A Bug's Life

... when you want a small amount of something a bit unusual, you have tried a few places but they just have something Wrong and Expensive or with two weeks' delivery time, then you pop in somewhere else on the offchance, they haver and ask what size piece you want, you wave your hands around and apologise that it would hardly be worth their while cutting it, they dive into the back room and come out with a crappy end-of-roll piece of the perfect stuff! And the right size! And you are delighted! And they won't take any money for it and thank you for helping them clear their store-room :-)

Books read (54-55)
The Grass King's Concubine, Kari Sperring (2012)
Spares, Michael Marshall Smith (1998)

Films watched (103-139) 31 at the cinema, 3 DVD, 3 tv
Tremors 2
Lawless
Inception (rewatch)
The Full Monty (rewatch)
As You Are
To Rust (short film selection)
Hope Springs
Avalon
Formentera
The Pleasure Garden
The Body In the Woods
Santa Sangre and short Un Chant D'Amour
Barbara
War Witch
V.O.S.
Sinister
Warsaw Bridge
Dead Before Dawn
The Temptation of St Tony
Untouchable
Thanks for the Tip
Sleep Tight
The Idiot
The Night Elvis Died
Comic-Con
Bestiare
Totem
Frank
Guinea Pigs
The Birds
Barcelona (Una Mapa)
A Trip to the Moon and documentary Extraordinary Voyage
Grease (rewatch)
Looper
10 Things I Hate About You (rewatch)
Super
St Trinian's 2: The Legend of Fritton's Gold

Gigs (8-9)
Hysteria (play about Freud and Dalí)
The Wholls, The Vex (London) but had to leave before the band we went to see due to last trains. Still fun!
Salon Rouge - does a club night count as gigs, theatre etc?

Books incoming 1 (purchase) (read 25/32).

Can I do another 101 Things in 101 Days?

But the other way round? Starting with a big blank list, and seeing what I can fill it with before 101 days are up on 9 Jan. Mu ha ha.

( A list )

( A wish list )

I'm thinking of going to the long weekend (Nov 9-12) this year, but haven't been before. Has anyone here gone, and knows enough what it is like so I can tell if it fits with my physical oddnesses? Is it like going to the cinema with an advanced ticket, just walk in - or do we need to stand in queues for more than about 20 minutes? Is it crowded and hard to negotiate if you're a bit fragile and need space to move? If it's spread out between multiple venues I'm fine with that - get a bit of a walk in between films :-)

"Lay one's hand on the nearest book, turn to page 52, quote the fifth sentence...."

I became less dependent on Ratchet's advice.

So far (and I seem to grade on a curve, so even the middlings are pretty good)
Good
The Temptation of St Tony (avant garde, psychic journey, beautifully shot)
The Body In The Woods (Catalan Twin Peaks)
War Witch (appalling kidnapping of Congo village children to fight in rebel army, combined with intensely human viewpoints and pervasive mythology which people live and build so not just a "tragedy is bad, m'kay?" film)
Warsaw Bridge
Frank

Middling-good
The Night Elvis Died
Sleep Tight
Santa Sangre
Un Chant D'Amour
Barbara
V.O.S.
Dead Before Dawn - nerdiness of Scott Pilgrim meets Buffy - but I know I didn't get loads of classic teen horror references.
Untouchable
Comic-Con
Bestiare
Totem

Middling
Thanks for the Tip
Come As You Are
The Pleasure Garden
To Rust (shorts)
Hope Springs
Sinister
Guinea Pigs

Didn't get much from
The Idiot - I didn't connect, same feeling I often get when watching Shakespeare. I can tell it's good and a classic but...
Avalon
Formentera


More to come, and my feelings are subject to change as I reflect more :-)

Belgium, Paris (outskirts), a road trip through French vineyards to Spain, Sweden, GDR, Berlin, a desert, Korea, the circus, the West End, "the East", Formentera, Barcelona, a shrink, Maine, a house where a grisly murder took place, Mexico, Ruskin's Pond, scuba diving, Catalonia, the Congo, and prison (twice).

Oh, and the Cambridge Film Festival.

I'm going on a Trip to the Moon next Sunday.

Posted via m.livejournal.com.

Books read (52-53)
The Silicon Man, Charles Platt (1991)
The Island of Doctor Moreau, H.G. Wells (1896)
plus another couple of hundred pages of Cryptonomicon which I'm sure is good but I'm getting through it like treacle.

Films watched (93-102) 4 at the cinema, 2 DVD, 4 tv
Terminator Salvation
Brave
Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry
Raiders of the Lost Ark
Along Came a Spider
Breakfast at Tiffany's
The Dark Knight Rises (rewatch) (IMAX)
The Expendables 2
The Incredible Hulk (rewatch) (Ed Norton Hulk)
Tremors (rewatch)

Gigs (none this month but I have Jeffrey Lewis and the Junkyard on Tuesday)

Books incoming 27-31 (all purchases) (read 24/31). Birthday spending!

This was the month of Walking A Lot which takes away from reading time.

\o/

The Monkey family gave Revel a couple of nibble sticks, and last night I hung one in her tank. This morning it looked like this:

OMG! Revel! Where did it all go?

She had spent all night industriously going back and forth, and had tidily filled her food bowl and jam jar with chunks from the treat.