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Everything is Awesome!

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1896772_10151991815823155_1701450211_n1897667_10151991838918155_1913042448_nWe have a new kitchen cabinet! It is awesome and glorious! Nienke’s parents had it in their hallway, where it stood in the way for years. So they offered it to us since we were looking for a better cabinet. We went to pick it up Tuesday. So thanks to Nienke’s Parents for parting with it, and Dad for driving us there to pick it up. We ended up putting it against the side wall (left of where it is in the picture) because that fit better, and also allowed us to rearrange some other cabinetry. Bottom is for large(r) tools and random crap, top for plates. And on top of it…

Wednesday Gert and I went to the movies, double feature time 😀 We started with an early afternoon Vampire Academy, which is a very uneven movie. Disjointed story, jumpy cuts, and it doesn’t know whether it wants to be a high school dramedy or a supernatural vampire movie. I did like the girl playing Rose and the dude playing Dimitri, though. In between we walked around the city and ate at La Place before going back to see The Lego Movie. I had low expectations of it, but it was definitely awesome!

Thursday I got the day off, which gives me a glorious four day weekend! Played lots of Warcraft these last few days. Also stopped at Bruna yesterday and picked up some comics. Today I got fresh bread stuff from the bakery for breakfast, made a giant pan of soup, stopped at the Blokker and got a lantern for the window sill and read my comics 😀

Also ordered tickets to two shows that are coming up at the Stadschouwburg. On April 8 there’s a play/music theater version of Gone With the Wind which seemed interesting so I got two tickets for that, we’ll see who wants to go with 😀 On June 2, Daniel Lohues is performing so I got two tickets for that as well to go there with Mom.

The Cold Never Bothered Me Anyway

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Tuesday I went to the movies with Gert. We saw Frozen. It is one of the awesomest movies I’ve seen in a long time. I’m already a fan of Disney movies (particularly animated) but I love this one so much. I watched it again yesterday and am waiting for it to be released on bluray 😀

Yesterday, my bed also came. I bought it late december, but with the holidays and all my room wasn’t ready for it. So they stored it for a while longer until I made an appointment to have it delivered yesterday. It didn’t go quite as I expected. Turns out that, it being a boxspring, the bottom is one giant piece. The only separate things about it are the mattress and the headboard…

So now it stands in the hallway, shuffled in a corner fenced in by a cabinet and the coat rack 😀 I first need to finish upstairs, and then get some help to move it up the stairs.

Pacific Rim

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WPacific Rim: Gipsy Dancerent to see Pacific Rim with Gert last night. I didn’t really know anything about the movie. Hadn’t even heard about it until a day or three ago. Didn’t know what to expect except “Godzilla-like monsters” and “giant robots”. I’m always up for sci-fi (related) things, and I’d seen a few gifsets on tumblr about the movie that made me think I’d like it.  So when Gert, rather urgently, suggested we do a movie, I suggested Pacific Rim. He (obviously) said yes.

After a quick stop at the Burger King we headed to see the movie, and I must say, I was pleasantly surprised. The plot was more sci-fi, and less ridiculous, than I had expected. I liked the characters, and their interactions. And I loved Mako. A female character that gets to walk around in a normal uniform instead of a sexy outfit that doesn’t give any protection at all, a woman who can fight just as well as the guys, is just as damaged as the guys and can generally hold her own among the guys without the movie constantly getting in our face that OMG it’s a guuuuurl.

Pacific Rim: Mako MoriI liked the idea of the pilots needing to be brain-connected to be able to control the Jaegers, but I would have liked to see a bit more about how it works and what its effects are. Besides the giant flashback to Mako’s childhood, we don’t much get to see that, and I would have liked to know more about the effects of the neural handshake outside of the actual piloting. Does it linger, do you always keep basic access to each others memories? Bits and pieces with the other pairs would seem to suggest this, but I always like more of the sciencey stuff.

In that regard, I looooved the Doctors. Doctor German (I forgot his name), is more well known to me as Owen from Torchwood, and I could not stop myself from just calling him Owen in my mind. Pacific Rim: KaijuI loved how he played his character. Newton was fun, too, but a bit too naive at points. The interplay between was awesome thought. Even though they bicker a lot, they come through for each other in the end.

And Ron Perlman. Not much to say about him, he was really just the same sort of guy as he often is in movies. Gruff, rough and very in your face. But I love him for it 😀

Idris Elba was brilliant. I haven’t seen him (consciously) in a lot of stuff, but I loved his character, and I can see why many people would like him to be an incarnation of The Doctor.

Pacific Rim: Stacker PentecostRaleigh, I kept thinking “I know this actor, I know this actor”, but I couldn’t place him and that distracted me some. But he was nice to look at, a decent guy and I really enjoyed his relationship with Mako.

Other, major high point? No love story. None of that crap of the rugged and damaged pilot falling in love with the fragile and damaged new copilot leading to danger in the middle and an eventual triumph. They became friends, and obviously really close because of the Drift but no romance. Yay! Give me more non–romance!

Ooh, and I just spy on the Internets that there will be a Pacific Rim 2 😀

Pacific Rim Gifset 1 Pacific Rim Gifset 2

Pacific Rim Gifset 3 Pacific Rim Gifset 4

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The Hunger Games

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I first learned about The Hunger Games early this year. I read about it somewhere, got a brief idea of what it was about and filed it away in my head as a ‘I should read that sometime’. A short while later, I started seeing images across the web of a movie that intrigued me called The Hunger Games. I put one and one together, did a little bit of research to confirm my math and promptly forgot about it again; the movie wasn’t even out yet.

A week or two ago I started seeing more and more about it and realised the movie would be released soon. I read some more about the plot and stuff and realised I really liked it. And I’m a bit of a book-snob occasionally when it comes to movies after books, so I decided I wanted to read the books first.

Cue my regular online bookstore having a 3-for-2 sale last week which included all three books in The Hunger Games trilogy. I ordered, they were delivered, and I started reading book one last Saturday.

I finished it Sunday. I loved it. I was hooked instantly.

I started book two on my way to work Monday. At work, there was so little to do, me and Nienke asked for leave and decided we’d like to go to the movies. I immediately exclaimed we should see The Hunger Games. Fortunately, Nienke agreed 😀 I wanted to finish all three books before seeing the movie, at first, but with this opportunity I didn’t mind.

So we left work, had brunch at Starbucks and then went to a noon-showing, nice and quiet with only five people or so present. I was completely engrossed in the movie from the start. Normally about two-thirds through I tend to go ‘are we there yet’ and checking the time to see how long it’s been. Not this time. The movie follows the book very well. Of course some changes were made, but I think they were all smart changes. And necessary changes for a medium like film.

I continued with book two that night, finishing it shortly after midnight. I started book three Tuesday evening and finished it Wednesdag afternoon. While I’m happy with the ending Katniss’ story, I remain very curious about how Panem did after the ending of Mockingjay and before the epilogue some fifteen years later. I hope there will be more about this at some point in the future, but I’m not getting my hopes up too much, I can’t find indications of more books, either featuring Katniss or the expanded universe.

The Sorcerer’s Granny

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I have this entry on my 101 list to post reviews of stuff I read and see and such at least once every two months. I already occasionally review the books I read. But since I can’t be arsed to review everything in single, bigger posts, I figured I just do smaller Reviews. Probably not really worthy of that name, but screw that 😀

The Sorcerer’s Apprentice (movie)

The story is pretty basic: guy who has no idea of his powers has to learn to control those powers (with lots of errors and funny situations) and save the world. It turned out to be a very fun movie, Nicholas Cage and Jay Baruchel play very nicely off of each other. It is quite obviously a Disney movie, and not just because it has the Mickey Mouse as Sorcerer’s Apprentice short re-made in live action in it (although that was hilarious to watch). It just has that goody-goody feel.
I enjoyed the relationships between the various characters, both on the evil side (Horvath and his apprentice) as well as the good side (Balthasar and Dave, Dave and Becky). The sets were awesome, especially Balthasar’s shop and Dave’s lab basement. And I like how the Geeky guy gets the girl without him having to de-Geek. Ending wise, I’m anticipating a sequel here if it does well, the movie had that kind of ending where a sequel makes perfect sense.

Granny’s (cafe / lunch room)

Went out for coffee with Gert, and let him pick the place where we went since he lives in the city and knows the best spots 😀 So, he suggested Granny’s as it was something we’d not been. I had to work afterward so I did specify it had to be a place that did lunch dishes too. According to Gert, this was also the case.

Granny’s is located across the A-church, and it being an inner city thing, has the characteristic rectangular shape of small buildings. It looks good, albeit slightly crowded due to the shape. Seating is split over two levels, ground floor and basement. It’s mostly single tables with chairs, but there’s a bench along a bigger table on both floors.

On the menu was mostly various kinds of apple pie (since it specialises in that), but it did indeed have a nice variety of sandwiches. Unfortunately for me, none of those tickled my fancy since all of them had something on it I don’t like, either at all, or not very much. So I went with a nice slice of lemon apple pie, with a warm vanilla sauce and chocolate coffee. The taste of all of it was very good, I enjoyed it. I found the prices to be on the high side though. The coffee was €4,25, so I’d expect a big glass, but I found it only slightly larger than a regular coffeecup. I get that what with the chocolate and stuff it’ll be more expensive than regular coffee, but I’d find €3,50 a more than reasonable price for it. The cake was a good sized slice, and the vanilla sauce very handily came in a separate little jug.