E's Extraordinarily Eloquent Extravaganza: Hot Fuzz

As I was pondering kittens, and thinking the whole 'Spreading the sunshine' thing through, I asked myself: "What makes me really happy when I'm having a bad day? Maybe I can share it with the world!"

I'm ashamed to admit that it wasn't my boyfriend, friends or any other socially acceptable answer. The first thing that popped into my head was this...

Possibly one of the best movies ever.

So share it I will, even if it kills me! (Which it probably won't, by the way.)

"Nicholas Angel, an extremely dedicated police officer in London's Metropolitan Police Service, performs his duties so well that he is accused of making his colleagues look bad. As a result, his superiors transfer him to the sleepy and seemingly crime-free village of Sandford in rural Gloucestershire."

Reasons it makes me happy:

- An intelligent action-movie parody, which doesn't drift into the area of obvious, stupid and horribly unfunny jokes (yes, I'm looking at you, Scary Movie!)? In this day and age? It's more rare than you think.

- This is the kind of movie you can watch over and over again, and still find new funnies.

- According to the narrator, 'Police Constable Nicholas Angel (...) graduated Canterbury University in 1993 with a double first in Politics and Sociology.' Way to make me root for the protagonist!

- I have a slight crush on Simon Pegg.

I mean, just look at him! He's adorable!

- Awesome, over-the-top movie posters which always make me giggle like a schoolgirl

- Awesome, over-the-top ending, which makes me giggle even more.

- The wonderful conversations.

"Where's the trolley boy?"

"In the freezer."

"Did you say 'cool off?'"

"No I didn't say anything..."

"Shame."

"Well, there was the bit that you missed where I distracted him with the cuddly monkey,

and then I said "play time's over" and I hit him in the head with the peace lily."

Or my favourite:

"You do know there are more guns in the country than there are in the city."

"Everyone and their mums is packin' round here!"

"Like who?"

"Farmers."

"Who else?"

"Farmers' mums."

(keep an eye out for that farmer's mum, she's in there!)

So yes. Run to your nearest DVD-selling-or-renting place, and watch it! Believe me, you won't be sorry ^^

Picture Day I: Kittens For All!

As you know, despite my occasionally wandering into melancholy, my blog is mostly about sharing the things I love and appreciate. Sort of a "share the sunshine" project.

I rant IRL. A lot. I probably have this brain connection that makes me verbally deal with things instead of just thinking them over, or dismissing them out of hand.
However, I decided not to take that to this blog. I'm a big (theoretical, sometimes) fan of the "Spreading the sunshine" concept, and so that was what I had in mind for the blog.

Unfortunately that sometimes gives me writer's block - like when I've had a bad day, or I feel like killing my landlord (hint: today! today!) or when I've been studying all the time, except when I was listening to other people talking about their problems (also today). Then I'm not sure how to spread the sunshine, because I can't think of anything.

However!
I will spread the sunshine even if it kill me! Semper fi, or whatever fits into this situation. Probably not semper fi, but yeah. You get my drift.

Today is Quotes And Pictures day.
Meaning: I will not write anything, just post pictures and happy, sunshiny quotes. Which you will get to comment on, of course.
This will be repeated rather frequently as my finals keep creeping closer and closer like a horde of very slow, determined zombies. Don't worry, I'll still write.

Anyway.

KITTIES!

Feelgood: my favourite heroines.

Racking my brains for something to write about other than "oh my gawd I'm just so stressed!", I decided to turn once more to the multifaceted face of the love of my life: awesome women in awesome books.
Sometimes they're awesome because they're empowered, sometimes they're just the only ones who actually think straight in the entire novel, sometimes they're so sad that you just want to hug them over and over... and over.

Who's first?
The most loveable heroine ever to be put on paper?
Why, it's Elizabeth Bennet, obviously. I mean, Jane Austen said so.
In that sex-starved, hypocritical society, where all that mattered was how many "pounds a year" you had to your name and whether or not you knew important people, Elizabeth warmed our hearts by not giving a damn.
She was witty, pretty, smart and didn't really care whether or not the rich people liked her.
She had flaws too, and by that, I don't mean the let's-think-of-a-flaw-that's-actually-loveable that is the hallmark of the Mary Sue, but actually flaws - like a human being.

She also made the best speech in the history of ever:

"From the first moment I met you, your arrogance and conceit, your selfish disdain for the feelings of others made me realize that you were the last man in the world whom I could ever be prevailed upon to marry."
(at which point in the movie I'm always high-fiving the air around me, yelling "you go sister!")


(and she knows it!)

Look, I know it's cool to like the more accurate and longer BBC-version more, but let's all at least agree that Keira Knightley is by far the better Elizabeth, shall we?
The BBC actress never convinced me. Too soft and humourless. Elizabeth was a well-meaning force of nature, but in a cute way.

Who else, then?
Since the novel was a big hit (mostly in the US, I think, but still - it sold well here) I'll just assume most of you have at least heard of The Crimson Petal And The White, Michel Faber's much acclaimed magnum opus. Also, one of my favourite books ever.
It's huge, it's fresh, it absorbes you (if you let it, but you must, you absolutely must!) and in the end, 900+ pages don't seem like enough and you spend weeks devising outcomes for the - oops, but I'm being a spoiler-spoil here!
No, I'm not telling. I'll just say that it's wonderful in that it contains a lot of elements commenly found in Victorian novels (the captain of industry, his mistress, a mad wife,..) but it's viewed in a very modern, 21st-century like light, which makes you not only enjoy the whole thing more, but also look upon other novels (say... Jane Eyre?) in a different way.

The heroine of the day (year? decade? ever?) is Sugar, a prostitute with a nasty skin condition who is goddamn smart and kind of bitchy, in that she uses her lazy bum costumer William to get out of the gutter and up into the higher circles. Under her influence, William and his perfume "empire" both grow amazingly, and - yep, spoilers again.

I love Sugar because she's so damn human. She's damaged goods, granted, Victorian whores usually weren't the most confident and all's-fine-here people, but she's so determined not to stay in that situation that you have to love her for it.
I both hope and fear that they're making it into a film soon - hope because hey, the more Sugar the better - fear because they have the tendency to screw things up.
Okay, sure, the book is always better than the movie, so I don't expect EVERYTHING, but my heroines! My favourite characters, ALL WRONG!
All wrong I say!

Keira Knightley's Elizabeth is one huge exception, of course, but how can I trust them with my lovelies?
My babies, my carebears?
A: I CAN'T.

For our third heroine, I find myself in a little predicament.
I cannot tell you about the awesomeness of Isserley (of Michel Faber's Under The Skin). I cannot possibly divulge more information than this: she is female, and she is so tragic that it hurts.
It makes me want to hug her. For forever.
If Isserley were here, I would not be typing this as I would be too busy hugging her. So there's something to be thankful for, I guess.

I believe I have urged you before, but I shall do it again, as I say: Please Read Under The Skin. I promise you most heartily and sincerely you will not regret it.

That's it for now. I must return to my non-life which is filled to the brim with very unproductive stress - but I am nevertheless happy to inform you that the latest hiccup in the road to Our Own Apartment has been overcome, and only the actual signing remains.

And with that, I leave you.
Good night.

Feelgood Part III: Nostalgia

Dearly beloved,

we are gathered here today to celebrate and reminisce no wedding though.

I was thinking about what to write my 3rd Feelgood post about, and then - for some reason - I got nostalgic.
So let's talk childhood memories.

We all have them. Some are good, some are bad (in those instances, a good memory is unpardonable, as my favourite heroine says). Let's talk good memories.

Like the time we all went to the Brussels Museum of Natural History to look (mainly) at the dinosaurs.
The time when I was ten and we were on a holiday and my dad gave me a pendant of lapis lazuli, which I held on to for about 7 years (and is now sadly no longer in my possession).
Oh, or when my mom and me actually connected about something (which is hard, admittedly, for a grown-up woman and a 12-year-old child) over how sad and sweet A Little Princess was, and how we both cried.
(or that time, several years later, when we both swooned over Jon Bon Jovi's appearance in Ally McBeal)





My, in retrospect, highly disturbing childhood.

Even the not so good memories gain some lustre over the years.
It horrified me at the time, but when I think of Roald Dahl's The Witches now, I'm smiling. At the time I was 7 or 8 years old and very moved by the book. In a bad, scary scary way.
For several weeks nothing or nobody could convince me that the Upper Witch was not, in fact, hiding behind my closet, waiting to eat me. I think my hygiene actually suffered (for they only smell clean children).
I didn't even dare watch the movie version until I was 13 or 14.


The stuff of nightmares. That's Angelica Houston, by the way. I'm just saying. Also, mice!

The soundtrack of my youth, too, is something precious to me.
I hadn't any musical preference at all until I was 15.
When we went on holiday (which, with just 1 exception, was invariably to some part of France, and always by car), my dad would play Marco Borsato (back when he still made really beautiful songs that actually meant something), Stef Bos, who is to this day a favourite with me, and Crowded House, whose lyrics I had even MORE difficulty understanding. Mrs. Hairy Legs? Is that what they're singing, dad? I don't get it. What is... what?

In fact, even though he, for years and years, detested the way I dressed (all goff and individual), he was the one who introduced me to the scene, by way of an Evanescence CD, which at first, he would play (in a darkened room, I kid you not!) and I would hate, and then somehow I started to like it.


conformist!! Like, yeah, dude!


I still like Evanescence. It's like ice pops and certain children's novels. Like how I wanted to dye my hair bright orange when I was 14 (incidentally on the last family vacation before my parents divorced) because Rose McGowan had hers bright orange on Charmed, and I loved her but not yet in a dirty dirty way.


RAWR.

But I believe I'm somehow steering into melancholy.

The apartment is ours, as I wrote yesterday, and on the very month that we take possession of it, it will be two years since I spoke to my father.
Sometimes I wish I could invite him to come see my new house (and The Boy) when we're settled in, just like my mom and her new partner are coming to see it.
I don't know how to fix the problems we had, and still have. I don't know how to make contact when, in truth, I don't want it all back to the way it was, because I felt terrible back then. I just want for us to occasionally call each other. I want to know whatever big thing happens, even if I'm not included in the small ones.
If I ever get married, I want to invite him to the wedding. If I ever have a child, I want him or her to know their granddad.

Good things come to those who wait?
We shall see.

Goodnight.

Tattoo awesomeness!

First of all: I'm so sorry for not having posted as much as I usually do. The last few days have been plenty hectic, and much excited frenzy has ensued, for several reasons.

Obviously, there was My Tattoo, which is now on par with The Boy as in, both need to be capitalized because they're both awesome.

My Tattoo is wonderful, and pretty, and awesome in general.
I'm also happy to report that I have now found a regular tattoo artist in Tanne of Body Design Gent. What a striking difference with my very first tattoo experience!
The whole thing was just so relaxed, and I was so very comfortable that I don't hesitate to announce that all my future work (for which I have several ideas ^^) will probably been done by that very artist.
I was allowed to read and was spontaneously given smoking breaks. She explained whatever I wanted to know and was just, in general, very good at comforting nervous and needlessly-worried people, such as my humble self.

I'm very pleased with My Tattoo itself and especially love the shading, but that should get a little lighter as the excess ink *wears off* or *disappears magically* - or rather, not so magically, as my 'icky tattoo healing cotton shirt' is kind of inky now.


Tataaaa!!! Woop woop!

That's a first picture, done by The Boy with his cell phone (camera still refusing duty, have no idea what self did to offend mighty technology overlord) - more will follow after everything is healed and I am no longer forced to wear this hideous bra.


Secondly, The Boy had his tat done today, also by Tanne, and was mighty pleased as well.

It is (let's check this spelling, shall we?) Mictlantecuhtli, god of (one of the several) Aztec underworlds that were scarcely better than Aztec everyday life, IMO.

I can only offer you a blurry picture of that one, since The Boy is much better at cellphone photography than I am.


Oeeeeee! Oeeeeee!!!

I LOVE the shading on it - which should also be getting lighter as the tattoo heals.

(and yes, we had chocolate milkshake. Lots of it.)

And of course, we weren't JUST sitting in a tattoo parlour for three days, we were also appartment-hunting.
As some of you may know, The Boy and I have decided to start living together as of July/August/September.
We have found something we really like and which seems extraordinarily fit for us, as it has:

+ a garden - where Evil Kitty may play and rage about at his heart's content, and we may venture to plant some flowers and enjoy drinks on cool summer evenings.
+ a seperate bedroom, something I've been dreaming of for the last two years in this hellhole.
+ a bath tub. I swear, I died. A BATH TUB. Thank you, LORD, I knew you wouldn't forsake me.
+ lots of space
+ very very close to a bus stop which would take us to the station AND the city centre within 5 minutes.
and many more ordinary things which I crave because I am very boring.
Like a good kitchen.

The problem was, is available starting June 1st, and since my lease doesn't end till Sept. 1st, that'd be three extra months of rent.
However, it being so perfect, we offered the landlady to take it starting July. That'd give us plenty of time to move, and maybe she would take a liking to us and take it.

So, she told us to mail the agency handling everything - we called - and explain the situation.
Next day, we call first thing.
Office person tells us she'll call landlady in the afternoon, says hope-giving things (i.e. "To be honest, I just want it off my hands as quick as possible, we get so many calls that lead to nothing about it." &c) and will call back.
At six, having heard nothing, we resigned to not hearing anything till after the weekend, BUT NO!
8 o'clock, owner of agency calls, asks us for references.
Woop!
So we mailed her some numbers (The Boy's parents, my aunt, banks, current landlord, who in his guilt, promised to be nice) and she said we'd heard from her again on Monday or Tuesday.

That's good, right?
Let's all knock on wood and keep our fingers crossed!

Other than that, we've just been hounding agencies, running about all over the place &c.

So I leave you now, dear reader, with a promise of the second installment of E's Extraordinarily Eloquent Extravaganza tomorrow and a more coherent post from myself on Monday.

Feelgood pt. 2: Charlotte "Chuck" Charles

... and indeed, all of the wonderful double-concentrated feelgood that is Pushing Daisies.

Remember how I told you while we were sipping Bordeaux and admiring the sunset in my "about me" that I was going through a fun, colourful, perky clothing phase, as inspired by Chuck?
So do I.
And I feel - I really, really do feel - that I absolutely NEED to elaborate.


Lookit her! Innit she cuuute? Yeshi is! yeshiiss!

Chuck Charles is, character-wise, everything I wish and aspire to be (well, that + being a licensed therapist - and, you know, actually alive) in that everytime she pops up on my TV-screen, I start smiling spontaniously and start counting my blessings.

1. Am able to touch the man I love (though The Boy does not bake pies for a living, or is even remotely charmingly neurotic, like Ned)
2. I, too, can dress like her.
3. I, too, can spread the sunshine. People are intolerable rude (and in some cases, cruel) to one another. I like smiling at strangers. (if I feel safe and validated - as a precaution)

I also, within the ten minutes of her first appearance on said TV-screen, began to lament the fact that my fair was not, in fact, long, curly and/or brown. Luckily, I am usually a down-to-earth person, and after realizing I could not possibly remedy this fact, began to realize that there were other ways to spread the Chuck-happy.

But I'm starting to wander off here.
Point is: spreading the sunshine.
(and looking charmingly awesome).


What? Even her make-up was bee-related!

(I'll just mention this in passing, but this text editing tool sucks a-- is not of superior quality. Seriously, clicking the "i" thing means italics, not normal text. Unclicking it means stop with the italics already. Ugh.

Anyhoo, where was I?

Yes, my Chuck-inspired style.

Now, since my camera is broken and I am unfortunately unable to keep a photographer as my slave, I must rely on pictures from Google, so some are missing, and other are not quite what I have, as seen below:



My sunglasses are the ones on top. I rushed to your general aid with bad Paint-skills.

They're actually red, though, but otherwise, they're quite alike.
I bought them because they matched my red coat (H&M, 50 euros)
I cannot find a picture of it anywhere because H&M's website is the most idiot thing in the history of ever, but it's read, and tailored, and knee-lenght, and lined with red-white polkadot fabric on the inside. So yeah. Awesome.

I am still on a quest for summer shoes, since I normally just wear my combat boots (I have done so for the three previous summers) and I'm getting kind of sick of it.
So I need shoes with a heel that I can walk on, and that match most of my clothes.

And the current shoe fasion trends all kind of suck.

Woe is me. Woe indeed.

I feel rather distracted today, so I'll quit while I'm ahead and just leave you with this:

Dear reader,

I am proud to present you with part 1 in my Feelgood series:

Hairspray!!




If you're feeling blue, this is the movie to see!

Not only is the soundtrack the most "iieee giddy happy" thing I have heard in forever, the movie itself is awesome for several reasons:

1. John Travolta playing an obese woman. Yes, you read that correctly.



Tadaaaa!

2. I'm all for movies with a message, even more so if it's brought with humor and sensitivity. Two thumbs up here!

3. Okay, I know I promised not to mention the soundtrack here, but it makes you hop up and down. Dancing-in-your-underwear-good!

4. One of the things I love MOST about this movie, is the crushing sarcasm and irony in it.

Point in case:

Scenario: a position has opened up on the dance team of Tracy (the overweight, naive main character)'s favourite show.
The show's host, Corny, announces this and mentions that the position has opened up because one of the girls will be "taking some time off".

Corny: So, how long will you be gone for?
Girl: [uncomfortable smile] Oh... just nine months.
Corny: [turns to viewers] So, we're looking for a girl who's just as fun-loving, but not quite as free-wheelin'. [broad grin]

5. Michelle Pfeiffer, in yet another hair-care related movie, singing about how her "screwing the judges" won her the title of "Miss Baltimore Crabs".

6. The fat, unpopular girl gets the hot guy.
I mean, don't we all love a happy ending?

7. John Travolta. In a dress. As a woman. Singing a love duet with Christopher Walken.
Gold, no?



Saw it? Liked it? Loved it? Hated it?
Share your favourite moments, right here in Vanilla's comment section ;)

Ps:
John Travolta: I wish you wouldn't wear your hair that high!
Tracy: But even our first lady does it!
John: I don't believe that.
Tracy: What? How else did you think it got that way?
John: [smugly] I believe it is naturally stiff.