Thursday, February 22, 2007

A few more hours.
I have just a few more hours before my youth is stolen from me.
Before all fancy takes flight and the dullness of adulthood encroaches on my life.

Okay so I’m being melodramatic.
I’m only turning 30. It’s not like I’m 35 or anything.
And it’s not like I have failed to complete a list of “things to do before I turn 30”, because I don’t have such a list.
So nyah nyah.
Saturday, February 17, 2007

So we finally got to watch The Departed tonight.  (I went and bought it cause I didn’t want to wait for it to show up from Zip.ca.)
If you tell anyone I said this, I’ll deny it, but Leonardo DiCaprio is awesome in it, not in any way annoying or smug.
The movie in general is pretty awesome. 
Enjoy a bastardly Jack Nicholson? Watch it.
Like to hear Matt Damon speak with a Boston accent? Watch it. 
Enthralled by Mark Wahlberg’s really bad haircut?  Watch it.
Alec Baldwin catch your fancy?  Watch it.
Like a little Martin Sheen?
Want to see DiCaprio be something other than a smug whiny pretty boy?
Go watch it. 
I’ll even lend you my copy if that’s what it takes.
Now, I liked Little Miss Sunshine just as much as the next guy, but me, I prefer a little blood, violence and coarse language. 
Saturday, February 10, 2007

So my firm hires a lady to help me out at work.  And while she is to be assisting me, she is more than a decade older than me, which is kinda weird.  So we’re having a conversation yesterday and I find out she has 2 kids in their twenties (she started young) and blah blah blah.  She asks, “So you’re not going to have children of your own?” I say “No, I don’t like them they are sticky and loud” she “And you’re husband feels the same?” Me “Yup, we even had it in our wedding vows - dogs not kids.”  “Well, you still might change your mind, I think you’d be a good mom.”  Apparently she feels all women need to pop a baby out of them at some point.  And why, when I flat out told her that I don’t like children, would she think I would be a good mom?  I would think that most people would agree that if someone knows they don’t like children (because they are sticky and loud, and I hate sticky and loud) that someone should not have children.  People who love children should have them.  People who don’t like them should just babysit once in a while so the others can go out for dinner.
I like my house in order. I don’t like a lot of noise or chaos in my home. I like my stuff in order. I don’t want kids the same way some people say they don’t want a cat or dog. I don’t want the responsibility and I don’t want to give up my financial independence. I don’t want to be a parent the same way I didn’t want to be a doctor – it just didn’t interest me enough.”
If you ignore the “order” part this quote can speak for me as well as its original writer.

So I was trolling around Mr. King’s site a few weeks ago and found an entry where he raves about an American author, Meg Gardiner, whose books are awesome but are published in the UK only, not the US.  King laments this loss to the US readers, who can only get her books if they order them in.  King compared her to Lee Child and Michael Connelly.  As soon as you compare someone to Child, you intrigue me and you better be prepared for a fight. 
Luckily I am Canadian, and our bookstores carry a lot of UK books in stock.  I was able to get 3 of her books in store, ordered the first one in and then - horror of horrors, the second book seemed unavailable (within a reasonable amount of time).  I am a purist, and if there is a series of books I absolutely must read them in order or I feel I am doing the author and characters a disservice.  I found a slightly used copy of the second book on eBay, and voilà, I was now armed and ready to read.
While for me, Gardiner is certainly no Lee Child/Jack Reacher, her first Evan Delaney book, China Lake, is quite good and the main characters are certainly ones to enjoy another adventure with.  I think King’s impassioned review of this book in this week’s Entertainment Weekly, is a bit hyperbolic though.  I mean, the book did not change my life or stop my world from turning.  However, I am now a little more than halfway through the second book,  Mission Canyon, and am enjoying it even more than the first.  I think the story is more controlled and closer to the main characters.
Aside from his note on his website, King has now used his back-page column in this week’s Entertainment Weekly as a plea to readers to go out and demand access to Gardiner’s books.  King is a smart one, his pleas have worked before, getting an audio book published for a much turned down author, and getting a CD made for a much turned down band.  Let’s hope his plea works, and soon the American people can walk into one of their mega bookstores and pick Gardiner’s books off the shelf (well, the literate ones anyway).
Saturday, February 3, 2007

Fun movie. 
My exclamation to my husband in the parking lot after the film:
“Those 3 crazy fuckers all covered in blood, man they were so cool, they were like something right out of a Richard Laymon book!”  The best thing is I know I am the only girl on the planet who would ever exclaim such a thing. 
Oh yeah, and Ryan Reynolds was really good, and super cute.
If you don’t like guns or crazy guys covered in blood don’t bother.  And don’t tell me it’s too violent.  It’s just make-believe kiddies.

Picked this up cause I had nothing to read while waiting for Meg Gardiner’s books to arrive.  It’s a cute little book, I may even pick up the sequel.  Sansom writes in a similar vein to Magnus Mills, who is a favourite of mine.  However, Mills is far superior, try All Quiet on the Orient Express or The Restraint of Beasts instead.