chuck

ahhh ... sigh, who doesn't love a bit of charles? more, what kid (actual or overgrown) doesn't love "boum!" ? we even noted a sly reference to the song while watching "horrible histories" the other day. the faux king louis was heard to announce "tick tack boum!" when pulling his pantaloons down for the amusement of his guests. as you do :D

the other one

mr miller's second and last flick. more fabby hoofing at end.

recent viewing #1

in the past week or so I've revisited Mr Miller's only two flicks after a decade long hiatus. this one and ... the other one :p some excellent hoofing twards the end for betty, some noice brass for the noice brass fanciers, some awesomely smooth vocals for wilms, and some stonking frockage and hair for moi :D

If I remember correctly...

...the whole point of Big Brother was to have two contestants 'rooting' on national televsion... as I understand in Australia, this did not happen. What is the point of this post then? I get these crappy emails from Channel Ten telling me about their crappy programs, and the subject of one deleted email was; 'love is in the air for tonight's episode of Biggest Loser'. "Aahhh" I hear you say, which means you are with me. What if Australia's reality TV cherry is popped tonight during tonight's Biggest Loser? The other unimportant questions are; will contestants be penalised, by engaging in sexual activity not conducive to weight loss, such as swallowing and premature ejaculation? Will Channel Ten start creating more disturbing subject titles for their emails, 'See tonight's contestants pounding, pound for pound' etc etc By the way, how is everyone?

We've only just begun...

husby, being a teacher and all, was back at school this week, and there was much rejoicing. Kid A starts Prep next Wed. Kid B has started family day care, along with Kid A. Transition has been marvellously smooth with no tears and he calls it his 'school'. Very cute. I have a new job which is where I've been all week. Exciting new job. My brain is full. Will discuss when my brain and my mouth reacquaint themselves.

In other news. WE HAVE MET AN ANGEL FARMER WHO IS PROMISING TO SOLVE MUCH OF OUR SFM WOES hurray!
A friend gave us the farmer's number as a source of raw milk, but she is so so much more. We can buy shares into a herd, thus ensuring a supply of organic milk from pasturefed cows, plus free range meat (pork, lamb, beef)- all for much the same price as a SFM. Very happy to have found this coop. Food politics! yeah!

tales from the Hall of Sorrow

or ... the view from the Vale of Tears. both of which (either or used .. depending on the mood du jour) are the names I've bestowed on our nearest Big Fat Shopping Mall. betty's reports from within the dark catacombs of retail hades have inspired me to shout out my own hola on the topic. * nail salons. possibly right at the apex of the cone of damnation. * 'variety' stores, after the fashion of wakmart. ie, bigfat w, targot & the k place. all damned. * my-er. flogging a dead damned horse. * smeegle. stationery heroin for the under 15s. why pay $1 for something at gow-low when you can pay twenty five damned bucks for it here. * phone stores. policy dictates that there is at least 70,000 in any one hall of sorrow. damn. * fatso boutiques. where the normals shop, god damn it. * hairdressers. apparently a few folk still pay to have their hair cut. just like in the olden days. damn funny watching them sit there with foil on their head. * food hall. where the normals eat, damn you. feel free to add your own pet retail peeves.

holas lady and boybeetles

back for some serious time wastage and arse widening :D

OMG, cant sleep I'm afraid...

About 2.30 am there was a sound like an explosion, we leapt up....An enormous branch had come down on the roof & knocked a hole in it directly over Toddly's cot. He slept on, covered in dust and masonite (!!!!!!) I picked him up & got him & Kid A out of the room ,her asking all the questions...he fast asleep on my shoulder. Hub grabbed the torch.
We had tree specialists cut back our huge elm tree next to the house about 3 months ago. They removed all of the branches that were potentially dangerous, they said, & to be fair, it could have been much much much worse- there's nothing left to fall now & if it had happened before we'd had it cut back we wouldnt have a house at all & Toddly would have been covered with a lot more roof. From what we can see tonight we'll need the SES to cut us out, but there's no structural damage; it's punched a hole in the masonite & roof sheeting but not damaged any beams, wiring, KIDS, etc.
Husband has just gone back to bed. I dont have the nerve to sleep on that side of the house tonight, even if there's nothing left to fall, just in case there's structural damage to the roof we cant see at the moment. So I've pulled a futon mattress out into the lounge & I'm camping out in here with the 2 kids for the evening. But I'm in shock & rushing with adrenalin- I keep seeing Bubby lying there in his cot, still asleep, covered in roofing...bluddy farking hell, mate. So so so close.

some kind of masterpiece ... indeed

straight to personal top 5 .... within 10 minutes of opening scene. it's a long time betwixt drinks, but when film is art it's worth the wait :) do yourselves a very large favour.

Should I be pleased or dismayed?

Me last night, to the 2 year old:
"lie down in your cot, sweetheart, it's sleep time"
He: "nah. Gonna play guitar"

the slide (a song not performed by stanley walker on dear old ozidol

felicitations and what not. another virginie woolf catch up with vague reference to recent postage. kid #2 gifted a popcorn maker by some well meaning relington at xmas, and whaddayaknow, best method of making the stuff e-va! no oil, no burning, no washing up, very few old maids left on shelf, no standing and shaking (the saucepan, not yourself). awesome! moving along ... largest kid - ie, kid #0 - back to work yesterday, smaller ones back to work next mon so we're doing the 'still going to bed at holidays oclock but getting up at crack of dawn in prep. madness. tired as blazes I am. anyhoo, house been full of guests past two weeks. waaaaay too many socials, mostly on my largesse so more cooking and catering in that span that I did in entirety of last year - or so it feels. still, tomatoes are producing their heads off and we have our first apple :D picasso? fantasticle to the max. could have done it 5 times, and then once again for good luck. even the kids enjoyed it - to a degree. that degree being about the one hour mark .. when no amount of parental waving of arms and "just look at the quality of the light in this one, dear!" was going to revivify their interest. if you can go kidless, or only take kids that can sustaint an hour of enthusiasm for mental and mysogenistic renderings of the femal form, then do yerselves a favour. my favourites were his early portrait and still life efforts. olga, in particular. and the pears .... love the pears. quite like "the musician", too, s'far as laters go. other stuff, other stuff, other stuff. oh yeah, betty, appreciatin' your food delvings. chips are straight from the kitchens of hell - which is a shame. gosh they're yummy. more later. kids still hovering!

Wahooti Fandango!

.....I finally have an I phone!
...... just experimenting....

Lollygobbleblissbombs- HOMEMADE :D

just found this recipe on kidspot. Prolly more of a winter type snack, but what the hey.

link is: http://www.kidspot.com.au/best-recipes/Kids-cooking+5/Lolly-gobble-bliss-bombs-recipe+2441.htm#

For those of us scandalised by feeding storebought popcorn chemical hell for our wee ones, this looks good:



Lolly gobble bliss bombs recipe


Ingredients:
2/3 cup of popping corn kernels
1 x 250g packet pecan nuts
1/4 cup of olive oil or vegetable oil
250g butter or margarine
1½ cups white sugar, granulated
4 tbsp honey
Canola spray
Method:
Pop the corn kernels in a frypan with a lid.

Grease baking trays (preferably with a bit of a lip) with a light spray of canola oil and lay the popped popcorn on the trays.

Chop pecans roughly but in smallish pieces and scatter over the popcorn.

Melt butter in saucepan and add honey, then the sugar, stir, keep on high and let it bubble/boil until all the sugar is dissolved. Turn down to a simmer and let it caramelise – this should take about 4 minutes.

At this stage you need to be quick, pour the sugar mixture over your trays and then with two tablespoons, mix it through the popcorn and pecans, trying to get an even coverage, as the toffee starts to cool, then pat it down with your hands, and sweep uncovered popcorn into the middle of covered popcorn pressing down.

Leave to cool for about 10 minutes then break up and put into airtight container or ziplock bag.

Notes
If you've never popped corn before, it's best to get your oil hot, then turn down the temperature slightly, add the corn, put the lid on a slant so you are still letting air in, once it starts popping furiously, turn the heat down again until it's at half-strength and keep the lid on, shaking the pan to and fro to ensure no corn burns on the bottom. Good rule of thumb if you've heard nothing pop for 3 seconds, there's no more corn to be popped.
You can tell the sugar has caramelised if you get a teaspoon of the mixture and dunk it in a glass of cold water. It should quickly harden into toffee.
This recipe could result in increased visits to the dentist. It could put you in the kitchen far more often than you like. It could kill your diet. Don't say I didn't warn you.
This recipe was created by Melissa Klemke for Kidspot, Australia’s best recipe finder.

Review: The Girl With the Dragon Tatts Yankee Style; or, Yanks Cant Read Subtitles.

...here's looking at you, Betty,
Hey, it aint half bad. Then again, neither were the Swedish films. In fact, they were marvy. Big act to follow. But the yanks have done ok. Brought home to me how strong these characters (pertiklerly Lisbeth Salander) are, that I'm interested in reading about her, then watching 2 different actresses have a go in 2 different shows.
Just realised that most of what I want to say is going to be comparative- oh well, here goes. Rooney Mara (the yank Lisbeth) and Daniel Craig (the yank Micke, even if Craig's not a yank) bring stuff to the roles that is worth watching, even if you know the characters. They're not better than or worse than Rapace and Niqvist in the Swedish films, just different depths, shades.... Stellan Skarsgard gets to turn in a chilling performance as the yank Martin Vanger- maybe not quite Hannibal Lecter, but getting up there. It's a wee bit internationalised. Themes from the book such as Sweden's nazi past feel a little trumped up for the rest of the world, whereas the original book defo had a feeling of being written for a Swedish audience. The violent abuse suffered by Lisbeth is still graphically depicted- less graphically than in the novel or the swedish version, but still pretty full on- specially for Hollywood. This was the one part of the movie I really didnt need to sit thru again, as necessary as it may be for character/plot development.
So. Final comments. Noone complains everytime someone does Shakespeare'oh it's already been done'- so we should all just pull our heads in & let the storytellers get on with it, I reckon. Ditto to all of the naysayers bitching on about the complexity of the material and the holes in the plot. I can think of an enormous array of classics with those issues. The Millenium Trilogy is a modern classic. Lisbeth Salander is a fabbo female sort- of- heroine & Micke Blomkvist is a much more interesting sort- of- hero than most. I just wish Stieg Larsson was still around to write dozens more stories for us :(
Ratings: Swedish film 8.2/10 Yanks 7.8/10

this, that and t'other

party the night before christmas eve and then another on christmas eve then christmas day and kids in kid heaven and too much food but that's okay because it's christmas and then public holidays so old folk paint new bits of house while kids revel in xmas loot and continue eating. relatives with beach houses look good at this time of year so be extra nice and get invited and somehow manage to spend ample time on beach fishing and swimming with narry a sunburn, then home again and more painting while kids on double playdates and weather not hideous. too many late nights - me mainly, catching up on backlog of chicks' nights while husbands home on leave and amenable to carrying nappybag - slowly easing back into proper schedule to get gardening done before 9am as is only sensible when you're a sparkly vampire. where was I? yes yes, busy as blazes. picasso exhibit on tues ... will review after if window opens. I hear he turned out some reasonable cartoons.

WE ARE BEING HELD HOSTAGE BY A ROOSTER

.....he's about 5 months old now. His spurs are a growing. His cockadoodle is a doooing. He attacks anyone who ventures out the front door and he HURTS. He sits on the windowsill, staring at us, imprisoned in the lounge, and he crows at us. Everytime I go out to get letters I feel like there's a sniper lying in wait in the bushes. If we need to go out, Husby distracts him whilst I get the kids to the car....it works, sometimes...
so anyways, been canvassing me mates, and I dont have anyone with the knowhow to wring his neck, and I dont have the strength or stomach to hold him down long enough to chop his head off. I'm told roosters arent that tasty anyways. I've found a childrens' farm who'll take him in for a $20 'donation' (!). We'll pay it. Now we just need to work out how we'll get him there....

Kids Films: Comparative Reviews: Puss in Boots, We Bought a Zoo, Happy Feet 2

1. Puss In Boots: Husby laughed a lot. Lots of wisecracks, but the Shrek folk have kind of gone off the boil for me. On the other hand, Kid A loved it, especially Selma Hayek's character Kitty Soft Paws. I dunno; harmless enough. 6.5/10

2. We Bought a Zoo: This film was majorly improved for me because we watched it at the OpenAir cinema down at the campground at Tidal River, Wilsons Promontory, and the kids fell asleep in beanbags in the first 15 minutes, leaving us to relax. Extraordinarily predictable plot with absolutely NO twists or turns is salvaged by a decent performance by Matt Damon, and by sensitive treatment of its theme of family grief after the death of a parent/partner. It's based on a true story, but irritatingly Hollywood has rewritten the film as based in the USA rather than in the UK (where the story belongs), and they've stuck Scarlett Johanssen in because she's hot. My favourite part of this show was staring up at the stars at the Promontory, and laughing at the prowling wombats who tend to wander through the cinema after dark :) 7/10 for the movie, 10/10 for the cinema.ps: tempted to give the film an additional half point for having REAL PEOPLE AND ANIMALS in it, rather than animation. so, 7.5/10

2. Happy Feet 2: Back to the cinema yet again today. Temperatures over 40 degrees always leave us looking for an excuse to get orf the mountain for a while. Orright. More singing dancing penguins. Would be scary in 3D for me- lots of crashing icebergs, huge waves and huge weather. Subtly introduces the big theme of climate change. What would these films have been like if they'd only cast Australians? 7/10

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

....how was it for you all?
I was with old mates hving a bbq till the kid cracked it, so home by 11.30.
On the bright side, I hear that the Melbourne Arts Centre caught fire. Cool.
sigh....back from Wilsons Prom. Will download photys as soon as I fibnish downloading the washing machine...

What Would Jesus Buy?

heaven, revisited

a couple of friends and I watched this recently - myself for the umpteenth time, the ladeez for the first time. the deep swoon that ensued was complete. I maintain .. despite all the gorjus flicks seen since first discovering this jewel .. that it's one of the best films ever made. while your love stories are thick on the ground, soulmates rarely get a look in. and even when they do, they're usually all treacle and yearning ... twilight style. this is soulmate discovery for grown ups. no yearning, no mooning (full, eclipsed, or otherwise), no Crazy Wild Sex (there is wild sex, but the setting adds the wild, not the sweat), just complete and galvanizing realisation of something so profound that it transcends the most awful and terminal of events. no happy ending, but the most beautiful ending imaginable.

what $15k can buy

picked this one up with the montreals t' other day. watched, was gently impressed by the authenticity of it all, then took the time to read up on it just cause it was ... you know ... different. yet again, youngish dude (this time a pom) writes, directs, and does all the CGI on his home computer. two actors (who are apparently a real life couple - cast for that reason), the rest of the cast locals with zero acting experience, and a total budget of $15,ooo. un-fkn-believable. especially when help up against 'avatar'. it should be added that it's not really about the monsters. well, it is and it isn't. in effect they barely get a look in. if the monsters are the monsters. anyway, you get the drift.

creepiness & cat ladies

the next installment in my accidental montreal film festival ... spare, blackly funny, well cast mystery thing. noir-ish and well done, if you like your thrillers remote and inexplicable. I do, and did :)

non-subliminal message to lurking fleas

BOO!

love, imagined

picked this one up on a whim yesterday, feeling that while it would probably be dire, poseur nonsense, at least it was in Fronch :p man o man was I wrong. tres wrong. an absolute jewel of a flick. at first glance easy to pass off as a pretentious homage to style without substance, but full focus rewards with meat and potatoes galore. superbly acted, one of the best scores I've heard in ages, and wonderful cinematography. superb use of colour and arthouse references galore for the eagle-eyed. I almost drowned in it :D worth noting ... and this is no Small Thing, you might want to take a seat ... it was written, directed and performed by the same dude - at the age of 21. one xavier dolan, quebecoire auteur and child genius. evidently. rent it and roll around in the marvellousness. oh yeah, the theme is unrequited love, and I think, the idea of the object of passion as cipher. one's youth revisited, in other words :)

And so it is nearly Christmas

And we all know that it is the silly season, so as such before I get swept up with all the hooha that goes with it all I thought that I would send my thoughts and well wishes to you all.
Merry Christmas
Stay safe and well