you know the drill

lxxvii. the big necessity, rose george
very interesting investigation into poor sanitation around the world and the innovations people are coming up with to reduce disease and pollution, putting shit back into the environment! also many insights into how to convince people to change their habits.. money doesn't work.

lxxviii. the end of overeating, david kessler
hmm, in the end it all boils down to a genetically vicious cycle of sugar, fat and salt. eat and repeat. apparently you must set rules for yourself if you want to break the cycle. oh really?

;

scanwiches has a book coming out?!? such a rort. if it isn't obvious i am feeling very cynical right now, exacerbated by my currently reading 'the black swan - the impact of the highly improbable' and being annoyed at the arrogant tone and the breaking-down of commonsense for the stupid people.

what does one do with the folded poster cover of mcsweeney's 13?

i want to walk around

i suck at words with friends

lxxv. blubberland - the dangers of happiness, elizabeth farrelly
written in the context of architecture, this was more a treatise on the monumental wastage behind what constitutes 'success' in western society, and the possible genetics and evolutionary reasons for it. very interesting.  a couple of pages encapsulated what amy chua tried to possibly satirise in the whole tiger mother debate.

lxxvi. the gathering, anne enright
possibly the most nebulous book that i've read that i would call an overall success.

------------------------

liii. picture me - very interesting documentary about the real world of modeling

liv. tangled - better than i expected

lv. never let me go - keira knightley looked positively skeletal in this

lvi. machete - sorry robert rodriguez, you are not as good as quentin tarantino. the social commentary on illegal immigration was a nice touch though

REMEMBER..

..THIS??!?!

and now raquel zimmermann is shoving the distal appendage of her upper limb into lady gaga in the 'born this way' video. FINGER ON THE PULSE, THAT'S ME.

other recent things

how is it that humans have evolved to need at least some sleep every 24 hours? and yet sleep time needed is so varied depending on each person's environment

succinct movie reviews:

xli. the girl who played with fire - relatively intense

xlii. joan rivers documentary - ball-busting hilarious

xliii. the kids are all right - given the online 'discussion', better than i expected

xliv. the queen - eh

xlv. the lake house - double soppy eh

xlvi. conviction - ok, serious

xlvii. the experiment - violent and crazy, not as revealing as i expected

xlviii. (500) days of summer - a montage. and not much else

xlix. the tree - quite good! charlotte gainsbourg's french and english voices are very different.

l. freakonomics - disappointing, to some extent

li. inside job - holy shit everyone should see this, even academia is corrupt

lii. true grit - couldn't hear half the dialogue since everyone was grunting with a mouthful of peanut butter gobstopper, but it didn't matter, HILARIOUS. random bear suit, animal noises, guns everywhere. 'i have lapped filthy water from a hoof print and was glad to have it.'

lxxiv. brideshead revisited, evelyn waugh

ugh suffice to say i read it and won't read it again, the only people worth liking were celia and anthony blanche, which is not saying much.

p.s. pretty sure fenella kernebone of triple j and abc fame complimented me on a swish while i was warming up for bball semis during her game this past wednesday... and there we go confirmed via twitter! #autofollow

collected thoughts of the 3 weeks preceding the most recent

just posting notes because i can't be bothered expanding on them. suffice to say hong kong is another world.

- hong kong is eating/shopping/walking, 99% nothing else

- dim sum is still chopped up stuff in a wrapper even with a michelin hat on

- galaxy tabs are the next ipad - smaller, better

- manual pomegranate juicing results in a bloody pulp

- even the most shithole syringe infested dirty public toilet has automatic sensor taps

- rice paper is a revelation (around sticky foods)

- japanese customer service is endemic and representative of so many things

- who cares if some people are 'too weak' for regular vegemite, let them try and revive their brand! lower salt is a good option. only problem is again with marketing, no one above 6yrs old would want to buy 'my first vegemite'. even if they want to, like me.
ETA: real actual major marketing problem, i wanted to buy it and couldn't bring myself to, my first vegemite is a joke.

oh shit

coming back from holidays means being an adult again with real responsibilities and stuff

holiday-imposed hiatus to come

lxxi. the five people you meet in heaven, mitch albom
EHHH. so popular, or at least it appears so, and i don't understand why at all. nice concept, average story, very average execution.

lxxii. the curious case of benjamin button and other stories, f. scott fitzgerald
quite good. i almost expected some fuddy-duddy o. henry type stuff and therefore was pleasantly surprised.

lxxiii. design of the 20th century, charlotte and peter fiell
decided to do some research in my very recent area of interest, and everybody and their mother studied architecture! verrry interesting. there is so much to know.

lalala

viii. matt and kim, jan 21, becks festival bar, sydney festival

this was seriously the most fun gig i have been to in a long time. it was awesome! kim and matt were super energetic and enthusiastic, kim didn't stop smiling the whole time! and we had a balloon party and they just did whatever the hell they wanted, like asking guys to hold kim up as she WALKED out on to the crowd and did a booty dance. i also appreciate their MO of standing on their instruments, like why the hell not!


i realise i did not review ix. marina and the diamonds, dec 30, factory theatre

superlatively impressive, fantastic voice, appropriate props, centre stage fans for the hair. i find it a very strange phenomenon that when hearing something live, the pitch will seem absolutely perfect, and then on watching the exact same performance on a video some out-of-tune notes are more apparent. is the live enjoyment factor really that compensating?

seemingly random numbering system

xl. the social network
quite enjoyable. a movie about a website, i am still flabbergasted.

vi. the rapture, jan 6, the metro
suffocatingly hot! disgustingly humid and gross. i wasn't such a big fan and i am still eh about it.

vii. holly miranda, jan 15, the famous spiegeltent
pretty good! she was slightly different to what i expected, much more loose and jeff buckley-esque.

lxix. a model world, michael chabon
a good short story collection. i never know what to think about separate short stories one after the other with the same characters, especially in only the 2nd half of the book

lxx. manhood for amateurs, michael chabon
possibly more personal essay collection than memoir, but the memoir component was much more deeply analytical with respect to society and the changing of pop culture, than in others i have read (to wit: bill bryson). also sometimes hilarious especially when extolling on the virtues of the manbag: 'a purse is basically a vagina with a strap.. I adhered rigorously to the way of the pocket.. the only storage alternative was the dreaded belt clip, a kind of prosthetic penis, in its own inverse way as emasculating as a purse'. i found it very generous that he was able to discuss lego and the merits of custom (read: unreusable) pieces without ever referring to the obvious commercial interests involved, or the fact that lego is now like ikea furniture and just as fun.

i finished watching party down season 1 and have a sinking feeling about the future of henry and casey's relationship hahaha sigh, fav tv couple like, ever