My young charges

"Feed me, little auuuuntiiie feed me!" (sung to "Walk Up Little Suzy) - Sue-Ellen cat, or Suzy


JR's communications are a little simpler. "Meow meow meow meow meow." Means play play play with me.

watching Star Wars

My cat sitting stint is almost through. Today I'm watching my Star Wars movies on the big tv.

I haven't watched them in years. You know... if you could only fix one element to make episodes 1-3 better, you would only have to fix the dialogue. I mean, the midichlorians could go, and there's all those weird cultural appropriations (that is to say, the racism). But the main problem is the stilted dialogue. Even the Jar Jar problem would be fixed by dialogue--he just talks too damn much. Fixing the dialogue wouldn't even be that hard, it's just stiff. It just needs a few words dropped or replaced to make it flow better.

The action scenes are still fantastic. In movie 1 -- the initial Trade Federation fight scene, the pod race, and the final battle are all great. I'm now on movie 2 and the entire ending of the movie, from Shmi's death onward is riveting. The effects are great, the creatures, the costumes, the music, the ships, the worlds--they're all awesome. If only someone could have snuck a script doctor in behind Lucas' back.

Which is funny, because Harrison Ford famously mocked* the crappy dialogue in the original Star Wars. But at least Lucas was small fry enough that other people were probably able to change the dialogue on him... and he didn't write the screenplays for Empire and Return. God knows why he took up the pen again for 1-3.

Little Suzy just jumped up beside me, and she rarely does cause she's a big scaredy. Means it's "feeeed me sooofties!!!" time. Then I'll start movie 3...



And by the time we reach movies 4-6 it should be dark outside and we'll be at Top Movie Watching Experience time.



*"You can write this stuff but you can't make me say it."

(Art by Katie Cookie.]

Scenes from a job - Les Canadiens

Boss [checking his phone cause his cousin just sent him the hockey score] - I shouldn't be doing this. We don't let staff do use cell phones.

Mabel - You're in the office, no one will ever know. ...If you can trust me.

ahhh the 80s

Watching Dynasty and reading Sidney Sheldon is so revealing about the 80s. Both Dallas and Dynasty had storylines about mothers taking jobs (Pam and Fallon) and their husbands having trouble with it. And all the 80s trashy novels that I loved so much--they're ALL about feminism and capitalism.

Every book is about a young man or woman, often an immigrant, who rises from total poverty to become the head of a huge super-rich conglomerate, all because of their own genius and hard work and often some need to get revenge or "show someone". That's the history-rich backstory that starts in chapter 2.

The rest of the book focuses on the daughter of this genius, and how she inherits the empire, and has to fend off all sorts of baddies.

There's still a lot of romance, or focus on the importance of having a relationship; but owning, running, and ruling a massive empire is a key part of the identity of all the heroines. And pretty much ALL these books are about business empires, like Dallas and Dynasty--money money money was obviously on our minds in les 80s.

And sex of course. As Scottie in the Star Trek movie would say: "It's excitin'!"

the joys of a good old fashioned thriller

I didn't bring enough with me to Swissgirl's. I do have a graphic novel I could read, but I'm not really in the mood for that. I knew I'd finish today the Sidney Sheldon I brought on the bus coming home... so I... I bought another Sheldon book today at work. Even though I have hundreds of unread books at home. I couldn't help it!! It's not my fault!! (Breaks down sobbing.)

I devoured 3 Sheldon books in high school, but haven't read him since. I can visually remember sitting in bed, out of school cause I was recovering from wisdom tooth removal, reading Master of the Game. Oooh I lurved it. And I can picture myself standing in the school hall reading a thrilling courtroom scene in Rage of Angels. (Below are the covers my books had.)


The book I just read was Bloodline--I picked it up second hand somewhere, and check out the great 70s cover. The thriller aspect of the book held up, but it was comically dated in some ways. Every time we're introduced to a character, we're given a detailed description of their home decor. This is in part why the book was such a quick read... there were some very clear spots where I could skim!

Halfway through the book a great detective character shows up--he's a sort of an ugly Poirot, who speaks many foreign languages but with incomprehensible accents, and he's so good at using computers to research that he's described as having little gossips with them. Sheldon writes out conversations between him and the computers. I love this character, I wish he'd written a bunch of books featuring him! But I guess, like Caleb Carr, he didn't know a good detective when he invented one. Le sigh.


Here's the one I just bought.

My Day - boots and bugs

Ahh no. I've turned into someone who goes to bed at 2 AM! I've been sleepy for hours, but fighting it. Can't... fight... no... more...

Even though a show on eating insects is one. Well luckily I saw most of it earlier in the evening. Here's a funny scene: A guy's crop of water bugs has all died off, because someone sprayed insecticide nearby. A key to running a good bug-growing-crop: No insecticide!

Today's weather was insane, but at least I got to wear my new wellies. I showed them off to everyone.

My kobo came in today! But I can't use it til Friday... hapoos.

Check out these photos: These are gigantic swarms of flies (midges) that gather on Lake Victoria to breed, then fly to the coast and die. Some people catch them and make patties out of them--very high in protein.

bookies

A coworker picked up this from a Random House summer preview for me. It's by a Chinese-Canadian first time author.


A Spy in the House by Y.S. Lee

My rating: 4 of 5 stars
It's a bit uneven, but (a) conscious emphasis on strong female characters, and the frustrations of women in the Victorian period -- in a non-clichéd way; (b) the heroine is half-Chinese. In the end that made for a different sort of read, which was interesting.

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