52 Weeks of Dresses -- Week 34

Otherwise titled: Food, food everywhere!

Sunday was a very busy day!  I had brunch with E at First Watch, visited with G&G for a bit, when to the team's end-of-season banquet.  And last but not least, it was finally time for T's (quite belated) birthday dinner!  And we waited so long for that to happen that we were also celebrating two other birthdays - quite a party!

By the end of the day, I was exhausted!

What I Watched -- Battle Royale

I heard some press that Suzanne Collins had ripped off her idea for The Hunger Games from an earlier Japanese book and film called Battle Royale.  I decided to check it out, see what this was all about.

There are definitely similarities. As in The Hunger Games, Battle Royale involves a dystopian society in which a group of kids must fight each other to the death in order for the government to maintain control (or at least the illusion of control) over the people.

There is less overt, America-is-damned political commentary in Battle Royale (probably because it's Japanese), but there are definitely the same questions regarding the lengths to which oppressive government regimes will go to make their point. 

In some ways, Battle Royale was more frustrating to watch, because the kids try to fight the system.  In The Hunger Games, everything is from Katniss's point of view, so you get only very rare glimpses of other kids in the game (at least in the first book) who also see the futility of it all.  In Battle Royale, though, there are lots of kids like that.  It's frustrating because they each have their own idea of how to survive the game; sometimes they get close to making progress, but then they collapse on themselves.  What does that say about our chances as a society?

Parting words of wisdom from the film: "No matter how far, run for all you're worth."

Bottom line: probably the original source material for THG, but more gruesome.  Interesting commentary, but certainly not for the faint of heart.

52 Weeks of Dresses -- Week 33

Otherwise titled: Hod Dogs and Wedding Cake

On Friday night, T and I attended a wedding of some people I don't know - a friend of a friend of T's.  Their wedding was at a church, and sharing a parking lot with the church were a couple of little league baseball fields.  The wedding ended and we still had 45 minutes before the reception hall opened, so T and I did what good, red-blooded Americans should do: we got some nachos and hot dogs.

Hopscotch in the parking lot

Aside from our attire, we fit right in with the baseball crowd.

Random Links

Dogs, balls, and an underwater camera.

NYC Dept. of Records released almost 900,000 historical photographs of the city on their website.

I have been on exactly zero of these.  All of the sudden, my life has no meaning.

Part 1: Flying bear.  Part 2: Flying bear dies :-(

Remove yourself from the internet.  It's pretty much impossible, but if you want to try, here's how.

Need to get a horse to London?  Call FedEx.

Newsflash: despite the fact that it seems like a mathematical impossibility, most of us are below average.

Cheetahs in a petting zoo?  Pictures of the mauling?  What?  So many things wrong with this story.

Goal #19

Goal #19: Read a poem every day.

Everyone who knows me knows I'm not much for poetry, but I'm going to try!  Even if I read something I've already read, at least it'll be something.

Recap of Goal #18:
Sunday: dog walking, 45 minutes (fairly typical for spring; we walk longer in the winter, very little in the summer).
Monday: dog walking, 35 minutes; running, 20 minutes.
Tuesday: walk to library, 10 minutes; dog walking, 15 minutes (thunderstorm today, so we missed our long morning walk); bike ride, 40 minutes.
Wednesday: dog walking, 35 minutes; running, 25 minutes.
Thursday: dog walking, 35 minutes.
Friday: dog walking, 30 minutes; erging, 22 minutes (hard!).
Saturday: running: 25 minutes (interesting run - I found a lost dog and jogged alongside her to make sure she didn't get hit; eventually she ran up on a porch and rang the doorbell to make sure she was home).

Bonus!  Remember how I kind of failed at polishing my jewelery?  Well, this week I finished up with the bracelets (which weren't bad) and the earrings (atrocious!).

Clapton: the Autobiography -- Take 2

I finished listening to this a couple days ago, and it was great! 

There was so much I didn't know about Eric Clapton, and I very much enjoyed learning it.  I did know he had long career, trouble with addiction (but what rock star doesn't?), and that his son died a tragic death.  It was really interesting to hear hear all of it in own words, if not own voice.  (The audio is read by Bill Nighy.)

There's a lot about his time in his earlier bands: The Yardbirds, Cream, Blind Faith, and Derek and the Dominos, and his relationships with his fellow band members and other musicians.  Much of the book is devoted to his obsessive love of Pattie Boyd (George Harrison's wife at the time Eric met her), their eventual marriage, and divorce.

While Clapton is probably the best guitarist alive, and among the best of all time, I didn't actually expect to be as intrigued by his story as I was.  It was a wonderful surprise.

What I'm Reading Now -- The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest

It's finally that time!  I'm finishing the trilogy!  (Book 1, Book 2.)  I'm trying something different and listening to this book rather than reading it, so we'll see which I like better.  And I'm excited to finally get caught up on the movies too; must read this book first though!

52 Weeks of Dresses -- Week 32

Otherwise titled: Symphony Day!

Due to some unfortunate events involving a sick dog early on Sunday morning, the opportunity arose for me to attend the Sunday afternoon symphony with Grandpa.  It was splendid.

The musicians performed three pieces, and I liked each one better than the last.  We started with Rimsky-Korsakov's piece Skazka (Fairy Tale), Opus 29 (snippets available here), then moved to Shostakovich's Symphony No. 1 in F minor, Opus 10 (first movement of four available here).  After the intermission, we came back to Rachmaninoff's 2nd Piano Concerto in C minor, op. 18 (here).  Stephen Hough was on piano, and Grandpa and I discussed during intermission whether he would live up to his reputation.  He did.

Everyone else agreed; he got so much applause that he came out and played a solo encore for us: Chopin's Nocturne in E flat (here).  Beautiful.

P.S. Sorry about the not-very-illustrative picture.  Normally that dress looks like this:

And I look like her.  Or I would if I were wearing a hat :-)

What I Watched -- Drive

T and I watched Drive while putzing around at home one night.  I liked it; he did not.  But this is my blog, so:

This movie is an odd mash-up of things.  The cars are new, but it has a distinctly 1980s feel to it - pink script and Europop.  It's an action movie with fast driving and cringe-worthy violence, but many scenes in the film are nearly silent or at least devoid of dialogue.  Ryan Gosling plays a man known only as Driver, a film stuntman by day and getaway driver by night.  Despite the breakneck speeds and grisly scenes in which he finds himself, he's so very still and controlled all the time.  There's a sense of loneliness about it, but also it makes you wonder what he's up to.  (T thought it was bad acting.  I disagree.)

Carey Mulligan , whom I've liked ever since An Education (and I'm sure I'll like Never Let Me Go when I get around to it), seems like an odd choice as his neighbor.  She just seems too adorable and honest to be married to a man who's locked up when we meet her.  Nonetheless she and Gosling are good together, in an odd couple sort of way.

Also has excellent turns by Christina Hendricks and Albert Brooks, among others.

Bottom line: the volume of violence is lower than Kill Bill, but it's just as nasty and a little bit less pseudo-comically Japanese anime style.  If you can stomach that, it's worth it.

Also, on this version of the movie cover, is it just me or does Ryan Gosling look a lot like longer-haired Daniel Craig?

Mt. Pleasant Winery

On Saturday, my alumni group took a trip out to Mt. Pleasant Estates in Augusta.  Our day started with a lovely tour of the old cellars with the owner:

"Only the Germans are stubborn enough to build a cellar like this."

Apparently they dug out the cellar, laid the hand-hewn limestone walls, refilled the cellar with dirt, laid the stones across the sloped mound to form the ceiling, then re-dug all the dirt.

 

Barrels are dated with the year they were first put into use, as well as an R or W for the wine that's inside.  Barrels are used twice for wine, once for port, then sold for scrap, mostly to landscapers.

A glass siphon, called a thief for obvious reasons, is used to steal some tawny port out of the barrel for sampling.

After our tour, we visited the Plein Air Art Event.  It's put on at Mount Pleasant and this was its 10th year.  Artists come to Augusta and paint landscapes, people, buildings, and other scenery around the town, then display their work for sale and awards.  I did find one series I liked a lot - three white canvases each painted with poppies - but I have nowhere to put that right now, and really no business investing in art.

Lunch at the Appellation Cafe was a pepper bacon Boursin burger, followed by great conversation and entertainment watching people try to figure out the trick to a game of washers.