Got to be birds flying higher

THe other day, in desperate escape from my phone and our current deep freeze, I looked up movies on Tubi and thought King Solomon's Mines sounded interesting, if extremely campy. It looked somewhere halfway between Indiana Jones and Romancing the Stone, so I hit play.

Eeeek...I can count the number of films I've stopped watching after about 20 minutes on two hands and this is definitely one of them!

To back up, the movie is based on the 1885 novel by Sir Henry Rider Haggard and this 1985 movie is not the first or last big screen adaptation.

Featuring Richard Chamberlain and Sharon Stone as leads, I couldn't tell if this movie was supposed to be as bad as it was--and Wikipedia said it was supposed to be poking fun at Indiana Jones, but the bad acting, African stereotypes and out loud racial slurs just had me going Nope! Calling a racialized person a towel head is not heroic behaviour :S The acting was just bad too. Sharon Stone chewed the scenery and although there were a number of gags that should have been funny--the timing was really off.

Watch on YouTube

x-posted to crafty and book_love

I added two new books to my craft bookshelf this month, Amazing Circular Weaving and Weaving On A Little Loom.

Buying craft books can be a little iffy, so I'm happy to recommend them. Both have good, clear photos, and instructions not only for the projects, but for those new to weaving. You'll be able to get up and running with successful results in no time.

Although I took a class at art college on weaving with a four harness loom, I couldn't master it at all and it left me feeling like I'd never weave again. Turns out I have a lot of enthusiasm for little looms. TBH, anything can become a loom as long as you have something to hold the warp threads. It could be a tissue box, a piece of cardboard or a scrap of wood :-)

It's been almost two months since the last semester ended, but, when you defer life for eight months, there's a lot of catching up to do, like posting about this book!

About this time last year I was so hyped to participate in the 2nd Annual Zombie Pirate Publishing Writing Week. 168 hours, 101 participants, 15k words! It was an absolute creative marathon that I would love to do again!

Although my story made the long list and the short list, it didn't make the final list. Aw! However, you can buy the anthology, The Ringed Giant as an eBook or paperback through Amazon. Enjoy eight novelette length science fiction stories for one great price!

x-posted to books and bookish

I figure there are two people in this world--those that get Wuthering Heights and those that don't. I say this because if you love Wuthering Heights, you'll probably love We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson. Most people are familiar with Jackson's popular short story, "The Lottery". Individuals persecuted by a group of small minded individuals seems to be her forte, which is one of the themes of this 1962 book.

I bought this book on a $3 sale table at Chapters last year and read it during my Internet vacation. It was waaaay too long since I had read a book. We Have Always Lived in the Castle is a contemporary gothic tale of mystery and suspense. Although the themes of anxiety, fear and agoraphobia were evident and I understood them well, I just found the events too repetitive and not very suspenseful. Maybe the Internet has shrunk my imagination ;-D

The main characters are the Blackwoods--teenage sister Mary Katherine, older sister Constance and Uncle Julian. Constance cooks and cares for her uncle and sister, so much so that food become another major theme. Uncle Julian constantly frets about his memory. Mary Katherine, or Merricat, is the narrator and practices little rituals to ward off evil. The family lives in a grand old house by themselves and only Mary Katherine ventures out to run errands in the nearby village. The villagers hold the family in contempt (or perceived contempt) due to a past family tragedy. This tragedy is hinted at in bits and pieces. For me, it was never satisfactorily revealed. The turning point in the story is when cousin Charles visits and his appearance threatens the status quo. Apparently the story is set in Vermont, but the overly dramatic language could easily make it a UK setting.

Anxiety, even though many people experience it, varies from person to person. My anxiety is not your anxiety. I feel that We Have Always Lived in the Castle is a deeply personal work--just one that I'm not able to access. The book was made into a 2019 movie, so perhaps if I watch it, that will make the story more accessible to me. The trailer gives minor spoilers, so don't watch it...it's probably assumed that most people know what a 50+ year old book is about.

Watch on YouTube

Here's a Christmas story that I had not thought of in ages! I read the book by Barbara Robinson ages ago and I'm pretty sure I saw the movie at least once because I definitely remember the scene where Imogene smokes a cigar in the washroom. My brother found the full movie on YouTube and we watched it while waiting for dinner to cook.

The book was made into an extremely low budget one hour Canadian TV special in 1983. It features such notable Canadian actors such as Jackson Davies (the RCMP officer on Beachcombers) and Janet Wright (Emma on Corner Gas). The big name star is Loretta Swit who must take up the pageant production after a fall takes out the previous director.

In some ways the movie is quite charming and free of the zany antics that would no doubt happen if it was made today. The children's performances are sweet and earnest and only a few of them had acting careers afterwards such as Fairuza Balk and Ocean Hellman.

The movie creates more questions than answers about the Herdman children, especially when they run off into the night after the play. I want to re-read the book now :-)

Watch on YouTube

I binge watched Friday Night Lights some time ago and I recently recommended it to someone on Ask Metafilter. They were looking for shows with little violence that showed people working towards a common goal. I wasn’t alone - this show is popular! Before it was a TV show, it was a movie and before that, it was a non-fiction book by Buzz Bissinger.

I used to read about FNL all the time, browsing recaps here and there, but I didn’t think it was worth my time when it was on the air. It would be too easy to call FNL a soap opera with football. Everything is a soap opera with X these days! The sole reason I did start watching it was that I ran out of episodes of Nashville. I missed Connie Britton’s warm, sassy, motherly ways and acting. LOL if I had to name a fantasy TV mother, it would be Rayna James.

FNL ran for five seasons and like so many series, the first one is the best. Season 2 was heavily affected by a writer’s strike. I almost stopped watching at this point because it was so dreadful with lots of impossibly bad writing and scenarios. The last three seasons focus on repeating Season 1, but this time, surprise, Dillon has a sketchy part of town, East Dillon, and due to zoning changes, several of the, uh, West Dillon players and teachers find themselves as fish out of water in the underfunded, underdog high school.

One of the reasons that I felt Season 1 was the best was that it was the most organized and had a really interesting, documentary feel of small town Texas life. It had a real air of authenticity particularly as Matt struggles with his family life when an accident forces him into the spotlight as captain of the . The later seasons, while still good, were just not as great. Sometimes the show forgot that the main characters are still in high school (LOL a few of them take off for a week to Mexico). What kept me watching was that the actors, especially Connie Britton, Kyle Chandler and Brad Leland, kept bringing their A game no matter how ridiculous the dialogue or plot. Like most soap operas, or series in general, the show burned through a lot of material and characters. Some of these characters, like Waverly, who struggles with bi-polar disorder, appear a few times and are never seen again. It's important to note that none of the teenagers in FNL were actually actually teenagers - labour laws make it difficult to cast real teenagers, so the actors were in their 20s. Unfortunately this sets a dangerous precedent for audiences who forget what teenagers are actually like or look like (remember the "me at 14" meme?).

Personally, it was humbling to watch Britton and Chandler as parents because it gave me some insight into my own parents - such is the benefit of watching from far, far away. This is just one way to watch FNL though - you can watch it as a straights sports drama or teen drama, project your own youth onto it or consider all the times it slipped in sensitive topics to a conservative TV audience. Once theme it did not explore, surprisingly, was that one of the East Dillon assistant coaches is gay. He is spotted by Julie in a gay bar and it goes no farther than that. It really feels like FNL was just on the verge about what mainstream, prime time, Midwest audiences could tolerate - another few years and it could have handily pushed the envelope farther.

I really wanted to like Brain Rules by John Medina, but I didn't get very far into it. Subtitled 12 principles for surviving and thriving at work, home and school, I checked it out of the library because I thought it might help me carry the mental load better. I couldn’t make it past the first two chapters. The book looks like it's full of useful information, but I found the author's tone brash and attempts at lightening the subject matter with humour got in the way. In case you're curious, the 12 principles revolve around exercise, survival, wiring, attention, short-term memory, long-term memory, sleep, stress, sensory integration, vision, gender and exploration.

Death by Meeting is a surprisingly corny yet compelling book on how to run more effective meetings. It’s a business book couched in a terribly written narrative and yet I fell for one of the book’s premises - that an engaging story will keep readers hooked.

The TL;DR version of the book is basically - instead of having a long two hour weekly meeting, break it up into different meetings by type, such as a daily scrum, weekly tactical, monthly strategic and quarterly offsite meetings.

But, as you can imagine, doling out that piece of advice isn’t very profitable, so author Patrick Lencioni disguises it as the story of a fictional gaming software company that needs to shake up their meetings after they are acquired by a larger gaming software company. The villain of the story is one JT Harrison, who never says much but strikes fear into the heart of Casey, the founder of the smaller company. To the rescue is his good friend’s son Will. With Will’s guidance, the supporting cast of business unit managers change the corporate culture to impress JT Harrison and thwart any plans to fully absorb the company. If this sounds all incredibly dumb, it is. I read the short chapters (some are just two pages) right to the end, all to find out if Casey and Will can save the day. There’s a twist to the ending, which one might guess because...

Will’s educational and work background is in advertising, marketing and filmmaking. He happens to become employed at Casey’s company because he needs a break from school. Surprise! A maternity leave presents the perfect opportunity. Will uses his savvy to observe the terrible weekly meetings and institute change.

The corniness of this book made me roll my eyes so much that I thought they would fall out of my head! I used to work in web development and I don’t feel the portrayal of the software company to be very unrealistic. A company where everyone gets along so perfectly that they have to create conflict? Where they accept an outsider’s suggestions so easily? Haha, hahahaha! Truly, the fictional software company, Yip, is a figment of Hollywood imagination much like those perfectly beautiful homes in movies. But, I do have to give Patrick Leoncioni credit for creativity and trying to make a buck at it! The sticker on this book was $26.99 Canadian.

Oddly enough, the most offensive thing about the book is making light of Will's mental health issues - it seemed odd that it was included at all. For example, he goes off his medication and it's during that period that he can tell his boss that the company meetings suck, then he promises to go back on his medication. It really sounded like Will's criticism had to be justified somehow? I'm not really sure what the point of that was.

If you are looking for a practical book on leadership and organizational culture, this is not it. I imagine a fair number of readers would consider the book a complete waste of time for the little amount of information it contains.

x-posted to book_love 

Every now and then I find this book on my book shelf and every time it feels like the moment I found it at the bookstore back in 2009. This sturdy, pocket sized manual is many things - how to book, pattern book and a peek into people's lives and hobbies from the pages of Popular Mechanics. In some ways it's not a proper "craft book" as the patterns are quite small, but the ideas are often sound. As with many vintage craft and recipe books, the materials may have been renamed or are not as readily available today. You might have guessed that there is a "boy edition" but I'd be willing to bet that it is as gender neutral as this book.

I was surprised to see that the text invited girls to saw and craft with their parents help. The variety of crafts, toys and games is pretty astounding and I wish my parents had been more the maker type to build a few things from this book like the basement golf course or weaving loom. From braiding to mold casting, doll houses to a full size backyard merry go round, I can only imagine how many hours of fun these plans provided.

x-posted to craftgrrl, books and bookish

Is it weird to review a book series you didn't get around to reading? Years ago (like, 2003!) I felt burned by finding the first book of The Firebringer Trilogy in a second hand bookstore. I found out online that there were two other books in the series. Just as I had gnashed my teeth to nothing, the entire series was republished and I could rest easy. So when I went to the local gaming store and saw this unicorn series by John Lee on the shelf, I bought all four volumes on the shelf. Not going to be burned again!

But alas, it turns out the FIRST book in the series was missing. After so long, I have no interest in reading about the unicorns and whatever war, quest, peace, dilemma and solution they came up with. I'm freeing up some space on the Billy bookshelf for something new!