Mini Review of Book-In-Progress: "A Game of Thrones"

Sorsha has been after me for months in her gentle way (No, really. She doesn't pressure. She knows better. Almost no one manipulates me better than her) to start reading the first book in A Song of Ice and Fire series, A Game of Thrones.

I've had the damn book for over a year. I bought it at a used book store when she first started talking about it and I'd heard about the series from my fellow geeks online. Mostly, they were bitching about the next book not being out. And then Neil Gaiman told them to shut up about it and that was fun. So, I picked up the book, took one look at all the characters with the crazy names and put it back down. I'd look at it longingly on occasion, but went on to other things. But I really wanted to get it read before the HBO miniseries with the AWESOME cast came on. In April. I think I've got time. But you know. Time gets away from you. And then there was this preview.

Yeah. I need to get on that.

So, I started it this week. DETERMINED.

After numerous texts to Sorsha (And pouncing on her at work), visits to the IMDB page (Sometimes it helps if I can get mental pictures of the characters in my mind) and the Wikipedia page (Careful there if you're spoiler-averse) and I've mostly got my brain wrapped around the thirty or so primary and secondary characters and the "rules" of the world they live in.

And it's so fucking awesome. It's like a really mean, dirty (Both in sexual terms and like, grime) Middle Earth. Everyone is complex and layered and morally ambiguous. My favorite character is still Daenerys, nicknamed Dany, a thirteen-year-old deposed princess married off by her asshole brother to a warlord so he (The asshole brother) can build his army and get his throne back. She's terrified (And who wouldn't be?) but eventually comes to like her scary husband (Jason Momoa is playing him in the mini, if that tells you anything) and, more importantly, realizes that she needs to toughen the fuck up if she's going to survive. And she DOES and it's AWESOME. Also, that picture of her from IMDB immediately made me think of the Jungle Queen from The Maxx. 90s nostalgia!

So, reading continues and I need to order the next three books off of Amazon. WOOOO!!!

P.S. Three guesses as to why I used the Flowers in the Attic tag. Hee.

A Study In Our Friendship...

Welcome friends and readers to part one of what I believe will end up being an eight part series that examines the complexities that exist in Bea and my friendship. In today's entry I will be showing the odd differences between our real-world love life versus the far more interesting and (don't tell Bea) imaginary love life.


The Real World

Auntie Mame

You may find this hard to believe dear readers, but as a teenager your beloved Auntie Mame was, for all intents and purposes, was a whore. My sister (Dolly) will attest that I had what she liked to refer to as the "boy of the month" club; I had a new boyfriend that I fawned all over at the beginning of the month and then tossed aside and complained about by the month's end. I dated everyone from computer nerds to metal rockers with a few preps and jocks thrown in the mix for good measure. I didn't really develop a "type" until my senior year in high school when I realized I should be a little more selective with the boys I swapped saliva with.

"Lady" Bea

Any consistent readers of this blog will not be surprised to learn that dear Bea was a bit conservative* during our formative teenage years. It wasn't until college that all my corrupting finally sunk in and she began to even notice those once "icky" boys. Her relationships with the opposite sex are usually monogamous and lengthy - lasting well over my one month cap. She was picky and overly selective in who she shared a dinner table with.


Our Imaginary (and Far Better) World

Auntie Mame

I have been in love with John Travolta since I was only a few months old. Being born in late 1979 meant that reruns of the Emmy award winning (it won like nine right?) Welcome Back, Kotter had started to air nightly. Since my parents were Joan and what's-his-name I was put to bed after the rerun of Vinny Barbarino saying "Up your nose wit a rubba hose" was over. I've loved John Travolta with a very weird passion every since.

Then came the movie, Beetlejuice and with it a love for the quirky lead actor in his black and white, plaid, flannel shirt. This was right before my father, What's-His-Face, discovered a little movie called the Hunt for Red October and I was smacked in the face with a love for the classic good looks of one Alec Baldwin. He's the kind of crazy that reminds me of my extended family, and there's something cozy and familiar about that.

As time grew on, my love for John never wained.

Yes, even when he gave us this

When I feel the need to get away from it all, it is to one of these two men whose arms I run (figuratively speaking). When I'm in a dramatic, angry mood: I like to pretend that Alec and I have explosive, public arguements and then explosive, public sex to make up. When I'm feeling sad and down on myself: I pretend that John is there being the sweet and comforting man he's known to be. Anyway, that's the way it's always been: me and John, or me and Alec, depending on my mood. Yes, occasionally there have been other actors that have caught my attention, but never in the same way. I've seen every movie John has ever made, and if they are available on DVD, I own it (including the made-for-TV-movie, The Boy in the Plastic Bubble), and every Thursday I obsess over my darling Alec in 30 Rock.

"Lady" Bea

She's as loose in her Hollywood life as she is reserved and scared in her real life. Bea changes her pretend love life as often as I changed my real one (back in the day of course, I'm a happily married woman now). Despite what she'd like us all to believe, she's not overly particular in her Hollywood adorations - she once told me about a dirty crush on Billy Bob Thorton - and she spends her nights doing what it took me a lifetime to do: watching every movie, TV show, and B-rated musical they had ever been in. It's hard for me to keep track of who's who honestly; Is Jensen Ackles the guy from Doctor Who? Is David Tennet the comic book writer? I can't keep them straight. If she were better on the computer, I'm sure she'd create a flow chart to explain all this to me, but, well, you know.

read : prude

B-List Celebrities on Vh1, Part One

First off, this is our 200th post - WOO HOO!!
Secondly, I love Celebrity Rehab. Seriously, this is the best show ever. I first got addicted during the writer's strike when there was nothing else on TV. It was the series premiere of the show and Bea and I watched it together via the Internets. Between Daniel Baldwin and Brigit Neilson, I thought that there was nothing better. THEN they started the second season and threw in Gary fucking Busey. GARY BUSEY!! AND they've added another show "Celebrity Rehab: Sober Living" where the B-list celebrities leave the treatment center and enter the 'real world.'
The show comes on Sundays on Vh1 and I demand that you watch it.

HELP

OK, I saw the BEST of the worst made-for-TV movies I have ever seen the other day. OK, not the other day so much as like two months ago, but it was sooo bad; I loved it! I have no idea the name of it, but it looked fairly recent, I'd say it was no later than 1991 or earlier. I don't know any of the actors in it either. It was on Ion, so it could have been anything. Anyway, here is the synopsis:

Set in the 1880's. A mulatto girl from Canada marries a wealthy white man. Rather than taking her to London as her parents think, he instead rapes her and sells her in the American slave market. No one believes that she is a free woman, and she is bought quickly by a Virginian plantation owner. He makes her a kitchen slave, and he is known throughout the land for buying young, light skinned slaves to be his 'lady.' Any way, she steals paper and a stamp from his office when she is cleaning it and writes to her mother and father to let them know where she is and to help her. With the help of a strapping young slave who butchers for the kitchen, they get the letter mailed. At this point I fell asleep, so I don't know if she was rescued or not.
Does this sound familiar to anyone? Can anyone tell me anything about this stupid movie? It's been killing me!!