January holiday oddments.

Summer School last week was variously exhausting and encouraging. I felt like I struggled to take in the talks but there were lots of little bits from the talks, songs, missionary sessions, friends, and even the beauty of the mountains that penetrated quite deeply. I read Keep the Faith, and started reading Romans, sang 'How Great Thou Art', and then actually went and "looked down from lofty mountain grandeur". And it all fit together and a penny dropped about creation displaying God's glory.

I watched Hart of Dixie season 1, which was a Christmas present. Actually got given Miranda S3 twice so returned one of them and got HOD instead. It's very enjoyable. A quaint town, quirky traditions, some beautiful people, and some slow-moving love triangles. It's been done before but it's still fun. Unfortunately season 2 is expensive.

Also listening to Raising Steam. Terry Pratchett is just the best with words. I laughed out loud at "agenderitis", which is where you have too many agendas at a meeting. Listening on the Audible app. The downside of the app is that it doesn't sync with iTunes so you can't leave off on the app and then pick it up on your iPod at the same place. But it's great all the same, with the ability to bookmark and stuff, if you just listen on the one device it's a fair bit better than iTunes.  Here are pics of the Audible app for audiobook lovers.

My favourite word at the moment is "hinterland". It just sounds nice. It's German for back country.

Some good articles in The Briefing. One on discipling in music ministry.

Mum, Julia and I cleaned our grandparents windows inside and out at Christmas. Now I am desperate to clean my windows but I'm stuck because flyscreens on the second story. Maybe a pressure hose thing would work though.

I started a cross-stitch, a small one, did quite a lot of it at Christmas and Summer School until the needle broke.

And I'm back in regular life now.

Ender's Game.

I saw this on Sunday, by myself, because a) it was a facebook special and b) it was airconditioned. The cinema was pretty empty though: there was one young couple, there was me, and there were maybe 6 solo men of various ages scattered around the room.

Some things about the movie were good. The actor who played Ender Wiggin was perfect (apart from being a teenager instead of a primary-aged kid). It looked great. It was succinct. But, compared to the book, it was so abbreviated. None of the kids (teenagers though) had an interesting story or a personality, there was no sense of the loneliness and cruelty Ender went through to become a military genius before puberty, the vocabulary was watered down, the time-frame was shorter, and most of all there were hardly any games in the battleroom and that was my favourite part of the book. And there is a whole side-story with Ender's brother and sister that's gone, although I wasn't satisfied with where that went in the book anyway. It's basically very very compressed.

The film is a good way to get a handle on the Themes of the book though. It's a sci fi classic because it has Themes. It's the kind of book kids would study in year 12.

Twelve Clues of Christmas, a Royal Spyness Mystery.

http://www.audible.com/pd/Mysteries-Thrillers/The-Twelve-Clues-of-Christmas-Audiobook/B00A9VCE4U/ref=a_hp_c1_1_t

This was $5 on Audible recently. I think it's currently $10. If you like Midsomer Murders and Phryne Fisher you will like this book. It's fun, predictable, and stupid, and just well-written enough to be slightly addictive. Like Midsomer, there are a lot of deaths in a village and nobody is really sad about them. I did like all the ancient English Christmas traditions and playing sardines and doing a panto and charming things (it's set in the 1920s). I hated the Irish accent the reader used for the love interest (only a problem if you get the audiobook obviously). One thing that surprised me in myself was that whenever Lady Georgie fights off the advances of sleazy posh men, I don't think it's that comedic. There's some line somewhere where outrageous behaviour goes from amusingly inappropriate to technically criminal, and I don't tolerate it any more. You don't go into a girl's bedroom at night while she is a bit drunk and try to "have your way" with her against her ladylike protestations. Another way to describe that is attempted rape. You see? somewhere between amusingly inappropriate and criminal. But it's all OK in the end because the hapless maid Queenie saves the day with a big water jug. Anyway, a book in this series MAY be made into a movie, which I would like to see, but I doubt it will happen. And the love interest is called Darcy. That's all you need to know. $5 well spent.

Audiobook happy!

I'm listening to Ender's Game at the moment, it's a page-turner. I heard it was like Harry Potter in space, but it's a lot more dry and intense. Poor Ender is more exhausted and traumatised than Harry. More like Katniss in the 3rd Hunger Games book. The games in the fleet school are really fun to listen to though. Mostly all they do is play army-style laser tag in anti-gravity rooms. So much better than quidditch.

I wonder if I am becoming too lazy to read a book with my eyes. But audiobooks are so good for multitasking, I can "read" them while I sew, or fall asleep, or on public transport (I get sick reading on the bus and also the ipod is so convenient). And a good reader doing all the accents is fun. I worry that I'm missing out on creating my own version of the world though. My dilemma is, should I download the new Discworld book from Audible (and if so, the unabridged version or the abridged one read by the wonderful Tony Robinson?), or get the actual book and enjoy the pure read. But it might take a while to get the book, whereas the audiobook is available instantly. Although I need my Audible credits for Christmas presents and if I spend them on a book for myself I'll have to come up with another idea for someone else, which is to be avoided.

Canberra: Turner and Portraits in a day.

I don't know what I am standing in front of. I think it's Questacon. Looks like a pink squid on the corner of the roof.

I went to Canberra on Saturday with some friends and we went to the Turner exhibition. I picked up a pride and prejudice board book in the NGA bookshop for $11 (teaches babies to count using P&P). After lunch we went to the portrait gallery which was great. So interesting. Laid out chronologically. All the portraits have a little biography with them so you find a name you recognise like barrington, cos there are mountains named after him, and then you find out that he was a pickpocket who joined the circus, got caught several times but usually talked his way out of it until finally he was transported to NSW where he got good behaviour and became a policeman and got promoted up the ranks like a respectable person. But he died quite young and apparently lunatic. The bookshop in the portrait gallery is brilliant. It's got lots of books on design, architecture, food, and also much cool stationery. But it's very expensive so I didn't buy anything. Because I should write on the stationery I own first, and read my books.

Be Still my Soul.

If you like modern covers of hymns, investigate Jadon Lavik. Sometimes his constant tweaking with the melody or timing is a bit off-putting, but they are really nice.

Endeavour.

http://www.radiotimes.com/news/2013-04-14/endeavour-roger-allam---di-fred-thursday-is-morses-surrogate-father

Endeavour is the Inspector Morse prequel series. Well constructed mysteries, just the right length, nice writing, 60s decor and fashion, with lots of beautiful Oxford.

Inspector Thursday, on the roof of a college, calmly smoking his pipe, facing down the psychopathic serial killer:

"I've looked into the eyes of worse than you. People who've done real atrocities. And they were sane. Next to them, you're nothing more than a second-rate freak show."

Classy. Loving it.

Little jobs.

You have to make a mess to improve things. I had a long list of annoying jobs this weekend. I went at it with all my might. This is my kitchen table in the midst of my morning tea break.

I'm proud of a long pocket thing I made to organise tapestry yarn. This counts as craft! It's more about problem solving than creativity but it's very satisfying.

I also replaced a pocket in my bag that has been torn for a year, and thing fall into the lining. Cut the old pocket out, sewed a new pocket, and hand sewed it in. This is also immensely satisfying.

I also moved things around in the living room...  Getting stuff ready to go to the clothing bin. Taking things TOO the clothing bin. Cleaning my keyboard and mouse to give away and packing up my computer to get rid of it. This was where I kept my computer. Behind a couch. Pull the couch out and spin it around to use my computer. Pretty ingenious space-saving, but still, I haven't used the computer in the last year so I have emptied it and it's getting evicted.

I also saw the Great Gatsby movie. I don't like the story that much but I thought the movie was great. I have no nitpicks, it was really good.

TV land.

Thursday night is pretty good.

The Mindy Project: A dumb show that's on way too late, but I quite like it. Mindy is an OBGYN who wants to live in a rom com. Last night she was on a date with a goofy cute academic, on valentine's day, on the empire state building, and she convinced him that he was in love with his best friend—not her. Silly and I enjoy it.

Little Paris Kitchen: a cooking show. On SBS on Thursday night. French food by Rachel Koo, a cute designy Eurasian with an English accent. Her Paris kitchen is possibly smaller than mine, I like that she doesn't have a kitchenaid and everything. And it's pretty. And she talks French. And she used to be a graphic designer so there is stuff like the title screens between each recipe are written and illustrated by her.

Last night wasn't a TV night. I went to a fancy dinner. The meat was sooo tender. There is a lot of difference in chewyness and flavour between the cheap meat I buy and cook just to force my iron up, and whatever that was. I shared my tip about bread roll consumption (tear it up with your fingers, don't make a sandwich out of it), and learned the correct way for men and women to place their hands in their laps when they are not eating. Men, interlock the fingers, women, place right hand over left as though lightly cupping a fly. I love learning that stuff. It makes interesting small talk.

Vivid 2013 doctor who.

I gave blood last week and my iron was low, the exact minimum allowed. Which is good because I still got to give blood, but I think it explains the nausea I've had, esp in the afternoon, esp on the bus. Google said it was either pregnancy or iron deficiency or something else, so I was guessing the iron thing and trying to eat more beef and take a multi vitamin, and the blood test seems to have confirmed it. So now I'm eating beef every day. It's so annoying to chew.

I went to the Doctor Who night at Vivid. Here are photos. The Doctor Who display was only on that one night, and it was raining. And it's only on once an hour and lasts 5 minutes. Plus a 5 minute countdown. Stingy. Why not every night once an hour? or every 15 minutes on the Saturday? So much effort and so cold and wet.

The lighting was very pretty though, as usual. In fact, water makes everything more reflective and pretty, and umbrellas add pleasing silhouettes. I'm glad I saw the Doctor Who thing anyway, and there was some cute costumes: saw a tardis ball gown, a Matt smith, a Tom baker, and a Dalek. It seems Matt Smith is retiring from being the Doctor, which is sad. I hope they get another unknown.

On Sunday I was way tired. Didn't even brush my hair. Went to the shops and then church.

Finally, you may have missed the video Bec made of Elsie and I having brunch. It's on http://jelssie.blogspot.com.au/. I really want to do it again soon.

Elementary.

It was an intelligent show. They did not, in the first episode, reveal a grand plot, the start of a season-long story arc, a nemesis… it was simply proceedural. If it gets a long story arc of some sort, even if it's just a character development one, not a 'catch Moriarty' thing, it would be excellent.

The main characters, Sherlock and Watson, were mish-mashes of the types. My flatmate thought Sherlock was a Robert Downey Jr ripoff, I think he was broader than that. (I originally thought that out of RDJ and Benedict Cumberbatch, Cumby was the more authentic Sherlock but having gone back to the books, it's possibly RDJ. Because Sherlock Holmes does box as a gentleman's sport, and does have a sense of self-deprecating humour occasionally, and some rare self-doubt. He is obsessive and arrogant and intelligent and a drug addict, but he is not a COMPLETE sociopath and probably not even on the aspergers/autism spectrum, and he is refined.) Anyway, there are so many shows with the Holmes/Watson dynamic, like the Mentalist with Patrick Jane and Lisbon, that it was never going to be a highly original interpretation, esp following so soon after RDJ and BC. It was well written and well cast, though. Sherlock had the pointy nose and the drug problem and the facts and "deductions". Watson had the post-traumatic stress of professional malpractice, and a valid excuse to move in. There is no Lestrade, but there is the other guy, Gregson. It had a good look, and a sharp soundtrack—I liked the pop songs and cello music was very effective.

Wayfarer: The River

I love this EP. Hymns in a Fleet Foxes style. It's creative and singable. I'm singing "What wondrous love is this, oh my soul" all the time. I like hymns that don't have epic lyrics with 8 lines a verse; I like hymns that you barely need a powerpoint slide to read from, because they are plain and simple. I predict a trend in that direction.

You can get it on iTunes, Bandcamp, Noisetrade, etc etc (re Noisetrade, it's free, but it's worth a donation, I think, so I "bought" it there rather than funding apple with their outrageous prices and the cut they get from it).
http://noisetrade.com/wayfarer