you live your life as if it's real

 OI. I totally forgot to flail about Made of Honor!

I saw it last Saturday with my darling titania_torres, and omg yay Scotland! Okay, so they were mostly making fun of Scottish traditions, lolololol haggis is made out of gross things, and so on.

But there was highland dancing! (Not especially impressive technically, and they just showed like two shedding movements, but whatever! Highland dancing! Done properly!* In a movie!) And there was caber tossing! And sporrans! And lots of kilts! And bagpipes! And when I left the theatre, I was singing the Laddie cause the main Scottish guy (the one the female lead is going to marry) plays it at one point. The other tunes they played on the bagpipes during the course of the movie were all really familiar ones too.

Seriously though. Awesome. I guess I should have expected it, since the trailers clearly say they all go to Scotland, but for some reason it never occured to me that Hollywood cramming every stereotype possible into the movie would include dancing. So I got really excited when all of a sudden the screen was full of ghillies, wool socks, and second position.

bluebonnets, someday we should totally get all the dancing-types together, rent this and pretend we're back in Scotland. There were no chocolate muffins though, which is how you know it's not realistic.

(Other than the highland dance nerd factor, it was a pretty good movie. A nice chick flick. Jokes, good looking man, happily ever after, you know.)

And xsilvan, where are youuuu? I just found out that I have to go to my family reunion, so I have a couple days less time in Ottawa =(  Now I get in sometime the night of Thursday the 26th, then Saturday afternoon to Monday morning I'm in Brockville. So Friday, d'you want to do something?

*Anyone ever see Fred Astaire pretend to highland dance? I forget what movie it was in, but it was brutal and made me cry in my heart a little bit. Actually come to think of it, it might have been Gene Kelly. I've seen a lot of old dancing movies, okay, give me a break.

 In nerdy and belated news,

Saw Ironman on Monday, and OMG wow it is much love. The same sort of much love as Transformers.

-fangirls-

ALSO! The trailer for the new Batman movie played, and it looks AMAZING. Amazing.

-fangirls more-

A while back, as some of you may remember, I took a jaunt down to Toronto for the day, to meet some authors and buy an armload of books. Due to school, I've sadly only managed to read two of those books so far, but now seems like a really appropriate time to give them some airtime here. (And no, that's not just because I'm desperately trying to find ways to procrastinate writing my Homer commentary. Well, that helps. But anyways, I digress.)

jimhines was one of the authors I met that day, and it's his two books, Goblin Quest and Goblin Hero, that I've read. I've been meaning for a while now to write an entry about them, so carpe diem etc. etc. Plus, you know, the third book in the series, Goblin War, comes out tomorrow. (Hah. You thought that was going to be another Amazon link. But oh how wrong you were!)



Google is sadly not providing a similarly sized picture of Goblin War for my hotlinking pleasure. Boo. Oh well, those are the two I've read, anyways.

These books are awesome. Goblin Quest: The runt of an underdog race gets dragged off kicking and screaming (well, more like tied up and walking meekly so as not to get beaten, actually) to go on adventures, whether he likes it or not. He survives by sheer luck and a healthy dose of cowardice. This book has got everything your classic fairy tale fantasy has: a heroic prince, a dwarf bodyguard/mentor, a half-crazy ambitious mage, a sullen elven girl, a dragon, hordes of treasure, and the monster sidekick. Only Jig (that's the goblin) is our hero, so everything gets stood on its head. I still kinda liked the prince though, even though he was a pompous ass. He spoke so hilariously.

The ending though. Oy geez. Did not see that coming. Trout?? It kind of upset me, actually. But I'm over it now. I don't want to spoil it, so that's all I'll say here. Clearly I'm really bad at this recap of book thing, so just go out and buy it and read it for yourself, okay? I highly recommend it.

Goblin Hero: The bad guys are pixies. Nuff said. Two-foot tall glittery, colourful bad guys. So awesome. I was reading this one on the bus on the way home for reading week, and I kept laughing out loud and getting really weird looks from my neighbor. I think I like Goblin Hero better than Goblin Quest, actually. Any book where a hobgoblin gets to say "Graceful, as always," to a goblin has got to be wonderful.

So anyways, if you like fantasy, if you like laughing, and if you like brains triumphing over brawn, then I expect you'll love these books. I definitely did, and I'll be buying the third book just as soon as I can. I really hope Riana shows up again in Goblin War.

And I really want a pet fire-spider now. If that's impossible, though, I'll settle for a plushie Smudge.

ETA: and omg thank you, srness, for catching my stupid mistakes and saving me from making an ass of myself. <3 

 I got new ghillies yesterday!!

Yes, gasp, shock and awe... the pair that got thoroughly ruined dancing in the rain at Holyrood Palace two summers ago have finally been replaced! It's going to be weird to dance with ghillies again... I've been dancing either barefoot or in socks for years now.

But these ones are soft and new and lovely. And best of all, they don't have that annoying triangle flap of extra leather by my three last toes. And they're size five, so my left foot is a bit cramped now, but they'll definitely stretch.


That's all I have to say. =)

If you're looking for some good short stories (and poems!) and/or a wonderful way to procrastinate a little, look no further.

The staff at Ideomancer says:

"For half of the world, this is the darkest time of the year. We have fiction and poetry to match that darkness in this issue."

And boy, do they ever.