So Very British Problems.

[Twice in one night! Wooo!]

Found this gem of a Twitter user from Tom Hiddleston's page some time ago. I'm experiencing an onset of Anglophilia recently, which is rather evident from the fact that I was only in England for a cumulative 24 hours (including sleeping) but still thought that London was the highlight of my entire trip.

[I saw so many British things I was able to identify! As in, recognise pop culture things and know whatever it is they are.]

Coupled with my exposure to British film, TV and books (plus my current craze with English actors) growing up, London is certainly a place I'd like to visit again, albeit for far more hours this time around.

So without further ado, since I have/had a lot of time on my hands tonight (eagle-eyes will spot that I went all the way back to January 2013 for tweets), here are some very-British problems that I can identify with:

Entering into mild panic if unable to pick the correct amount of change from your hand within three seconds
— VeryBritishProblems (@SoVeryBritish) November 12, 2013

And then people in the back start tsk-ing and tapping their toes...

Saying hello to a friend in the supermarket, then creeping around like a burglar to avoid seeing them again
— VeryBritishProblems (@SoVeryBritish) November 8, 2013

This is unfortunately me. I'm so awkward around people, I skip the 'hello' and jump right to 'creeping'.

Pretending to write down a number on an imaginary pad with an imaginary pen when you're on the phone and have neither
— VeryBritishProblems (@SoVeryBritish) October 28, 2013

This is slightly a problem; I either find the pen or I find the paper. Never both.

Watching with quiet sorrow as you receive a different haircut to the one you requested
— VeryBritishProblems (@SoVeryBritish) October 9, 2013

I am quiet because I don't do righteous indignation well.

Noticing somebody smiling at you and wondering what on earth must be wrong with your face
— VeryBritishProblems (@SoVeryBritish) June 26, 2013

Exactly! And they're always smiling at someone behind me.

The terror of these words: "And then later I'll ask everyone to stand up and present their ideas to the room"
— VeryBritishProblems (@SoVeryBritish) January 15, 2013

To the last, I don't have to be standing to be terrified.

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Ode to my (old) sunglassies.

[Today's post is brought to you by 2008. Yes, it's that behind schedule. It's also a departure from my usual wordy ones, as there are photo-bombs. And by 'photo-bomb', I mean, bombing this post with photos, and not that other extremely fun thing.]

When I was in Melbourne, I lost my China-bought sunglasses (the damndest thing is that I still don't know how I lost them). I was thinking of only buying a new pair when I returned to Malaysia (due to the currency exchange), but with that late autumn came super-bright sunshine, and my eyes really couldn't take it any more.

[And before you think it, no, it wasn't an excuse to buy me a pair of sunnies from Aussies.]

So I traipsed down to Chadstone (which, in itself, is an achievement on its own because I rarely venture far from where I lived), and I bought myself a pair of Tommy Hilfiger sunglasses.

Yes, that's right. Tommy. Fricken'. Hilfiger.

And the best part was, it had a 30% discount!! Usually I only ever get 10% discounts (because the higher-discounted items all looked shitty to me). Bought them for AUD70, with a rate of 2.5. Not too shabby, eh?

Anyway, these pictures were taken in 2008, and please bear with my pathetic attempts at artsy shots:

If you're wondering what's net 200g, it's Red Rock Deli's Sweet Thai Chili chips. 

Spot the UHU! On the left (also yellow) is PVA glue. Neil Buchanan used it all the time.

Devondale UHT milk. Bought them in packs of six. 

Yes, I'm relatively messy. Being a working adult hasn't changed things one bit.

Last one!

The sad thing is, these sunnies are currently out of commission. I had them hooked onto my collar when getting off the bus on our Italy trip, and they fell off and broke :(

So we officially got to sunnie-hunting in Italy, because the sun was rather bright at the time and I figured, since bloody everyone was splurging on branded goods, why not I? And for far more practical reasons than theirs, too, because everyone else was trying to out-buy each other.

Long story short, we had a sojourn to Switzerland when I spotted sunglasses from Karl Lagerfeld so I totesboughtthemtheend. For the record, the Lagerfeld sunnies was the only branded item I bought on that trip.

My sunnies are in the car and my camera isn't, so I'll post photos of them laterz.

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I hereby proclaim my (unofficial) patronage to Debenhams.

Or at least, Red Herring.

[I do think my posts are more boring when I'm not bitching.]

We rarely ever go to Gurney Paragon, because we're afraid of narrow parking lots and walking isn't my thing. Since Jellybunny opened in Paragon yesterday, my mom and I thought we'd sojourn there today.

Before heading to the store, we stopped by the Godiva chocolate shop. Surprisingly, European premium chocolates really are cheaper than in Malaysia (I'm surprised because I hear European things are more cheap in Europe but so far I've not encountered such things yet), like, by a huge margin.

What's sold in France for EUR4.00 is sold here for MYR32.00.

ACTUAL SIZE.

Similarly, I don't recall their regular chocolate boxes (not truffles) selling for more than MYR200 over there. I'm not able to find the box we bought, though, which is a Special Edition one for Brussels (they have one for London, Paris, Singapore, etc., but I don't know there's one for Malaysia or no). Anyway, we paid EUR17-ish for that one.

So, kids, remember: when you're in Europe and you see a Godiva, you buy those chocolates even though the exchange hurts, because that exchange will hurt far less than not exchanging.

Chocolates aside, we went to Debenhams next. It's my second/third time visiting the place, so I figured I might as well try something on for once.

That 'something' was two dresses, and both fit my bodice like nobody's business. I'm rather big-boned, so dresses either bunch or tighten up at the back (don't get me started on the front), and I end up in a dress that's very obviously one size bigger than it should be (which is why I don't really buy fitted dresses).

These fit me like a glove, up top. And that's a phrase I rarely get to use, because it never happens.

I ended up buying only one, because the other had a slit mid-knee, which is weird when sitting. And it's expensive!! The one I bought retails for MYR245.00 here, whereas Debenhams online tells me that it's GBP35.00. That's like, a MYR100 difference!!

This is the one I didn't buy. You don't notice the slit so much in this picture because of the black stockings, which I don't wear.

So, now I know I can get nice super expensive dresses that fit me well at Debenhams. As unlikely as it is, I'm hoping that they open one in Gurney Plaza.

We finally made it to Jellybunny (it was extremely packed for a tiny shop) where I bought a pair of maroon flats for MYR59.00. Then after that we went back to the Plaza for lunch where I stuffed my face with fried rice and fried cuttlefish.

And... that's my day done. Toldja it'd be boring when I'm not complaining.

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Happy 50th Anniversary, Doctor Who!

I only got to know of Doctor Who because of the yearbook my parents bought at a mega-book sale, like, 15 years ago.

This was mine. Based on the Tardis Wikia, apparently, it was the last one published.

To have BBC is to pay extra, so we don't have BBC and thus, we don't have Doctor Who and Sherlock. I found out about the anniversary from Google, where you can play a mini-game involving five levels, switches and Daleks.

And angels that weep. If that were me, I'd chuck my umbrella at that thing and run through the Dalek horde (off-screen) screaming.

You can choose who to start with (I chose William Hartnell, the first Doctor). On my first try in the above level (above grab is my third attempt), I ended up with the guy after Tom Baker (I can't really remember the names of the guys between Baker and Sylvester McCoy, who I remembered because he looks like Pee-wee Herman on the Yearbook cover). Baker is the Doctor with the scarf (in the bottom left corner).

[And in recent years, he often said, "Britain... Britain... Britain...".]

Took me 11-plus minutes on my first try!

The best part is, it doesn't matter if you die after Matt Smith; you just become the first Doctor again. Yay for circular regeneration!

In continuing with today's stumble-upons (like with the Google), I also found below related video. It's a 19-minute Comic Relief episode starring Rowan Atkinson, Richard E. Grant (*swoon*), Jim Broadbent and Hugh Grant as Doctors, and President Jonathan Pryce as the Master.



Being unfamiliar with Doctor Who, the video impliedly explains that nothing ever gets explained on the show. Oh, well. Enjoy!

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Re-watched Thor 2 last Wednesday...

...and surprisingly, I still enjoyed it.

[Trying to catch up on blog back-log! Back-blog! Argh!]

It hit me that Chris Hemsworth is pretty "steady" (to use a colloquial term), considering that he can hold his own against notorious scene-stealer Tom Hiddleston. I mean, as susceptible as I am to Hiddleston's charm, I realised that I didn't mind seeing Hemsworth at all for the majority of the movie.

[The part where he hangs Miu Miu Mjolnir on a coat hook is just precious!]

And it also hit me why I didn't get sick of the film the second time around: because of the Thor-Loki dynamic, from a non-fan girl standpoint. It makes them so bloody interesting to watch: Thor torn between familial bonds and his adopted brother's constant treachery, and Loki, befitting the other side of the coin, alternating between one-upping his brother and (sometimes!) seeming to do right by him.

Given Loki/Hiddleston's popularity, for profitability reasons it's safe to presume that a Loki spin-off is probably not far off. And as much as I would love to see Loki make mischief in an entire movie, my only misgiving is that I don't think that the spin-off would work.

Not unless the plot calls for Thor to play an active (albeit backseat) role in the film.

Sure, the fans (including myself) would throng the cinemas in droves. And Hiddleston, of course, would be blameless in anything (and, possibly for eternity, everything) he does. But in exploring (and expanding) more of Loki, giving him his own stand-alone adventure may not be as fulfilling as seeing him verbally/physically spar with/alongside his brother.

Take Riddick, fr'instance. I don't get why he's popular, but apparently people liked him so much from Pitch Black that he got his own Chronicles. And after that, it seems that the universe in that series was in cryo-stasis for nine years because we only got the sequel to that this year.

And to be fair, the reverse is the same for Thor. They have this symbiotic relationship with each other in the sense one wouldn't be interesting without the other. Especially with photos like these:

Priceless.

So, here's to hoping that Marvel gives us a fantastic Movie 3, and if there is a spin-off for Loki, here's to hoping that they've found a good storyline for him and that the movie doesn't suck.

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"Are you up all night to get Loki?"

[A very, very short one today.]

My semi-obsession with Tom Hiddleston has been rekindled with Thor 2 (watching it again tomorrow, office Movie Night!), so I'm happy to share this hilarious video from Smosh (I'm sooo glad I'm still subscribed to them!). And yes, they actually got to sit down with the real guy and ask him questions, the lucky doods!



Bonus video below. Enjoy!



And the answer to my post title is, "well, yes. Yes, I am." :)

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Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson's A Memory of Light.

[This review has been with me for a long while now; I wanted to make sure I get all my thoughts down properly. I'm still quite struggling with my Star Trek II review, so double feature (in relation) is off the books for now.]

Reading this book gave me mixed feelings. Part of me is happy that the series has FINALLY come to an end; part of me is sad that the original author, Robert Jordan, didn't live to close it.

Most of all, there wouldn’t be any more WoT books to look forward to, after this.

I won't go into the storyline, because the scope of this entire book is immense. It’s what we expected for Tar’mon Gaidon, and the story doesn't let up, flitting from PoV to PoV like nobody's business, showing us what's going on on every front, with most of it steeped in battles and military maneuvers. It also shows how battles are fought and won in a war like this (all or nothing), and so many things and so much (technological?) progress happen that it almost feels like it's the Age of Legends.

The downside to it is that you don’t stay with each character for long, before you’re brought to another character in another location. This took some getting used to, considering the very one/two character-driven Books 12 (Rand/Egwene) and 13 (Mat/Perrin).

[And also, previous books that had devoted almost entire chapters to Elayne refusing goats’ milk only one character.]

One thing that stood out for me in A Memory of Light was how cinematic the scenes are. Where previous books would be great for iMax (all the detailing), the whole of AMoL seems to be made for a summer movie in general, due to pacing and also action. The beginning was slightly slow, but it was necessary to consolidate and position where everyone is supposed to be for the rest of the book.

The body count does hit an all-time high in this one, with many, many supporting characters and, shockingly, one main character (due to her stupid idiot of her husband!) biting the dust. Given how that doofus had been bungling things up (I don’t know who thought up this bloody stupid plot arc), it was almost a given that her death would soon follow after, but then again, we rarely get deaths told from the dying person’s PoV.

And considering how this character is at the forefront of the series, her written death wasn't all that special. Masema’s death from Book 12 stood out. It gave us an insight to an extremely minor character who, up until that point, used to glare at everyone until he became a fanatical zealot. That entire section was gripping, it made an impression, and it certainly lingered with me long after I've moved onto the rest of the story.

The book also posits a theory to good and evil. We all know how the WoT symbolises balance (male/female Aes Sedai symbol, etc.). The mental battle between Rand (our hero) and the Dark One (the Big Bad of the series) is a fascinating turn of events, where they each show a world without the other. It’s interesting to note that a world without the Dark One would be the same as a world with the Dark One; in the latter, all good had been removed from people, whereas in the former, all evil had been removed from people. Rand realises that good cannot exist without evil, and vice versa, which puts him in a bit of a bind since this is the last book and he needs to defeat the bad guy.

I was most excited to read the final chapter, especially when I found out that Jordan had written the last few scenes of the entire saga, and I was a bit stumped to find that Jordan had only (most likely) written the last bit of very, very last scene, which, though beautifully written and gave me goosebumps, just wasn’t enough.

*and here is where it gets spoilerrific!*

I’m completely okay with how the story turned out; it’s bittersweet, in a good way. I actually dig the idea of Rand riding into the sunset anonymously, him rearing up his horse like Zorro (struck out because I made that up; there are so many scenes in this book that would play out gloriously on film) as the wind rose up and blew the final sentences of the series into place.

It’s only the execution that I have issues with.

I feel that Rand owes it to Nynaeve, to Tam, Moiraine, Loial and all those close to him, to at least personally let them know he’s still alive but incognito. And unrealistically, how can Min and Co., be so outwardly nonchalant (so obvious that everyone notices it) about Rand's "death", and yet hope to hide the fact that Rand is still alive? If this is the actual ending that Jordan envisioned, it’s a crap way that disregards the feelings of all those who had stuck with Rand thick and thin through 14 flippin’ books.

I get Rand’s motivations for wanting some peace for a while. Yes, I can understand him taking a step back from ruling and letting the Power of Threewives run the world. But I can’t understand him just disappearing so without saying thank you and goodbye to all his friends. At least in The Lord of the Rings everyone said their farewells before sailing off in that massive ship.

[I don’t really follow LotR but I know those people were going away for a long, long time.]

I feel that Rand owes them that much.

Plus, switching bodies with Moridin: Nae’blis and all-around head Forsaken? Won’t people panic? Won’t people just go, “Hey, what happened to that guy that was lying next to Rand? Oh, no, he's still alive, he’s going to release the Dark One again!"

I don’t know whether Jordan is to blame for this final plot development, or whether it’s something Sanderson and Team Jordan (people in charge of editing and continuity) worked out because they were running out of time / pages and just wanted to get it over with. This whole resolution just doesn't gel well with me.

I'm not going to harp on my usual quibble with all books post-Jordan. I appreciate that Sanderson cuts to the chase (instead of describing every single bloody thing to the minutest detail until you lose track of what you’re supposed to be reading about in the first place), but I’m surprised that Team Jordan wasn’t able to eke out all those inconsistencies in Sanderson’s narrative style and language.

[Mind I said ‘narrative’ instead of ‘writing’. That’s how I knew that Jordan hadn’t written the final PoV. Too many contractions; Jordan very rarely (so rare it’s almost ‘never’) uses contractions in narratives; only in dialogue and in thoughts.]

Plus, there was even a ‘Yeah’ in the book (either from Egwene or Elayne), a word which does not exist in their lexicon. Considering the fact that I’ve skimmed through Books 8-10 (up till now, I'm of the impression that the only significant thing to happen is the Cleansing, in Book 9), I should not be noticing details like this.

There were also some loose ends (what bloody happened to Gaul? And did Juilin Sandar die?!) but all in all, it was a pretty satisfying ending to a saga that's been an integral part of my life, even though I came late to the series.

Jordan said he envisioned and wrote the ending at the very start of the series, and you can just tell that the final paragraphs of the book are definitely his. I'll end my post with his words:

========

The wind rose high and free, to soar in an open sky with no clouds. It passed over a broken landscape scattered with corpses not yet buried. A landscape covered, at the same time, with celebrations. It tickled the branches of trees that had finally begun to put forth buds.

The wind blew southward, through knotted forests, over shimmering plains and toward lands unexplored.

This wind, it was not the ending. There are no endings, and never will be endings, to the turning of the Wheel of Time.

But it was an ending.

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