NDBT

Cairns is still hot. We’ve got crickets at night, and at my last hostel, someone was playing a good chunk of my summer music playlist: (under the boardwalk, lola, etc.)

I am currently very, very broke. Job hunting in Christchurch, and looking forward to earning a paycheck again. Luckily have a lot of reading to do this week, so I can keep my expenses down. Speaking of job hunting, I took a typing test – 53 words per minute with 93% accuracy. I think I’ll try again in a couple of days.

Box office round-up for the weekend: Harry Potter already grossed 330 million in 5 days. Shockingly, License to Wed dropped only 29%, so maybe John Krasinski might have a future in movies (more likely: some people will go see anything with Robin Williams, no matter how terrible). Captivity BOMBED with 1.5 mil (yay!), and Evan Almighty might be the first ever 100 million+ flop (its at 92 million currently). Then again, Harry Potter might drop off significantly next weekend: everyone will be inside reading the book. Speaking of which, Emily sent me this:

Tom Campbell, co-owner of the Regulator Bookshop, Durham, N.C., offered the following thoughts on Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows in his newsletter, The Regulator Irregular:

“This is the last Harry Potter book, and it will quite likely be the last time in any of our lifetimes that people will line up, in the middle of the night, all across the country, and all across the world, to buy a book. To ‘see what happens next’ in a story. The only other time this has ever happened, as far as I know, was with Charles Dickens more than 150 years ago when crowds waited on the quays in New York for the ship carrying the latest installment of The Old Curiosity Shop to dock, calling out to the passengers and crew, ‘Is Little Nell dead?'”

Yay for being a part of a cultural phenomenon. (It’ll apparently be 12 million copies as a first run in the US alone).

OH MY GOD!!! NEVA CHONIN IS RETIRING HER COLUMN! NOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Her final column: Ralph Fiennes could make anthrax sexy.

Aaron Sorkin has signed a deal with Dreamworks (let’s hope it goes better than Studio 60).

From AICN: Peter Jackson cast the little girl in Lovely bones. They also reported on Choke casting, btw. There’s also a very good review of the Ten, which I want to see (yay the State! boo that it won’t be coming out in Oz). And apparently Feast of Love is an updating of Midsummer Night’s Dream, who knew.

And there’s the Lust, Caution (from Ang Lee) trailer over at amazon.

I’m so glad to know my brother is being productive (Love, Actually? Oh, Ross! At least the rest of the list is pretty on)

Here’s a clip from the Bob Dylan project (I didn’t know Christian Bale and Ben Winshaw were going to be in it, too) David Cross as Alan Ginsburg is hysterical.
Kristl’s friend Sujit just moved to SF. Here are some of his comments; “And what of San Francisco? Well, I will honestly say it is not what I expected. My basis of opinion had been based on a popular culture diet that defined SF as the land of hippies, homos, HIV and “Full House”. It’s really something else entirely; while there is some truth to those characteristics I think two features have really struck me. First, this is a city full of people who really love it here. I ask almost everyone I meet, and only the ex-New Yorkers feel differently. Yes it’s expensive, yes it’s frustratingly leisurely for an ex-east coaster, and yes it’s wicked cold. But it’s also a friendly place with positive energy, it has an extraordinary exterior, and it that offers as much opportunity as cities several times larger.” Awww… we are vocal about loving our city. (And cold? versus the east coast? puh-lease).
Speaking of which, from one of my favorite groups on facebook, I irrationally love SF: “If you get misty eyed when looking at pictures of the Golden Gate Bridge, if reading Joan Didion makes you feel right at home, if you ride the busses for fun, if seeing Critical Mass or the Gay Pride Parade really makes your day (when they don’t block traffic), if you feel that nothing can compare to Jamba Juice, if Mexican and Chinese are your favorite foods, if you think the Palace of Fine Arts at night is one of the most beautiful sights in the world, if the scent of bay leaves reminds you of home, if your inner hippie sometimes argues with your inner yuppie, if you loved the Pets.com commercials …if you think manifest Destiney has manifest then this is the group for you.” (what pets.com commercials?)
Why is it people listen to certain songs (albums, artists) in chunks? I remember Mr. Potter talking about how he’d buy an album, play it incessantly for weeks and then move on to the next. Something weird in our psychology. Addictive behavior?
The last Harry Potter book coming out is kind of like a really young child’s Christmas anticipation. I seriously can not wait! (I have vivid memories of not being able to sleep before Christmas in the house in Mill Valley because I was listening for reindeer hooves. That was also the best year ever for rushing down to the Christmas tree because there was a muppet babies TENT set up in the living room. I must’ve been 4 or 5, and it was awesome.) I was laughing about it with a British guy in my hostel the other night. Yes, I’m traveling, but I’ve been waiting 2 years for this book and years for answers to some of the series’ mysteries. (When did I start reading it? Back in high school. The summer before junior year? 8 years ago? Loong time.)
musica: Silver and cold, Leaving song pt. 2, Miss murder, Girl’s not grey, days of the phoenix, ziggy stardust – AFI
playboy mommy, big wheel, bouncing off clouds – Tori

Tags: Travel

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 15th, 2007 at 8:27 pm and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.