pretty plether things

so get this. Natalie Portman designs shoes now. and not only are they
a) unimpressive
b) way too expensive for what they are (vegan is now apparently code for plether, or just a word you plop in front of inexpensive products to jack up the prices, the "vingage" of 2008 if you will)
c) only available for pre-orders right now.

they are sold out, down to every style, and in every size.



Don't get me wrong i've been in love with this girl ever since that photo in either a Dolly or a Girlfriend magazine eons ago in that white faux fur jacket doing a promo for Star Wars Episode One, a love affair that's been constant throughout all her choices, even garden state, and growing steadily since closer. must she follow down the celebrity endorsement rabbit hole? oh i'm sorry it's a celebtrity "design range" but writing down a list of pumps, mary janes, ballet flats and some very basic heels doesn't exactly constitute "design". but bless her heart, she wants some vegan alternatives to designer shoes, someone should tell her you could just probably grab some cheap asian import for plether.

***

I just finished reading The Heartbreaking Work of a Staggering Genius. the Dave Eggers debut memoir/novel that put him on the map. The guy is a genius, and the fact that I started reading it traveling from San Fran to Chicago while he moves from Chicago to San Fran and you know, mentioning places I kinda sorta recognise, made it the on the road novel du jour for me the way that kerouac didn't cinch. I still don't think he put the post in postmodernism. i'm going to maintain that even if you are self reflective (staggeringly so) and utilise all these little tricks you'd find in other established postmodern novels, if all of this is used just to progress a traditional narrative then in essence it can't be considered postmodern. so basically a style/content issue. but who gives, it's an amazing book, you'd be doing yourself a favour to read it.

and now i need help deciding what to read next. my one pile on my bedside table has (since america and, more specifically since City Lights) spilled over into three small mounds running parallel to my bed. but i still have a 40% off borders voucher burning a hole in my wallet so if anyone comes up with a suggestion i don't own, i'd be open to that too. at the moment it's looking like it's going to be Atomised. mostly because i'm looking for something short (i like to have a long, short, long, short pattern to my reading habits), something not as all out young america and someone not quite as easily likable as Eggers. send me your suggestions.

I'm totally just putting off sleep, i have nothing to say here. somewhere in the inner workings of my mind i must have decided that if i put off sleep, then i would not be able to wake up tomorrow and i would not be able to go help out mum at the post office in the morning BUT if and only if i'm doing something pseudo-productive like blog writing which contains the word writing in it which makes it kinda sorta worth while. oh no, it seems i'm back to my long sentences of year 10 days when i used to break microsoft word by having too many clauses. the dark days when i was still under the pc cloud. the days of blue screens and virus scans and I.E.

speaking of which, 32 gig ipod touch! that's almost worth considering! If they bump the disk space of that fit-in-a-manila-envelope, lickable-on-breakfast-tv macbook air of theirs, i might have to trade in my lowly macbook for some of that tasty goodness.

***

since this is so stream of consciousness already, here are some random links for you (pillaged unceremoniously from Waxy.org)

the arcade fire seems to be breaking some sort of record for making some very interesting music webpages (as opposed to music videos) for their kinda dull music. black mirror is the latest to get the creepy geeky weblicious treatment. question though, music videos have traditionally been made to promote album sales, much in the same vein as singles, posters, magazine interviews. how does something people have to actively look for achieve this? and if someone is geeky enough to find these little ditties (like i did), don't you reckon they'd download your music illegally (like i did)?

The Human Tetris - not that japanese one, although which is crazier i'm not entirely sure. the sheer amount of effort these guys put into making this. oh and not only tetris, they've previously done Pong, Space Invaders and Pole Position.


My blog stat reports has been a little disturbingly high lately, so for the first time in yonks i went to my site meter page and took a look at who's been coming for a visit. a majority of whom are just looking for asian porn in google images and came by way of that picture i posted of Maria Osawa a while back. with the image search terms as quite literally "asian porn" or just simply "asian"...how does google know?!?

but then there are some funny ones too, so i've decided to bring back the Friday Fives!!!

5 seach items that led people to this blog

mels boobs - with no apostrophe, because once i mentioned that the picture of mel's boobs on my flickr is one of the all time most popular. i only wonder if the net stumbler meant mel kelly too.

jesse james fucking simulation - i'm not even sure what this means, or what this person is looking for. jesse jane the porn star perhaps? maybe when jesse jane was on howard stern and rode the symbian maybe?

rosario dawson lip balm in death proof - this girl clearly knew the way to my heart, girls who kick arse combined with my love for lip products

dirty cunt - on page 27 of google, when you look up dirty cunt, is my blog. i wonder how many other links this person tried before they got to mine.

piss on my girl - this was from aol search and so i couldn't figure out the moojoo of which image exactly did they find for those search terms and whereabouts my blog came up for the inquiry. the fact that all these are vaguely girl/porn related has nothing to do with me, clearly we're all in the wrong industry and should just quit our day jobs and add to this massive empire of smut.

runners up: bemmy book (??!) photo drum girl (huh?)

i think that's enough ramblings for one night. goodnight all.

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The Unaccountable McSweeney

I'm not sure just quite how it happened. All I know is that, I was sitting here in my room, reading Zadie Smith's On Beauty and taking breaks by reading Nick Hornby's Polysyllabic Spree (not the crazy band that cameo'd in Scrubs, but the book, which only makes me want to go on and read more things like On Beauty, so it was the perfect plan really). I was musing for a moment just how incestuous the modern english literary circle really is, almost like Victorian England only instead of walking around London and bumping into all the literary celebs of the day you are all connected by publishing houses, sending you scripts of friends who are really only friends because you belong to the same publishing houses. Dave Eggers' wife edits The Believer (which Hornby writes a column for, would you believe it?)

So all of a sudden, I find myself doing a triple subscription of McSweeney's, The Believer AND Wholphin, because what kind of a cinema studies student would I be to neglect the DVD short film version of the McSweeney empire. and all of a sudden i'm out USD$160.

So as you can see, I'm am all together committed to this trip to Hong Kong. I've met 70% of the people I'm supposed to meet, and have had enough. Because honestly, even if on the slightest chance that there was anything for me here at all (if i was thin enough, and spoke cantonese enough), I wouldn't want to be a cog in the asian entertainment wheel. It's one thing to admire the work ethics of all these utterly talentless pretty young things, but quite another to want to be one. So sure Mr. Shamelessdirectorguy, I'll go home and drop a few kilos, learn some canto, and send you my portfolio. Do you take homemade DVDs?

I'm half tempted to skip my afternoon appointments and stay in and read. but the promise of some seriously good grub would end up dragging me out the door, into the sweat tank, to put on the happy ambitious face they love so much and tell them "yes I'd LOVE to be just like Twins or Isabella!" has anyone heard these girls trying to sing live? or indeed do anything at all other than stand there looking like a young pretty thing.

But I guess that's the industry everywhere, and still, the industry I want to get into. It's just that there isn't anything else BUT that here. Quality work really isn't appreciated here at all, quite aside from the fact that I couldn't possibly live here, I mean there are no art house cinemas and the bookstores look like my primary school library. They do sell City Moleskines here though, so one up for them. Oh and while on the subject of 'skines, a minor celebrity of the 'skine world Patrick Ng does live here.

I'm just bitter. I know that. If only I had some friends here, I'm sure I'll be singing a different tune. I did have the best japanese food of my life last night, and was so full from it i felt positive i could give birth to live crayfish as some kind of fucked up divine retribution.

I have no photos. I feel too shit to take photos. Plus, everywhere I look the technology everywhere puts my little out of date 4 megapixel to shame. I'm pretty sure all their mobiles have about that much. Shit, I'd better find out how to get to the Academy of Performing Arts from here on the MTR.

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alethiometer

OMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMG!!!

i have never been more excited about a movie.

what is possible THE BEST children's books ever,
His Dark Materials are books i hold the dearest to my heart. books that i read and reread all throughout highschool and more or less set my mind for the rest of my life on topics of organised religion, life, maturity, sexuality, sin, pleasure, love, everything. there has never been a book i've enjoyed more, in both intellectual content and pure adventure.

i'm not even going to type properly i'm so excited. i mean sure, the casting is a little iffy. i'd always imagined someone with a really long neck for lord asriel, not mr no neck bond. and sure, we could do without a young child star named Dakota Blue. but zomfg! this is going to be the best movie ever!!!

from heart ripping page turning goodness of the first book to the epic battle between the church and the authority Vs. everyone for a Republic of Heaven, these books will blow your mind.

Philip Pullman is really THE master storyteller. while being a gripping yarn for the kids, he never talks down to the audience, and the most complex ideas i have ever had to grapple with were presented plainly in the midst of the greatest adventure story. the characters, i would happily give my life for the Iorek, or lee scorsbey, or indeed, lyra.

just...just....read it!!

ps/ the clip is just a teaser, the animation is in no way finished yet so don't worry about the crappy rendering

pps/ and yes, these are the books that made me foolishly run around oxford a whole day looking for jordan college. i realise now that it's fictional, and based on exeter college, which, i actually went to in my search. so i'm happy.

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mood elevators

i am curiously happy today. for no reason at all. the whole day i was just in a ridiculously good mood. once for teeny second did i get annoyed by this horrible woman at work, but then a cute maori boy was standing behind her and i was all better again. i seriously can't figure it out. the weather was brilliant, but i like gloomy days when i can wear scarves. and i had to get up at an ungodly hour again for work. by all accounts i should be really crabby, and it's been officially 16 hours since i've been up and i'm still smiling. i really want to work out why, because what ever it is it's fking brilliant. being happy is really kinda nice

so therefore i'll do a proper post, like the ones gone by, where i crapped on and on so much that i had to make a

jump

so as to not daunt anyone coming to this page. (whole slabs of text scares me also)

***

i had to make my entire photobucket account public to serve karen's photos. gah. i forgot last time i set up a new account for wenyi. and now i'm too lazy to switch it over so, i guess i'll set up a new account for future blogging purposes. nothing too embarrassing in there, a lot of history, since every picture was uploaded for blogging i can associate everything in there to particular happenings these last few years. sensory exercises, like in method...

it's funny, i think method and i think marlon brando. and whenever i think of marlon brando, even if his name is barely mentioned in that questionable song by robbie williams, i think of G for some unknown reason. aaaaaah i hear you say, haven't heard that name mentioned in a while huh? yeah. i know.

***

lately i've found myself in-between obsessions. i can now officially control my urges to go out and buy more moleskines (no, the fact that i own every format i could possibly want doesn't make a difference at all). and the whole "have to step on cracks on the same position of each foot to even things out otherwise avoid cracks altogether" thing is not making me look like a total ass anymore. could it be? society has finally conformed me? the triumph of the superego and the death of the id?

trouble is, i no longer care strongly about...anying. maybe that's what i'm feeling today, lightness.

the unbearable lightness of being. my hacking through that book has been suddenly put on hiatus due to previously unanticipated influx of reading material that actually has baring on whether or not i'll graduate this year.

however

Anyone whose goal is 'something higher' must expect some day to suffer vertigo. What is vertigo? Fear of falling? Then why do we feel it even when the observation tower comes equipped with a sturdy handrail? No, vertigo is something other than the fear of falling. It is the voice of the emptiness below us which tempts us and lures us, it is the desire to fall, against which, terrified, we defend ourselves.

i see so much of myself in the characters that it makes me sick. so i'll hit the pause, and begin slaughterhouse 5.

***

my mind's a funny thing. it keeps going back on one point lately. T. i know that went no where, and at the time i didn't want it to. he actually wanted to know more about me, which was what made it so scary. so why now? just that gawky indie boy charm coming back to bite me i guess. and that slight nz accent which slips in every now and then.

speaking of indie boys and cute accents, i tried really hard to not like the arctic monkeys. no really. the first couple of tracks i heard here and there didn't actually impress me all that much, and watching the clips was actually a little painful. but the album. my my. anything that debuts at number 1 on the arias shouldn't be worth a toss right? nothing can deserve the hype that they got. well ok, they probably don't deserve all the hype, but the album as a collective is still an exciting thing. super cute decent vocals.

so yes, on repeat - A Certain Romance, Arctic Monkeys

that's enough slobbering for one night i think. screw proof reading, why should i be more meticulous with my blog than my essays?
sorry for the lack of eye candy

hmm.....i'm still happy, this is a very good thing.

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badaboom

a quick roundup of the past two weeks:

watched: charlie and the chocolate factory
Depp's face is god's gift to man. Burton is absolutely mad. Will buy it on DVD the moment it comes out.




read: The Big Over Easy
Jasper Fforde's fourth book, set within one of the books that his previous characters took residence. "It's Easter in Reading, a very bad time for eggs." brilliant stuff, though not up to the old standards simply because of the limiting factors of the genre (which, by the way, is nursery crime, as in -- the death of Humpty Dumpty, fall? pushed? accident? murder? suicide?) It seems like all his books to come will follow the same vein, for a while at least.


had a hair cut yesterday, didn't have time to dye it so wait till my birthday. i love janice, she can do with scissors what kevin aucoin did with brushes. our conversation strayed from study to relationships, to skin care, to movies, to mothers and to pms. therapeutic much. not much actual change to my hair, just a more manageable fringe and a more shaped back. T couldn't even tell the difference.

speaking of T, much talk has gone into our not talking. with not much result either. though he did chuck a sweet in with my sandwich today so i guess it's going well.

my nida application has be sent and received. the auspicious date? November 8. smack bang in the middle of assignment mayhem. i'll make it work, i'm gonna have to.

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transition

so now i'm officially going to stop using xanga. mainly because the templates here at blogger are so much nicer and i can use my flickr account finally and stop using photobucket (since it's filling up)

more productive post will come later

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