Monday, April 4, 2016
Apr. 4th, 2016 09:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bearshortyYesterday the wind was so strong and loud that we didn't dare to venture outside and today was rainy and cold and generally unpleasant when I went to and from work. So not the best start to April. Friday, on the other hand, was 70F. So typical spring. Despite the weather, I'm in a better mood because I had very light grading this weekend and nothing for the next three days. Yay. It is really nice not to stress. I am starting to plan our Passover Seder Saturday that my friends and I do every year instead. I think this year we will have salmon and I will make the Ethiopian Cabbage dish.
On Friday, I had a free evening and I spent it watching a movie. This is a treat for me. Bear was at work so it was just me and Tanya all day, so I really needed that time to myself. And I finally watched "Furious 7" that was sitting on my shelf for a while (Bear gets movies for me in the library and copies them).
Fast and Furious franchise is just such a silly, turn of your brain fun. I've seen all of them except the third one and I even watched the 6th in the movie theater. I like 4th and 5th the most, I think. Like these are not the movies to take seriously in anyway but they provide ridiculousness and fun stunts. Someone once described the first movie as the plot that only made sense if you apply very slashy goggles to it - and I feel they were totally right. This franchise is slashy goodness for me in all its incarnations. There is very lovely fic out there (which I can rec if anyone wants). The movies are also ridiculous in a good way. And Hobbs, played by the Rock, and Dom, played by Vin Diesel, have the best arms. The Rock's body is so gah. I swoon at those arms. I do have a weakness for those strong arms (I totally blame Bear since I met him when we were 18, and he's been working out since he was a young teenager, so he always had nice, defined arms and abs. So I think he influenced wider attraction to arms too). So this movie is eye candy too.
Furious 7 is not my favorite of the bunch. The plot was paint by numbers and made less sense than usual, the dialogue was terrible. I was even getting a little bored in the middle there. But the last ten minutes that were paying tribute to Paul Walker made me actually cry. I knew that it was Paul's brother who stood in for him at the beach scene and then they had flashbacks and it just made me sad. When Paul Walker died I was sad about it but didn't cry. I did cry watching these scenes.
I also finished Midnight Riot by Ben Aaronovitch on Sunday. I liked it but I didn't love it. I think I enjoyed the first half of the book more than the second half. The plot started to lose me in the second half. It felt like the cross between American Gods and Dresden Files, but something was missing for me. I did like the main character, Peter, and his nonchalant approach to learning magic and all his science experiments. And early friendships scenes were promising. But SPOILERS FROM HERE once Nightingale was shot, the book changed a bit and many plot points didn't make sense to me. I liked that Peter figured out it was Leslie, good twist. But then he goes to find her and she reveals herself to the opera goers right away. What was the point of him figuring it out first? To show that it took him a while? And why would Henry Pyke even pretend to be Nicholas and reveal any info in the first place, much less his own name. For fame? To move to play along? And as the action kicked of at the Opera house, it was just weird. When I finished the book I wasn't really interested in reading more. I didn't fall in love with Dresden Files until book 4 - that was the book that did it (and the Rivers reminded me of Winter Court a little), but after I finished the first book I wanted to read more. We'll see. I might try the second one at some point but I'm not sure about it. I'm not sorry I read it - it was interesting and I love London - but it didn't hook me.
On Friday, I had a free evening and I spent it watching a movie. This is a treat for me. Bear was at work so it was just me and Tanya all day, so I really needed that time to myself. And I finally watched "Furious 7" that was sitting on my shelf for a while (Bear gets movies for me in the library and copies them).
Fast and Furious franchise is just such a silly, turn of your brain fun. I've seen all of them except the third one and I even watched the 6th in the movie theater. I like 4th and 5th the most, I think. Like these are not the movies to take seriously in anyway but they provide ridiculousness and fun stunts. Someone once described the first movie as the plot that only made sense if you apply very slashy goggles to it - and I feel they were totally right. This franchise is slashy goodness for me in all its incarnations. There is very lovely fic out there (which I can rec if anyone wants). The movies are also ridiculous in a good way. And Hobbs, played by the Rock, and Dom, played by Vin Diesel, have the best arms. The Rock's body is so gah. I swoon at those arms. I do have a weakness for those strong arms (I totally blame Bear since I met him when we were 18, and he's been working out since he was a young teenager, so he always had nice, defined arms and abs. So I think he influenced wider attraction to arms too). So this movie is eye candy too.
Furious 7 is not my favorite of the bunch. The plot was paint by numbers and made less sense than usual, the dialogue was terrible. I was even getting a little bored in the middle there. But the last ten minutes that were paying tribute to Paul Walker made me actually cry. I knew that it was Paul's brother who stood in for him at the beach scene and then they had flashbacks and it just made me sad. When Paul Walker died I was sad about it but didn't cry. I did cry watching these scenes.
I also finished Midnight Riot by Ben Aaronovitch on Sunday. I liked it but I didn't love it. I think I enjoyed the first half of the book more than the second half. The plot started to lose me in the second half. It felt like the cross between American Gods and Dresden Files, but something was missing for me. I did like the main character, Peter, and his nonchalant approach to learning magic and all his science experiments. And early friendships scenes were promising. But SPOILERS FROM HERE once Nightingale was shot, the book changed a bit and many plot points didn't make sense to me. I liked that Peter figured out it was Leslie, good twist. But then he goes to find her and she reveals herself to the opera goers right away. What was the point of him figuring it out first? To show that it took him a while? And why would Henry Pyke even pretend to be Nicholas and reveal any info in the first place, much less his own name. For fame? To move to play along? And as the action kicked of at the Opera house, it was just weird. When I finished the book I wasn't really interested in reading more. I didn't fall in love with Dresden Files until book 4 - that was the book that did it (and the Rivers reminded me of Winter Court a little), but after I finished the first book I wanted to read more. We'll see. I might try the second one at some point but I'm not sure about it. I'm not sorry I read it - it was interesting and I love London - but it didn't hook me.