binary soup

you know you're hooked on walking dead, when you string together 1,200 + words to try to figure out

Fri, 13 Apr 2012 14:03:56 GMT

lori grimes has been much reviled in the fandom. she is not a likable character, but she is an interesting character, and would have come across more coherently if acted by a more competent actress. lori, in spite of her liberal politics (e.g. anti-death penalty, pro-strict gun control) is very much a traditional housewife. rearing carl, taking care of rick, keeping house -- all these have filled up lori's days before the apocalypse. it wasn't a perfect life, as that flashback in "bloodletting (2.02)" showed, lori was increasingly getting frustrated with rick's emotional detachment. but it had been a kind of life -- a normal, stable kind of life. you couldn't really fault lori for wanting to put some semblance of that life in their current situation. where she goes mental is on her insistence that andrea is useless and a burden because the latter would rather wield a gun than a spatula.

in the comics, lori is actually more resentful of the role she's had to play vis-a-vis her boy scout of a husband. but in the andrea-lori confrontation in "18 miles out (2.10)", lori came off as unreasonable and stupid. i mean, if daryl could forgive andrea for shooting him and make her feel less crappy by saying that she was only trying to keep the group safe, how am i suppose to take lori's rant that the womenfolk should stick to cooking and doing the laundry?

consistent with her view on gender roles in an apocalyptic world, lori relies on the men to keep women and children safe. again, this is not exactly a good reason to hate lori. she's been socialized in a sort of schizophrenic society wherein women can bear arms and join the army, but are still barred from full combat duty, as if killing in the name of truth, justice and the pursuit of happiness is too dirty a business for the dainty sensibility of women. but i digress. my point is that if one is going to extremely dislike lori, it should be on reasonable cause.

for me, what makes lori an unlikeable character is the way she's dealt with shane and rick, and the conflicting values these men represent in lori's struggle to carry on after the end of life as she knew it. lori knows, either consciously or subconsciously that shane had and would have always put her and carl and their safety over the rest of their band of survivors. rational or not, sane or not, shane's decisions had been motivated by what he considered would best keep lori and carl safe. this would explain lori's freak-out when she found out that shane had been planing to strike-out on his own. she's convinced herself that aggressive sexual come-ons notwithstanding, having shane in the mix was still better than not having him around because shane will always chose to her and carl over the rest of the group. the sex thing muddled up the issue. it ratcheted up lori's guilt over leaving rick behind in the hospital. it confused shane into thinking that what he had with lori was real intimacy and that it had a real future if only rick stayed gone. it's actually pathetic, and could have played that way if the actor who played shane was less charismatic.

we are not shown lori's internal processing, and so i am still grappling with how she came to the conclusion in "triggerfinger (2.09) " that shane is a threat to her family even though the sequence of events was clear. she went out on her own to look for rick, almost got herself eaten by a zombie, but somehow she managed to save herself. soon after, shane found her on the road and told her that rick is safe and back in the farm purportedly to make her go back with him, whereupon she found out that shane was lying about rick. the time line is a bit fuzzy between the point when sophia disappeared and the day she was found in the barn. but it couldn't have been that long between the time lori told shane to stay and the point when she almost but told rick to get rid of shane because the latter is a threat to their family. as daryl would say, "rick 'aint stoopid." he knows what lori is saying between the lines, and in "18 miles out (2.10)" he did come to a crossroad.

ric is never for easy decisions. he could have chosen to abandon shane to be zombie chow (which is twisted poetic considering what he did to otis), ric chose to save his long-time friend and then he proceeded to read him the riot act. this is the kind of man lori married -- decent, moral, an all-around good guy. lori admires this about rick, and though there are signs that their marriage was in a rut pre-ZA, lori has opted to stand by her man. she's disagreed with most of rick's decisions since season 1, but being the "good wife" that she sees herself as (one might even say that lori is overcompensating for her guilt over the sexual affair with shane by playing the good wife role to ridiculous ends), lori has stood by rick's decisions in public. in private though, lori is increasingly frustrated with rick's decisions (i.e., going back to atlanta to look for merle, searching for sophia, wanting to run after shane and otis, running after herschel, taking a road trip to dump randal somewhere far from the farm).

reasonable or not, lori wants rick to make her and carl and the coming baby and their safety, his top priority. she knows she can't really have this with rick, but she's willing to go along and be the supportive wife so long as he keeps his end of their marital bargain, i.e., be the good guy who saves the day for everybody. lori is in a sense the archetypal cop's and soldier's wife.

lori's reaction to rick's confession to killing shane annoyed me. but i suspect that the writers intended for the viewers to feel something else. i decided that lori is supposed to feel betrayed, not because rick killed her lover, but because rick broke her assumptions about what kind of man she married. it's a very visceral reaction, which is what we're supposed to get from lori's physical withdrawal from rick.

lori will of course mourn shane, but not i think as a lover would. lori may not love shane the way he probably wanted her to love him; she may not love him at all for all we were shown about these two. but lori knows on the gut-level that she's lost a guy who will literally commit murder to keep her and hers safe. equally important, i think, is that so long as shane was around and being his crazy self, lori could have gone on living, convinced that she's married to the perfect guy. lori will now have to face the reality that she's married to a man who killed his best friend. it's a potentially good narrative point, but at the moment i am flat-out tired of the grimes' domestic drama and more than ready for the narrative to focus on other characters.

andrea and michonne, zombie slayers

Sat, 24 Mar 2012 03:29:05 GMT

andrea and michonne are my favorite characters in the TWD (The Walking Dead) comics. between the two of them, they have suffered through the decimation of their families, the 'zombification' of loved ones, hunger, torture, brutal rape. they've gone to hell and back many times, each time returning with a stronger will to life. ninety-four issues in, andrea and michonne persist, refusing to surrender to the zombie apocalypse their respective abilities to make the choice to act. they may have become harder, somewhat morally-bruised and a tad nuttier in the process. but they have never been broken in spirit. the two of them continue to find ways to connect with other survivors. with the many similarities between andrea and michonne, one would think that they'd become fast friends in the comics. but no. andrea and michonne have each been put on the limelight and they've figured heavily in other characters' story arcs. but they've never shared the limelight with just the two of them together. there's never been a plot or a story arc that primarily involves these two characters.

that the tv writers chose to introduce michonne via the viewpoint of andrea during the season-ender has ratcheted my anticipation for season 3. i don't know how far the tv writers will revise the comics dynamics of andrea and michonne. i hope they go all-out with the potentials of the nascent sisterhood of andrea and michonne, heretofore untapped in the comics 'verse. i want andrea and michonne to become BFFs in the tv 'verse. i want them to thump Rick upside the head whenever his savior complex starts up. i want them to ~~have threesomes~~ go on the hunt with Darryl. i want them to tag-team Lori whenever she bitches about them good-for-nothing women who should be cooking and making ice tea, instead of going out with the boys to work on security. i want them to teach Beth and Maggie the art of zombie slaying. i want them to save each other when the devil (aka as "the Governor" arc) comes knocking on their door. mostly, i want them in the same scenes doing stuff together and bitching about whatever.

the walking dead, 2.01

Sun, 23 Oct 2011 10:31:52 GMT

dear Walking Dead,

you are the still the goriest, scariest and most entertaining show this side of cable tv this season. don't change. but if you must, i have here a wish list of sorts, starting with making it possible for the fans to stop wishing for Lori to be chowed down by the zombies.

because walking dead writers, Lori is that annoying. it's bad enough that you hired an actress who has only one facial expression, but can you decouple tv-Lori from her comics version who was faithless and passive-aggressive. i mean you've managed to not kill off Shane, so you should be able to write Lori into a character which the viewers, specially its female segment can like. as it stands now, Lori is topping many a fandom survey on which characters the viewers want offed. also the love triangle thing? never my cup of tea even during normal times, so a love triangle during a zombie apocalypse is taxing my limit of stupid ideas.

i hope you allow Carol to grow a backbone and start looking after herself and her daughter, instead of relying too much on the men. for the first time i wanted to whack Carol on the head for not running to her daughter's rescue. come on carol, be a mother and protect your kid!

i don't care that Dale is a manipulative SOB because his agenda is to keep the group intact. but i don't like that he is smug about it. he deserves the smack-down from Andrea, who remains my favorite female character even though she wanted to off herself last season. i like comics-Andrea, but i love tv-Andrea. Laurie Holden is always kick-ass onscreen.

i have no complaints with Glenn and Darryl. keep them cool and useful. T-Bone though should stop being clumsy, getting his self cut and blooding all over the place just when a herd of zombie are bearing down on the survivors. he'll be zombie chow if he can't keep his wits about.

finally, i will be the happiest zombified fan this side of slackerdom, if you promise no more Rick monologues in the future. i'm almost certain that such an awkwardly written and staged scene would have been shot down by Frank Darabont who ran the show in season 1. opening episode writer Robert Kirkman may be the author of the original source material (and it is a fine graphic novel), but he could stand a good editing. this is a minor quibble. for now.

london riots

Wed, 10 Aug 2011 09:28:59 GMT

my brain can make some truly disturbing connections. this weekend i had a strong urge to watch zombie-pocalyse movies beginning with Danny Doyle's "28 Days Later," in which Londeners and Englanders get infected by a virus called Rage causing them to go on a literally bloody rampage, rioting till rule Britannia collapses. but life is way scarier than fiction.

the violence we are seeing in news, cable and the Internet is unpredictable and frighteningly volatile, because unlike the fictional apocalyptic rioters in the movies whose independent thought and decision-making ability have been wiped out by a virus, the origins of the raging London riots may be found in the messed-upness of our own species and the complicated structures, relations and history we build to insist on our humanity. there is no bio-hazard accident nor massive virus infection here. there is only people and the very messy conflagration of fear, anger, hatred and suffering. (my apologies to Yoda.)

pass me the tissue box, don't touch the remote

Mon, 16 May 2011 03:13:45 GMT

this week's Doctor Who got my tear ducts on overdrive. normally, my kids would tease me whenever i go teary emo during a movie or a tv show. but i guess they were too focused on Neil Gaiman's scripted episode to get distracted by their hormonal mother. also this season's penultimate episode of Bones got me misty-eyed over the death of a minor character. i don't know what's up with that since Bones has increasingly annoyed me enough to be moved into my imaginary list of tv shows on probation.

there's bound to be more tissue box moments in the next two weeks as various television shows get around to their season-enders which tend to have people getting shot or blown-up, hooking-up, breaking-up, getting married or giving birth or any combination of these. i anticipate getting pissed off and emotionally gutted in equal measures by House, and i want this so much since that other show that i really really like (aka Fringe) finished a season's worth of smart writing and delightful acting on a blah note; i still believe that karmic balance encompasses the land of television and since House has had more blah than whoa episodes this season i'm really really hoping that it's season ender will wow me and remind me again why i like this show, and i can't believe i've spewed mental vomit all over my LJ page. sometimes i miss the simplicity of Buffy's season enders where the Slayer beat the Big and thwart an apocalypse. sometimes Buffy dies, but that's par for the course for mystical entities.

pasta nights and Doctor Who time

Sat, 14 May 2011 16:09:31 GMT

eating pasta on Friday nights is a ritual that my family has evolved on its own, that is to say, it is not a practice borrowed or carried-over from either my childhood or that of my husband. my husband and i grew up during the 60s and 70s and our respective families consider pasta and noodle dishes not only foreign food but also food served only during special occasions, if at all. my husband and i though, we both love our pasta dishes. he makes a pretty decent carbonara and my bolognaise and marinara are, according to my son, the "bestest." (so maybe my son loves anything with meat in it, but a parent or two of my son's friends have told me that their kids think i make a killer pasta.) i can also make pasta sauce from scratch, which is the closest to spontaneous thinking that i get to do these days and frankly, i hate proactively planning meals. my kids like it that there are fewer dishes to wash during pasta nights, so if it were up to them every night will be pasta night. my kids are starting to discover the concept of Friday night outs with their friends, so one these days we'll probably move pasta night to ether Monday or Wednesday. but that's fine. family rituals and traditions after all should be allowed to continue to evolve less they become hollow and perfunctory, instead of the deliberate act of strengthen the bonds that tie people together through a shared moment of enjoying something even as humdrum as cooked semolina and durum wheat.

speaking of shared moments, my family has been watching Doctor Who together since 2007. my kids and i, scifi geeks that we are started in 2005 when the series was brought back. my husband tuned in during the middle of the Martha period but we made him sit through the episodes he's missed and is all caught up now. my kids are specially excited over this week's episode because this is the one that's written by Neil Gaiman.

supermom dren

Fri, 15 Apr 2011 13:40:16 GMT

world: shut up about this supermom crap! it's not helpful. the supermom is a myth created to mollify society's fears about women opting to work outside the home. women buying into this are setting themselves up into a not-so-nice nervous breakdown. no mother should be expected to leap tall buildings in a single bound, not when society itself keeps building obstacles to the equal providence of our sons and daughters.

i wanna eat buckets of ice cream with lisa cuddy

Tue, 08 Mar 2011 08:52:53 GMT

the obstacles/challenges House anad Cuddy have faced since "Now What?" have proven surmountable, i've started to wonder how these two will break up in a plausible way. i can get behind the scenario that played out in "Bombshells." House and Cuddy may never get back together as a romantic couple, but i don't think they will ever stop loving each other and being near one another's gravitational well. it's bound to be painful for this pair and the fallout will be felt by everyone in PPTH. in other words, it's potentially good tv. i'll continue watching House till the bitter end. but at the moment, i want to eat buckets of ice cream with the rest of the fans who, like House and Cuddy are getting their hearts shredded right now.

they were all so very pretty

Mon, 07 Mar 2011 05:46:23 GMT

there's nothing interesting on the television, so i have X-Files running on the video player. "Duane Barry" is playing. this is the episode in which Scully gets kidnapped and later taken to the mountain top with the flying lights. this is also the episode that launched a thousand Mulder/Krychek fanfic. Mulder in a red speedo while talking with a fully-clothed (tie and all) Krychek by the poolside is hot and all, but i still think that the way the scene had been set up was a weird directorial choice. it's been 16 years since this episode first aired, so i'm embracing the nostalgia and my 1990s fangirl self. Mulder was pretty, Krychek was pretty, Scully was pretty. also, CCH Pounder (who played FBI negotiation commander Kazdin) always kicks ass in any role she plays.

testerical

Sat, 05 Mar 2011 09:41:42 GMT

testerical is when you tell women that they should bring forth babies until their uterus shrivels because god commands it of them

this is frakked up. i’d laugh at that pro-lifer caught in the youtube video except it hurts my uterus to do so. i vote we call this sorry display of irrationality and lack of grace “testerical” as opposed to hysterical, because so far the most rabid attacks against the reproductive rights bill seem to be coming from members of the species who are not equipped to bear children. listen, you ridiculous purveyor of unChristian charity: You do not own my uterus! Stop telling me what to do with my body!

this mother wants to roll

Sat, 05 Mar 2011 08:11:33 GMT

my alter-ego Kulasang Kulelat has decided to come out of hibernation. she once wrote insufferably long-winded reviews of women rockers for a left-wing political print publication called Conjuncture (now dead and buried or gathering dust in some archive of Marxist curiousities or maybe the CIA’s basement). still insufferable, Kulasang Kulelat has nevertheless adapted to the ways of the interwebs by keeping it short and sharp and hitting the upload button as much as is legally possible.

kulasang kulelat micro-blogging her favorite music, whether you're interested or not.

housework

Sat, 05 Mar 2011 06:29:22 GMT

My theory on housework is, if the item doesn’t multiply, smell, catch fire, or block the refrigerator door, let it be. No one else cares. Why should you? ” -Erma Bombeck

you know you're an old woman when your youngest starts prepping for prom

Sun, 27 Feb 2011 08:41:52 GMT

that was quick. punkrockerboy and his Tatay (father) are back from the hunt. okay, maybe it was more like foraging for punkrockerboy's prom togs. dark charcoal slacks and long-sleeved shirt in garnet red. apparently, my son did the choosing and the color coordinating. he's all growed up. sort of. he also got a batman novelty neck tie rather than borrow one of his Tatay's ties, which according to my 16 year old smack of old people. he had originally planned to go to his first dance wearing a shirt and tie over black denims and Chucks, but the school principal has decided to play fashion police and has threatened to turn away any student who will turn up not looking like they borrowed their parents' Sunday best. my son thinks the school principal's a moron, and i concur. he has decided, nevertheless, to go and have a good time with his friends during the last big "thing" of high school life before he graduates in April. my son is either a sheep or is wise beyond his years.

i don't remember my own prom because, well i boycotted both my junior prom and my senior prom. i saw the prom as a meaningless ritual designed to perpetuate an antediluvian view on how boys and girls are supposed to relate to each other. that is, boys in that side and girls on this side. the boys ask the girls out and the girls wait for the boys to take their pick. i would have also happily skipped my graduation ball if my mother had not gone on a snit and my father had not begged me to indulge my mother's dream to dress me up in chiffon and lace. i thought myself wise then, but really i was just an obstinate 15-year old with very strong opinions and a big pain on my mother's butt. i still think the prom idiotic, but time has allowed me to understand that my path is not necessarily my children's path.

reading habit

Thu, 03 Feb 2011 11:37:54 GMT

a reading meme snagged from gamiila.

1. Favorite childhood book?
i grew up on encyclopedia Brittanica, Readers' Digest, Life Magazine, Mad Magazine and local comics. i was 12 and a freshman in high school when i read my first proper fiiction -- Catcher in the Rye.

2. What are you reading right now?
Douglas Hofstadter, Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid
Beryl Markham, The Splendid Outcast
Brian Greene, The Elegant Universe
Mary Renault, The Alexander Trilogy
Jane Austen and Seth Grahame Smith, Pride, Prejudice and Zombies

(middle age has shot my focus to heck. i jump read. )

3. What books do you have on request at the library?
None.

(I've worked in a library before and currently doing volunteer work in our community library, but unless i'm cataloging books, filling-out requests or shelving books, libraries make me drowsy.)

4. Bad book habit?
i used to obsess about books, but not any more. not after termites feasted on my Marxist collection.

5. What do you currently have checked out at the library?
J.R.R. Tolkien's The Monsters and the Critics and Other Essays which is 21 years and 3 months overdue.

6. Do you have an e-reader?
not an e-reader exactly, but i have an ancient Palm VX. it's still working and i use it mainly to read fan fiction when i'm on the road. i'm almost convinced that i need to get a Kindle.

7. Do you prefer to read one book at a time, or several at once?
i'm a book butterfly. see #2

8. Have your reading habits changed since starting a blog?
turning 40, not blogging is the game-changer for me reading wise.

9. Least favorite book you read this year (so far?)
i haven't finished a book yet.

10. Favorite book you’ve read this year?
i haven't finished a book yet.

11. How often do you read out of your comfort zone?
the last time i went out of my comfort zone was when i read Anne Rice's Interview with a Vampire in '93 just before the movie came out. i did not not like it.

12. What is your reading comfort zone?
Fiction: historical fiction, philosophical fiction, science fiction.
Non-fiction: science history, philosophy, anthropology, cultural studies, cryptology

i went through a sorta new age-y, Zen phase. i did I-Ching, read Tarot cards, mixed aromatic oils, learned to do proper massage, and read latin american magical realism. i got over it.

then i worked in a women's library, and read all the feminist writers i can get my grubby hands on. i got over that too. the greediness, not the feminism. never the feminism.

13. Can you read on the bus?
only if the bus has a good shock absorber and the road is level.

14. Favorite place to read?
in the garden and in bed.

15. What is your policy on book lending?
i avoid lending to people with suspect book habits (i.e., people who don't use bookmarks, people who think the Harry Potter series is better than His Dark Materials, etc.)

16. Do you ever dog-ear books?
i may not believe in "God" but i don't blaspheme.

17. Do you ever write in the margins of your books?
sure when i wasn in high school and uni.

18. Not even with text books?
the operative word here is text. as in i added my own text.

19. What is your favorite language to read in?
English and Filipino. they're the only languages i know. i was in a bookstore in Madrid in '97 when i first realised how much i'm missing in terms of literature by not taking seriously the mandatory Spanish classes during my Uni days.

20. What makes you love a book?
the best books for me are the ones that leave me feeling homesick.

21. What will inspire you to recommend a book?
most of my friends have very set taste. the only books i've actively pushed on them are Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose, and Marge Piecey's He, She, It.

22. Favorite genre?
Science fiction

23. Genre you rarely read (but wish you did?)
Horror. Life as it is is already scary.

24. Favorite biography?
I don't care for famous people.

25. Have you ever read a self-help book?
Does Dr. Spock's Baby and Child Care count?

26. Favorite cookbook?
A Cup of Comfort Cookbook (editor: Jay Weinstein), which is a collection of recipes and stories and family traditions surrounding these.

Extending the Table, a collection of recipes from around the world shared by Menonnite missionaries.

27. Most inspirational book you’ve read this year (fiction or non-fiction)?
In my head this is the twin genre of the biography. I tend to give the inspirational book section a wide berth. a friend who works with the Mennonites gave me a copy of Annie Dillard's Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. i think she meant it as a kind of inspirational gift. i suppose many people will find the book inspirational. but for me the best thing about it was the richness of the language.

28. Favorite reading snack?
Do coffee and nicotine count?

29. Name a case in which hype ruined your reading experience.
the Harry Potter series. i started reading this before there was news of the movie adaptation. I stopped at book #3, and have not picked it up since. My children have finished the series and refuse to answer any of my Harry Potter-related questions. They think I should just get it over with and resume reading the series.

a close runner up would be Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verse. it's long-windedness bored me to sleep. Rushdie's short stories are far more readable.

30. How often do you agree with critics about a book?
I don't read book reviews written by professional critics, though i have picked up books based on recomendations by friends whose literary taste I trust.

31. How do you feel about giving bad/negative reviews?
I use to annotate books for a feminist magazine during the late 90s. This was the closest I came to writing book reviews. I don't want to do it again, if i can help it.

32. If you could read in a foreign language, which language would you choose?
Spanish and Arabic.

33. Most intimidating book you’ve ever read?
Poetry books intimidate me.

34. Most intimidating book you’re too nervous to begin?
I don't think i've ever encountered a book that scared the crap ut of me.

35. Favorite Poet?
I don't have any particular favorite. Poetry tends to go over my head. A friend gave me a copy Seamus Heaney's collected works during my "all women authors all the time" period. Much to my surprise, I enjoyed his works. He was once quoted as saying "You don’t have to love it. You just have to permit it.” in relation to one of his more politically-controversial poems. I find this a useful stance when approaching poetry in general.

36. How many books do you usually have checked out of the library at any given time?
i'm not a card-carrying member of any library.

37. How often have you returned a book to the library unread?
never.

38. Favorite fictional character?
William of Baskerville (the Holmesian character from The Name of the Rose), Malkah (the cryptography wiz of a matriarch in He, She, It).

39. Favorite fictional villain?
Jorge of Burgos (the eldery monk blinded by both old age and an "insane passion for the truth.")

40. Books you're most likely to bring on vacation?
i use to bring Lord of the Rings during my annual paid vacation because it's the thickest volume in my shelf.

41. The longest you've gone without reading.
one year, around mid '98 to mid '99. i was totally focused on learning systems and network admnistration.

42. Name a book that you could/would not finish.
see #29

43. What distracts you easily when you’re reading?
nothing. in fact i tend to get drowsy when it's too quiet.

44. Favorite film adaptation of a novel?
the Lord of the Rings trllogy (the novel and the film should get married and make beautiful hybrid babies). Silence of the Lamb (the film's as scary as the book). The Age of Innocence (who'da thought Martin Scorcese and Edith Wharton could make a good match?). Godfather (the first movie is better than the source material)

45. Most disappointing film adaptation?
The Name of Rose - total waste of a genius of a source material, total waste of otherwise awesome cast (Sean Connery, young Christian Slater, Ron Perlman, and slew of really good character actors)

runner-up is a 3-way tie:

The Golden Compass - Hollywood turned Philip Pullman's exceptional novel into an ordinary fantasy movie

the television mini-series adaptation of Ursula Le Guin's Legend of Earthsea - total wash-out, and i'm not only refering to the skin color of the screen characters. all the dangerous ideas about politics, religion, sex have also been expunged.

Possession - the most i can say in favor of the film adaptation of Anita Byatt's novel is that they tried very hard.

46. The most money you’ve ever spent in the bookstore at one time?
probably USD 200 in Joburg in 2003 (?). cultural literacy? never cheap. in '98, i lugged around 15 kgs. worth of computer books and novels from Geneva to Frankfurt to Moscow and finally to Manila because i refused to spend USD 200 for excess bagagge. i know where my priorities lie.

47. How often do you skim a book before reading it?
i only do this with graphic novels, cookbooks, computer trade books, and children's books

48. What would cause you to stop reading a book half-way through?
this has not happened often. with Rushdie's Satanic Verse i got bored because of its extreme verbosity.
close runner up is Toni Morrison's Beloved. the book's supposed to make you rage against slavery, but i ended up being too depressed to finish the book.

49. Do you like to keep your books organized?
yes. basically the main categories i use are (1) Flipino authors (2) feminist works (3) fantasy (4) science fiction (5) historical and philosophical fiction (6) computing and cryptography (7) cookbooks (8) general interest (books of a more academic nature dealing with political economy, sociology, lit and cultural studies, history, etc.) (9) works of fiction that don't fall under any of the above categories.

50. Do you prefer to keep books or give them away once you’ve read them?
i've learned to share. five years ago, i made everyone in my family go through their books and pull out titles they can stand to part with . we must have yielded close to 50 titles which we donated to the local comunity library.

51. Are there any books you’ve been avoiding?
Dan Brown's. i've seen the movie version of The Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons which were etertaining enough but i am not moved to take a crack at the source materials. there is derivative work and there is derivative work.

52. Name a book that made you angry.
The Color Purple. the fairy tale-like ending made me feel cheated. I like Alice Walker's poetry though.

53. A book you didn’t expect to like but did?
Douglas Coupland's Microserfs. I don't care for the Silicon Valley-fueled libertarianism of the 90s, of which Coupland is some sort of literary poster boy. I picked up Microserfs from the bargain bin, and read it in the server room so as to not tip-off Management that i was using company time to read fiction. reading Microserfs is like eating a Mc Donald's value meal of burger, fries and soda. it's filling enough and somewhat comforting, until you remember that media report about the connection between burgers and denudation of the Amazon (the ecosystem, not the online store).

54. A book that you expected to like but didn’t?
William Gibson's All Tomorrow's Parties. actually, i liked it but not as much as i expected to. Gibson does not really write conventional endings, but even so the ending of All Tomorrow's Parties is like bad interruptus to a great coitus.

55. Favorite guilt-free, pleasure reading?
fan fiction, baby!

whew! that was one long meme.

wink wink nudge nudge

Thu, 03 Feb 2011 05:34:47 GMT

my daughter and i were watching Social Network when we realised that we were already using Livejournal around the time Zuckerberg apparently started dissing his college girlfriend in his LJ site. it is said that coincidences are God's way of winking at us. i never did like it when someone winks at me.

couching potato

Sat, 08 Jan 2011 11:25:44 GMT

i am down for the count since yesterday. i have flu-like symptoms. headache, joints that feel like jelly, etc. i was planing to pop in House in the DVD and try to diagnose myself (yeah, i'm delusional), but my daughter beat me to the remote and so now i'm watching this tv series called Tower Prep which is like Hogwarts School or Xavier Academy for teens with super human abilities, only with a more sinister feel to it. it sounds hokey, but after 5 episodes i now want to see the rest of the first season.

even when i watch aeryn and crichton i end up whining about buffy and spike

Wed, 05 Jan 2011 09:10:11 GMT

i can't work when it's too quiet so whether i am cleaning, washing, cooking or doing paid work there is either music or old episodes of my favorite tv shows playing in the background. right now, season 4 of Farscape is playing on the big bad wide-screened idiot box 3 meters in front of me. it's the episode "Promised" and Crichton has just reunited with a deathly-sick Aeryn Sun and Scorpius is asking the Moya crew for asylum.

it's been seven years since Farscape got canceled and i still hate frelling Sci-Fi Channel for pulling the plug, and i still really really want to smack Chiana. Farscape's last season coincided with that of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and i remember how hard i tried to avoid comparing the two shows and the fates of their major characters. it seemed to me at that time that while Farscape gloriously embraced the camp and circumstance of its fantastical and literally out-of-this world universe, Buffy the Vampire Slayer vacillated between the sublime and the tiresome after the writers wrecked the metaphor in season 6. i have marathon-watched Farscape twice now, but with Buffy i'm a downed runner unable to move past Once More with Feeling. i'm still rooting for Buffy and Spike, or at least their engaging versions that thankfully still exist in fanfic. the saga of Crichton and Aeryn on the other hand, showed that narcissistic jerkiness and is not an intrinsic characteristic of the hero, that the hero can end up with the girl, and that the girl is not simply a love object, temptress, or goddess but a hero herself.

traditional Christmas food

Wed, 29 Dec 2010 11:45:29 GMT

speaking of things i'm thankful for, my mother's molo soup is back to tasting like the molo soup i remember from when before my father and my youngest brother died. i am not certain if there is scientific proof behind the wide belief that a person's mood gets infused into the food she cooks, ala-"Like Water to Hot Chocolate." in any case, i choose to interpret the return of the classic taste of one of our family's traditional Christmas dish as my mother being less sad and less distracted about the absent members of her family.

our family is not exactly a traditionalist, but there are certain dishes that my siblings and i associate with Christmas. Molo soup, potato salad, embutido, lengua estofado and ube halaya. these dishes smell and taste Christmas to us. molo soup is wonton soup minus the Chinese flavoring. ube halaya is purple yam grated and cooked with coconut milk, sugar, condensed milk and butter. wonton soup, ube halaya and potato salad are food brought over from my father's side of the family. embutido which is really meat loaf except it's rolled and sealed in aluminum foil and cooked in a double broiler, and lengua estofado which is ox tongue stewed with lots of tomatoes are from my mother's side. although it is common for my mother's Christmas table to have roast chicken, ham and round edam cheese, these food have become less associated with Christmas as they've become more readily available in the supermarket over the years. roast chicken for instance can be bought any day of the week since the advent of commercial chicken rotisserie stands.

since my siblings and i have all moved out out of my parents' house, it has become a rare feast when all five of our favorite Christmas dishes have made a joint appearance on my mother's board. my brothers blame, not without a note of disapproval, my mother's tendency to fix things that are not necessarily broken. but i suspect a more practical reason behind our family's constantly changing Christmas menu.

traditional food tends to be labor intensive and with all her children grown up and nesting elsewhere, my mother simply has nobody to assist her. ube halaya for example requires two people to cook properly, the first person to constantly stir and turn over the yam while the second person gently pours over the sugar and milk and all the other stuff that makes the dish a real treat. it is a very tricky dessert to make. my husband and I made halaya on our third Christmas as a married couple, to see if we can take on the dish and continue this sweet tradition. we have not dared repeat the experience.

we have been having Christmas potluck dinners since ten years ago. there really is no reason to expect my mother to single-handedly prepare all our favorite holiday dishes. the most practical thing to do is to assign a dish to each member of our family. why we have not yet done this is a mystery like the fat man in red who goes around leaving gifts to children. maybe next year, my siblings and I will start a new tradition.

not exactly a complaint

Wed, 29 Dec 2010 07:26:53 GMT

when the thought of eating yet again fried rice with left-over meats and cheese makes you want to hurl, you know that Christmas is over. i'm craving "normal" food like a pregnant woman craves pickles dipped in chocolate syrup. but first, my family has to clear out the last of the holiday food if i want the inside of my fridge to not look like a closet of failed science experiments when the new year comes around. so far we've finished off the last of the mashed potato and baked chicken/pasta dish from the Christmas potluck. but there is still the beef stew from the evening of the 26th when we had my husband's college friends over for dinner and drink ( lots of drinks truth be told since i'm still missing a couple of brain molecules from that night!). tomorrow we're cooking again for friends who are coming over for my husband's birthday; he turns 50 today. at this rate, whatever available space there is now inside our fridge will be filled in when 2011 finally arrives.

i'm sorry if i sound like i'm complaining about having too much food over the holidays. i mean what kind of ungrateful bitch does that? i am thankful that my children can still look forward to having some nice treats during the Christmas holidays, even though as an atheist with a modicum of understanding of how a capitalist economy works my saying thank you is really just a general expression of relief that my family can still buy and consume lots of stuff over the holidays like other middle-class families.

hyper existence

Thu, 23 Dec 2010 06:35:06 GMT

this status update is brought to you from my house's newly installed wifi network. i can now do the laundry, cook dinner, catch up with my friends online and read Spuffy fanfics all while sunning myself outside. talk about hyper-existence. i'm not entirely sure this is an absolute good thing. on the other hand, people who have access to new technology should stop with the existential crap talk.

love means risking public display of sappiness

Sun, 19 Dec 2010 09:53:24 GMT

creating a facebook page to mark my husband's 50th birthday is probably the corniest thing i've done for him since forever. i've known my husband for close to three decades, and we've been locked, stocked and barreled together for almost 25 years, so i'm pretty sure this gesture is going to alternately and equally horrify and flatter him. but most of his cousins and real-life friends are on facebook so it can't be helped. besides, turning 50 is a good thing, no matter the high probability that it's all downhill from here. also love means risking public display of sappiness.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Jods-Big-5-0/175940295760333?ref=mf

buffy to be rebooted

Tue, 23 Nov 2010 18:09:07 GMT

i may despair over what's been done to Buffy in the serialised season 8, but the planned reboot is just loathsome. whoever's cooked up this idea deserves to be locked up in a room with a fungus demon.

http://www.cinemablend.com/new/Buffy-The-Vampire-Slayer-Reboot-Gets-A-Writer-Joss-Whedon-Isn-t-Mentioned-21854.html

http://www.cinemablend.com/new/Joss-Whedon-Responds-To-Buffy-The-Vampire-Slayer-News-21862.html

Sat, 13 Nov 2010 02:58:46 GMT

LJ's back! hee-haw!

bring out your walking dead

Sun, 24 Oct 2010 00:46:37 GMT

the PREAIR copy of AMC's The Walking Dead that is currently being peer-shared all over the interwebs is not high-definition, not as crisp as i'm sure the one that's going to be aired in October 31. i'm guessing it's converted from a bigger file-sized version that must have been issued to the press and reviewers. nevertheless, the copy i downloaded is clear and clean enough to give me a sense of what the people behind the upcoming cable series are intending to achieve in terms of look and feel. (it warms my BSG-loving heart that Bear McCleary wrote the original music for The Walking Dead)

AMC is of course the same cable network that produces Breaking Bad, Mad Men and Rubicon, shows known not only for their compelling stories and smart storytelling, but also for their interesting production and art designs and visual styling. my only beef with AMC shows is that they are strongly geared toward the male demographics, granted they're targeting the so-called thinking men, but i already have my quota of shows with a drug addicted, politically-incorrect, puzzle solving post-modern hero filled out by House. (though truth be known, i plan to watch Rubicon because a spy thriller that's focused on the nerdy analysts instead of on the action-figury spooks is as rare as James Bond's modesty.)

but i digress. The Walking Dead, based on a comic serial of the same title (it is currently at issue #78) tells the story of a group of survivors after an apocalyptic outbreak of an unknown disease that turned dead people into zombies. It's main protagonist is a character named Rick Grimes, a police deputy who woke up from a coma to a world where the only things up and about are the dead. the hour long PREAIR premiere episode deals with Grimes' first steps toward recovering his wits and going out into the wide wild world to search for his wife and son who may or may not still be alive. the first living breathing humans he encountered are a father and son pair of refugees who have been living in Grimes' next-door neighbor's empty house. Grimes is quickly because brought up to speed on what has happened since last he was awake by the father. they soon parted ways with the father and his son choosing to stay put because they can not leave the mother who as it turns out is part of the dead horde, Grimes set out to look for his wife and son in Atlanta where apparently people have been told the CDC might have a cure to the zombie infestation. the episode ends with Grimes entering Atlanta and getting a rude awakening that makes his first wakeful moments in the hospital at the beginning of the story polite in comparison.

zombies are typically played for laughs, or as moving targets for your kickass chick who packs a mean sawed-off shotgun or as metaphor for whatever is the socio-political issue du jour. zombies are right up there along with vampires and werewolves as popular cultural devices to reveal the human condition. they are the stand-in for the OTHER, for our worst fears, yadi-yada. i get it. can we move on already? will The Walking Dead contribute something fresh (pun totally intended) in the apocalyptic zombie genre?

to be sure, The Walking Dead has horrors galore, because hello zombies and live people starving to death so they might be tempted to eat each other. aside from the horrifying idea of literally waking up from a long sleep into a world of dead people, there are the moments in the premiere episode when i didn't know whether to cover my eyes or stare and soak in the visual assault.

since i am reading the comics, i have some idea about what makes The Walking Dead more than just a post-apocalyptic zombie story. if one can imagine a zombie opera, in the same way that BSG is a space opera, then The Walking Dead is a zombie opera. there is real pathos in the premiere episode. (i've never cried or even come close to crying for any of the characters in any of the zombie apocalypse movie i've watched since i first saw Dawn of the Dead in 1978. not even Robert Carlyle, who is always a mighty fine actor no matter how nutty the role or the movie he's in, could coax a teardrop from me in "28 Weeks Later.") it is about surviving the state of deadness that is both actual and metaphorical, and all that that entail in terms of human values like family, love and all the other big and small things that comprise humanity and human life.

there is a scene in the middle part of the episode that tells me that the survivors of the zombie apocalypse are also walking dead. asked how he is sure that his wife and son are still alive and not dead somewhere, Grimes told the widowed father that their photo albums and family pictures are all gone from their abandoned house. this triggers a recent memory in the father. "my wife ... same thing ... there i am packing survival gears she's grabbing ... photo albums," he said haltingly with laughter in his voice. but he quickly decides even before getting to the end of his sentence that it's not amusing after all because his wife is dead. it's an awkward and painful moment for the two men.

by and large the premiere episode is an almost faithful adaptation of the first two issues of the comics (which is now in its 76th issue i think). but there is a scene towards the end of the episode that is not in the comics serial, and it's the type of scene that works better on screen than in print. it makes me hopeful that the television adaptation is going to be exactly that -- not a literal translation nor extreme application of cinematic license, but good adaptation.

geeks, scientists, warriors

Thu, 21 Oct 2010 09:46:38 GMT

gakked from shipperx

earlier this month there was a flaily flowchart circulating which basically said that if a character is 1) a woman, and 2) does stuff, then she's a flat, bland, boring stereotype, spawning an icon meme where you show off all your icons with female characters on them.

apparently, my female icons can dissect, slice and dice and wax poetic about multidimensionality and parallel universes.