Wheeeee!

Or rather, Wii!

At 9:15 this morning our intercom system woke us up, because the nice package delivery man had a package for us. Specifically, the Nintendo Wii we ordered Tuesday night (a little before midnight). Yes, for that fast service we paid the whopping shipping fee of £1.69.
My shoulders hurt already. And the baseball game cheats. I was doing really well, and then it got pissy, and so I lost. And to add insult to injury, it does a "mercy" thing, where once it runs 5 points up on you the game ends.
My fielders sucked. If I could have controlled them, I think I would have done better. Retards just stand there until the ball hits the ground. And I'm not sure how to control the pitching.
But dammit, by the time Adam gets home from work, I will have mastered Wii Sports (came with the console).
And tomorrow, when I go meet Claudia in town so she doesn't have to struggle to find her way to our place, I will buy us at least one more game, and another controller.
Oh, and I KO'd a guy in boxing in less than 2 minutes.
I know that everyone else on the planet practically has a Wii already, but I'm really excited. It truly is like nothing else, gaming-wise.
Now all they need is Wii Fencing...

Sunday Review #5: Gone Bamboo

Ooops...forgot to post this yesterday. And I had it written up last Thursday, too!

This week's review is of Anthony Bourdain's Gone Bamboo. First, a bit of background on Tony Bourdain. If his name sounds vaguely familiar, but you can't quite place it, he's the professional chef that travels around the world on shows like A Cook's Tour and No Reservations. He also wrote the novel Kitchen Confidential, which spawned the (short-lived) TV show of the same name. He's an amazing chef, and was the executive chef of Les Halles in New York. He's wickedly funny, swears up a storm (so far as I know, everyone who works in a professional kitchen swears like Gordon Ramsey, some of them just clean it up for the camera), and is a pretty smart guy, from what I can tell. And in addition to all that, he's written a few novels in the mystery/crime genre.

I absolutely loved Gone Bamboo. Granted, I'm a bit biased, as Bourdain hasn't done anything that I haven't loved, but even so, I think it's well worth a read for anyone with a (twisted) sense of humor.
Essentially, Gone Bamboo is about a professional assassin and his wife. They live the Caribbean as expats (hence the title), and from time to time, Henry takes a job. He's hired this time to kill a mob boss, one he's worked for before and likes, but money's money. Unfortunately, he misses, and the mob boss who hired Henry is pissed (he paid upfront, and now Henry is gone). All is fine and dandy, until the guy Henry failed to kill is relocated to a home on the same island Henry lives on...
I'll leave the plot there (read it yourself!) but it's incredibly funny, sad in places, and smart. Also smartass--one of the reviews on the back says "Bourdain establishes himself as a new master of the wiseass crime comedy." And that sums it up in a variety of ways. It really does have a solid plot, and the characters are charming and (mostly) believable. Which works really well, because generally, when you read, you want a character who is slightly larger than life. Bourdain does that very well. His characters are ultra-smart, freakishly good with guns, and can survive being shot with a combination of skills and luck--but they have to have the luck. They aren't invincible. But they are sexy (and naked fairly often).
Part of what makes this book so great for me is that I can hear and see Bourdain in it. If you've watched his shows, or even seen him as a judge on Top Chef, you know what he's like. His voice and sarcasm and humor are all there, and I think some of his fantasies are in Gone Bamboo as well. Because of his talent, he's managed to leave his mark on the book without it being self-aggrandizing.
The only downside I can really think of is that some of the characters--especially early on--get confusing. In a sense, though, even this works; when you're dealing with a ton of mafia guys who all have nicknames, it can get more confusing, rather than less. And you work out the important ones pretty quickly. It does start a little slow, but it picks up rather quickly.
In short: tight plot, great characters, really witty, funny writing. Some sex, a lot of violence, and not an idyllic, perfect ending. Fairly realistic, in that way. It's a light, fun and easy read, and one that I think is well worth it. Besides, who doesn't love a fabulous chef who can also write a great pulp novel?

Sunday Review #4: Planet Terror

So as you might have possibly guessed, we've been watching movies that Adam wants to see of late.  I like this type of movie as well, but LoveFilm (similar to Netflix) doesn't allow you to actually order the queue, just prioritize movies into "high," medium," or "low."

This week's review is of Robert Rodriguez's Planet Terror.  This is not meant to be a review of the plot, but rather an examination of what Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino were trying to do with their "grindhouse" concept.

So to start with Tarantino and Rodriguez both grew up with the "grindhouse" double-feature concept: going to see exploitation films that showed in cheap, crappy cinemas.  Rodriguez (or Tarantino, don't remember which) explained that these films, instead of creating thousands of prints for wide, simultaneous nationwide release (like what we have now--think Titanic for example), they would print only 10-20 copies or so, and those copies would travel around the country, stopping in a different city every week.  This meant if it started in say, New York, the print would be clean and decent, but as it travelled around and was played more and more, it got grittier and dirtier and damaged (being played in poorly maintained machines didn't help).

Both directors loved going to see this type of movie--often zombie or slasher flicks (or something similar).  But as this concept doesn't really exist anymore, they decided to team up and do it themselves--but in wide release.  It's been a while since it released into the cinemas, but I believe that Grindhouse as a film was less that successful, so it was split into its separate parts, Death Proof and Planet Terror.  I haven't seen Death Proof (yet), so I can't comment on that one, so though I imagine it is similar in many aspects, I wouldn't know.

Planet Terror is a zombie style flick, and (intentionally) not a particularly good one.  That said, I think it captured what it was trying to be admirably.  The acting and the script were fairly cheesy, and since I've seen several of the actors in other roles, I know they can act well.  There were the obligatory T&A scenes, lots of violence towards others--zombies or not--an attempted rape where the girl kicks ass, the bad guy who's a good guy/hero who dies, and a chick with a gun for a leg.  Yeah, that was a combination of both awful and awesome.  Definitely an exploitation film.

The picture was gritty, and looked as though it was on cheap film (Rodriguez shoots all of his films digitally now).  I felt like they did a good job slightly undersaturating or oversaturating the color of the film (it varied); it wasn't overt, but looking at it from a film-making perspective you could see that it was there.  Really, every aspect of the film felt like one of those awful Saturday afternoon movies that you get when there's nothing on, or the late night cable TV/local access station that shows really really bad TV and movies (usually no more recent that the 1970s) because they can't afford better.  Rodriguez wanted to capture a mood, and I think he did so well.  It's a bad movie, but it's a bad movie that's not that bad.  It's funny in places, and you could do a lot worse.  And given that the guys were trying to pay homage to particular genre and experience, they did a great job.  The movie was better that more exploitation films: the guys wanted to live up to the promise of the posters, something that the "real" exploitation films never did.

I think they beat the "standard" set by the original Grindhouse poster (image here), in part because I think they set the standard low.  However, they did achieve (for me, at least) one of their purposes: fake trailers were also made as part of this project, inserted before each movie.  Included on the Planet Terror DVD was the trailer for Machete, which actually looked really funny.  Still bad, but funny.  The hope Tarantino and Rodriguez had was that fans would want the trailers turned into full movies.  I would definitely see Machete, so I think they won on that score.

On a side note, people who know me know I swear.  A lot.  Worse than most sailors.  All I have to say is this: watch an interview of Quentin Tarantino sometime.  Wow... (a lot of my info for this came from an extra on the DVD--the Q&A session Rodriguez and Tarantino held at ComicCon 2006).

Queen of the Road

So in my usual reading of Yahoo news crap, I came across an article on best/worst drivers in the US.  This was based on 5000 people across the country taking a written test (which bears no actual resemblance to someone's real ability to drive, but no matter).  I guess a shocking number of people failed the 20 question test.  For shits and giggles, I took the exam as well.  I got 90% and the two questions I missed I thought I might.  One, because I disagree with the answer, and the second because it's a bit of dodgy question.  But fair enough.  I'll include the link to the test at the end of this article (if you take it, you don't have to fill in your email address--I didn't).

The two questions I missed were:

You may pass on the right of another vehicle when:

A. When traveling on a multi-lane highway carrying two or more lanes of traffic in the same direction

B. The other vehicle is making or about to make a left turn, when a lane is provided to pass on the right

C. Both answers are correct

Under most conditions what is a safe following distance?

A. 3 seconds

B. 10 seconds

C. 20 seconds

The correct answers are C and A, respectively.  I think the first question is badly written, though I don't disagree with the answer (I said B, thinking it might be C), and I was taught that a safe following distance is 5 seconds (so I said 10, fully believing that I would miss that question).  And yes, 2 seconds make a huge difference.  Count it out sometime when you're driving 55-75mph down the road and see.

The test can be found here.

No good deed goes unpunished

So my mother did me a lovely courtesy, and sent me a bunch of crap that I wanted. Said crap included some books (a surprising number, actually, given the size of the box), some cornbread muffin mix (to most likely be mixed with a yellow cake batter and some jalapeños for jalapeño muffins), some dried cranberries (first ingredient is NOT sugar), some Kosher salt (also can't find over here, but probably could with a better grocery store), my bermuda shorts (the weather sucks again, so ever wearing those is a fornlorn hope), and a pair of flip flops.

What's wrong with this picture?

Oh yes. I don't have two right feet. So effectively, I still don't have a pair of flip flops. Thanks...

Non-productive Day

Ugh. I have done nothing today. Well, I did a load of laundry, and I read a bunch of Harry Potter 5 (yeah, I told you I've read them more than you). But what I haven't done is cook anything, write anything, or, well, anything. I took a nap of an undetermined amount of time. Maybe only an hour and a half, maybe as long as four hours. I have no idea what time it was when I fell asleep. And despite Adam's claims that it's a "sleep" if it's more than an hour, I was on the couch--the one in the living room, not the bedroom--so it's still a nap.

I hate days like this. Even more when I can't work myself up to feeling guilty about them. Especially since I get about 9 hours of sleep a night. A long nap is unnecessary. And I'm still tired now.

Additionally, I feel bloated. The cous cous I made (and I made enough to feed everyone starving in Sudan for a year) didn't taste salty, but clearly had my annual intake of salt in one serving. And because I made so much of it, that's all I ate today. Yay, heart disease. And boo for not sucessfully making a Morrocan style transcendent dish. Reasonably tasty, but nowhere close to my dreams of sweet and spicy and delicious.

Sunday Review #3: Cloverfield and Diary of the Dead

This week's review is a joint review of the movies Cloverfield and Diary of the Dead. The reason why I'm doing these movies jointly is because they are told in a very similar style, one that can work very successfully, or that can fail miserably. I may have people really hate me for something I'll say down the line.

Cloverfield, if I remember correctly received rather poor reviews when it first released to the cinemas. Without bothering to reference the reviews, I can see at least one reason why: the camera work is nauseating. Literally. I saw The Bourne Supremacy in the cinema and walked out with a migraine due to the shaky, handheld nature of the camerawork. Cloverfield was way worse: some cinemas even had warnings outside the cinema due the film's ability to induce motion-sickness.

I did not have the same problem with Diary of the Dead. However, the stories are told in similar ways. The difference being, in this case, that the protagonists of DoD are film making students, whereas the "Clover" gang are just friends who happen to have a video camera.

Quick plot summaries before I move on to the storytelling aspect. Cloverfield is about a group of friends living in Manhattan throwing a surprise going-away party for another friend. Around 11pm, a massive earthquake is felt, and so the attendees rush up to the roof to see what happened. Turns out, a giant monster is attacking Manhattan. Think Godzilla, but it's not (frankly, Godzilla is cuter, and King Kong is less destructive). So, your basic monster movie. Most of the people die, they have to rescue another friend, etc. etc.. Not the greatest monster movie ever, but not bad.

Diary of the Dead is another George A. Romero zombie flick. I personally think this is one of the better recent ones he's produced (though my fav will probably remain his remake--of his own movie--Dawn of the Dead). DoD is a bit different from his other zombie fare, due to it's storytelling. Otherwise, same basic premise as most zombie movies: people are happy and carefree, suddenly dead people aren't so motionless anymore, and aforementioned happy and carefree people now have to ward off attacking dead things that want to eat them. Shooting of friends/loved ones does inevitably ensure at least once. Predictable? Yes. Enjoyable? If you're into gore and mayhem and killing shit dead (again), absolutely.

What sets both of these films apart, and could ultimately make or break them, is the nature of the storytelling. Often when you see a movie, there's the "Fourth Wall". The link will explain it more than I will if you care, but in short, the fourth wall is the boundary between the audience and the storytellers (actors, writer, etc). It's what makes the audience voyeuristic, and why they feel like they are simply watching events unfold. I would argue that documentaries do not have this (well...we'll not get into that). Both DoD and "Clover" break the fourth wall. DoD is told as a documentary (or in this case "mockumentary", since it's a fictitious movie) by the film students, who are filming events and piecing the footage together with footage found on the internet. The entirety of the story is told with one character or another behind the camera at all times, or narrating the internet footage.

Surprisingly, this worked really well for me. I can see it failing quite easily--and did in fact, when I tried to watch The Blair Witch Project (this is where people may hate me). I found "Blair Witch" convoluted and boring and--like "Clover" and "Supremacy"--painful to watch due to (unintentionally) bad camera work. It worked for Romero because he had a good basic plot ("arrhh....brains.....") combined with a carefully thought out secondary plot: the student obsessed with recording and documenting historic events for posterity. And of course, the affect of that student's obsession on those around him. It gave a fresh take on the zombie movie. Which I like, but can get tiresome if it's the same basic plot structure over and over again. Luckily, Romero is talented enough to be able to find new things to focus on when it comes to zombies. Hey, the guy is a little...different.

I don't think Cloverfield failed in this same endeavor. I think it was not as successful, and frankly, I think that's because the story wasn't as good. Or more specfically, I don't feel as though the secondary plot, the lives of the friends, was as good. I'm going to go out on a limb here and make a pronouncement that all storytelling is essentially how the characters act and react in relation to events and their environment. That said, you could argue that there is only one plot, and it's just told slighty differently. Either way, the reason why it didn't work as well is because the characters weren't particularly compelling. Though they interacted with the monster and their environment, I felt they were detached from all events. Which can lead to a whole big discussion on how the camera lens can make you less a part of events (I can name some photographers I know who use this phenomenon all the time). Philsophically interesting, but not really great movie watching.

Neither of these movies are exceptional, must-see films. But I did enjoy both of them (watch Cloverfield with lights on and on a not very big screen to minimize headaches and motion-sickness). They both went out on a limb and tried to do something different, with varying degrees of success. If you're in the mood for zombie fare, you can most certainly do worse than Diary of the Dead, and it's probably worth seeing just for the introduction of Samuel, who spawned the great line "I thought the Amish were a friendly people!"

As for monster movies, you can do both better and worse than Cloverfield. It's interesting, but I think the production staff (including J.J. Abrams, who produces Lost, Fringe, and did the new Star Trek movie) was more caught up in the style of storytelling rather than ensuring that they had a solid story. Still, if you're looking for something new, it's worth a glance.

A day late and a dollar short.

I got swept up by such things as forgetting to make a bleu cheese potato gratin (which never seems to cook properly when I make it) and trying to fit a chicken in our tiny oven. When it's impaled--sodomized, really--on a beer can a chicken is quite tall, and in my experience British ovens are tiny compared to their American counterparts. Then I called my folks and played a board game with Adam (I lost). So now it's quite late, and my weekly Sunday review hasn't happened. Which saddens me, because I was hoping to go a full month before I starting screwing them up. But it will be up tomorrow, and better written than anything I post tonight.

I was thinking about reviewing the most recent season of Lost, but WTF is not really a review, and that's more or less how it left me feeling. I enjoyed it overall, but still, WTF. That said, I've decided that I trust Ben more than Locke, and I love Frank Lepedius--sarcastic and smart and resourceful. Also, I would marry Hurley, but fuck Sayid blue first. And Jack's a whiny, insecure ass.

Instead, I shall be doing a joint review of Cloverfield and Diary of the Dead. Watched Cloverfield on Saturday and Diary of the Dead (second time) today, and there are similarities in how the stories are told. And that method of storytelling intrigues me at the moment. So yes, tomorrow, Cloverfield and Diary of the Dead.

In other news, Chapter Two is now frustrating me something shocking. I need him to become an adult. Now. But I think and work chronologically, so I can't skip ahead to write later sections. Still, by Chapter 4 (which seems so far away) he'll be based more in fact and less in my weird, twisted making up of English history.

Outline Take #2

So I've been struggling with how to finish up Chapter 1. I like my Prologue. I think it captures what I want it to capture, and I think it's the right length. I also think it's a good setup to what will come next. That said, it's also a rough draft. I guess. I don't exactly write in "draft" form. I'm learning how, but I think it's pretty polished overall; it will need some minor changes, but those are along the lines of grabbing a thesaurus and changing a few words or looking up appropriate language for the fifteenth century (yeah, so far, that's not so easy). But Chapter 1...yeah, that's rough. But if I have something down, I figure I can work with it. But right now, I'm struggling with the details in all forms. Structure, flow, word choice, length, little plot details and choices to bring everything to life.

Because I've been struggling, I revisited my outline last night (something else I never have used before, so don't say that I'm not trying to grow as a writer). Now I will be rewriting my outline, seeing as how my new Prologue in no way, shape, or form resembles my outline points. Different voice, different period of life, pretty much everything. Great. I'm not entirely sure you're supposed to have the outline match up to the novel--I think it's supposed to be the other way around. That said, since I'm going in a new direction, I need to write a new outline. I won't have to totally change it, but there will need to be some major revisions since I'm going in a somewhat different area.

And someone (whom I actuallly gave my one-sentence plot description to) asked if it was going to be straight or humorous. The answer is straight. I'd love it to be funny, and some people think I am funny, but I don't see a way--for me, I can see others doing it--to successfully write it and be funny. Humour is so much harder than drama. I'm going for biographical. Which is, I suppose, dramatic.

And so for my quotes on writing. Two Matt sent me (link above) the other from a memoir I'm reading (also quoted from elsewhere).

"The first draft of everything is shit." --Ernest Hemmingway

"Many people hear voices when no-one is there. Some of them are called mad and are shut up in rooms where they stare at the walls all day. Others are called writers and they do pretty much the same thing." --Meg Crittenden.

"writing is easy......just stare at the blank page until your forehead bleeds." --on the cover of Allan Weisbecker's Can't You Get Along with Anyone? (attributed to at least three people on the web, Weisbecker say's it's Gene Fowler, web says Gene Fowler and Douglas Adams and Robert McKee...somedays I hate the web).

Right. Off to grab my notebook and rewrite my outline. Then perhaps I'll try--AGAIN--to find some sort of repository on the web of fifteenth century English dialogue. No, Shakespeare doesn't really cut it, for many, many reasons. One of those being that Wills was sixteenth century. Though in a pinch I may use him.

Sunday Review #2: Robin Jarvis's "Whitby" Series

So, as promised, a new (to me) book review. Or more accurately, a review of the first part of a series. Or perhaps the first two-thirds of a trilogy, and we just don't have the third book. Either way, we only have the first two books of Robin Jarvis's Whitby series. And I can't be arsed to look up more on the series right now.

The Whitby Witches was published in 1991, and the second book, A Warlock in Whitby came out in 1992. I give the timeframe, because for me at least, it's somewhat relevant. Unfairly, perhaps, but not uncommonly, I compare most children's/young adult literature to the Harry Potter series. Why? Because despite some of the faults in the HP series, it's probably the best children's series to be published in the last 10-15 years. I can think of some individual children's/YA books that are superb, but as a series with an overarching theme, I can't think of anything recent that is better. I’ve read Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials and I enjoyed it overall, but like C.S. Lewis and his Narnia series, it gets a little weary with the religious/anti-religious themes (admittedly, I like Pullman better). I love Susan Cooper’s Dark is Rising series, although it is before my timeframe, and I enjoyed Cornelia Funke’s Inkheart trilogy (though it is a bit overly long at times), but Harry Potter has probably the best balance of all things. And, I know it the best, having read it more times than you have (seriously. Don’t try me on that one).

But, as I so often do (and say), I digress. Not only do I compare them to when HP was published (first one in 1997), but they are both set in essentially the current timeline. Robin Jarvis is a bit earlier, pre-major cell phone usage and pre-internet in every home, but it does have an essentially modern feel, and even with our current internet and cell phone use, it works when two of your main characters are 8 and 12, and the other is 92. But the real reason it works is because Robin Jarvis captures the essence of the town the series is set in, Whitby. For those who don’t know, Whitby is a real place in North Yorkshire, a fishing village set along and on top of a cliff along the North Sea. I’ve actually been there (day trip) and it’s popular with tourists. It has a quaint, old feel (which I’m sure is partially maintained for the tourist trade), and the ruins of an old Abbey at the very top of the cliff—199 steps to get up to the top. I’m sure Whitby is very lovely when it’s not chucking down rain or trying to blow you off the cliff. Sadly, I wouldn’t know.

Whitby is the real star of these books. I can’t say that I didn’t enjoy them, and I loves me a good children’s/YA fantasy novel, but the stories and the characters, while not flat, just didn’t engage me like Philip Pullman, Cornelia Funke, Susan Cooper, or, yes, J.K. Rowling. Jarvis’s writing is fine, but it’s not exceptional for the most part.

I believe that part of my problem with her storytelling is that the two parts of her world feel disconnected. We have the world that you and I and the residents of Whitby know, and then we have the other world. I’m not sure why this doesn’t work, but it just doesn’t ring true for me. Ben, the 8-year-old protagonist, can “see” dead people, and also can see the “fisherfolk”. The dead people part works well enough for me, although in hindsight, it seems that Jarvis dropped that partway through the series—not that he can no longer see dead people, just that she didn’t need that construct to further her plot anymore, so she didn’t work to maintain it. The fisherfolk, however, remain major characters, so he still interacts with them. And it’s this group of characters that don’t ring true for me. They seem like a child’s fantasy (which is good, actually), but they are real. The problem is, they don’t feel real to me. Instead, they feel like a child’s fantasy that wasn’t really fleshed out. Specifically, they are invisible to most people, and only a few, like Ben, have the ability to see and communicate with them. Though Jarvis attempts to explain the reason for this, it felt to me as though the reason was “they can’t be seen by other people because they can’t.” Compare this to why Hogwarts Castle can’t be seen/found: disguised as a dangerous, crumbling ruin to muggles, made “unplottable” on maps, muggle repelling spells on it. Rowling’s writing makes that seem real and natural and possible (with only the slightest glimmer of question in my mind—namely, since when to people listen to signs that say “Keep Out: Dangerous” when they can explore ruins and such?). Jarvis, on the other hand, falls flat with her lack of description and her pat answers.

While I can go on and name a multitude of other things I can find fault with, I won’t. Because I don’t want to make it sound like I hated the books. I didn’t. I thought they were average (first was better than the second, but that’s often the case in trilogies, and longer series as well), but they weren’t a bad read, and I did mostly enjoy them. Standard good vs. evil fare, with good winning (for the moment), and complex in that she’s running two different storylines, though both are fairly straightforward. This is probably good for younger readers, i.e. complexity made simpler. A first step toward Tolkien (how many different characters/storylines do you have to keep track of at any given point?) or, God help you, Robert Jordan. Generally speaking, if you spot Robin Jarvis’s Whitby series somewhere and you’re looking for a light, easy read, go for it. I do not encourage starting in the middle though, because she does pick right up where the previous one left off, and you will be lost.

That’s all I have for this week, seeing as how Word tells me I’m over 1000 words. Next week, if I can’t find something else to write on (though Pullman comes to mind), I may do an assessment of children’s fantasy literature. Or possibly the incompetence of Word’s spelling and grammar check.

Update

Right, so I decided against knocking on the door of the woman who lives across the hall from me.  It could come across as confrontational, and I don't think that would be the best thing.  Truth be told, I also wussed out.  Not totally though--I wrote her a note this morning, and put it in her mailbox this afternoon on my way out.  Though I can't deny that I didn't really want to "confront" her, I still think this might be the best way (and it may not be); she knows that I'm concerned and I care, but I don't want to make her more uncomfortable.  Hopefully this puts the ball in her court.

I will continue to keep an eye and an ear out, and if things continue or get worse, I will take a more active role.  I can't get out of my head the number of things he did and said that screamed "abuser!" to me.

Sometimes you just want to take a day off...

I've been watching Sports Night with Adam the past few days, and he's been really enjoying it, which makes me happy on two levels; Sports Night itself is a great show, and Aaron Sorkin, the creator, also created The West Wing, which I also dearly love.  But the reason I bring this up is because a character from Sports Night, Dan, mentions at one point that he, from time to time, feels the need to take a day off from actively making sure he and others do the "right thing."  That's poorly phrased, and gives neither Sorkin's writing nor Josh Charles's acting credit, but at the moment I know how he feels.

I think the woman across the hall from me is trying to escape from a domestic violence situation.  I don't know if it's physical or emotional abuse (or both), or if it's not just in my head.  Though I have a hard time believing it's just in my head when a guy pounds on her door at midnight (Adam was--and is--in bed) and yells, "I can be as loud as I need."  Then he started begging/pleading (his words) with her to let her in because he just wanted to talk.  She must have been on the other side of the door talking to him, because at one point he said "I'll talk nicely."  Ultimately, she let him in.  I couldn't hear anything after that point, but he did leave, muttering something (I don't remember what).  I couldn't see her, but she did come out less than five minutes later (and back about five minutes after that).  I couldn't see any evidence of physical abuse, but this woman--the one time I saw her in the lift--looks like life has beaten her down (granted, some people do just look like that, but...).

Now, there are two people I know read this blog regularly who can tell me with absolute certainty if I'm being overly paranoid or not (and I'm pretty damn sure I know what they'll say, but I still want to hear).  One is my mother, one is her friend (and I consider her my friend as well) Barbara.  So, please, if either of you reads this before 4am your time, Tuesday May 5th, please send me an email with any suggestions.  Because, much as I would like to not get involved, I think this guy is a son of a bitch, and my neighbor (who I really haven't met) should know that I'm willing to help if she needs or wants it.  People who pound on doors at midnight in apartment complexes with interior corridors make me worry enough, but to add yelling through a door adds to my worry tremendously.

Right, so any suggestions are welcome, particularly of what I should say to this woman.  I'd love to take a day off from caring, but I cannot and will not walk away from potential domestic abuse, even if I would walk away from a jerk who potentially woke up half the floor.

And to irritate me further, this FUBARd my novel writing this evening, as I spend a goodly amount of time peering out the peephole to make sure I didn't hear anything that was going to warrant my pounding on her door and making damn sure I woke everyone up.  I suppose it's bad that I'm not afraid of people hitting me.  But then I believe in retaliation of the worst forms--legal and finanacial.  Still...do people who feel as though they're morally superior (in certain situations) also feel invicible in those situations?

Sunday Review #1: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Well now, to be perfectly fair, I wrote this about 48 hours after the book came out (I finished it within 6 hours of receiving it...so it may have been more like 24 hours after release).  The reason I haven't written a new review for the week is fairly simple--I didn't feel like it.  There are possible Lost, Firefly, or Sports Night reviews floating around in my head, as well as a probable review on a the first two books of a series Adam suggested to me (we don't have the third or any other books though...bit of a problem, in my mind).  But in the meantime, I'd like to reread what I wrote back in 2007, and posted over on a site called Goodreads.  I have edited it slightly, namely to correct Ms. Rowling's name.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J. K. Rowling (Spoliers probably contained within)

Frankly, I don't think this is her finest work. There are some fantastically funny bits, some incredibly heart-wrenching bits, and some rather boring bits (but they need to be there...the characters are bored and frustrated too). There's a lot of great character development, but there is also, at least in my mind, some character histories that don't seem to appropriately fit in with the already developed characters. That's not to say that the backstories are wrong (it's not my creation, I wouldn't say that even if I felt it), not very good, or unnecessary, but some didn't seem to fit quite the already developed characters. But that's just me. I also felt that there was a bit too much of the old deus ex machina going on. Many stories have a varient of it, often to save the main character, and that's cool, but to me it felt as though it reappeared far more times than one can plausibly expect it to. Time and time again, luck or love plays a part. That's important, but it also gets stretched thin. My partner complained about some of the deaths. Not because beloved characters died and it's sad/upsetting, but because those deaths seemed needless from a literary standpoint--they didn't add to the story. While I would argue that it more clearly shows the price of war, I agree that it could have perhaps been better executed. Fairly major characters died, with little more than a passing mention. There was no clear sign of what they were doing at the time, or specifically how it happened. Again, the price of war, but given the importance of those characters to others (and many readers), perhaps they deserved better (read: more). I also felt as though Rowling either caved to public pressure, or more likely, her own love of the characters. I think some very good things came out of the final battle sequences (it nearly read like a movie, which has always been one of her strong points--clear visualization for the reader to work with), but I also think she waffled on her final decision for Harry, given the surrounding circumstances. It was not a bad ending by any stretch, and the battles were some of the finest I've read--clear and easy to follow, but not incredibly drawn out and obnoxious like Robert Jordan, and not as confusing as some of Tolkien's battles (I'm sure I'll be shot momentarily). I did like the book, and I think it's good. But I think that people will, as they read it over time and come back to it, discover that maybe it's not as good as first felt. But whatever they feel, J.K. Rowling has done amazing things for the reading public--she's gotten them reading again, and excited to do so.