life without a plot

Last part of family Christmas over, done with, and survived.

( personal ramblings )

( +3, because I couldn't decide which to pick )

Sunday with sister & niece, who is being very cute, climbs up to the slide (no steps, just round wooden rungs) all by herself, leaving me open-mouthed and staring, and, noticing a spider-web says 'Spin-nen-netz' with near perfect articulation. Three weeks ago I was blowing soap bubbles for her, now I'm holding the soap water for her to avoid major spillage & she's doing it herself. And catches them again. Clearly the bestest & most intelligent niece ever. *g* She still loves unpacking my bag & wallet, and was fascinated by my Pet Shop Boys Actually CD. Neil Tennant is the funny man ('lustiger Mann'), Chris Lowe isn't so funny ('der nicht lustig'). They're so much more fun when they're growing up, instead of vomiting milk on you.

Spent a lot of time browsing through reviews of Nikon lenses today, with indifferent results. I do most of my photographing walking through Vienna, so I need a zoom lens. Or believe I do? I guess a fixed focal length could be an artistic challenge, but it seems so impractical, and I kind of suspect I'd end up getting run over by a car taking a photo standing in the middle of a street. Also, my walks tend to be long and I don't want to be weighed down by a camera bag and different lenses.

My main issue with the 18-135 that I'm currently using is that it goes from barrel distortion straight into pincushion distortion, sometimes doing a kind of wave-thing for variety, making it near-impossible to photograph something with straight lines running across the picture (facades, etc.), unless the lines go more or less through the middle. However, the 18-200 that a lot of people (though not all) are very enthusiastic about seems to have distortion problems as well (although apparently not as bad ones, since they're not singled out in almost every amazon review...), the 55-200 that someone from the Viennese flickr group recommended seems to have little distortion, but other disadvantages. Is the 18-200's alleged sharpness problem that people mention something I'd even notice? Or, OTOH, apart from VR which I'd probably like, but can't say I've missed so far, does it offer enough advantages over the 18-135 for a hobby-photographer like me to justify the cost?

Check out alternatives that aren't Nikon?

Or maybe invest in some decent software to correct the distortion problem, and wait and see? But lazy person that I am I'm not particularly fond of endlessly fiddling with my photos afterwards...



Also, after much writing, deleting and rewriting more or less composed a letter to my aunt (letter, since she's decreed that because she abhorrs e-mails they are henceforth only to be used for communicating brief news, and everything longer than ten lines will be deleted), essentially telling her that while I appreciate her offer, if we're going to meet again, it'll be because we like each other enough to do so, not with all the resentment that radiated from everything she wrote, and not with her elaborate rules and conditions, and 'jokers' grudgingly granted, and to let me know if she should ever want that. I'm a bit concerned that I'm turning this into a power-game myself where I take pride in remaining calm and not rising to her provocation (although admittedly I am a tiny bit proud of myself, because I'm usually not very good in conflict situations), but as far as I can see this is the best I can do, not burning the bridges completely, being honest, but at the same time not sacrificing my self-respect.



ETA: Go him! Also, Tintin? *gg*

That sleep-attack-after-coming-home-and-fixing-myself-something-to-eat-and reading-maybe-ten-pages thing? Is apparently becoming a habit. Then got up, blearily, and watched DW The Voyage Of The Damned, which was maybe not perfect, but better IMO than the reviews on amazon suggested, with some lovely touching moments.

Went to see The Lion in Winter (play, not movie version) yesterday with some people from work because M.'s in Berlin and I got her ticket. I hesitate to compare it to the movie version because I haven't seen that in probably ten years or more, so maybe wouldn't like it as much now as I remember liking it, but it has left a strong impression and this version seemed a bit... bland in comparison; lifeless. They tried to superficially modernise it a bit by transferring it into a contemporary world of finance, making it all about shares, holdings and CEOs, which IMO just didn't have such an impact and sounded a bit forced at times. I'm perfectly aware that these days there's probably more power in finance/economy than in actual politics, but it somehow failed to convey the brutal power struggle and dysfunctional family politics adequately. Frankly, I've seen that done with more conviction on Smallville. If one was already spoiled for familiar with the plot, this version simply added nothing new or exciting, but generally lacked passion and failed to touch, and the applause was appropriately polite, even and very brief.



Also got & read John Barrowman's autobiography this week, which was better than I thought it'd be. Oops, sorry. Did I just type that? But while I fangirl as much as the next fangirl, I've stopped buying celebrity biographies a while ago and honestly didn't have too high expectations about the autobiography of someone only just turned 40, dictated into an iPod in between a very busy work schedule. But it has a very personal voice and they (I've no idea if it was John, Carole, or both of them) found an interesting structure, jumping back and forth a bit, going on tangents, etc., so it was never boring; chatty, full of anecdotes (some of which one has heard in interviews over the years, but a lot that were new at least to me, too) and often quite funny, although maybe I should say at this point that JB's sense of humour doesn't really converge with mine, which is very typically Viennese: dark, macabre and morbid. And while it's not the most profound thing ever written, it's not shallow: sincerely emotional, and serious and passionate when dealing with subjects that demand seriousness and passion. And John's energy and enthusiasm are infective even in print.

Oh, and look at the preface: To be honest, here's what I really hope - that by arranging the book in this way, you'll feel as if you and I are lounging in our pyjamas on the couch in my Cardiff living room, sharing a bottle of champagne or a pot of tea, with music on in the background, having a blether and laugh about my life so far.

*g* How's that for seducing your readers?


On a personal note, what really struck me reading this is that of all the authors, artists, musicians, etc. that I've fangirled have made more than a passing impression on my life, JB is by a long, long, - long: *cough* ex-NIN-fan *cough* - way the most positive, most balanced and apparently genuinely happiest person.

( cut for getting a bit personal )

Schedules and planned out days are not for me, or I'm not for them. I simply lack the energy. Third day, and I'm absolutely exhausted, and this is supposed to be a holiday.


( Monday to today )


In conclusion, tomorrow I'm allowed to sleep as long as I want. And do nothing as much as I want, with the possible exception of buying jogging shoes, since apparently the old ones that I've used for the past few years have shrunk? Or have my feet grown? Strange.


( baby, swimming )

How is Sunday almost over already? Lunch at the parents, cuddled my niece & gave her the plush feel book I'd bought & which she was absolutely fascinated with, especially since two of the pages had some kind of plastic inside that rustles when you touch them. ::beaming proud aunt mode:: Also realised that I need to memorise some child-appropriate songs, because at the moment when I carry her around when she gets bored and disgruntled I'm mostly singing/humming nin to her, since these are the only songs I know more than 25% of the lyrics to; I do it in a very positive tone of voice, and she did seem to be intrigued by my extremely off-key version of The Great Below but it still feels kind of weird and just can't be ideal, atmosphere-wise...


Finished the Torchwood DVDs in a mini-binge [2008? nine months? ::sigh::], and on the whole really enjoyed seeing the series again - I wasn't entirely sure for the first few episodes, and it's a sad thing that you can never quite recapture that initial burst of fanish enthusiasm, but generally it stood the test of re-watching very well and the emotional intensity of Cyberwoman pulled me right back into it, after which it gets constantly better and starts to run more smoothly.

And I love everything from Random Shoes to End of Days. The tension really starts to build up with Out of Time - I love that episode, the parallel arc of Jack and Owen that starts here and ends with the hug in the finale. Owen's raw vulnerability in the first night with Diane, totally overwhelmed and already very much out of his depths; I think that's the first time we're really seeing the hard mask slip. Jack opening up to John so easily, and again it's like a mask being taken away, only the thing Jack uses as a mask is his charm. The scene in the car is one of the most heart-breaking and surprising (would never have happened on an American show) moments I've seen on any tv show, and Jack's look at the end is awful, the emptiness, the hopelessness. I really like the dark streak in Jack that emerges over those episodes. That's something I hadn't really been fully aware of, because I didn't know Jack's back-story when I first saw the show; how much he doesn't want to be there. Two hundred years, and maybe he's gone native a bit, but he's got a hand in a jar that's probably worth more to him than almost anything at Torchwood and a fondness for standing in high, conspicuous places, waiting to picked up again, to be able to travel through the universe again instead of being marooned on this planet, stuck in an era he doesn't particularly like, picking through the debris of all that is out there, out of his reach. I wonder what they're going to do with this in the second series, what is going to convince Jack to come back/stay, because he obviously is very ready to leave at the drop of the right hat.


[And then there's this half-written, extremely rambling and very much tl;dr post about the Jack/Ianto relationship ... ::sigh::]


[On a side-note, though, what I don't quite understand is the whole OMG!adult!sex!violence! hype. Or the complaints about that. Compared to Dr. Who, which I've only seen a few episodes of so far, maybe, but on a grander scale of things? Not so much. Not that I'm complaining, mind. But If you leave aside the feeding-on-orgasms alien in Day One, which was clearly done with a bit of a wink at the audience and not to be taken deadly serious, pun not intended, there are exactly two a little more explicit sex scenes in one single episode, and they're anything but gratuitous, but crucial to the plot and Owen's character development. Countrycide was gory and a bit extreme, but I've seen as bad, if not worse, on the X-Files or CSI. Either Buffy or Angel had more explicit violence and sex than the average TW episode...]