Page views

On the Blogger dashboard there is a 'page view' counter.  Obviously this is a very important statistic for people, because having readership means things you write get read, and it's no longer a one-way self-fapping street, this blog-writing business.  You have readers, you have an audience, there are people who are taking the time and reading the words you wrote, and by god, who knows, perhaps the words might have meaning for them.  So one dreams on.

From the way I mock this particular statistic it may seem I'm being pretentious.  Making fun of something while I secretly check my own 'page view' every other hour.  First off, let me assure you that is absolutely untrue.  I cannot for the life of me actually care how many people reads this thing.  At this moment in time is staying steadfastly at zero, thank you very much.  Second of all, I chose to write about this 'page view' is because of Sherlock.

Ah, Sherlock.

In the past few years since I last wrote, there were many things that helped me to shape me into the person I am today.  What is that exactly?  Well if I can't say then I can't tell you.  But one of the things that helped to shape me is Sherlock.  Sherlock helped me to discover my inner fangirl, Sherlock helped me to discover BBC, and Sherlock introduced me to Benedict Cumberbatch, my future husband.  So I would say Sherlock has had quite an impact on me in the last couple of years.

Always loved detective stories, and Sherlock is the best that's come in a long while.  Created and written by Steven Moffatt and Mark Gatiss, it takes a clever spin on a century-old character into the current consciousness.  Benedict and Martin are the perfect Sherlock and Watson.  And Benedict, sigh, unbelievably sharp witty and absolutely sociopathic human-being.  Warms my heart every time he gets excited over a '3-patch problem' or another serial killer.  The best, and I do mean the best.

But I digressed so faraway it's almost hard to get back.  Yes, page view.  For my favorite episode, 'A Scandal in Belgravia', Sherlock had thought the page view number of Watson's blog was meant to be a hint to a code.  Of course that was not the case, but it was still quite funny when he thought he had cracked it.  See what I mean about modernization?  Dr. Watson writes a blog!

Alas I must bid thee good night.  This is another new/old obsession, this obsession of Shakespeare, Hiddleston and Thor.  Bet you never thought I'd string those words together.  Ah to be so unpredictable yet so predictable, I'd like to think I share at least that trait with Jim Moriarty.

Goodbye (in that Jim Morirarty sing-song voice).  Fans of Sherlock would know what I'm talking about.

Try to be inspired

That's what writers want, right?  Be inspired, write something inspiring, make a difference in someone's life?  Unfortunately that is not going to come to pass today.  Or many other days.

Many times I have heard, or rather, read, is that the key to good writing, is just to sit your ass down, and put words to paper.  Figuratively nowadays, I suppose.  So let's hope this one blog a day thing will eventually mean I will write a book, or a collection of essays of sorts.

I mean, if Carrie Bradshaw can publish a book with her columns, who is to say the same wouldn't happen to me by writing about absolutely nothing on a blog that nobody reads?

Talk about being delusional, HA!  There is too much practical in me to dream about things like that.  So please don't take it seriously that I want to publish a book or become a writer.  It's one thing to try to be clever and come up with one-liners; it's quite another to write a full-fledged story with beginning/middle/end and be gripping the entire time.  Much like running a marathon, I would imagine.

Which reminds me, I need to read Murakami's marathon book.  Not that I run marathons, but I do think there are commonalities when you talk about long-distance running.

So tired.  I think I have fulfilled the quota of meaninglessness for the day.  Good night.

Oh, before I forget, need to jot this down.  I think today's the first time that I feel like I have a better grasp at this CSA thing, that I'm actually confident in what I was doing.  And what was I doing?  A lot of little things, none of which important.  How long did it take?  Only 2 and a half months. Ha.

Good source material *spoiler*

I went to see THG: Catching Fire today with my coworker.  My post yesterday was about the first one, that I watched on Netflix in preparation for today's show.  There are good and bad points, I suppose, with watching for background v. going in with a fresh set of eyes.  The good of arming yourself with the necessary background help to get a better appreciation of Panem.  The bad is the inevitable comparison.

For the most part the story and the characters were very consistent.  Which is actually needless to say because the Catching Fire pretty much happened right after the previous movie.  But cinematography-wise, the colors are way more muted, giving off a very somber undertone.  That goes for the costumes as well, definitely not as flamboyant as it was.  Stanley Tucci's blue hair turned a darker shade of fuschia, that's how I could tell.  Also Philip Seymour Hoffman's Plutarch was darker than Seneca, and so forth.  But take comfort in the fact that Effie is still as golden as ever.  So there.

The darker palette is a foreshadow to the more 'adult' version of the Hunger Games, it being the 75th anniversary and all.  Past victors compete again in this arena of death.  Obviously I won't go into details, but the politics, the alliance, the strategizing and my personal favorite, the patterns of attack makes the game that much more cerebral and stimulating.  If anything, it reminded me of those sadistic serial killers with elaborate plan out to kill everybody from those Japanese detective/suspense/mystery stories.  If only there were more of that; perhaps in the book.

JLaw's Katniss is more developed in Catching Fire.  There is a determination that wasn't there before.  She is making choices without knowing that she is.  The twist at the end made her seem like a simple pawn.  But knowing Katniss she won't stand for it for long.  Josh Hutcherson's Peeta is same as ever.  I cringed a couple of times because he nearly died, and seemed like the weakest link.  Talk about making Katniss look good.  But the fact that he is a good and honest guy I guess is the saving grace.  In the man-eat-man world of THG, it's surprising that this simple virtue is what kept him alive.  The suit the tributes wore for the game did not leave much to the imagination.  Tight jumpsuits... the tributes looked good.

Again, due to the constraint of time and my limited creative and critical thoughts, I must come to an end with my half-baked opinion of The Hunger Games: Catching Fire.  I'm just glad to say that my favorite line, "I VOLUNTEER AS TRIBUTE," made an appearance again tonight.  I giggled out loud.

Seriously the longest game ever *spoilers*

I was going to write something of a follow-up to my previous 'update' blog, just because it was too brief and did not properly illustrate how much things have changed since 2009.  When I looked back on the blogs I wrote in 2007-8, things I rant about seem so close to heart that it hurts still but the pain, is numbed, by the passage of time.  I must categorically say, that, "Children, time does heal all wounds."

Then why did this 'follow-up' blog did not come to pass?  Long story short, I just finished watching The Hunger Games.  Well the story wasn't really that long anyway.  I'm going to watch The Hunger Games: Catching Fire tomorrow with my co-worker, and thought the movie would be the fastest thing to bring me up to speed.  And also to get a preview what caliber of movie-making, story-telling and actors-acting we are talking about here.

4.5 stars, according to Netflix.  And I do concur.  Terrifically made, and not at all your typical teenage fantasy.  This movie was a great introduction into the imaginary realm of The Hunger Games; to the point for the most parts, and no over-the-top teenage drama.  To have seasoned actors such as Woody Harrelson, Stanley Tucci and Donald Sutherland to help anchor and ground the younger actors JLaw and Josh Hutcherson was a great touch.

To risk sounding unpopular, I was ambivalent towards JLaw's performance in this movie.  Perhaps it was the character itself; Katniss is such an average teenager, so much like myself in the whole 'I don't know how to make people like me' socially-awkward penguin way, that I feel the resistance to like her.  Does that make sense?  It's like when I refuse to watch anything popular (such as THG) solely because it's popular.  Why? I don't know, I'm stubborn and stupid that way.  Back to Katniss.  There were also a few spots where I thought, "There is going to be trap there," or "He's only saying he likes her because he's trying to get sponsors," when Katniss dived head-first into situations; but that's young love, I suppose.  JLaw is cool though, in real life.  So to a certain extent, she is believable as Katniss.

And because it's late, and I have to get up early tomorrow, I'll just summarize my feelings in a few sentences which contain 140 characters or less.

- Donald Sutherland is quite the Queen of Hearts in THG. Only difference is he prunes his own rose bushes. Did not mean for that to sound dirty #oops

- While JLaw is completely likable, I really questioned the point of Liam Hemsworth.  I suppose making him looking like Gaston from B&B makes him more relatable to a #cynical person like me.

- This move is seriously long.  Like #looooong.

- The fashion bothered me.  There, I said it.  Except for Katniss & Peeta's entrance outfit with the fire.  That was hot, no pun intended.

Good night!

Shady's back, back again

Funny, the way I have been obsessing about self-expression in the last couple of days.  I check my facebook and my pinterest incessantly.  The downfall of humanity, where we all become so self-obsessed that we are almost paralyzed by that obsession.  

Oh, just me?  My bad.

Looked through some of my old posts for the last half hour, and I didn't cringe as much as I thought I would.  Certainly not as much as I did when I read my diaries from elementary school.  I pretended I was someone else, someone prettier, someone more popular, and I managed to create an alternate reality where I am that person and wrote diary entries about her life.  Pretty advanced stuff I would say, looking back on it, my 30-year-old self.  But when I was in, oh, university and finding those old diaries, I just wanted to burn them.  I didn't though, I just threw them away.  Am I sorry?  No.  I may have softened since then, but I still do not form sentimental attachments to anyone or anything.  

Except I made friends, since the last time I posted here.  Oh hey, what is that?

So updates are in order.  That is, if I were to be serious about this writing and keeping record of my life thing.  Can't always depend on facebook now, can we?  Let's see, last time I posted was in 2009.  Since then I started taking vacations, went to Mexico and NYC.  I went back to Taiwan after a 12-year hiatus, survived the Olympics, joined a dragonboat team, ran my first half marathon, went to Hong Kong and Taiwan again for racing.  Then I changed store to the suburbs (worst idea ever), went to Japan, Hawaii, Portland, Houston and Vegas, thank goodness for dragonboating.  Then the year of running commenced, ran in the Princess half in Orlando, ran in the St Paddy's day race, ran the Color Me Rad 5k, ran the Victoria half, and finally ran the Boundary Bay half. 

And I finally left the 'bucks.  11 years.  11 years of... what exactly? Friendship, learnings, memories.  Rants, complaints, super early morning and super late nights.  Heartaches, sprained ankles, stress.  Beers.  So many things, too many things, still can't speak about it.

Oh and I slept with someone.  Wait, I'm sorry I reduced it to something so... basic.  But everything culminated to that point, so even though my blogs are often rants, I do try to have some sort of self-imposed standards.  And no, I will not kiss and tell, it's not a gentlemanly thing to do.

I apologize this blog entry has been long time coming, and is absolutely the worst kind of blog, a list of things I had done without any entertainment values.  It's not even remotely clever, though it pains me to say.  To boot, this is not even a complete list of things I had done and experienced in the last 3 years.  Now that I'm in my 30's, I really should buckle down and man up.  To quote Woody Harrelson in Zombieland, "Nut up or shut up."  Seems pretty counter-intuitive to be shutting up in a blog, so I'm left with the alternative of nutting up.  

I leave this blog entry with my new year's resolution of 2013, "Run more, drink less; cook more, eat less; laugh more, stress less; and travel more, always travel more."