The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.

7- Europe has so much CHOICE. I mean, for everything. Buying clothes? A million different stores, not just chains and cookie-cutter stores. Going to the supermarket? I swear, the yoghurt section at Tesco's is the most yoghurt types I may have ever seen (I miss you Al Marai strawberry yoghurt). It's a little mind-boggling, nice to have, and also makes you feel like you have to learn a bit and choose. Although the diet pepsi here tastes a little different than the one in Saudi I think. But that just might be nostalgia. Want to go do something? You can do ANYTHING. Which is sort of NY to me. NY is my favorite city ever because when I'm there I can really feel the possibilities. I fell it love it with the first time I went. You wake up and anything could happen. It might not. But it COULD. Perhaps London might have all those possibilities too although that feeling still belongs to NY.

8- Light switches becoming strings hanging from the ceiling. Was not used to that. And why do some houses have bathrooms in their own separate closet? The first time I saw that I thought I was perhaps drunk on tiredness and made rounds of the bathroom thinking I just couldn't SEE the toilet. Then I went out and was told it was in a closet by itself. Weird.

6- There are lots of birds here I've never seen before. They hang out a lot in all this greenery people have to have around their houses. I swear I saw a raven in Oxford, which reminded me of Jonathan Strange and  Mr. Norrell<3

I iz alive!

Sigh. I have been so busy lately I haven't had any time to just sit around and do nothing, which is totally my favorite thing to do. I have managed to read a little more of the Wheel of Time (book one stiiiilll) on the tube, which I am enjoying. I'm not sure what it is about it that I love because it's pretty stereotypical, but it's just satisfying in some way. I like the world in it, the lore, and the Ways, and the way everyone keeps saying things like "the Pattern weaves as it will" and "so the Wheel turns" without ever explaining wtf they mean. Actually it's nice that the book isn't talking down to you and explaining everything as if you're stupid. Too much expository is boring. And when I saw Wanted the movie with all the "loom of doom" stuff, I thought it was really stupid, but Wheel of Time says mysterious stuff without sounding dumb, which I like. and the name Rand Al'Thor is just cool:)

So England...let's see, things I didn't know about England until I moved here:

1- It's so green! I don't know when I've ever seen so much greenery and flowers. And sheep! (if you drive out of London). And people here care wayyy too much about their hedges/gardens/flowers. I can't imagine anyone in NY being so interested in making sure they have well-tended gardens etc. I wonder why people here are so into it; so far I've come up with the "keeping up with the Joneses" excuse. Why else do mild-mannered little old ladies get positively terrorist about their neighbors hedges encroaching out of their allotted space? Lol I laughed for quite a long time after I heard someone get really upset about their neighbors encroaching:P Their death wish was to blow it up before they die so they can't go to prison for it. Hard. Core.

2- The weather IS unpredictable. I didn't know this was why English people are obsessed with talking about the weather! What to wear when I go outside? Who the fuck knows! Nowadays I try to be prepared, summer shirt, winter jacket, umbrella, god knows what shoes. Omid Djalili was right, people are obsessed with the weather here. "I will never get the hang of this secret lover's code!"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpPLG51uYek

3- TV here is very weird. It either plays what my heart desires (Friends/Frasier reruns and all the Rocky movies), or it plays extremely weird reality shows that make American tv look good. WTF is Snog Marry Avoid? With celebrity lookalikes? Where do they find all these extremely sad looking women who don't want to change their look (and yet still agree to come on the show). And why does the make-over make them look so frumpy? Also how do you win that tv show about filling your trolley with expensive stuff? Because I would think it would be better to just find the most expensive thing in the store and win by having lots of that, but I see people wasting time trying to wrestle ironing boards into their carts, so what's the deal with that? And why is Jersey Shore, ALWAYS ON? Just in general actually, WHY JERSEY SHORE, WHY CRUEL WORLD WHY!
Some tv is interesting though, there was a late night thing about a girl with a "Sleeping Beauty Syndrome" I think, where every six weeks she has to go to sleep for two weeks. And if they wake her up, she is like an evil version of herself and swears constantly and hates everyone. So far, I don't think she is sick, I think she just figured out how to get the world to call it a syndrome, I like to sleep too and I hate being woken. She also managed to miss all her exams and wake up in time for prom. Success!
There was also this funny funny episode of Fonejacker, which seems to be about a guy who makes prank calls by jacking the phone line that someone is calling. He pretended to be someone with a really BAD Indian accent to someone who wanted to buy tickets to something. I just couldn't stop giggling everytime he said  "Dolly Paaaartiiings" instead of Dolly Parton. Whyyy are Indian accents so funny? Gudehgudeh!:)

4- People dress better here. Not everyone, but in central for sure. Perhaps if I live here long enough, I will absorb the effortlessness they seem to have! For me it is already too much trying to match my shoes to  my purse:P Ifail.

5- They have a chocolate brand here called Guu. Guu is Guud. Nuff said.
Actually, the word Guu seems to be following me around. In Vancouver I had dinner at this place called Guu with Garlic, a japanese izakaya. Which I didn't know meant drinking establishment that happened to serve foodz. So I was a bit surprised to see the chef drinking from a pitcher while he cooked, and then having shots with his guests for their birthdays (It was *everybody's* birthday. Seriously). But damn if it wasn't the most fun atmosphere! Drunk peoplez are fun!
And sushi in Vancouver is amazing. I know it is a city meant for outdoorsy hiking and canoeing but I pretty much spent the whole time eating. Lunch? Twice a day! Dinner? Right after lunch with no break! I swear, it was like an eating marathon. I ate even when I was totally full. Completely ridiculous trip. People kept asking us if we'd come for the hiking or the sea or the basically anything outdoorsy and we'd be like nope nope and they'd just give us a look and ask...so what did you come for? haha

I have more, but I iz sleepy now. Will update moar laterz.

Another warm summer night. Sigh. I can't remember how to get excited about my day anymore or do anything with it. I should job-hunt.

Nothing makes an evening better like episodes of Friends<3

Just living in some kind of odd limbo. Nothing really special to say. 

I was just on a trip around Canada and when I got back to Montreal it was odd, I hadn't heard about what went on in Norway even though I'd read the newspaper quite a lot while I was gone (and not just the cartoon pages for once:P) . In Vancouver the papers were covered in news about Rupert Murdoch, but how did I miss something as big as this? In Banff, it wasn't there either, but that's not saying much since the Banff newspaper frontpage was an article about a mother bear and her two cubs who were still living near Exit 77 in case anyone who hadn't gotten a chance to see them in the last two weeks still wanted to go catch a glimpse lol. Oh Canada, why does it seem like we have no real news? I swear, I think I saw an article that talked about how men and women were different as if it was some kind of revelation, and other obvious truth kind of articles filled the pages of the newspaper.

The problems in Norway sadden me even more because I still don't see a way to prevent the kind of sentiment the gunman had if the native Norwegians and the immigrants never mix and remain separate. The way society is set up just doesn't encourage meeting and mixing and I can't blame either side for not spending time with the other. The sentiment of the government response in Norway is lovely though, for example:

"Stoltenberg said the response would not to let terrorism defeat Norway's ''core values of openness, democracy and participation''.

I can't say how much I respect them for their response.

New GoT book out yet, hope to get it and read it although I've still only finished book one. Lots of life-changing stuff going on lately, still processing, it doesn't really feel real yet. Do you really stop feeling silly when you grow up? I miss silly.

I saw what might be the world's worst tv show today on Canadian tv. It was basically a bunch of people making douchey comments about music videos. I don't really watch music videos (I don't even have the attention span for youtube) but even the crappiest music video was better than watching these people discuss them. Maybe they were trying to review it, but it sounded more like bitching, stuff like "I wish Nicole Scherzinger would eat ten burgers and get really fat!". All the commenters sounded like idiots and I have never been more proud that I rarely watch tv:P 

So I have just discovered Battlestar Galactica and I am completely head over heels. BSG has everything a tv show needs (I've only seen the amaaaaazing pilot and two episodes and I hope the rest is this good). Science fiction doesn't get taken seriously as a genre sometimes and this upsets me, especially when I see how wrong it is to judge and dismiss it like that. BSG has action, adventure, humor, gravitas, and complexity. What I like about this show is that the characters are all human and flawed, even the cylons (ok robots not human but almost!:P). Nothing is black and white and I dont really think real life comes with any rules, so its nice to see that reflected in a tv show. BSG gets a bad rap as a "nerdy" and "geeky" show, but it is so much more than that and I find it sad that people limit it like that (I know not everyone does though). Instead of just thinking it has space ships and robots, why not laud it for the politics, relationships, love, betrayals, and grey areas. Life is not always clear-cut in terms of right and wrong, and I think BSG does a great job of portraying that. The show itself says a lot about the mistakes humanity has made and questions if we deserve to live after all the awful things we have done. And yet it's not all darkness. There's hope and how to hang onto hope.

I have always thought of fantasy as a way to say something real anyway. What is the point of it if I can't feel a connection to it?  I read so much fantasy growing up and as fun as trolls and orcs and elves and magic are, by themselves they are not anywhere near enough to keep my interest. A story about a mage saving the world from the dark lord by itself is boring (and just a lot of made-up words without meaning) unless you look at what it says about life in general. Having loved these books from childhood, I think i learnt a lot about right and wrong from them. I'm sure all the King Arthur and Robin Hood stories have influenced the way I look at the world (might for right? equality? giving to the poor? all things I am sure I absorbed a bit of). The Black Cauldron taught me about sacrifice and redemption. In a book filled with flying animals and magic, it still felt like something real.
Diana Wynne Jones' books reminded me to think for myself (still trying to learn that one). A Wizard of Earthsea taught me about mistakes, The Last Unicorn about loss and identity, and even Harry Potter had a strong message about the importance of friendship. I'm not saying I can go on a quest and do whatever they do in the books, but I would hope I could apply some of the basic principles of maturity to my real life.
Even Lord of the Rings, which had so much to say, was interesting in that Frodo decides not to throw the ring in. It allows for people to be human and make mistakes and isn't cardboard cut-out, connect-the-dots fantasy. Maybe none of us have magical rings, but we all make difficult choices every day and not always the right ones. I hate generic fantasy because it tells you someone is evil without a reason, and that it is reason enough to label them the villain and kill them. There's this scene in Men in Black I love when Will Smith fails the training because he's the only one who tried to think. Instead of just assuming cardboard cutouts of aliens were the enemy, he actually looked at what they were doing and determined them harmless and instead shot the cutout of the little girl reading physics books far too advanced for her. THAT seemed more suspicious to him than aliens just chilling and hanging out. I like that openness of mind. Just because someone in a book wears black and hangs out in a tower, doesn't make them the villain either. I think it's important to teach people to question things and think for themselves.

Back to BSG:) There are some wonderful characters, the best of which is Commander Adama who is a old hard-ass who makes mistakes and has the strength to admit them and on top of that always tries to do the right thing no matter how difficult it is. He is a parent who makes mistakes like other parents who just want the best for their children but don't realize "their" best is not the same as the child's best. He's just an incredibly cool characters, complex and flawed and strong and brilliant. The president is also a great character because in one day she has to step up and do a job she isn't trained for and take on huge responsibility and she has the balls to do it, even though she's scared. Would any of us be able to do it? I think she's quite rare. The show also has a resident crazy person (I love shows that include a crazy person), Gaius Baltar, whose lovesick cylon mind-romance is always hilarious, and even though he is despicable scum, I somehow always enjoy watching him onscreen (His priorities are crazy. The world is ending and he's got another 33 min to live. Happyfuntime!) It's also hilarious watching him bullshit and cover his ass so people don't realize he's got another mental world he's living in. "Have you always been able to multitask like this?" :) And his face! It get's so crazy!
He is fun to hate:)
I also wish I was in the room when the writers came up with the genius plan the Cylon's use to demolish the human race. Send a hot blonde! OF COURSE! Oh what that says about the human race:p

JUMP!

Ha and yes I  do know it's not real:)

I just finished reading Richard K. Morgan's Altered Carbon, which was recommended to me by someone with excellent taste in all things. It was so good I've had to think about it for a few days before I could write about how it blew me away. It's very different from anything I usually read, although it is fantasy, but my usual fantasy reads are full of rainbows and kittens compared to Altered Carbon. It's excellently written from start to finish, with the most impressive world-building I have ever seen seamlessly worked into every inch of it. Mr. Morgan doesn't feel the need to waste your time with explanations, he just throws you into his world and don't worry, you won't land too hard, as you read it all comes together brilliantly. Altered Carbon is a sci-fi detective noir cyberpunk crime novel and is very much a guy book (lots of shooting and explosions, lots of hot women), but I'm a girl and I loved the hell out of it. The main character, Takeshi Kovacs (love his name), is just the right kind of antihero for this book, a kickass trained Envoy and yet so much more a complex, complete person than just a stereotypical caricature of a badass with some semblance of a heart. I love it and want to talk about it but I don't think anyone who hasn't read it should read any spoilers at all because it's just so exciting not to know anything as you begin and the writing is pure craftsmanship (albeit with a very male noir style). There are very few books where I read each and every single word (Lord of the Rings anyone? I am pretty sure I skipped at least 20 descriptions of bushes/trees/various foliage). I really loved all of it.

I guess I should at least mention the integral part of the story that makes it so intriguing. In the futuristic world of Altered Carbon, human souls are saved in "stacks" at the base of the neck in each person and this one technological change makes human bodies as disposable, interchangeable, and marketable as clothing. This also brings up a lot of philosophy which adds to the story. (Reminds me of how Diana Wynne Jones said she wrote her stories, she'd make one change in the universe and the rest of the story unwinds from there).

As an extra delight, there are various quotations from the revolutionary Quellist philosophy (all part of the world-building!), which are just awesome. For example (cadged from this link here:
http://www.cyberpunkreview.com/altered-carbon-page-2-quotes/:

"Progress is difficult to define, your honor. As Quell would have it, they come to me with progress reports, but all I see is change, and bodies burnt."

"The personal, as everyone’s so fucking fond of saying, is political. So if some idiot politician, some power player, tries to execute policies that harm you or those you care about, take it personally. Get angry. The Machinery of Justice will not serve you here – it is slow and cold, and it is theirs, hardware and soft-. Only the little people suffer at the hands of Justice; the creatures of power slide from under it with a wink and a grin. If you want justice, you will have to claw it from them. Make it personal. Do as much damage as you can. Get your message across. That way, you stand a better chance of being taken seriously next time. Of being considered dangerous. And make no mistake about this: being taken seriously, being considered dangerous marks the difference - the only difference in their eyes - between players and little people. Players they will make deals with. Little people they liquidate. And time and again they cream your liquidation, your displacement, your torture and brutal execution with the ultimate insult that it’s just business, it’s politics, it’s the way of the world, it’s a tough life and that it’s nothing personal. Well, fuck them. Make it personal."- Things I Should Have Learned by Now, Volume II

The human eye is a wonderful device. With a little effort, it can fail to see even the most glaring injustice.- Poems and Other Prevarications

Even the villains of the book have some great lines (they're all great, I swear):

Kawahara, on the value of human life:

Human life has no value. Haven’t you learned that yet, Takeshi, with all you’ve seen? It has no value, intrinsic to itself. Machines cost money to build. Raw materials cost money to extract. But people? You can always get some more people. They reproduce like cancer cells, whether you want them to or not. They are abundant, Takeshi. Why should they be valuable? Do you know that it cost us less to recruit and use up a real snuff whore than it does to set up and run a virtual equivalent format? Real human flesh is cheaper than a machine. It’s the axiomatic truth of our times.

I really liked the political messages and just opinions on the world woven throughout this book, it has something to say and it's nice to get a fantasy which is relatable to our world in that way (although I think one of the best things about fantasy books are the way they can be used to say something about our world, just presented through different eyes. It's like looking through a telescope at a far away world and realizing it's your own. In a way). The mystery is also really great, I didn't figure it out (although I am no expert at that, I don't even figure out most Agatha Christie novels). Takeshi Kovacs is a fantastic character; his loose cannon personality coupled with his rigorous training and skills make him unpredictable sometimes and always interesting. The other characters are equally fascinating although perhaps not as likely to inspire fannishness:P

Anyway if you like detective/crime/noir/scifi read this. Hell, even if you don't like them, read this. It's that good.

Any thoughts? Anyone?

So I've been watching Game of Thrones, which I've only read the first book of (which I loved) and I thought I'd cross-post my thoughts on Episode 3  from http://www.pajiba.com (a website that I haunt)