the everyday adventures of sabrina » fandom

ten things about notting hill

sabrina — Sat, 19 Feb 2011 03:48:57 +0000

In ten years, I wasn’t able to bring myself to give away the copy of Notting Hill someone got me after we saw it together, despite Hugh Grant.
Apparently he knew me better than I knew me, as I’ve just watched it for the first time since then, and quite enjoyed it despite myself.
To my indescribably vast surprise it turns out to sort of have been a “I know that someday you’ll appreciate this stocking stuffer… it may not be today, it may not be before we break up, it may not be until after almost 10 years after we break up, but someday, you will appreciate this film” thing, really. Cheers, S., you did well with that one.
I kind of miss London and I so need to take a trip overseas — which is nothing at all to do with the film Notting Hill because, seriously, all you see is one zebra crossing, two buses, and one long my-goodness-look-how-time-passes walk through a series of shopping stalls in which it rains, snows, and shines, and, seriously, was this film even shot on location because that really could totally have been southern California and I wouldn’t even know.
I will never have shoulders half so fantastic as the actresses who parade through as Hugh Grant’s rejected could-have-been girlfriends in this film, even though I’m quite sure I’m a much more skilled swimmer than them and everyone knows it’s the shoulders that make the swimmer.
I was so, as they say, dead chuffed when I saw the Ritz as depicted in the film and thought, “Hey, that’s on Piccadilly, it’s right by Green Park, I’ve totally walked through that arcade” that you cannot think. And I’m pretty sure I’ve shopped the Tescos, or was it a Waitrose? right by there.
And I was far, far beyond dead chuffed when I double-checked with The Internets and confirmed that I was correct, you cannot even conceive.
God, I need to get overseas again!
I would like to meet a shockingly good-looking person who thinks so well of me, running an independent bookshop (!!!!) and living in $posh_elsewhere; and furthermore, I’m a really great person, quite smart, and I close my HTML tags properly, so, you know, call me!
No, seriously, the thing where I saw The Ritz and I knew what street it was on? FUCKING BRILLIANT. I am a goddess. It’s best if you just accept that and move on.
There is no one to console you for confusing Mark Gatiss with Tim McInnerny if you’ve long ago broken up with the person that gave you this DVD, no matter how bad you feel for confusing the two of them even though Mycroft Holmes TOTALLY looked like Max and you spent half the film trying to remember Mark Gatiss’ name, rather than watching Hugh Grant be as inept at romance as Julia Roberts, as a result.

diversion

sabrina — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 12:58:31 +0000

Of late, have been watching much TV on DVD from my collection, mostly ‘cos I’ve been trying to work on my spinning and you need something in front of your face while sitting at a wheel for five hours. Have learned that early ER is not well-suited to marathoning: the first season is really good, by which I mean emotions-yanking-around, so unless you want to be weeping into your Cheerios for four hours straight because patients keep dying and stuff, ER should be pretty strictly rationed. The X-Files, on the other hand, is very well-suited for marathons. Plus, when a weak episode comes on (cough “The Field Where I Died” cough cough God that episode sucks), that’s an excuse to get up and go do something else like clean the kitchen while the show plays for background noise but you don’t have to actually pay attention (which is great, because, seriously, killer kitties in “Teso Dos Bichos,” really? This idea has not improved with time).

So yesterday I did manage to get a skein of yarn spun up, a variegated thing which is one sportweight-ish single of white wool plied with a laceweight-ish single of variegated blue/purple wool. It didn’t turn out how I wanted, which is sad (I wanted something sort of like how bits of this look, with a thicker strand wound with a thin one, such that it almost looks spiralled), mostly because I was finding it hard to spin a nice fat single with the white, since I’m accustomed to spinning thinner singles now. Also I think there may be some trick to tensioning the singles so you get the one to wind around the other, but I was a bit worried that I was unspinning the twist of the singles when I tried to play with tension (and at one point I did to the point of them both drifting apart, which was deeply annoying). So. Pics later, it’s drying now.

About the only other things I accomplished over the weekend were some homework, and making homemade hummos, which would have been a triumphant accomplishment (first batch of hummos with shiny new Christmas Cuisinart, after not having made any for years because I killed my old food processor when I lived in Hyde Park…by making hummos and apparently it couldn’t deal with the strain), except I kinda overdid the garlic and paprika and this is very, very sad. Also I’m out of pita and pinenuts. So now I have overspiced hummos, and no idea what to do with it. This plan could have been executed better, I have to say.

But, on the bright side, running-related aches and pains from Thursday were largely gone by Saturday morning, which is a vast improvement on last week’s gone-by-Monday-morningness. So I have high hopes for the future. Yay for the future!

I LIVE IN THE FUTURE NOW

sabrina — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 03:41:28 +0000

I’m having a little … moment here.

…

After having been online since late 1992, and being online in return for cash since 1995, I’d say it was around 1998 or so when things started to lose their novelty. It’s been several years since any novel anything on the Internet really made me happy to have it around. Sure, I adopt the technology, but I don’t necessarily enjoy it. Not like I used to.

…

But I just set up Netflix Watch Instantly + TiVo and … oh my God, I love the Internet again. I LIVE IN THE FUTURE!!!!!!

(Except for the part where I’m watching an episode of Doctor Who from 1982. IT’S CYBERMEN, I LOVE THEM, SHUT UP. (confidential to pxr5: “Earthshock.” Oh my God, is that…a QUARRY?!))

in which LIFE IS PATENTLY UNFAIR

sabrina — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 22:28:00 +0000

so for the past few weeks, for some reason, my tivo recording of ‘house’ has cut off just before the end of the episode — usually leaving off a minute or so of the tag plus the preview. i don’t know why this is happening; i’d suspect the tivo’s timer is off except it ntps daily and all my other shows are fine, it’s just house. maybe it’s one of fox’s dippy and innumerable reality crapfests on before it (what do i know, i don’t watch reality television) running late because america is too goddamn slow texting in who gets kicked off the island next. but it hasn’t been a problem, because i’ve also been tivoing its immediate successor, ‘fringe,’ so i just skip down to that and watch it next, and it picks up with maybe a second or so gap.

EXCEPT TUESDAY’S HOUSE. BECAUSE TIVO DIDN’T RECORD FRINGE BECAUSE IT THOUGHT IT WAS A RERUN. or maybe it was a rerun I DON’T KNOW IT DIDN’T RECORD IT but anyways i missed the very last bit of ‘house’ which means

— fair spoiler warning —

I SAW x KISS y AND THEN IT STOPPED AND FOX.COM DOESN’T PUT UP THE FULL EPISODES UNTIL 8 DAYS AFTER THEY AIR AND THAT MEANS NEXT WEDNESDAY AND OMG raaaaaaaaaa jkl;dfsjkdfsjkdal;dfsa;sda;lkdjsafdklfsjdfs;fdjsakdf;dafskjldsdfskl;dfsjkldfsjkl;dajkladfdfskjldfs;dsfjkdflsjkdfasjkldfajkldjkaldfjkldfsjk!!!!!!!!!

*pant* *pant* *pant*

thank goodness for bittorrent. with luck, i should be able to watch the ep in under 90 minutes. OMG WTF AUUGHGHGHGHHH. DON’T DO THIS TO ME, TIVO!!!!

update: AND NOW I HAVE TO WAIT TWO WEEKS FOR THE NEXT EPISODE?!?!?!?!!?! DAMN YOU, DEMOCRACY!!!!

teehee

sabrina — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 16:27:53 +0000

i watched this week’s episode of CSI: New York¹ last night. it was subtle, but if you listened carefully, when the time machine was activated, they had TARDIS sound effects in the background.

teehee!

—
1: shut up. i only need two words to justify this habit: Gary Sinese.

way to go!

sabrina — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 11:48:26 +0000

hey, al gore, you still rule! congrats on the nobel peace prize! love ya!

hmm

sabrina — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 02:17:06 +0000

the silly thing about spending a bunch of quality time discussing preferred covers of leonard cohen’s ‘hallelujah’ and contemplating building a playlist of nothing but them is when you do that but aren’t actually already depressed enough to listen to ‘hallelujah’ a dozen times. of course once you listen to them all you are!

stupid jeff buckley.

shut the hell up, perez hilton

sabrina — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 12:21:34 +0000

dear popular media outlets and entertainment “journalists”:

you can pick on a lot of things to do with britney spears’ appearance at the mtv video music awards.

you can pick on her hair, which clearly needs some TLC and a pair of scissors.
you can pick on her vacant facial expression in this photo.
you can pick on lip-syncing.
you can pick on tacky costumes.
you can pick on insufficiently practiced dance routines.
you can even pick on the music if you want to pretend to a higher journalistic plane than this.

but you cannot say that she is fat. she’s not. she’s not emaciated, but she’s not fat. she’s not “too heavy,” as your article says. she’s not a slob. her arms are toned, her boobs are not falling out of the bra, she has a defined waist, she has nice thighs, and she has a nice belly. she’s not fat. quit making such a fuss as though she weighs a hundred and eighty pounds and could barely wash off the cheeto-dust from her fingers before going on stage just because you can’t see every rib in her upper chest like hilary swank. britney spears is not fat! you are being ridiculous!

no love,
–s.

in which niqui consoles herself with mindless fluff

sabrina — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 01:45:09 +0000

about the only thing keeping me going these past few days is pop music. not, like, sensible pop music, like pet shop boys. mindless cotton-candy pop music. britney spears’ greatest hits. i even listened to a bunch of billie piper and if that’s not straight out of a 12-year old girl’s diary i don’t know what is. i actually, in the end, was forced to come to the conclusion that i do not actually have enough cotton-candy pop music in my collection. this comes of, i think, being sadly much older than 12. (OTOH, i’m old enough to drink beer, so maybe it’s an OK tradeoff after all.)

now, if you’ll excuse me, i have to go dance around my kitchen and sing “Toxic” while putting away the groceries.

today’s entry in the annals of unfortunate photo manipulation

sabrina — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 23:04:33 +0000

okay, take this — the cover art for the dvd boxed set of the third season of Stargate Atlantis.

First of all, Sheppard looks like a girl. Granted, a butch girl with a Sigourney Weaver complex, but… a girl. With a gun (that kind of looks like a crutch, because nothing says “sci-fi” like crutches). And why does Ronon look like he’s about to eat Weir’s head (which, in a startlingly efficient way to resolve the civilian vs. military leadership of the expedition issue, has been transplanted onto Sheppard’s back, turning them into some sort of freakish half-man, half-spineless wimp creature)? And then there’s Teyla, tacked on in the background, serving no apparent purpose but to puff out her chest (since Sheppard’s A-cup isn’t enough, I guess). Meanwhile, McKay is the most normal-looking one of the bunch except for the enormous ball of light sitting on his shoulder like a pet parrot.

What the hell, man? That’s just a weird picture. They seriously couldn’t find anything better to put on the cover than Ronon eating Weir’s head??

(yes, i am just bitching to bitch. still, the first thing i thought when i saw this really was that sheppard looks like a girl. sorry, Joe Flanagan.)