Monday, January 31, 2011

Glee Highlights: Season 2, Episode 8 - Furt

So, since channel 10 hasn't aired a new episode of Glee since the last week of NOVEMBER, 2010 (WTF dudes), I never got around to doing a highlights recap of the Furt episode. Oops.

BUT. The good news is that a "new" episode ("new" is a term I use loosely, since we are already THREE episodes behind the States) airs tonight, so here is a very belated round-up of the episode highlights (and lowlights, in this case). Enjoy!

Kurt / Karofsky bullying
I like that this bullying storyline hasn't been neatly solved in one Very Special Episode. There's a realness to the scenes between Kurt and Karofsky that I'm willing to bet a LOT of kids identify with.

Fiiiiiiiight!
The New Directions dudes band together to tell Karofsky to back off Kurt. It's a sweet gesture, and although I'm sure Karofsky and his jock friends would crush them to a pulp in about 0.1 of a second, it was nice to see the guys acting as a united front for Kurt.

The wedding of the season.....?
Oh, yeah. Kurt's dad and Finn's mother are getting married. They announced it at the start of the episode and then suddenly the wedding was completely organised within about three days (seriously, dress, venue, flowers, church, choreographed dance routine - who can do that within three days? Apparently Kurt can. Who knew?) I loved, loved, LOVED the dance number down the aisle to a Bruno Mars song (and I am not a Bruno Mars fan at all). It was fun, happy, silly and just awesome.

Mike and Carole's vows....
....were all about Kurt. If I was Finn, I would be so pissed. The whole wedding was basically a celebration of Kurt, and while I acknowledge he's been having a rough time, it seemed odd that he was the focus for a lot of the episode, rather than the people, you know, getting married. But then it wouldn't be Glee without inconsistent and bizarre storylines!

The stupidest wedding of the season
Sue's wedding to herself. Ugh. This was an obvious attempt on the part of the Glee producers to give Sue some screen time, because otherwise she just wouldn't have been in the episode. Honestly, as much as I love Sue's character, I would rather they left her out than concoct a stupid storyline like this one. And Carol Burnett guest starred as her mother, and I just think it was a crappy way to engineer Sue's mother coming back into town.

Kurt cried and then he left
To go to the Boys' School for Super-gelled Haircuts and Impromptu A Cappella Performances in the Hall (aka Dalton Academy). I think he's going to love it there.

New epsiode tonight peeps, so that means there will be another Glee highlight later in the week! Pin It

Thursday, January 27, 2011

Book review - Got enough Room?

Title: Room
Author: Emma Donoghue
Publisher: Picador (Pan Macmillan)
Year of publication: 2010
Page extent: 300+

Once in a while, a book comes along that immerses you, making you feel both intrigued and disturbed by a world you think you'll never be able to understand, but can visualise perfectly. That book is Room by Emma Donoghue.

Room is where Jack lives with Ma. They don't go in or out of Room. The door is always locked. Their only visitor is Old Nick, who comes through Door at night to visit with Ma while Jack sleeps in Wardrobe, hidden from view. 

Jack has Ma's complete attention. They eat, play, exercise, sleep and watch TV together, just the two of them. Jack knows nothing of the world outside, having never left the eleven by eleven foot Room he knows as home. Early on in the novel, Jack turns five and Ma begins to reveal things about Outside, desperate to leave the prison she has been stuck in for the past seven years. Jack finds it hard to believe that things like people, lakes, houses, trees and aeroplanes exist, having believed that everything he saw on TV was pretend. To him, nothing outside of Room is real - Room is the centre of the universe and he and Ma (and Old Nick) are the only people who are Real. Convincing Jack that freedom is something they desperately need is a difficult task for Ma - how do you convince a child who has never left the room he was born in that there is a much better way to live?

Emma Donoghue takes a dismal situation and turns it on it's head by using Jack as the narrator. His curiosity and constant questions reveal the setting and the plot bit by bit as Jack processes the information Ma gives him with doubt and disbelief. Less a story about an horrific situation and more a story about the bond between a mother and son, Donoghue uses Jack's somewhat stunted grammar and infantile language to illustrate a world seen for the first time through the eyes of a completely innocent child. Routine things like walking with shoes on, going up and down stairs and having a shower are taxing, confusing tasks for Jack, and his brain is constantly whirring with questions, observations and initial refusal to try living life differently.

When I began reading room, I was a little bit ambivalent - the language alone was somewhat off-putting. But before I knew it, I was drawn into the world of Room. The minutia of Jack and Ma's everyday life is described in intense detail, while other aspects of life Jack doesn't understand are glossed over, which can be frustrating initially, as adult readers pick up on the serious undertones of the situation. Piece by piece the pace of life in Room picks up and moves forward to develop into a gripping story that leaves it mark on the reader. 

This is one book you definitely need to read - soon.

In a word: Intriguing
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Monday, January 24, 2011

Paper things


A new Idea Notebook (a la Sean Blumberg)

Purchased at Readings.

Accompanied by one very wrinkled doona cover (seriously, how many of you iron your bed linen? I cannot be bothered). Pin It

Monday, January 17, 2011

Golden Globes 2011 Fashion Round Up

AKA The Year of Beige.

Hoo boy, a LOT of women wore beige/neutral/pale shades this year. Most of the shades were incredibly blah and washed them out. Some people did it properly. Most did not. I wasn't that enamoured with most of the beige, so I'm going to review what caught my eye, because really, what else matters?

Ugh, that sounded assy. Sorry.

Anyway, here we go! 


Ricky Gervais invites you in so he can make a joke about you and watch as you fail to understand his British humor.
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Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Bargain Buy

Wandering around a local trash and treasure market on the weekend to look at plants for the garden and I spotted this:


I've always loved glo mesh - even since I was little and my sisters and I envied the gold Oroton glo mesh purse and cigarette case my grandmother had. At vintage markets you usually see it in silver and gold, and often beige, but I had never seen it in midnight blue before. It's not second hand, and it comes with a sticker saying "Made in Hong Kong", but for $5 it was a steal.

And I needed a purse to put in clutch bags when we go to weddings, etc. Usually I just stuff money, my drivers licence and any number of random items in the side pocket and hope I don't lose anything, but now I can arrange things nicely in my clutch, and I won't have ten thousand bobby pins, an array of $2 coins and bandaids falling out whenever I open it.
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Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Got a few minutes to spare?

Check out this link to donate to the Queensland Flood Relief Appeal.





In all seriousness, shit's getting real up there. If you have the means to assist, please do so by visiting the above link. 

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Friday, January 7, 2011

Heavy Rotation: Glee, The Music: Volume 4

We did a family Kris Kringle and my wishlist contained just one thing: the latest Glee soundtrack . How many other people unwrapped this gift on Christmas Day? More than a few, I'm willing to bet!

For the record, I actually think this may be my favourite so far of the Glee soundtracks. I think it's because of all of the soundtracks, it's the only album (so far) whose songs are mostly from the past eighteen months (eight songs are from the 2009 or 2010), and thirteen of the eighteen tracks are from the past ten years (aaaaannd now I feel old). I think it's also because I just love hearing current chart hits being performed by a show choir. It gives the songs a fresh, different feel, and watching the cast groove along during the episodes with supposedly spontaneous choreographed routines makes me happy (and as I've stated previously, that's the main reason I watch Glee - for the fluffy escapism).

The rest of this entry is going behind a cut, because the final two songs on the album are spoilers for the sectionals numbers New Directions performs in the next episode Channel 10 will air (at some point in the future, I assume....We're now TWO episodes behind the States, so thanks a lot network ten).

So, if you don't want to know what's performed at sectionals, DON'T read the rest of this entry. For those of you who don't care if you're spoiled (or you've already watched the episode online), read on.......


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Sunday, January 2, 2011

My New Addiction

Wedges. So Summer. So funky.


Wittner Kindred Wedge in Buttermilk. Purchased before Christmas for $139.95, but I daresay you could pick them up for under $100 in the sales.

If anyone sees a black peeptoe wedge with a wooden heel like these ones let me know! Wittner only has black in suede or in styles that are too high, but I want leather, and preferably not too high.

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Saturday, January 1, 2011

Auld Lang Syne


Happy New Year from everyone at Chez Boredom Abounds! Hoping 2011 kicks some serious ass for you and yours!
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