Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Ghostbusters 3!

Well it's official, there will be a Ghostbusters 3 annnnd it will have the entire original cast (but I'm not sure if Annie Potts is included in that achievement). I'm having rather mixed feelings about this since, quite frankly, Ghostbusters is one of the few cherished movie memories of my childhood and sometimes...you just can't go back. Still though, Sigourney Weaver will reprise her role and I have to say she probably is the reason why Ghostbusters was also one of my childhood movie favs...What do you ladies think? Excited or skeptical?



Ah, fond memories (Aliens was also a fond childhood movie of mine)



Jack the Ripper

Saturday, February 7, 2009

In a blatant attempt to avoid studying (damn you pathology!) I figured I'd take a few minutes to just write a quick blog about the events that transpired yesterday. In a fit of what I can only assume as sadistic humour from the cosmos, this was shortly after I posted the previous blog about jack's antics. Since Jack has been going through a period of trial separation from his BFF, Beni, he's been a bit off the wall (as my now dearly departed bra will attest), I figured that I would take advantage of the free morning I had and take him to the field. I should've known that nothing but trouble would occur when the first thing I encountered that morning was a ginourmous spider in our bathroom sink (how did it even get there!?).

In any event, I'm not really good with the details pre-coffee, so it totally slipped my mind that there was a small family of kittens that lived on the dirt road by the school. Well...it didn't slip Jack's notice, because as I bent to pick up one of his "look what I did mom!" piles, he spotted a kitten and ran off before i could properly grab ahold of the leash. I could clearly see in his eyes the only thought that was running through his head..."ZOMFG! THIS IS THE BESTEST GAME EVAH!" Needless to say he was off like a shot. After a good 5 minutes of reaffirming that his recall command needed work, I had to hide behind a car for him to come looking for me. Who knew the best course of action when in panic is to exploit your pets weaknesses. Oh and following that realization, I find it AWESOME that Jack is more insecure than obedient. Just lovely (note the sarcasm).

Well after that fun game of keep away, I stupidly proceeded to the field with Jack. Once again, my brain not really helping with the details, missed the giant stagnant pond in the middle of the field...that giant, nasty, parasite filled pond...that Jack has been known to romp around in. Oh and romp he did. I was like a turettes induced moron yelling "giardia! worms!" as I tried to round him out of the pond, to no avail. Once again, defaulting to the whole "exploitation" plan, I walked away as quickly as possible and Jack followed. Now, any semi-intelligent person would've left at this point. We were only out for a grand total of 20 minutes and already we had two "make mom look like an ass" snafus. Nope, once again, epic fail in the detail department for my little ol'brain.

We moved further down the field (closer to Taylor Hall) when Jack suddenly discovered "OMFG! MUD!" and proceeded to munch down that gross, stinky dirt with all his might. As every single intestinal parasite flashed through my mind (with some squirts thrown in for good measure) I just gave up the game and stomped ankle deep into the mud to remove him. and myself from the field. I cannot even begin to contemplate what a hot mess I must've looked like, but I can tell you how pleased as punch Jack looked. >_<

To add insult to injury, I didn't realize that I was covered in mud (due to being really really friggin peeved) until I got INTO my car...and then also realized that the school had just recently cut the grass as well....leaving me somewhat tarred and feathered (uh...dirtied and greened?) as I realized that over the clumps and streaks of mud that I was covered in was also liberally spotted with grass stalks. Lovely. Needless to say we got home in short order and Jack will NOT be seeing the field until he learns a solid recall command...

Thursday, May 14, 2009

Jack the Belgian Malinois

Jack is my puppy and I've had him for a totally of seven months. In that time he's gotten into more mishaps (and dragged me with him) than I can recount. I've been blogging about our mishaps on my facebook account, but I've decided to post them here also, since well...puppy mayhem is a universally loved thing, I figured why not. I'll try and re-post the blogs in the order they occurred and probably re-post one per week. I hope you guys get as much of a kick of them as my facebook buddies have.

This was roughly a month after I adopted Jack and shortly after we arrived home for winter break.

Jack Attack

Friday, December 26, 2008

So it's barely been two weeks since we got home and Jack has not failed to find new ways to mortify and amuse me. Here a some recent misadventures he managed to get himself (and me) into.

1. Besting evolution. One would think the lack of an opposable thumb would stop him...but..he managed to lock himself in my room...he's learned that the door knob has something to do with opening and closing the door, so when put in a room he will repeatedly swipe at the knob. Somehow, over the course of a few hours he was able to snag the lock, unfortunately I did NOT have a key and so we had to drill a hole through the door and push the lock back open with a twisted up coat hanger. Throughout the 30 minute ordeal of trying to get the door open, I was able to sneak a peek through the hole and noticed Jack, unconcerned, sleeping away on my bed. Gah!
2. The stolen soccer ball. Evidently a soccer ball is just as good as a balloon because the other day while playing fetch with him at the local school yard (which we have to break into, cause New York sucks for dog parks), he spotted a bunch of guys playing soccer. While we were in a smaller yard adjacent to the main field, he was unable to get to his prize. Though he did manage to sneak past my brother's girlfriend, me and my brother at one point and made a grab at the ball. He scared the crap out of three grown men in the process. However, when the guys accidently kicked the ball over the fence into our field all bets were off. Jack grabbed the ball and promptly killed it, much to my embarrassment. I offered to pay for the ball, but fortunately the guys were nice enough to let it go.
3. Food thievery. Jack has gotten quite adept at stealing food off the counter (from my mom) when no one's looking. He's managed to snag a half a TRAY of salad, a quarter of a cake and for some reason really enjoys munching at my dads plants.
4. The knock over. He firmly believes that the best way to play with my ancient pom is to run into her. He managed to knock into her the other day and actually hurt her. She limped for 20 minutes and he got a time out of epic proportions.
5. The mission. His current goal in life (besides to give me a heart attack) is to find a way into my neighbors yard. He's seen Wasabi do it once (she's all of five pounds and fits through her screen, but she doesn't do anything anyway) so now he MUST do it. I give him another week to get his head stuck.
6. He loves my mom...who's petrified of dogs. He takes every opportunity he can to give her kisses, cuddle and be generally touchy. My mom is not amused.

Gaysian's Daily Book Review!

I'm an avid reader. I spend copious amount of time and money consuming whatever unlucky novel that happens to fall into my hands. I'll read pretty much anything, but as a gay woman, I have a hard time finding novels that focus on queer women and that are also good (i.e. fun or well written). So I decided I would attempt to do a weekly novel review. I'm still hammering out details of how I'll go about this, after all I'm a vet student and not writer (as I'm sure you all must have noticed by my lack of blogging skills by now), but I do ultimately want to have a section of books to recommend (or not) and quick synopsis of their plots. So bear with me ladies as I work out the kinks. Now on to the reviews!

Dead Witch Walking, by Kim Harrison. Released April, 2004



Since best selling novelist, Laurel K. Hamilton stepped into the scene a few years ago with her debut novel Guilty Pleasures she has since, if not created, but popularized a new literary genre, urban fantasy. I happen to be a fan of urban fantasy for a number of reasons. The books usually feature a strong, clever, and sexually confident heroine and I've found much to my delight a number of queer characters and a no-nonsense acceptance of nontraditional sexualities in these novels.

The book/author I'm about to recommend is the first in a continuing series, is Dead Witch Walking by Kim Harrison. The series is set in an alternate world where a worldwide pandemic caused by genetically modified tomatoes (they were carrying some sort of virus) led to the near extinction of a large portion of the world's human population. Since the human population had been reduced to the point where there was as many "Inderlanders" (witches, werewolves, vampires, etc.) as humans, who were unaffected by the virus the Inderlanders decided to reveal themselves to the world at large.

Rachel Morgan is an Inderlander, a witch (in the novel witches are considered a separate species, with different life spans and such) who works at the Inderland Security (I.S) as a runner (a sort of government employed bounty hunter) in a dead end job. However, no one leaves the I.S and when she attempts to get out of her work contract all sorts of hell breaks lose. Along the way she partner's up with Ivy, a badass bi-sexual vampire, partly of Asian decent who is also interested in leaving the I.S. This friendship plays a central role throughout the series, as Rachel isn't sure if Ivy wants to work with her or eat her and so their unlikely partnership begins.

While Rachel identifies as straight, the relationship between Ivy and Rachel continues to grow and evolve over the entirety of the series. Ivy is a much loved character of the series and plays a large role in a number of the novels. I won't lie, she's my favorite of series and I squeal in delight every time she does something awesome or scary (which is quite frequent). I highly recommend this novel. It's well written and a fun read. The stories are engaging and there are a slew of wonderful and interesting side characters that return in almost every subsequent novel. If you like fantasy, hot chicks, queer ladies, action, and a good dash of angst thrown in for fun then do yourself a favor and pick up this series!

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

I Can't think Straight

I somehow managed to miss the release date for this first effort film by writer, director and producer Shamim Sarif. I believe that this film and it's sister film The World Unseen were released rather soon after another, with this film being released at a slighter later time. However, this movie was filmed first and while it's exciting and great to have another queer Asian film out, I hate to say, that it is evident that this is a debut film.




Warming Spoilers Follow!

The story takes place in England, between Tala (Lisa Ray) and Leyla (Sheetal Sheth) as two young women of middle eastern and south Asian decent who struggle against traditional views in order to find love. For the most part the story is light, despite such heavy and serious undertones. As a film the movie strives to be both a comedy and a romance with some political commentary thrown in. I understand the need to bring forth the issues that queer women face in their families that are both related to their queerness or their culture but I didn't feel that the film did a good job of managing that in a way that wasn't stilted and was very preachy. For example when Tala and Leyla met, Tala engages Leyla in a rather (I feel) confrontational conversation about Islam (Tala is Muslim) and why her religion doesn't offend her. As a viewer I found that odd and unbelievable, as the conversation was totally unprovoked and way out of line on Tala's part. The dialogue too could have used some help.

As a romance the film fell upon cliche's (really, K.D Lang and Sarah Water's novels prominently displayed and suddenly your sister gets a clue about your "gayness"!?) and while there was some truly sexy scenes and great chemistry between the characters, their was some cringe inducing moments of romance cheese that I could not overlook. A box of roses with a love letter (handwritten, nonetheless) waxing poetic about Tala's yearning for Leyla. Um. No. I read trashy, lesbian fiction all the time, but even that was a bit too much "cheddar" for me.

Another issue I had with the film was the soundtrack. I like and enjoyed the choice of music, but felt that they were too obvious and heavy handed in using the soundtrack to illustrate "important themes" and to compensate for bad scripting. Unfortunately a tactic that was used one time too many throughout the film.

Overall, despite my criticisms, I did enjoy the show. The main actresses worked with what they had and made it work for them. The cliche's and contrived plot did lead to a fluffy, but still fun (if occasionally cringe inducing) movie.



"You want my character to say what? But that's...so...cheesy!"


Hotness!

Friday, May 8, 2009

They need to stop, no really they do...

Warning Spoiler Alert!

I just finished watching last night's episode of Grey's Anatomy and I have to say that I am both surprised and annoyed that they are continuing Callie's unbelievable storyline of being broke. She spent the entirety of this last episode avoiding Arizona (her current gal pal) and being generally vague about what her problem with her new girlfriend was. While, Arizona was very adorable chasing Callie around and demanding an answer, Callie's ultimate reason for her issues...not being able to afford dinner at a nice restaurant was just too unbelievable. Pediatric surgeons make an average of 340,000 a year, same as orthopedic surgeons! And I'm pretty sure that Arizona had to pay for her own education...so how in the world is Callie broke and Arizona isn't? At least Arizona had to pay her own rent and other luxuries over the past few years. I also can't believe that her dad cleaning out her bank account is legal or that a 20-30 year old woman doesn't have her own personal bank account. So yes, I am annoyed that that's the best that the show could do with Callie and her current story. Though the scene with Callie and Arizona at the end eating pizza, half nekkid was certainly sweet.

Saturday, May 2, 2009

Wash!

Warning Spoilers Ahead!

What! What! Last night's episode of Doll House was awesome only because of one thing...Alan Tudyk! Wash! And to think I was just waxing poetic about Firefly two days ago, oh happy day. I usually don't route for the antagonist of shows but holy crap was Wash awesome as Alpha. Major bad ass. And the way he and Ecco made their exit? Beautiful. Can't say I'm too attached to any of the other characters, but I do like Sierra and Adele. Agent Ballard annoys the hell out of me (a Prince complex? Really?) and the writing has been so, so...but just because of how awesome Alpha was, I'm hoping they renew for another season!

Rydyk-culous...

Warning Spoilers Ahead!

Despite my disappointment in the Grey's Anatomy producers and writers in allowing the character of Erica Hahn to so suddenly and conveniently disappear into the proverbial sunset because she was not the "right" (i.e. marketable) gay, I've continued to follow the show. I'm a medical student (veterinary) and so I have an appreciation for that (albeit badly written) aspect of the show and I just love Christina Yang (Sandra Oh). The show is like a trashy romance novel that you don't want your smarty, snarkier friends to find out you read. Well, despite the many errors of the show, I generally try to keep the complaining in my own living room and amongst my friends. However, last night I really was just amazed at the amount of "suspended belief" the writers expect us to execute in order to push forward a story line. Callie (whom I'm kinda ambivalent about to be honest) and Arizona (who apparent is gay in the right way, she just got a regular spot on the show) are now the new budding couple at Seattle Grace. Cue in the drama.

Callie's over-protective father, who feels the best way to deal with his daughter's sudden Sapphic tendency is to remove her from Seattle and have her live with him and his wife in Miami (which I'm sure is the straightest place in the world ::cue eye roll::). Now this irks in a number of ways. The first being that he was more accepting of his daughter marrying some random guy, who she ends up divorcing after a few months because he cheated on her. Or her non-romantic hook ups with the hospitals resident man-ho (Sloan). Somehow those two situations, of which I'm sure any father would take exception to, where more acceptable than the sweet, innocent and what seems so far, as a healthy supportive relationship with a woman (a cute, doctor woman!). Granted her father probably doesn't know the details of any of those relationships and he's supposed to come off as a jerk, but really?

Well apparently Callie standing up to her father has caused him to cut her off from her trust fund. Oh no. What is an ORTHOPEDIC SURGEON to do! A debt free one at that (she stated that her father paid for all of her schooling). Now, she can't even make rent! How will she be able to survive on her measly 401,000 thousand (the average salary of an orthopedic surgeon) a year! Um, no Grey's, while it's refreshing to have a coming out story involving a woman of color and her family on t.v, I have to say her situation does not represent the typical "out on your own" coming out story and no amount of Callie whining about her lack of funds can suddenly make us believe that a show about surgeons are somehow going to be broke because they don't have daddies trust fund to rely on. What? How does that make any sense? And to top it off Callie is an attending or at the very least a late year resident! Sorry, just had to rant about that ridiculousness.

I have to say, I didn't really like Jessica Capshaw's character on the L-Word, but I'm loving her at Seattle Grace. You know what really rock though? Kate Walsh returning back to Greys and Callie...now that's a good looking couple!