. Most intimidating book you're nervous to start?
I have For the Term of His Natural Life on my Classics Club list, and I've heard that it's really hard going. So I'm scared of that one. I also want to read War and Peace at some point in my life, but it's ENORMOUS OMG.

35. Favourite poet? 
Poetry's not really my jam. Maybe Wilfred Owen?? Which is really weird and morbid, I know, but I like war poetry a lot more than the romantics or sonnets...

36. How many books do you generally have checked out of the library at a given time?
Somewhere between eight and ten. I once borrowed fourteen and could barely carry them home, so I limit myself.

37. How often do you return books to the library unread?
Never. I've either already finished them, or I return the ones I've read and renew the ones I haven't.

38. Favourite fictional character?
WHAT IS THIS INSANITY. As Danielle from Ever After would say, "I could no sooner choose a favourite star in the Heavens".

39. Favourite fictional villain?
Do they mean favourite as in the one-you-secretly-like-a-little-bit? Or favourite as in I-want-to-murder-your-face-off? If it's the latter, probably Dolores Umbridge. If it's the former, it probably applies more to anti-heroes like Becky Sharp for me.

40. Books you're most likely to bring on vacation?
Anything that doesn't require a whole lot of brain power (so no classics). Probably quite a lot of contemporary YA, to be perfectly honest.

41. The longest you've gone without reading?
Four years, give or take. Since I learnt to read, the longest has probably been about twelve hours.

42. Name a book that you could/would not finish?
I have a whopping SIX books on my did-not-finish shelf in Goodreads. One turned out to be book 20 of a series, two were high fantasy that I just couldn't get into, two were sci-fi that I just couldn't get into, and one was The Mayan Priest..........................

43. What distracts you easily when you're reading?
The internet. Mostly Twitter...

44. Favourite film adaptation of a novel?
If we're talking favourite as in "most true to the book", then probably The Fault in Our Stars. But if we're talking favourite as in "brought a slow paced story to life", then maybe Jurassic Park. Or The Count of Monte Cristo.

45. Most disappointing film adaptation?
Ohgod. Will I find a mob on my doorstep if I say Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince? That was easily the worst of the movies for me. They left so much out of it. Or maybe the 2009 mini-series of The Day of the Triffids, which was TERRRRRRRIBLE. No. Wait. It's The Lost World. Because Steven Spielberg basically grovelled to Michael Crichton to write a sequel to Jurassic Park and then ignored three quarters of the book in favour of having a T. rex rampage around San Diego. (Don't see that movie, read the book instead. It's awesome.)

46. Most money you've ever spent in a bookstore at one time?
Probably somewhere over $200? But it was birthday money, so I'm not entirely convinced that counts.

47. How often do you skim a book before reading it?
Oh God, ALL THE TIME. I'm really terrible at flicking to the last page and reading the last sentence. You know, just in case I get hit by a bus. Which is why I like e-books - it stops me from doing that.

48. What would cause you to stop reading a book halfway through it?
Frequent spelling mistakes and grammatical errors. Or a really terrible story. Or hating the characters. But to be honest, I'd probably just keep reading and turn it into #stupidbookisstupid on Twitter because I'm a bad person...

49. Do you like to keep your books organised?
DEFINITELY. If they're not alphabetical by the author's surname, it makes me twitchy. My little brother just shoves things on the shelf in random order and it was all I could do not to reorder his bookshelf while I was staying with him in London.

50. Do you prefer to keep your books when done, or give them away?
Keep them. Always keep them. Maybe if I didn't really enjoy them, I'll put them in the pile for the op shop the next time we have a bit of a cupboard clean out...

51. Are there any books that you've been avoiding?
I assume this means "avoiding but still want to read", because otherwise the answer is clearly Fifty Shades of I Will Never Read This Book Grey. Other than that, it's probably just a bunch of stuff that I ended up putting on my Classics Club list.

52. Name a book that made you angry?
Oh, so very many. Believe by Erin McCarthy because it features rape that's never called rape. The Selection because it was just horrifically awful. The Last Thirteen series because it felt a lot like a sci-fi Harry Potter and because the publisher bought all 13 books in the series before even one had been published. Side Effects May Vary because I JUST HATED THE MAIN CHARACTER SO MUCH, YOU GUYS. And many more.

53. A book you didn't expect to like but did?
I was a little dubious about Throne of Glass because high fantasy and I have such a messy relationship. But I loved every second of it. And of the subsequent books.

54. A book you expected to like but didn't?
Everyone told me I'd love A Game of Thrones. Instead, I was bored shitless for like 700 pages.

55. Favourite guilt-free guilty-pleasure reading?
I'm not sure they're guilt-free, but I have an unfortunate addiction to Pride and Prejudice sequels/alterna-plot line books. They're generally terrible, but I've read a couple that were actually pretty decent which has been enough to get me to keep reading in case there are more than are unexpectedly good. Sigh.

So. Please tell me what books have made you angry so that I can avoid them like the plague. And tell me how you organise your books, because I like to live vicariously through others!!

K xx

Weird casting choice is weird

I've been watching Bitten over the past week or so, and to be honest, I'm a little amazed it took me this long because Kelley Armstrong's Women of the Otherworld books are one of my favourite series. They have great characters, awesome world-building, and fun stories filled with action and suspense and occasional squeeing. And yet, I was hesitant when it was announced that they were turning Bitten into a series.

Why? Because for starters, they only have the rights to the werewolf books, which basically means that they'll be forced to go non-canon pretty damned quickly. And secondly, because adaptations always come with a certain amount of "Oh. That's not how I pictured [person/place/event]" (see: the entirety of the 2005 Pride and Prejudice) or "Why didn't they include that scene?" (see: Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason) or "WHO DESTROYED THIS CHARACTER?????" (see: Ginny Weasley) or "Um. This is not how the plot goes at ALL." (see: anything titled The Lost World)

It's inevitable that this happens, and - based on some stuff I've seen floating around the internet - there were a lot of Women of the Otherworld fans who aren't happy with the way the show is going. I'm trying to keep an open mind - I still have two episodes left  - but there are a few things that I can't quite get over, and they mostly relate to characterisation.

1. Elena Michaels
Okay, so Elena is our protagonist. She grew up in the foster system, she fell in love with a guy, he turned her into the only female werewolf of ever. All of this applies to both the book and the series. But. Book!Elena is very jeans, t-shirt and sneakers low key. She ties her hair back with rubber bands, hates make up and perfume because it messes with her sense of smell, and she's a freelance journalist. What does the TV show give us?

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A pretty pretty princess. Okay, Laura Vandervoort is pulling off Elena's character better than I thought she would in the pilot. And admittedly, Elena's a bridesmaid in this scene. But that doesn't change the fact that Elena's basically a fashion plate in every episode: multi-layered expensive clothes, heels/heeled boots in every scene, perfect hair. I have yet to see her in an outfit that looks easy to get out of in case of unexpected werewolf-ness. And for some bizarre reason, they've made her a photographer????? But they never show her with a camera or editing photos or even having camera gear lying around the house. It's a little odd.

2. Clayton Danvers
Okay, so both versions of Clay have a PhD in anthropology and teach at universities periodically. Both versions are jeans and t-shirts types. But Book!Clay is basically described as a Greek god, with blue eyes and close cropped curly blond hair and a Southern accent. (Part of me has always suspected that Kelley Armstrong had The Wedding Planner era Matthew McConaghey in her head when she wrote Clay...) Instead?

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We get this guy. Who does not have a Southern accent. I'm learning to deal with him as Clay, but OH MY GOD, he looks like a total axe murderer in like half the scenes he's in. Which does kind of work for Clay's character, but DUDE. NO. Also, try washing your hair once in a while.

3. Jeremy Danvers
It's not immediately apparent in the first book, but it's revealed in a later book that Jeremy's mother was Japanese. He's described throughout the series as Eurasian-looking with black hair. This means that he turns into a black wolf (hair colour dictates fur colour). He has dark eyes and a lean build. And the show, in perhaps the most awkward casting choice of ever, gave us this dude:

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*headdesk* Don't get me wrong, I think he's doing a pretty decent job of portraying the character. But it's a little bit like casting Bonnie Wright as Cho Chang, and you're just left wondering if they even bothered to read the books.

That said, I'm totally on board with the casting of Nick and Logan. And I really like the additional female characters that they've created!

Weirdly, I'm more accepting of the plot changes that have occurred than I am of the casting and costuming decisions. And the hair department decisions, for that matter. Most of the villains looks like they've been raiding a wig collection from a 1960s church camp, and it's BIZARRE...

DANIEL. WHAT IS ON YOUR HEAD???? Source.

Have you seen the show? What do you think?? Are you on Team OMG THAT WAS SO AWKWARD over the scene where Elena and Clay were flirty frolicking through the forest as wolves? Because that scene was terrible.

If you haven't seen it, have you had to live through the trauma of seeing your favourite characters mangled on screen? Any tips for coping with it?! Because I could really use them...

K xx

Best of 2013: The worst of everything

Right. We've talked about the best stuff I've read/watched/listened to this year. Now let's talk about the flip side of the coin. You know, the stuff that months later we're all still complaining about because it was just SO. INCREDIBLY. BAD that you don't want anyone else to subject themselves to it. Yeah. That stuff. Let's talk about that stuff.

Robin Thicke - "Blurred Lines"
Let's just jump right to it, shall we? This song is the biggest piece of misogynistic bullshit to hit the radio airwaves in years. It should be destroyed immediately, and Robin Thicke should be shot out of a cannon with no safety equipment as punishment for its existence. Don't even get me started on the video clip. And to think, last year I was complaining about Flo Rida's Whistle. That song has NOTHING on Blurred Lines.

Bachelorette
Oh my God, this film was awful. I hated every single character in it with a fiery passion, it wasn't funny, and I really wish I could have the two-ish hours of my life back.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8 #8 - Last Gleaming by Joss Whedon et al.
Volume 7 of the season 8 comics was pretty damned awful. But it was this, the final volume of season 8, that I hated most of all. I'd waited a long time to read it because I couldn't bring myself to actually spend money on it after how completely insane volume 7 was, so I had to wait until it became available at the library. And then I hated it with such a fiery passion that I actually screamed and threw it clear across the room after I read the last page. I've heard that season 9 is better, but I just can't bring myself to start reading it...

Agents of SHIELD
Look, it's not so much that this is bad so much as that it's really really boring. Maybe my expectations were too high, but it's Marvel and it involves Joss Whedon, so I was kind of expecting greatness. Instead, I got something that was decidedly mediocre. I don't care about any of the characters, the storylines in the episodes I've seen have all been decidedly average, and Coulson seems completely out of character when you compare him to the MCU. When I can reach the end of an episode and be so bored that I tuned out completely within the first five minutes? Your show is meh-tastic.

Apocalypse Now, Redux
I'm pretty sure this was the longest movie on the face of the earth. I only watched it because it's on the AFI 100 Years 100 Films list, and I really wish I could have the millionty hours of my life back. Because in addition to being indescribably bored (really, Coppola? An extra FORTY NINE MINUTES OF FOOTAGE was necessary??), I ended up completely and utterly traumatised because NO ONE WARNED ME ABOUT THE BUFFALO SCENE AND MACHETES TERRIFY ME. I was literally dry heaving while watching that scene.

Eyre House by Cait Greer
We've already talked about this one. I don't really have anything to add that I haven't already said!

Land of the Lost
I should have known that I'd hate this film when I discovered that it starred Will Ferrell and Danny McBride. Unfortunately, I decided to watch it anyway. Big mistake.

Graceling by Kristin Cashore
I wanted to like this. I know a lot of people who absolutely loved it. I, unfortunately, was not one of them. There's a difference between a strong female character and a female character who hates everything feminine and all the implications of her gender. Katsa grated on my every nerve, and her "NOPE, NEVER GETTING MARRIED OR HAVING KIDS OH WAIT THAT GUY LOOKS HOT WITH HIS SHIRT OFF SEXYTIMES AHOY!!" was beyond ridiculous.

Doctor Who 50th Anniversary Special
Sigh. I had such high hopes for awesomeness after it was announced that David Tennant and Billie Piper were coming back for this. Instead, what we got was boring, retconned, hit-the-giant-reset-button typical Moffat nonsense, complete with penis jokes and irritating one dimensional female characters. I think the thing that I was most disappointed about was that it wasn't a celebration of a show that's been running for 50 years. It was a celebration of The Guy Who's Been Running The Show For The Past Few Years. And once you add in the complete lack of communication between David and Billie, I was firmly on Team Why Did You Do This To Me, Moffat? Thank God for that unexpected appearance by Tom Baker, or the whole thing would have been a complete nope-fest.

In short, these things made me make this face:

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So. What are your worsts from this year?

K xx

Yeah, not so much...

Ranganathan's Third Law of Library Science is as follows: "To every book its reader". Periodically, I come across a book for which I am most definitely NOT its reader. Last week, I came across one such book. The premise sounded fascinating - a gender-bent modern adaptation of Jane Eyre - and it had good reviews. Plus, the Kindle edition was only like $2. So I bought it. It started out pretty well, but the further I got into the book, the more problems I had with it. Problems of the this-is-hilarious-but-isn't-meant-to-be variety.

The book? "Eyre House" by Cait Greer.

Let's start out with what I liked, so as to make sure that you understand that I didn't set out to hate this book. On the contrary, there were parts of it that I liked a lot:

• The setting. Transporting Jane Eyre to a creepy old plantation house on an island in South Carolina? Genius. It's the perfect setting for a story that's got its fair share of creepiness.
• The trip around the colleges. You guys know that I loves me a roadtrip, and having Evan get to know his family along the way was pretty cute.
• The gender-bend. It had some issues at times, but I think leaving it as is would have been worse in a modern setting - Rochester would just come across as a total creep.
• That ultimately, the story wasn't paranormal. Let's be honest here - having a mad relative locked in the attic REALLY wouldn't fly in the modern world, let alone having the Jane/Rochester hearing each other's voices from miles away part.
• The writing style. I think the author nailed the 18 year old male voice pretty well. 

Now to the moderately problematic:

• Ginny. She's meant to be assertive and charming and sexy, despite all her deep-seated issues. Instead, she comes across as irritating and a little bit rapey. Evan repeatedly asks her to stop touching him, but she continues to run her hands up under his shirt and across his stomach at every opportunity. If the roles were reversed? TOTALLY NOT OKAY. Having her say things like "All I need from you is that pretty face and the body attached to it" didn't help. I get that she's using him, but seriously? Ouch.
• Blanche Ingram. She's pretty much another Ginny, only we know that she's gross because Evan tells us she's a bleached blonde and she looks "anorexic". And yet, she still manages - according to Evan - to wear a dress that's two sizes too small...
• Evan's reaction to finding out that he's heir to two substantial fortunes. Where Jane Eyre is thrilled because it means she can share her fortune out to her new-found family and be an independent woman who doesn't have to marry to ensure her financial security, Evan's reaction is basically "I'm rich now, therefore Ginny will want me for more than just my body". 
• Ginny had a dead twin brother named Jaime. With that spelling, I kept thinking the characters were talking about a girl, which meant that all I could think of was this:

• The number of people who badmouthed Evan for being an orphan. Including the villain of the piece, who utters the priceless phrase "Hush your fuckin' mouth, orphan boy." I can understand the rich snobby types being all "Ew, he's from the foster system" or informing him that he's from the wrong side of the tracks. But orphan shaming? (Who knew that was even a thing?!) It's a little weird. 

The downright strange:

• Ginny is described as having "honey-gold eyes". Either she's possessed by the demon Azazel, or she should go see a doctor, because that's not normal. 

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• Evan's (female) cousin repeatedly tells him how hot he is, and that he should be showing off his body.
• Evan's (middle aged) uncle refers to Ginny as "an auburn haired wildcat". 
• Ginny and Evan kiss in the sand. IN the sand. 

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• Part time SWAT teams.
• Overuse of the word "sugar" as a pet name/term of endearment.
• As far as I can remember, everyone is white. 
• Evan periodically sees a giant dog wandering around. While some of them can be attributed to Ginny's cousin's dog, others are just random and left unexplained by the end.

YOU HAVE THE GRIM!!! Also, source.

The sex scenes:

• Ginny somehow manages to get her jeans off while straddling Evan on a motorbike. Homegirl's got skills, yo. Or tear-off jeans.
• "My lips caressed the back of her jaw". Um. Unless her jaw unhinges like a snake, I'm not sure how you're doing that. 
• They have sexy times on Evan's motorbike and he revs the engine throughout. It's meant to be hot, but it was mostly just hilarious. 
• Ginny "shoves" Evan's jeans off without undoing them. This is both impressive, and bizarrely violent.
• Every sex scene consists of about two minutes of kissing, and then "I...drove into her with a single thrust".

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• "her tongue slid along mine, pushing in time with our heartbeats". As a (former) clarinetist, I found this especially hilarious. And not even remotely swoony.
• "My hand slid up the skin of her back, pulling her as close as I could." It may just be me, but that wording makes it sound like his hand is UNDER her skin. Which, ew. 
• Any time they have sex, Ginny screams. It's meant to be hot, but mostly it makes her seem like she's in pain...

Also, the situation wasn't helped when I read a review which said that Evan "has a vintage motorcycle between his legs". Because that may not be how the reviewer meant it, but I started giggling hysterically and couldn't stop...

This is by no means the worst book I've read this year. It's not even remotely close. Hell, it warrants an extra star just for how much it made me laugh, even if it wasn't supposed to. I guess my point is simply that Ranganathan was right way back in 1913, and that I wasn't the ideal reader for this book. Well, that and it's important to have a good editor, even if you're self-publishing... 

K xx

Given the new policies on Goodreads, I've been far more vocal here than I was in my review over there. That doesn't mean I'm bullying the author. Far from it - she's published books and is therefore light years ahead of me, so I give her a million rounds of applause.

Best of 2012: The worst of everything edition

Okay, kids. I've covered my favourite books, movies and music from this year. Now it's time to talk about the stuff  I watched, read, or listened to this year that really really sucked.

Captain Thunder and the Holy Grail
This movie was like a 90 minute Eurovision song - equal parts "WTF is this??" and "OMG, this is hilarious, but I don't think it's meant to be." Seriously, you guys. It was terrible.

The Mayan Priest by Sue Guillou
This is the first book I ever gave up on reading, and with good reason. I'm not going to expand on those reasons, because you should really go and check out the post I wrote back in February for the full horror. I still can't believe this came out of a publishing house.

Sex and the City 2
My God, this was a piece of shit. Not to mention being incredibly culturally insensitive! I'm glad it only cost me like $1 to borrow it on DVD. I would have been super cranky if I'd paid real money to see it in the cinema.

Death Comes to Pemberley by P.D. James
I wanted to like this, I really did. I mean, Lizzy and Darcy investigate a murder? YES PLEASE. But James went ahead and destroyed pretty much all the characters - they were flat and lacked all the personality that Austen poured into them. Plus, James completely obliterated the timeline by including Anne Elliot and Frederick Wentworth from Persuasion as background characters but setting the book three years before Anne and Wentworth even MEET. Fail.

The X-Files: I Want to Believe
Holy crap, this movie was awful. It was like they couldn't be bothered coming up with a decent plot because they knew that X-Philes would see it regardless of how much it sucked. It sucked so much that I couldn't even bring myself to fangirl over the fact that there are ACTUAL #secretsexytimes

Angelfire by Courtney Allison Moulton
Oy. Imagine if the shallow, self-centred popular girl was the one girl in the all the world destined to save humanity. Yeah. In the words of Rupert Giles, "the earth is doomed". As I said in my review on Goodreads, read whitewhine.com instead, but imagine there are demons and angels and stuff.

Whistle by Flo Rida
Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuugh. THIS SONG IS THE WORST. And it's now an ab track for Body Pump, which means I have to hear it ALL. THE. TIME.

Night Life by Caitlin Kittredge
I knew this one wasn't going to end well when I hated the main character by the second page of the book. She's a police detective who's also a werewolf, and she falls for the murder suspect. Who, despite his wife/partner/whatever having just been murdered, is totally okay with falling into bed with bitchy werewolf main character girl. There are sequels. I will not be reading them.

St. Trinian's 2: The Legend of Fritton's Gold
This one actually physically hurt me to watch. Because David Tennant plays a misogynistic, grey-haired bad guy. Also, Rupert Everett (in drag) hooks up with Colin Firth. I think I'd rather sit through the Twilight movies than watch this piece of crap again. And that's saying something.

The Genesis Secret by Tom Knox
THIS BOOK. Ugh. It just never ended. The writing was really choppy, and it was billed as an archaeological mystery but rapidly turned into a book about gruesome murders replicating ancient human sacrifices (in great detail). I seriously considered adding it to my DNF pile about ten times.

My Best Friend's Girl
This movie was so bad that I've actually blocked pretty much the entire thing out of my brain. I CAN tell you that it stars Jason Biggs as a desperate, friend-zoned douchebag who basically gets written out of the story half way through. I don't think I even laughed once.

The Glamorous (Double) Life of Isabel Bookbinder by Holly McQueen
This was trying to be another Bridget Jones. It failed miserably. The main character was a serious pain in the arse with negative a millionty positive qualities. And the inevitable love interest was only in about four scenes. I kept forgetting he existed!

To summarise my feelings about all of these pieces of crap:

Right there with you, Tom. Right there with you.

What are your 2012 worsts??

K xx

Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah

So I was planning on writing today about all the awesome things that I have planned for my trip to the US in January. But then I came downstairs this morning, and somewhere between turning it off at 12.30am and turning it on at 8.30am, my computer shat itself. And yes, this IS the computer that I only got about three months ago because my OLD computer died a miserable death.

So after I turned into the Incredible Hulk (Hulkess? Hulkina??), and smashed ALL the things in frustration, I rang the place where I bought it. The guy on the other end was like "Yeah, it sounds like your hard drive is dead." AWESOME. On the plus side, the fact that it happened now means that the computer is still well and truly within its warranty period. On the downside, I have two assignments on the hard drive that I will now have to write from scratch. Because, you know, what you really want to do after putting in hours and hours of work is TO DO IT ALL AGAIN.

Anyway, my laptop is currently off with the good people at JB Hifi, who are attempting to recover the data and restore the factory settings to see if that fixes it before they jump through all the required hoops to send it off to Acer. Please keep your fingers crossed that the whole factory setting thing does the trick, because if not, it'll be a MINIMUM for 4-6 weeks before I get my laptop back, and that would suck.

What did I do to cheer myself up after dropping my computer at JB Hifi, you ask? Well, I hung out with the puppies at the pet shop for a while and wished I could take them all home, and then I went and bought this:

Because who DOESN'T need the Tenth Doctor's Sonic Screwdriver??

Off to reconstruct my academic future and sob quietly at regular intervals,
K xx

PS. The moral of today's story? Don't buy an Acer...
PPS. The second moral of today's story? BACK YO SHIT UP. Don't be me and back up your hard drive three times a year. Because being me ends in tears...

Just stop already

Avast mateys! Did ye know it be International Talk Like a Pirate Day? We're devils, we're black sheep, we're really bad eggs, drink up me hearteys, yo ho!! Be ye talkin' like a pirate??

Okay, I'm done now. I can't keep up the pirate voice like I used to. MOVING ON...

You guys, I want you to meet the most infuriating member of my household. This?

Is Needy Plant, quite possibly the saddest looking house plant on the planet. And Needy Plant is also the bane of my existence.

Yeah, yeah, I know. First world problems and all that. But you guys? Needy Plant is SO FREAKING NEEDY. I watered him LESS THAN 48 HOURS before I took that photo. He's a bleeding Spathiphyllum!! They usually only need watering once a week at most. But Needy Plant? Nope. Every day and a half, his leaves start to droop and within 48 hours of watering, Needy Plant looks like he's on his last legs.

Yes, I anthropomorphised a houseplant. Deal with it.

In contrast, here's Needy Plant's next door neighbour.

Also a Spathiphyllum. Watered at the exact same time. Needy Plant has had TWO subsequent waterings, and this guy is still sitting there all "Water? Nope, I'm fine. Don't mind me, I'll just sit here converting carbon dioxide into oxygen. It's all good!!"

Incidentally, the only way to get Needy Plant to NOT require attention every 48 hours is to put him in the shower, and effectively make it rain for 20 minutes. At which point Needy Plant will go for about 72 HOURS before starting to get needy again. BUT the shower drain becomes clogged with dirt and plant matter, so it's not really a win overall.

And Needy Plant lives on the stairs, which means that I walk past Needy Plant about ten times a day, but never when I have a water carrying device with me. So I live in a constant state of "Uuuuugh, I should go downstairs and get the watering can to deal with Needy Plant. BUT I JUST GOT UP HERE. I'll use this empty drink bottle/bowl/Tupperware container instead." Turns out? It's kind of hard to carry a bowl of water half way down a flight of (carpeted) stairs and then tip it into a plant without spilling any.

The morals of this story?
1. Needy Plant is needy, yo.
2. I'm REALLY lazy.
3. I probably shouldn't write entire blog posts about anthropomorphised house plants...

Does your house have a Needy Plant? If so, I feel like there should be a support group or something. Alternatively, are you a plant whisperer and can you offer advice on how to deal with the whole Needy Plant situation??

K xx

Farewell and/or good riddance

Don't worry, kids. I'm not doing anything dramatic like quitting the blogosphere!! The farewell is instead to my trusty friend and constant companion of the past ten years: my passport which expired today. We've had some good times together, my passport and me: England, the US, the US again, Peru, Ecuador, Guatemala, Belize, the US a third time, Thailand, and the US again last year! There's also a stamp in there for the Galapagos, and another one for the Inca Trail.

The good riddance part? Because my passport photo looked like this:

Apologies for the terrible quality. My SLR refused to focus on the picture (probably because the lens would have shattered as a result) so I had to take the pictures on my phone.

Anyway, 19 year old Kirsti? Probably should have thought things through a little more before having that photo taken.

29 year old Kirsti? Yeah, she thought through things good and hard before going to get the photos taken for her replacement passport:

Hopefully this means that I won't spend the next ten years with people doing a double take when they look at the photo!!

Also? You're no longer allowed to smile in passport photos, which is why I look bored as all hell in the new photo. Also also? If you guys are REALLY lucky, I might show you 15 year old Kirsti's passport photo some day. Hoooooooooo boy, is it terrible!

Anyone else have a truly awful passport photo???

K xx

Well, shit.

So last night was...interesting. I left for ballet class as usual at 5.30pm. My parents were already out. They ended up changing their plans because it was freezing cold in Melbourne yesterday, and came to pick me up from ballet at 8.00pm. Because we were all starving, we went out for dinner at the local Thai restaurant.

This may all seem completely inane and boring, but it's sort of totally relevant, I promise. Anyway, so we got home from the Thai restaurant at about 9.30pm. I unlocked the door from the garage into the house and was met by a gust of cold wind. My immediate thought was "Um, WTF??", which was immediately followed by "Wait, why is the back door open??" When I turned the lights on in the back porch, it became immediately apparent that the back door had been jimmied open, that the lock on the kitchen window had then been broken, and that our house had been burgled. Oh, and they then found the spare keys and went out the front door, leaving the keys in the lock. HOW THOUGHTFUL.

(Incidentally? I just checked Wikipedia for the difference between 'burglary' and 'robbery'. Apparently 'robbery' involves actually taking something from the victim by force, whereas burglary is breaking into a house when the people aren't home. You're welcome for that little dose of education!!)

I have a theory that we were burgled by hipsters. Because they really didn't take very much. They must have been horribly disappointed that they went to as much effort as they did, because to be perfectly honest, we have pretty shitty electronics. Both our TVs are old school CRT models. They didn't take any of the jewellery or Dad's car. And apparently four year old Toshiba laptops aren't worth stealing (THANK GOD. As much as I complain about my laptop being crappy, I'm so relieved it's not gone).

Things that *are* worth stealing?
- My mum's brand new school issue Macbook Air.
- An iPod Touch.
- My SLR.
- My zoom lens.

They left the kit lens sitting on the bench in the kitchen. I'm not sure whether the mould of my teeth scared them off, or if (being hipsters, as per my theory) they went "AHAHAHA, $100 crappy kit lens? No thank you!".

Oh, and they also took $27 in cash. And possibly my old Olympus point-and-shoot camera because I can't find it anywhere. Although I don't know why they'd have taken that. It's six years old, and scratched as hell because I dropped it a bunch of times.

The police came round last night and took a bunch of photos and did some fingerprinting, but not surprisingly, the burglars wore gloves.

So all we can do now is get the back door repaired, and hope the insurance company process things quickly.

Oh, and to the burglar who went through my backpack looking for stuff? I hope you enjoyed all the snotty, cold-germ-ridden tissues that I forgot to empty out after my class on Thursday night!!

K xx
PS. I woke up this morning with a pounding headache courtesy of my dental splint. $700 well spent...

Abandon ship!

Yesterday, I did something that I've never done before in my entire life. In a way, I'm quite proud that I've made it to the age of 28 and 10 months without doing it before. In another, I wonder how much of my life I've wasted by NOT doing it until now.

And no, it's not something dirty. 

Yesterday, I GAVE UP ON A BOOK WITHOUT FINISHING IT. *gasp*

It was officially the worst book I have ever read in my entire life. And based on how much I read (Goodreads tells me I've read 28 books already this year), that's saying something. 

The book? THIS:

Source

I picked it up at the library recently. The cover was fun, the blurb sounded intriguing. I mean, you'd think with hidden treasure and ancient mysteries and evil dudes, you couldn't go wrong, right? Yeah, not so much. 

I came across the first mistake on page 5. Initially I figured it might be just a typo, and ploughed on. By page 14, I knew I had to start taking notes. By page 35, I had a full A4 sheet of notes. I tried, I really did. I made it as far as page 115. But when I realised the book had 479 pages, meaning I wasn't even a quarter of the way through. I flipped through the rest and found at least one mistake on every page I passed. 

Without going through the full SIX pages of notes I made in the 115 pages I did read, here's some of the things that made me want to scream:

• Archaeologists are not world-wide experts. No one would specialise in Egyptology AND Mesoamerican archaeology, let alone being fluent in translation of Mayan hieroglyphs. 
• "It took six hours longer then if they had flown."  Then. THEN.
• Missing full stops on numerous pages.
• "There's no time like the current."
• An American character refers to someone as "a good bloke".
• "The house was deathly quiet with the only sound being the regular ding of the grandfather clock in the hall." So...it WASN'T deathly quiet then?
• The characters type "ancient jade disk" into Google, and the exact thing they're looking for pops up on eBay? Uh, sure...
• There are FIVE adults trapped in a room that's "less than ten feet square". Um. NO. That's a physical impossibility. (10 feet square is less than 1 metre square for those who aren't so great at Imperial...)
• One character inherited three paintings of Mesoamerican pyramids from his grandmother. Apparently it took him "months of determined research" to work out that two of them were Teotihuacan and Palenque. Flip through ANY book on Mesoamerican civilisations, and pictures of those two, plus the pyramids at Tikal (which I'm guessing was the third one, seeing as the tiny room with the five people apparently trapped in it is at Tikal), will appear. Also, I found pictures of all three of them in five minutes on Google Images.
• "...speeding off in excess of 94 miles per hour." Is it just me or is that strangely specific?
• An eight year old becomes a Mayan king's trusted physician, even giving advice on INFERTILITY PROBLEMS. I thought perhaps I'd missed something and there was a "several years later" element to it. But no. A child. As a physician. Giving advice on infertility... *head explodes*
• Repeated examples of American characters using British and Australian words. One takes "paracetamol tablets". Another uses the word "lift" instead of "elevator" numerous times.
• All the characters talk like robots. Example: "There is no possible way they could know about the obsidian. Even if they did, what is the chance that they are aware of the condition of the rope? We will die in this hellish place." (How I would write that: "There's no way they could know about the obsidian, and even if they did, they couldn't know about the rope's condition! We're going to die down here.")
• One character knows that another is carrying the ancient disc because he needs to stop frequently to catch his breath walking from a plane to the terminal building. Later, the disc is referred to as the size of a small dinner plate, and "quite light in weight". #CONFUSED
• "For shit sake." <-- I don't even know what that's supposed to mean.

And finally, we have my two favourites, which is what really tipped me over the edge into not reading any further:

• "She wriggled her hips, juggled her breasts and waltzed back into the mess hall..." Wait. She JUGGLED her breasts? JUGGLED????????? Now THAT is an impressive life skill, kids.
• "It's true, then. I am [Mayan priest from 300AD]'s ancestor." ANCESTOR. Unless there's a TARDIS involved, that's - as Ralph Wiggum would say - unpossible. 

The worst part? It was produced by a PUBLISHING HOUSE. With the apparent lack of editing and proof reading, I was sure it would be the most awful kind of self-publishing. But no. It makes me sad that there are so many awesome authors out there (like Lissa!) trying their hardest to get publishers interested in their work when there are books like this available on the market. 

*sigh*

What books have you guys given up on? Also, has anyone else read this piece of tripe? 

K xx

30 Days of Books - Day 8

It's been absolutely freaking arctic in Canberra for the past couple of days. Yesterday, it was NINE DEGREES at 5pm. But there was a wind chill, so the apparent temperature was 4 degrees. Jeebus... Anyway, on with the books!!

Day 8 - Most overrated book

As with the last one (which I decided meant "a book everyone should read"), I'm choosing to interpret this as "a book no one should read". I've read an awful lot of crap books over the years, most of which came from the library, thankfully. But most of those were too obscure to be considered overrated. So I decided to go with the most obviously overrated book I could think of (as far as I'm concerned, anyway):

Source

Twishite and its sequels of doom. (Sorry, Gina. I know you love it!)The writing is awful, the characters are annoying, and comparing someone to marble is generally not considered a compliment... I know some people adore it (my sister-in-law is about to turn 40 and is all "OMG, EDWARD CULLEN IS THE PERFECT MAN!!" *shudder*), but I just don't see the appeal. I mean, Edward Cullen is a creepy, mopey stalker.

And let's be honest - Buffy and Angel did angsty teen vampire-human love WAY before and WAY better than Edward and Bella... (Oh, and for the record? I read all four of the books, and thought they were all universally appalling. I also read them well before the movies came out, so my opinion of the characters isn't because of the terrible acting courtesy of RPatz, KStew and Taylor Lautner. I thought they were crap WELL before that!)

K xx

Day 01 - The best book you read last year
Day 02 - A book you've read more than 3 times
Day 03 - Your favourite series
Day 04 - Your favourite book of your favourite series
Day 05 - A book that makes you happy
Day 06 - A book that makes you sad
Day 07 - Most underrated book
Day 08 - Most overrated book
Day 09 - A book you thought you wouldn't like but ended up loving
Day 10 - Favourite classic book
Day 11 - A book you hated
Day 12 - A book you used to love but don't any more
Day 13 - Your favourite writer
Day 14 - Favourite book of your favourite writer
Day 15 - Favourite male character
Day 16 - Favourite female character
Day 17 - Favourite quote from your favourite book
Day 18 - A book that disappointed you
Day 19 - Favourite book turned into a movie
Day 20 - Favourite romance book
Day 21 - Favourite book from your childhood
Day 22 - Favourite book you own
Day 23 - A book you wanted to read for a long time but still haven't
Day 24 - A book you wish more people would've read
Day 25 - A character you can relate to the most
Day 26 - A book that changed your opinion about something
Day 27 - The most surprising plot twist or ending
Day 28 - Favourite title
Day 29 - A book everyone hated but you liked
Day 30 - Your favourite book of all time

Ugh. Also, 'Axe Cop' is awesome.

So I know it's only Tuesday, so it's a little early to say this. But this week? It kinda sucks. Yesterday, my sunburn started peeling, and now I look like a leper. I also got the new gym timetable for 2011. And they've gotten rid of Body Combat and replaced it with Zumba. Okay, so I like Zumba - it doesn't feel like exercise. But it's not the same as Combat. No Combat means not getting rid of my frustrations by pretending to punch all the people that happen to be pissing me off at present. To be fair, some of these are historical figures like John Batman or George Arthur. But still, Combat is a good stress release. And somehow I don't think Zumba is quite going to cut it in terms of stress release...

And then today I made the mistake of wearing what I'm now going to call my Misery Dress. It's just a black shirt dress with white trim. And I've only worn it a handful of times. But every time I have, either bad things happen, or I end up crying. Today was no exception (although it was a bad thing rather than the crying this time!), with some annoying stuff going on at work. If the dress hadn't cost me $120, I'd totally put it in the cupboard and never wear it again...

Just when I thought today couldn't possibly be redeemed, my brother sent me the link to Axe Cop. It's a comic written by a six year old and drawn by his 30 year old brother. And it's hi-freaking-larious. Not to mention appropriate, because a year ago today, the Axe Cop website went live.

Anyway, I'm incredibly thankful that it's Australia Day tomorrow - a day off is pretty much exactly what I need right now. Here's hoping that the rest of the week is an improvement on yesterday and today...

K xx

PS. I know I've been kind of a misery guts recently. I'll try and be more cheerful from now on...

Going back to my roots

So this week? It sucked. A lot. Work seemed to drag on for about a month (which everyone I've spoken to seems to agree on), and I could relate to one of my favourite Scouting for Girls songs more than usual:

The weather was miserable, I got drenched several times due to horizontal rain, and my hair bore a more than striking resemblance to Hermione Granger's. Again... But mostly it sucked because I had to say goodbye to my BFF Sara - her visa's up at the end of the month, and she's spending a couple of weeks traipsing around the country in a camper van before heading home to England. There were tears on both sides, and then I had to go and sit through a whole day of work feeling generally miserable and distracted.

And then yesterday, I took bridesmaid's dress number 1 into the city to be altered, only to have them to tell me that they wouldn't alter it unless I was wearing the bra I plan to wear on the day. Which I wasn't. So I had to cart bridesmaid's dress number 1 home again. And managed to cut my shoulder TWICE on the coat hanger. Seriously. I have no idea how. There was blood and everything. See?

Aaaaaaaanyway, when Sara was in Sydney a week or so ago, she went to the terracotta warriors exhibition, and bought me this:

So yesterday when I got home from the bridesmaid's dress saga, I decided it was time to go back to my archaeological roots for some excavation.

Here's what you get in the kit:

All the essentials for archaeological work! Or not... Archaeology would have been MUCH more fun if you'd been guaranteed of finding an intact object in a lump of dirt that small...

Being a freak who didn't want to get covered in plaster conscientious museum professional, I broke out the latex gloves and some baking paper to simplify clean up and got to work:

Archaeology is much more fun when you don't have to use a trowel and worry about giant spiders crawling out of the dirt to attack you! I hacked away the plaster at one end until the top of the warrior's hair was revealed, then set to work with the brush:

I got as far as his entire head, and then realised that it would be too hard to keep going that way, because I'd have to keep turning it over to hack bits off the other side.

So I went with destroying the plaster on the front, which led to a Han Solo trapped in carbonite effect:

Gotta love anything that lets you make Star Wars references! Shame his hands aren't right for it to be Han Solo... Hacking the plaster off the back was a lot less time consuming than the front.

Once the plaster on the back was removed, you have to brush the whole thing down thoroughly (which really needs to be done in a well ventilated place, unless you like the taste of plaster dust...)

And then dab it with a damp cloth. That part was kind of a pain, but the rest was good fun. If archaeology had been anything like that, I might have considered staying an archaeologist!

He's going to have pride of place on top of my TV with the Jack Skellington my brother got me in Asia a couple of years ago, and the Ron Weasley figurine Sara got me for Christmas!

K xx

P.S.

Dear Cyclist who tried to kill me crossing Northbourne Ave this morning,
We drive on the LEFT in Australia. And cyclists have to obey the road rules, even when using a pedestrian crossing. Hurtling towards pedestrians at great speed on the wrong side of the crossing is rude. And doing a jump out of the median strip is completely uncalled for. You suck. I hope you get a flat tyre.
Love, K.

Dear Hairy Step Instructor,
Setting up the tracks so that there's an overlap and you can't stop in between tracks is mean. Do you hear me? MEAN!!!!!! Sure, YOU can do a Step class for an hour without stopping. You teach Step a million times a week. But the rest of us don't. And the rest of us need oxygen and water occasionally. So looking at people in a disapproving fashion when they stop for a second is not appreciated. 'Kay?
Love, K.

Letters to bad things...

Dear Tinned chickpeas,
Why do you smell like tinned dog food? It's not normal, I'm sure of it. All I wanted to do was make hummus. Thanks ever so much for stinking out my entire apartment...
Love, K.

Dear Noise-cancelling headphones,
Why do you always fall out of my ears? It completely contradicts your job description, doesn't it? And while we're talking, how do you always manage to tie yourself in intricate knots when I put you away so neatly???? Stopping this behaviour would be much appreciated.
Love, K.

Dear Cyclists,
I understand that the footpath outside my apartment is a shared footpath. But there's a very clear sign that says you're meant to use your bell when overtaking pedestrians. Do you think you could try paying attention to it once in a while??? My adrenal gland can't take much more of this. Especially when there's a flock of cockatoos around. Because then you add terrified birds to the equation. And we all know how much I love birds..........
Love, K.

Dear Tony Abbott's budgie smugglers,
Please please please please PLEASE fuck off? There isn't enough brain bleach on the planet to get rid of the sight of you...
Love, K.

Dear People walking past my apartment,
I know I live on the ground floor, but do you HAVE to stare in my windows as you walk past? I know there's not a whole lot to look at on this street, but is me folding my laundry/watching TV/putting my groceries away REALLY so fascinating? It kind of creeps me out...
Love, K.

Dear Hedge,
Please grow faster so that I can't see the people staring in my windows any more...
Love, K.