Just a conspiracy of cartographers, then?
So – Saturday was lazy. I woke up, saw that it was raining, and promptly decided to skip the gym and activities. I did walk in to town to hang out at the internet café for a while, and then I sat in Starbucks with a gingerbread latte and read some of my book before heading home and watching some of House Season 3 (god – I forgot how funny parts of that show are – I was laughing so loud I think the neighbours could probably hear). Oh – and speaking of it being gingerbread latte season – they seem to call is “silly season” here? I don’t know.
Also – recently I’ve watched Smokin’ Aces and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead. I was assuming Smokin’ Aces was going to be something along the lines of Shoot Em Up (which hasn’t been released here, but if it is, I’ll definitely go see it). And it was kind fun and flashy up to a point, and then the ending (which was in no way a twist – if you couldn’t see that coming, you may never have seen a movie before) became suddenly very serious. There ended up being a sort of moral about violence, which was not what I was expecting in a film that has 2 FBI agents and about 5 teams of hit men all descending on one target. So… I’m still undecided about it. I liked parts of it (especially Nestor Carbonell as a total sociopath).
I did like Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. While I think it was a bit too stagey in parts (and Shakespeare in Love is definitely better), I just loved watching Tim Roth and Gary Oldman playing off each other. And Tom Stoppard definitely has a gift for language.
Sunday I went to the gym and my trainer decided the next week and a half will be all upper body. She then proceeded to put me through all sorts of sadistic muscle killing routines. I currently (Monday) hurt a lot. A lot.
Then (back to Sunday) I caught the shuttle bus to go out to the Antarctic centre and Willowbank reserve. That was nice, because I haven’t been on a Chch tour, even though I’ve been living here for several months. Apparently, the Avon was named after a stream in Scotland, not the Stratford one. It was settled in 1850 something, and it was at the time the longest passenger ship journey in the world (90 days). It was settled by the Anglican Church as a religious settlement, and you had to be chosen by the church. To be chosen, you had to be an “honest, upstanding, hard-working, moral person.” In the words of my bus driver, “God knows how we ended up here.” AND – do you remember me writing about walking through Hagley park to get to Riccarton to see the Assassination of Jesse James? I forget if I wrote about how long it took me, but it took me a very long time to get through to the other side. Which was nice because it was a lovely day out. Anyways, turns out that Hagley park is the 2nd largest Metropolitan park in the world, after Central park and before Hyde.
Hmm… methinks my bus driver doesn’t know what he was talking about. Golden Gate Park is apparently 174 acres larger than central park. Yeah… apparently GG park is 2.5 times the size of Hagley park. Nevermind.
He also said that George Bernard Shaw called Christchurch more English than the English. I don’t know if that is true.
Anyhoo. The Antarctic centre was up first. It is pretty first class, and that’s because they charge an arm and a freaking leg for the pleasure. It was seriously overpriced. But, I did get to watch the little blue penguin feeding, and I went in the snow and ice room, where I stood in front of a wind chill machine that brought the temperature down to -21 C. Otherwise, there were a couple of rooms with everything and more that you ever wanted to know about Antarctica (highest, windiest, driest, coldest!) (One thing I didn’t know – the South pole is apparently 9,000’ above sea level). The attraction is here because Chch is known as the gateway to the Antarctic – about 60-70% of people headed to the continent do so through Chch. The centre also houses the official US-Italian-NZ Antarctic programmes.
The real treat was Willowbank. It was this very lush, natural walkthrough park, where a lot of the best animals were the local free-roaming birds. There were also eels, a few international species, including some multi-coloured pheasant thing that did not look real, local farm animals, native birds (including Kea (parrot-like) and Wekas (which are kiwi-sized flightless birds)), tuatara, skinks and geckos, and KIWI! I saw a kiwi (really well – I’d seen one in a nocturnal house once before, but I could barely see that one. This one I got to watch for about 15 minutes as it poked along the ground searching for food and preening a bit). It was pretty adorable. There was supposedly an NZ falcon, too, but I couldn’t find it. Mostly, it was just a really nice walk around a wild area on a nice day. Lots of birds out. And quite a few ducklings and goslings, too. I’ll work on getting photos up soon.
Fun linkspam up first, then WGA stuff;
Who would you have thanksgiving with?
Questionable Content t-shirt love. I also like the one below; isopods need love, too!
Stephen’s not so good at pick-up lines. And yet more Even Stephvens.
WGA stuff;
For the most part, there’s just too much strike stuff going on to cover it all. Check out Nikki Finke, Variety and United Hollywood for more.
I like the Daily Show writer’s piece for NY Mag with this gem, “Is it absurd to see writers picketing? Perhaps. We realize things could be worse. We could be lawyers, and this could be Pakistan, and then we’d have to get dressed up in those black suits and throw rocks. But picketing writers are less absurd than writers not getting a cent for their work.” I also like heard on the picket line. [Upon rereading – perhaps that quote isn’t that funny – but I’m desperate! Come BACK Daily Show!!]
EW on the writer’s strike. Important bit, “Nevertheless, the major nets still lost about 9 percent of their prestrike audience, millions of viewers who got so fed up they actually found other things to do besides watch broadcast TV. And remember, this was 20 years ago, when the only people IM’ing on the Internet were particle physicists. Who knows how huge the exodus could be this time.” I also like this bit (from winners and losers of the strike); “WINNER: The blogosphere The unhappiest place on earth will receive an influx of unemployed screed-slingers. At least this batch respects the grammar gods. LOSER: Authors of political books Where will they shill their doorstopping opuses if Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert stay off the air?”
7 memorable screenwriters, Why the writers are right, The tv grid, again (updated), The bway strike. Also known as, “Soon, people will be forced to read”. Perhaps the head of Scholastic has taken Nick Counter’s family hostage? Return of the assistants. (Hmmm… maybe working in LA is not a brilliant idea?) Strike signs. I personally like #19. Dickensian hubris, So imagine you’re a major media mogul, How the tv stations are covering the strike, NYTimes: Damon Lindelof, Maureen Dowd. The WGA petition is at over 40,000 signatures. And finally, my favourite united Hollywood post;
I know this whole “new media” thing is an emerging technology and asking our readers to try to figure out the complicated YouTubes on a weekend might be foolish on my part, but here it goes:
[Ed; http://www.youtube.com/v/oQAzNsPLlDk&rel=1 if the video doesn’t embed]
(Helpful hint for the AMPTP: The play button is the one that looks like a triangle.)There’s a surprise at the end for fans of maniacal cartoon babies. And on the topic of celebrity cameos, not all the cops who were out at Fox Plaza on Friday were on traffic detail.
Tags: Travel
jwdmeow
Heh. Apparently figuring out the youtubes on a weekend is too much for my blog.
That’s OK. You gave the URL, so I was able to watch it. It made me all nostalgic for those days of yore, picketing the SF Symphony…
Stewie! Do you think that guy talks like that in real life? I always assumed that it was an actor putting on that ridiculous accent. What a hoot! I love Stewie…
I added a screenwriter comment. Robert Redford in The Way We Were plays a guy hired to adapt his own novel for the screen. They’re going to replace him, and he has to beg for the “chance” to stay. It’s heartbreaking and oh! so painful to watch. His best friend (in the movie) has to look away…
Nah. The guy does several of the voices for family guy. I think most animated people do. I can’t find the end credits for the simpsons movie (they put up pictures of who was voiced by who), but here are the main voices on the actor’s studio; http://youtube.com/watch?v=Uvk-uW34MtY