The mirror stares you in the face and says 'uh uh baby, it don't work'.

Lessee, what's shaking?

I'm sort of ill-like, again *vigorous eye-rolling*, for which I employ my usual solution: no showering or any of that 'personal hygiene' craphola, burying myself in my way too warm payamas, getting in bed with my blanket and watch movies / television shows whilst smoking way too much, drinking loads of coffee and drifting in and out of sleep. It works for me, kay!

Feeling slightly better today, and was getting a bit bored (and my bandwidth is just being eaten up with all the streaming) and I can't seem to locate my cellphone anywhere (yes, genius, I know I could try calling it myself, but it's on silent, so there. I just know there's at least one wise-ass who thinks he's oh so smart and here's my big fat middle finger, I suggest you sit on it, cunt.), so I just thought I'd give everyone an update on the numerous things I have been reading/watching. Prepare to be dazzled... Maybe have a glass of wine first. Oeh, we have wine. Could I have wine? Wine is totally good for you, especially if you've spent the last 4 days trying not to throw up and you've felt soooooo close to blowing chunks you even took the little grey bucket out from under the sink and put it next to your bed, even though normally you only get that thing out if you have to clean up dog piss and you've sort of been wondering whether you wouldn't prefer to just hurl on the floor and deal with it later, but then you realised you'd still have to get the same little grey bucket to clean up the puke, because puke and dog pee are closely related on the scale of ew, so you kept the bucket anyway. Wine!

Okay, so, all set. I'm not gonna drink this, smelling it makes me go all queesie, but it's the thought that counts, and the thought says 'cheap red wine that someone gave me at my last dinner party'. Much appreciated.

Anyhow, in the last couple of days I've reread the final Harry Potter book for the third time (I swear I'm not a geek, it's just a book you can start and finish all in the same 3 hour period so it's a good little filler in between. Okay, I am a geek, but for totally Harry Potter unrelated reasons.). I can't say much about it, since so many people here are waiting for the Dutch version, so suffice to say I liked it, well written, but in my opinion it has two gaping plot holes I can't get over and I never noticed anything like that in the previous books, so that was a shame. Also, Harry's nekkid a lot, so let's hope they keep that in the movies *drewls at Radcliffe* I like paleness, honk honk!

I also read a book called 'Sovereign Ladies', about the 6 Queens Regnant of England/Great Britain/the United Kingdom, which was interesting enough in the beginning, you know, when Queens actually had a say, but from right around Queen Mary II and Queen Anne it turned into a bit of a yawn, and while Elizabeth II seems like a charming woman, and a good sport should I ever want to discuss horses, dogs or troublesome daughters-in-law, reading about her life is about as exciting as... well, as that would seem to most people I suppose.

Right now I'm reading 'Liberty', a book that illustrates the life of women during the French Revolution by juxtaposing 6 very different women from the period, amongst whom Germaine de Staël & Théroigne de Méricourt, the only two I had any previous knowledge of. I'm not sure if author Lucy Moore is just a dull woman, or whether maybe her subjects were dull (though, for a woman in those days to have generated enough written documents for us to know anything about her, she should have been rather remarkable), or maybe just maybe I don't really give a flying fuck about women during the French Revolution, unless they're Marie-Antoinette, Madam Royal, the Royal Sisters or that Lamballe Princess, either way, the book is boring me to pieces, but I have hopes of finishing it in a couple of days.

Anyhow, other than that I have been watching a lot of American Dad and Family Guy. I like American Dad, a lot of people say it's a cheap knock-off from Family Guy, but other than the animation style I don't think they're all that similar. I am totally obsessing about Stan's gut though. Whenever he has his shirt on, he looks quite fit, but whenever he takes it off, he has this big ole gut. Is it the shirts? If so, where can I get one? Does he suck it in when dressed? I can relate to that, not having taken a full breath since the summer of 2000, but then why not suck it in when shirtless? It boggles me.

Whilst a big fan of Family Guy (go Quahog! wooo!), I wish they'd give Meg a Revenge episode or something, I feel so sorry for her. Okay, everyone hates Meg, for reasons I don't understand, but honestly, the poor girl, she should have just ONE episode where she really lets her family have it without it backlashing on her tenfold. I always root for the Unfairly Oppressed, Lord knows why, I'm sure it's a Freudian youth throw-back thing. I have it with South Park's Butters as well, but unlike Meg, he has had his Revenge moments and I loved those so much, they're among my favourite SP moments.

I also saw the Family Guy Movie, which wasn't bad at all, it was very much the same as an episode actually and they managed to spread a rather thin plot into a moviechunk without getting boring. Despite the FG movie not having been theatrically released, I actually thought it was a better effort than the Simpsons Movie, especially considering the difference in time spent on the respective projects. I hope I don't get any Simpson Movie fans on my case now. Ow yeah, that's right, Kenneth doesn't read this blog anyway. Few, dodged a bullet there.

Staying in the realm of the animated, I also watched the Care Bears Big Wish movie. That blew chunks of viler quality than anything I feel capable of producing. They really fucked those up, I used to love the care bears (okay, a haze of about 20 years may have coloured my memory), but now it's so plastic. It's right up there with the Bratz Dolls really, except the Care Bears don't encourage children to give hand-jobs on street corners in exchange for Pussycat Dolls tickets. The Bratz are total whores. And the Care Bears are soulless corporate shells, booh.

I also watched 'Meet the Robinsons', which I'm not sure has been in cinemas here yet, but I suppose it's still coming. (note: imdb just told me it's not due here until october). Anyway, excellent movie, quite funny, but without neglecting the story. Actually, although the astute viewer will figure out most of the plot within 10 minutes (Kev will take about 35 I guess), it's complicated enough to leave the little ones guessing until the very end, and maybe even then they'll still be confused. I was pleasantly surprised by it and it gets a good recommendation.

Another animated movie (hey, cartoons are good for your health): Happy Feet. My former co-worker Anke told me about that one moooooooonths ago and she said how great it was, so I figured I'd give it a try and it was pretty good. Nicole Kidman's voicing is ludicrous and somehow brilliant and Brittany Murphy has a way too sexy voice for a childfriendly penguin and manages to make every piece of dialogue she utters sound raunchy somehow, but that only adds to the grown-up fun. Happy Feet is a jukebox musical, utilizing a bunch of songs that have been used a million times before, but it does it rather well, so no complaints there. In both 'Robinsons' and 'Happy' it goes towards a mushy ending, but luckily both movies quit before they drown in a too saccharine conclusion.

And then, two comedies, with the same lead actor, yet as far removed from one another as possible.

Napoleon Dynomite is a movie I had read a lot about, but it was never released in Belgium. From everything I'd read about it, it was supposed to be awesome. I'm still not sure, it's either really brilliant or a total piece of crap. I swear, I was watching this thing and wondering whether I liked it or not and I couldn't quite decide. The characters are ennerving and sad, but too annoying to invoke sympathy, the situations are too bizarre to relate to, but too mundane to consider silly, and the jokes are well, infinitely subtle and at the same time gapingly obvious. And yet, at the end, I sort of went 'aow'. So I guess it's a good movie, but just weird. Probably brilliant. Yeah. Whatever. Ow yeah, the thing with the cow and the bus of school children was brilliant, very South Parky.

Blades of Glory did pass through our movie theatres some time ago, but for those who don't remember the endless commercials for it: it's about two male figure skaters who are banned from singles competitions because a fight between them caused a mascotte to go up in flame or something, I wasn't paying attention by then (and this is the opening scene, nuff said) and then they team up to compete in doubles, leading to the typical 'opposites who hate each other learn to appreciate each other's differences, bring out the best in each other and become friends', but now it's got the extra dimension of guys in sequined tights. Of course there's a villainous twosome (God, the closing joke about these two I anticipated from the first moment they came on the screen, so predictable) and a good girl forced to help who in the end realizes her inner strength and stands up for what she believes in, just in time to be kissed by the effeminate hero in his sequined tights. Big Fat Yawn. Best bit: the South-Korean Iron Lotus video, I love it when Asians in tights get hurt.

Last up, Knocked Up, another movie that won't be released here until october (why is that actually, why do we have to wait so long for movies to trickle down to here? It cannot take THAT long to slap some subtitles under those bitches.). Premise of the movie: hot television girl drunkenly boinks not so hot slacker stoner dude, gets pregnant, hilarity ensues. Pretty funny movie, mainly due to the lead actors really doing their very best. And oeh, the guy who played Phoebe's husband (the last one, not the faux-gay one she married before the show started and then divorced in season one because he wanted to marry another girl and she was all depressed because she was secretly in love with him and he was a figure skater too and isn't it totally weird how the universe sets these things up, woaw) plays a supporting character and he still has that whole dependable doe-eyed puppy boy look thing going which is endearing and all, but you sort of suspect he'd still ream you really hard if given half the chance. I sure hope I have the correct meaning for 'ream', I read the word once and assumed I got it from the context, but it was ambiguous and if I got it wrong, I may have just written something totally dirty.

Anyhow.