A Midsummer Night's Dream

I've read the play a couple of times, never seen it live and until yesterday, never seen the movie. Now I've seen it twice. I actually had a huge crush on Rupert Everett when the movie came out, ten years ago. In 1999 I had no idea who Christian Bale or Dominic West were, although I was a fan of Calista Flockhart and Michelle Pfeiffer.

I can't believe I waited ten years to see this movie. Well, for the first five of that, I think I suggested it every time we went to a video store, but no one else wanted to watch it. Then, I guess it just got pulled off the shelves to make way for newer things. Too bad; it's really quite excellent.

I like Shakespeare's comedies quite a lot more than his tragedies*; they're just so much - well, cheerier. More than that, though, they have more of a logic to them, even if it is convoluted. His tragedies all seem to be about bad things happening to bad people. Not really that interesting.

Anyway, I love A Midsummer Night's Dream, both play and movie. Even though I'm about ten years past due with this post, the movie was well worth the wait.

*I don't mind Hamlet

Feb 4th: V:10H:10
Today: V5H:15

FAIL

Due to a number of factors (including one very annoying person's insistence on posting about a million of her own stories and poems so that everyone else's got bumped to the end of the 'just in' list), I didn't beat yesterday's numbers on FictionPress.
Unless something drastically changes in the next six minutes, today's numbers are: V:13H:16. Boo Urns.

Emo Notes

So, I redid my blog again. I think it looks a lot nicer - hopefully it will load faster as well. It didn't take me all that long and I think if I could code worth a damn, I would probably be able to make it in the website design business.

I have no idea what to do to boost my FictionPress readership from yesterday. None. I suppose I could go to my hosue, dig up some old stuff and post it, but that feels kinda like cheating. I'm going to have to do something, though, 'cause I've only had eight hits today, which is less than I had on the first.

If you're wondering (and I know you are), the adorable little thing on the trike in the corner is a water drop. It's from some spanish spam my mum got. I made her send it to me. He'll probably show up again, one day when I've forgotten that I've used him already. Because he's that cute.

Well, I've kinda run out of stuff to say. Maybe I shouldn't try to blog every day; it's way too much work.

Beware the Savage Jaw

Welcome to my very first book review of 2009. Today I will be reviewing the first 10 pages (or 35%) of George Orwell's 1984 Adapted for Children by Kade Johnston.

First, I would like to say that I am utterly astounded - and I mean that honestly. I have never read anything like this. I'm somewhat ambivalent on the question of whether or not I want to read anything like this again, because on the one hand, it provided me with a good deal of entertainment, and on the other, there is something to be said for the uniqueness of the experience of reading (even part of) this book.

I guess I can't really call this a book review, because I honestly cannot find the words to say everything I want to about this book. Instead, I'm going to post my favourite chapters (clicking on them should make them big enough to read) and let you all read it for yourselves. Trust me, it will make your head spin.

Really, you have to marvel at the sheer gutsiness of adapting a book like 1984 for children. It's just such an unusual concept. I wonder if, based on how well 1984 turned out, the author will adapt any other books for kids. The Handmaid's Tale, for example, or Who Has Seen the Wind. You could do a whole series.

(I love that Johnston includes little explanatory aids, like pyramid charts.)

I think chapter six is my favourite, but explaining why is far beyond my capabilities. I've included it, so you can read it (and love it) for yourselves.

I wish I could say more, but, again, I'm at a loss for words. I hope you have enjoyed my review of George Orwell's 1984 Adapted for Children as thoroughly as I enjoyed reading what I could of the book itself.

PS, V:18 H:20

Remembering Code

It turns out that my mad html skills are only mildly irritated. Actually, the html bit is working fine, but my image files are too big, and they take forever to load. Not sure how to fix this without seriously reducing the dpi - they're already saved as .pngs. Also, the background image isn't physically big enough, but if I put it back to its original size, people will be done reading my blog before the page is done loading. Any suggestions would be much appreciated. I love my old paper background, but I might have to change it to something a little easier to load.

What else? Oh, right. My memory (I'm not being funny, I actually forgot). I honestly don't know what's wrong with my brain, but it worries me. I'm at the point where if I have two simple tasks in front of me, I try to prioratize because there is a good chance that I will forget to do whichever one I plan to do second. For example, while I was getting ready to leave my apartment the other day, I found myself stuck between brushing my teeth and cleaning my earrings. I brushed my teeth. Then I made it halfway down the stairs before I remembered that I still needed to clean my earrings. I actually forgot in about it in the course of two minutes - which wouldn't be all that bad if I hadn't been actively trying to remember. Ah well. What can you do?

There was one other thing, and now I've forgotten again. Right. My FictionPress stats. At the moment, I think I'm sitting at one reader, one hit for today, but I have another six hours to beat yesterday's numbers (which actually went up from when I posted), so (assuming I remember), there should be another post around midnight.

A Random Fact

FictionPress has this neat little function that lets you see what your readership has been for every day of the month. As of yesterday, I had hundreds of readers spread over many, many countries, but, of course, today being the first day of a new month, I am down to one country and only three readers. My goal for this month is for every day to have more readers than the last. Let's see how I do. Today I have 3 visitors, 6 hits, which means that between three people, six of my posts have been read.

Generally, I like to have more hits than visitors; it means that some of them like my stuff enough to keep reading.

V:7 H:10