i was nineteeeen

xxx. the garden of eden, ernest hemingway

yeah, i don't know about this one. the blurb possibly oversold me on the character of catherine, who i don't find to be amazing at all. you know how many books have books within them, like when a character is a writer and is reliving the event they're writing about, or whatever, i suppose it's supposed to be insightful but sometimes it's just not interesting! do writers consider it a risk? this is completely missing the main theme of the book but it was superrr distracting and i flipped through most of it. apparently this was actually quite heavily edited prior to posthumous publication, so who knows how hemingway would have wanted it.

also i have a theory in progress which is that hemingway loves him some lithe young women with close cropped hair, based on a sample size of 2 out of 5. i have a few more to read so will update stats as appropriate.

the words, they are spelled with letters

so i got on the train to work, sat down. some guy standing near the doors decided to have a stupid loud phone conversation, stupid not because it was loud but because he sounded really dumb. not judging (totally judging). anyway, my point is, then he stood there dumbly until someone else sitting on the stairs asked him what his t-shirt said. i can't find the graphic so this is an approximation of what it said (pretend these letters look like pictures, like the first letters of chapters, work with me here):

T Y P

O G R

A P H

Y

he said he didn't know.

and that's why, it was worthy of being written down immediately so i could share it. my notes say, 'idiot'.

.

yeah i lied, my memory is poor i did finish a book this week.

19 xxix. a man without a country, kurt vonnegut
can pictures really be handwritten sentences just printed with colour inversions? i don't know anything maybe i should reattempt to read slaughterhouse five.

i'm doing applications and bought fancy paper (linen bond) to print on, but i only have enough for one wrong sheet. #printingjitters

63. implants.. are boring, and other things

so, i am currently 1/5 of the way through a free (!) implant mentor program, in which i am sure to add to my collection of unusually small maxillary models (care of Nobel Biocare). i have come to the conclusion that i don't find implants that interesting, mainly because no matter how great they are they never look 100%. sure they can look pretty good, but the onus is on the clinician to do the best with what they've got. even with grafting etc, there are definitely limits. it's not so much problem solving as trying to get the closest to the ideal procedural steps. which is stressful, and for a result which can always, always be improved upon, and which will only deteriorate with time. not my idea of job satisfaction.

if i were to remain a general dentist i think my most favourite things to do would be anterior composites and endo. nothing like immediate (or relatively quick) results. the thing about RCT in general practice is that i have found most dentists get extremely lazy and don't do everything they should, which gets them by most of the time. but then they wonder why it sometimes doesn't work? i wouldn't be an endodontist though, the end of the line is never really a good place to be especially when it means dealing with other people's shitty work.

i probably think much too much about work when i'm not at work.

mainly i'm writing this because i'm in the middle of reading 2 dense books, 1 larger than a brick, the other a pocket penguin. interesting that it is the latter in which i am reading every single word. therefore i have not finished any books this week and have no reviews to write.

i had been debating whether to purchase a holga or not this past fortnight, but have concluded that my dad has awesome old film cameras so i am gonna play with them first.

i haven't been this tired in a long time and yet i am here and also i know i probably won't sleep in tomorrow, it's a very bad habit to be both a morning person and someone who stays up late.

p.s. should i blog about other stuff? this list thing is not my life though my life includes it. opinions please

alice in underland

xvi. so, i saw alice in wonderland today, in 3D. ever since hearing that this movie was being made by tim burton i was very excited! when i was little i had a picture book version with a cassette tape so the poems were set to music as well, so my imagination of wonderland was pretty detailed. well, this movie didn't disappoint. going in knowing that the story was a sequel meant i was really going to see the prettiness, but the story was pretty good as well. plus, it's the little things that count - good acting, complete plot, little funny moments such as helena bonham carter's facial expressions, you know, details. makes all the difference between a good movie and an average (= crap) one.

'twas also my first 3D movie experience, and it was pretty impressive, i didn't really have good past experiences with red/blue paper glasses and a non-midline coincident focus or whatever, but it wasn't an issue.

so yep, i really enjoyed it.

and while i'm at it here is a link to some amazing hi-res desktop backgrounds, i am currently sporting the keyholes.

http://mantia.me/wallpaper/

the xx

48vi. i bought the xx's cd today, along with a copy of the con for my friend. i have a long-running list of cds that i am looking to buy, but the price has to be right.

have a cool picture.

post no. 50!! book number 25 and beyond

books i have read recently:

xxv. the torrents of spring, hemingway

clearly a completely unveiled satire of certain books and authors, i don't know if i liked it.

xxvi. alice in wonderland; through the looking glass, lewis carroll

i got this recently and had to read it before seeing the movie, which i have not yet done. but the faintly dodgy history behind these stories bring a whole different light to the writing.

xxvii. the great gatsby, f. scott fitzgerald

i actually read the comic book version of this before the original, and i have to say the comic book version really gets the tone right. studying it may have ruined that kind of detachment that i have from it which allows me to still like the characters? i don't know anything

xxviii. best american essays 2004, ed. louis menand

i mentioned this before but forgot to write about it, and now i don't remember. my general feeling was 'good' i think but i don't remember anything too strange and interesting, though the medical-based stories are always good.

44 - are you ready? I DON'T THINK YOU'RE READY

so, our basketball team got new uniforms, ostensibly for next season but we have them now, a couple of games before the semifinals. presenting team ice cream via oldschool denver nuggets:

uh huh, they are super rainbowtastic, we even got a rainbow banner with them! pity the mardi gras parade was held the weekend before, we could have had our own float (HAHA)!

more consumed media

surely this is getting a little boring. i do nothing but work, spend time on the interwebs, read on the train and also in breaks at work, watch movies, play sport, compulsively watch large sporting events on tv even when the coverage is shit. that's it. that's all i do. sometimes i buy things.

onward.

19(xxiii) the red pony, john steinbeck
this guy, he likes disappointment and having people not live up to expectations. and inflicting this experience on children.

xxiv. the moon is down, john steinbeck
so very different to every other steinbeck work i've read, it reminded me of camus' 'the plague' (i just typed and retyped plaque like 5 times just then) but farcical. in a people are dying but we don't even know them kind of way. no mention of any ranches or dry fields of salinas, without any true localising description at all. therefore seemed a little strange to me, steinbeck has always seemed more a human nature through geography and dialect rather than pure human nature in extenuating circumstances type. maybe i am completely wrong, not sure i even make sense.

all the short novels by steinbeck were in one handy volume but then i had to return it to the library, so.

20(xiv) precious
totally forgot to write about this movie, it was pretty good! i liked the balance of the fun against the very low lows, and the performances were fantastic across the board. i usually will point out bad things over good things but i had zero complaints about this movie. it was less depressing than i expected but i think compared to most people i see or have seen a lot a lot of depressing weird shit.

xv. caspar the friendly ghost
aw this is clearly a rewatch because i used to watch this all the time. it used to be on tv quite a lot as well, maybe it should make a comeback over 'love, actually' or whatever other crappy apocalypse dribble gets replayed every 2 months. i almost expected to be disappointed by my nostalgia but it didn't happen! still as cute as ever, and much less dumbed down and slapstick than most kids' movies are these days.

hmm, have a picture of caspar-like fat cheeks: