Respect the Old Day

Today is Respect the Old Day. Yes, it is a public holiday. The Japanese calendar is full of odd holidays like these. Okay, so this isn't quite so strange, but really, a day off for Day of the Sea?

Anyway, my point today: Sara came home from school last Friday with a card for her grandparents for Respect the Old Day. Since neither set are here, I thought it best to post it up here for them to see back in Singapore.

Front: Hmm…. a bit random, but okay

Back: Erh… a little too clustered, but hey, am I expecting too much?

Inside: Cute handprints, but the photo, oh the photo…

Close up: Budding gymnast, maybe, but really, could've done without the leg in the face

12 days, 6 books later…

… it's done.

It's been fun – this fantasy world that J.K. Rowling has created for us. The books graduate from being kiddy-like at the start, maturing into darker, more convoluted stories later. The first two books work like children's books. The story is relatively simple and Harry's adventures are self-contained. The ongoing theme on the return of Voldermot is there, but it plays in the background mostly.

The third book is more of the same, but with a darker approach and more allusions to Harry's past. The characters are darker too, especially Sirius Black and the Dementors. That said, the story ties up fairly neatly, but sets up the stage for the return of He Who Must Not Be Named.

I like the fourth book the best. The story is once more relatively self-contained, seemingly nothing to do with Voldermot up until the end. Perhaps that is why I like it. A lot of action and excitement, without dwelling too much on the latent evil hiding in the wings. The ending, of course, brings us into a whole different world with the rise of the Dark Lord.

The fifth and sixth books get a little tedious for me. Frankly, they read like one really long book, and from what's been said about the seventh book, it will more of the same, so I can safely say the last three books should probably be, in essence, one story. Harry gets a little annoying too, being this matyr of a hero, always misunderstood, perpetually angry and not being able to control himself all too often. A little too self-righteous for me to care for. The story moves much better in the sixth book than in the fifth, but overall, the ongoing theme around Harry versus the Dark Lord for two whole books starts to wear thin after a while.

So yes, I will read the last book when it finally comes out, curious that I am to find out how Harry manages to end this all, being an unqualified wizard who seems to have scraped through being plucky and quick-thinking, rather than being a particularly good wizard. I look forward to the new movie in November, seeing how it is that it is my favourite among all the books, although I can't say I'm all that keyed up to watch right up to the seventh movie.

Sin City

If ever I saw a better made comic-to-screen movie. We borrowed it today from the library and man, it’s everything I expected it to be and more! No Dick Tracey, no Daredevil. This is really cool stuff. You can almost see the characters walking around with those dialogue bubbles floating around their heads, just as they do in the comics.

I never read Sin City nor am I a fan of Frank Miller, but man, when you see how they’ve translated the graphic novel onto the screen, the imagery will just kill you. It looks amazing. I can’t say too much about the acting, but then, I’m not that sure that the acting is all that key here. Bruce Willis and Mickey Rourke are pretty good, Clive Owen so-so but the girls, well, I suppose their roles are really just to dress like hookers and look mean with heavy artillery. In fact, I’m not sure if there were any females in the movie that weren’t supposed to be hookers, except for Jessica Alba, I suppose. She’s just the exotic dancer, dancing with a lasso.

The movie was a little long. Three stories with few parallels. Overly violent, but hey, what would you expect of a comic book? The movie was artfully made, lots of good angles and stunning contrasts. The black and white with shots of technicolor highlights work well. Highly stylized, plenty of gore. I’m not usually one for gore, but gore in stylized format is very easy to take. Like having Benicio Del Toro’s various parts being sliced off by a nasty looking looking Devon Aoki. Didn’t even flinch.

All in all, I liked it, but I would’ve liked it better if it wasn’t so long. Favourite character has to be Marv, the Mickey Rourke character. Not noble, very hardened, really cool. Gets to the bottom of stuff, doesn’t hit ladies and very hard to kill. Cool all the way to the electric chair.

Hooked

Okay, it's been ten days since I started and I'm into Book 6. All available time has been spent reading, mostly late into the night. Danny now calls himself the Potter Widower. At least the end is in sight.

My big gig

Some girlfriends suggested an idea some weeks back. I like to write (whether people like to read what I write is a different story) and I have time. Well, sort of, anyway. How about pimping myself for non-paying writing work? Hey…. why not?

In the wake of my once-more-non-existent-editing-part-time job, I've now badgered some poor hapless editor of a not-particularly-spectacular-quality magazine into giving me some article space. Hm… he hasn't actually promised to use my work, but that if I submitted it, he'd take a look and "see how it goes". We discussed a topic and now I formally have a writing job to be submitted by the end of the month. Whether it gets published remains to be seen.

Okay, so not a BIG gig, but a gig nevertheless. No matter the outcome, I am still proud of the fact that I've at least taken this one tiny step into hopefully a whole new world.

Update

Four days, three full books. Mom, you reading this??!? Isn’t it amazing? Got three more to go, but J.K. Rowling wrote them longer, so not sure if I can sustain this pace.

And I’m guilty of playing a video here and there to get Sara off my back while I read. I’m sooooo baaaaaaaaad….

In other what-I’ve-been-up-to news, I had to fix two more lift-the-flap books that Sara destroyed. Perhaps I’m not teaching her right, perhaps she’s too young to know, but really, she has a great love for lifting flaps and tearing them out. Had to mend a friend’s book the other day too (oooooooooh, I hope she doesn’t get mad). That’ll be four lift-the-flap/pop-up victims to date. The first was a learning experience (I’ve since been only giving her her lift-the-flap books under supervision), the second was an accident (dammit, she managed to reach up to the dining table and swat the book down), and today’s two episodes were carelessness. How’d I know that the Moses-going-up-Mt-Sinai flap would be all that fragile??

To take a name that already exists in the family: Destructo II

Wait

I tell Sara to hurry up and pick up her bear-bear. She holds up her hand and says,

"Wait."

Eh???!?! Did she just tell me to wait?

I realize she's just mimicking me whenever I hold out my hand and tell her to wait one minute while I do such and such. Still, it's a shock when these things start boomeranging back in my face. Best be careful what we say.

Been busy

Sometime in the past week, I got it into my head that I wanted to read the Harry Potter series. That, and the Chronicles of Narnia. Not in the same class, but hey, children’s books all the same. I think it all started because of one evening last week, I stumbled across the latest Harry Potter movie trailer. I’ve now decided it’s time to join the rest of the world and read the damn series. Fortunately, a friend has five of the six books and has kindly lent them to me, so that’s what I’ve been busy with. Free time is spent reading, not blogging. What a change.

Anyway, as I’m reading this thing, I’ve started to remember bits and pieces of Enid Blyton’s Mallory Towers and the Twins at St. Clare’s. Okay, not as mysterious and not quite this much action, but you have to admit, a school series is a school series. The same few stereotypes floating around in the class.

My sister had the Chronicles of Narnia at home while we were growing up. I never cared to read them, but watched the cartoon version of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Seeing bits and pieces of the upcoming movie has also motivated me to hunt out the books and read them too.

Funny how The Lord of the Rings never quite had this impact on me. I think it’s because I know how short the Harry Potter and Narnia books are, and how impossibly long The Lord of the Rings is. That, after all, is the truth about the type of reader I am. The shorter, the more concise, the bigger the print, the better for me. For someone who likes yammering on and on in the written word, I have a curious dislike for reading. I think I’m destined for children’s books.

And yeah, I’ve ditched my investment books in favour of these. Fantasy is THAT much more interesting than learning how to pick stocks.