Alexandra Leaving

LJ: I am really pleased with the speed LJ is working. EVERYTHING IS FLYING. I can't stop commenting and writing because finally LJ IS WORKING FAST FOR ME. I might take all my annoyed ranting back and wait for LJ to fix the issues with default comment title and other things because my main problem with it (speed and reliability) is fixed. EEEEEEEEEEEEEE! I still can't believe it and almost want to pinch myself: "Is this real? LJ is working so fast! And I haven't had an error in the last 48 hours, not even one!"

I did log a support request re: default comment title and spellchecker, though. I saw a LJ news post saying these things will be fixed. We will see.

Sherlock: A Scandal in Belgravia: I loved the episode until the ending happened. ( spoiler ) I am still not pleased.

Walking Dead: I have finished all available episodes of the season 2 and I am having a terrible imaginary crush on Daryl. He is like a version of Sandor Clegane with a crossbow. My open plea to the creators of the show: "Dear creators of Walking Dead! Please do not kill off Daryl anytime soon".

Anime: I am watching tons of anime at the moment. I would appreciate any recommendations!
My anime favourites, just few of them:

Monster (I haven't expected so much depth in anime)
Shiki (so scary it is good)
Ergo proxy (mind-bending and gorgeous)
Hellsing (really REALLY loved it)
Blood+
Trinity Blood (my favourite anime song)
Trigun and Cowboy beebob - great old-school anime.

Suits: I have finished 12 episodes of "Suits" in one day. I am still off on holidays. I enjoyed watching, but I didn't feel any depth to be honest and the love triangle part (and the way the character of Rachel was developed in the show) didn't feel right for me at all ..

Warehouse 13 is still lovely. Now they even have a DOG (I love dogs).

Ojakgyo Brothers: I have also watched 38 episodes of "Ojakgyo Brothers" in two days and I am crushing so much on Joo Won it hurts. Also - Uee is such a surprise, I really like her character.

I should stop commenting and posting excessively and do something else. :D

"Hunger Games" is a big disappointment of 2011, something I expected to like following almost universal praise this series receive in Lj land.. This disappointment goes quite deep covering many different levels and I feel compelled to write this down while I remember, even though I am probably re-capping some of the things I said previously:



( Hidden because this is may be too long and might contain spoilers, even though I tried to be vague and not disclose the ending )

Overall: Book 1: 8/10, book 2: 6/10, book 3: 4/10, on average: 6/10

PS: I always welcome a discussion, but please don’t comment with statements like "You read it all wrong". The way I read it is the way I read it, and although I respect opinions that differ from mine, and I am 100% sure that all opinions are valuable, I lived half of my life in a place where I was told what to think by other people, and unfortunately this made me quite sensitive to anyone’s attempts to tell me what to think. So – your opinion is yours, mine is mine and if you think that your opinion is somehow more valuable than mine we differ on a very fundamental level.

On the happier note: Lois McMaster Bujold! Vorkosigan Saga! HERE I COME! Cordelia and Miles and everyone else!!!!!!!!

Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays of your choice to everyone! Personally, I am as confused as ever: Russian Christmas is celebrated on the January the 7th and the New Year day is the biggest holiday of the season in Russia. But this is not stopping me from enjoying the Holiday season, eating lots of nice food and watching a lot of Holiday things on TV. The only thing lacking is SNOW. I am a big fan of it.:D

This Christmas my friend is staying with us and we are doing all the Holiday Things together (hence, my disappearance from LJ). Yesterday all the family went to see “Sherlock Holmes and the Game of Shadows” and it was lovely, especially Shetland Pony, Noomi Rapace and Stephen Fry.. And what is the better way than to celebrate the Holidays with the pictures from “Sherlock Holmes and the Game of Shadows”?



( The rest of pictures )

Happy Holidays Everyone: Merry Christmas! Happy New Year! Happy Hanukkah! Happy Yuletide! Peace, Happiness and Good will to you all!

I am through about 40% of "Mockingjay", and dear friends list, I am getting seriously annoyed. Katniss is undergoing what is probably the worst ever character development in the history of fiction.

( Spoilers )

PS: Shall I keep listening? There are 6.5 more hours of this! Or shall I give up, find the spoilers, and move on to some better books?

From sternflammenden: Five things associated with me:

Fantasy

I am more of a Science Fiction fan, but I also love Fantasy. There is something about the current decade: there isn't too much of new Science Fiction. Strange phenomena, but true. This decade seems to be The Decade of Fantasy Fiction. And I love it!

-House Greyjoy

I love an underdog in fiction. Take, for example, "A Song of Ice and Fire" series. I like Starks as much as any other person, but with Starks, there seems to be SO MANY people out there loving them, discussing every single aspect of their personalities in great detail. So by now I am, frankly speaking, a little bored.

The other problem with a popular House like Starks is that because it has so many followers, it inevitably eventually attracts the attention of two segments of fans whose opinions and posts I like the least of all : 1) posts trying to prove to me how various members of House of Starks are somehow morally superior to everyone else. 2) Posts describing to me in OTT graphic detail how the posters like to have sex with Robb Stark, with naming of the parts they feel the tingling in at the mentioning of his name. My sensibilities are too delicate for this. Plus Robb Stark is 14 in the books and 17-18 in the TV series.

Why am I talking about Starks? Off the high horse, and back to Greyjoys! What I notice is that I am always drawn to underdogs like Greyjoys in fiction, and particular, in fandom. For some reason, here in LJ , the fans of the House Greyjoy seem to be a jolly sane, non-judgmental, open-minded and happy bunch. And the same goes for Sansa/Sandor shippers, but this is definitely digressing. It must be the salt of Greyjoys. :D Back to Greyjoys, I love the opinions and the company of Greyjoy fans and this must add to my general interest in Greyjoys, the craziest (aka the most entertaining) House in "A Song of Ice and Fire" series.

Disclaimer: I am not saying that all posts of the House Stark fans are bad, it is just unfortunately in big fandom segments you are more likely to get someone who posts something crazy or OTT, and for some reason the fans that post crazy things seem to be the "loudest" (somehow the loudness seems to go hand-in-hand with craziness and OTT). But I do love my Starks too.

To show you all how serious I am about the House of Greyjoy, this is a sock I recently purchased for my Android phone:



Asian cinema

I have always been a fan of Asian cinema, but for someone who is not familiar with it I can say one thing of recommendation: Ladies and Gentlemen, Asian cinema is the place where everything is happening nowdays: new ideas, innovative graphics, fabulous actors. One statistical thing: I don't know a single re-make of a Western film in Asia (there must be some, but they are rare). On the other hand, there are so many remakes of Asian movies made in Hollywood that I can count you 10 without thinking hard. One of the re-makes, "The Departed", has even won an Oscar.

Technology

I tend to rattle about this: my job is related to Technology. I am a Systems Analyst which is just another name for the mind-boggling profession of Computer Programmer, or according to Urban Dictionary "Computer Programmer: a) An organism capable of converting caffeine into code. b) Semi-sentient being who inexplicably survives an extremely unhealthy lifestyle. Usually found in confined spaces with low lighting, at a computer terminal. C) This makes attracting females difficult, which can easily be fixed by meeting women through an online service."

I am an atypical programmer, though, because I: a) don't drink too much coffee. I like it, but it makes me too hyper so I don't drink it often, and if I do, I only like "proper" coffee! To clarify, Starbucks coffee is NOT "proper" coffee, and I am not even talking about instant coffee varieties. b) I try to maintain a semi-healthy lifestyle, exercising 2 times a week and trying to eat well, c) I AM a female.

Consequently, I have a loving relationship with technology in general. I am quite lazy by nature which stops me from buying too many new gadgets, but I am never afraid of computers/gadgets/new things and seem to be always capable of harnessing them, given enough time. All these things are my friends, unless they are made by Apple (in which case they are instruments of brainwashing). The only things I am less of a friend with are mechanical devices like printers, they are just less trust-worthy.

To add, my most notable achievement is that my 12-year old daughter still thinks I am cool.

Daughters

Daughters are GREAT. To tell you the truth, I didn't really enjoy giving birth, and neither did I really enjoy the baby period. But now, when my daughter is 12 and we can talk as equals? I am loving it! She is fabulous and cute and I love her so much I definitely know I will do anything for her.

I am in a real worry at the moment because my daughter has her first boyfriend. He seems to be nice but you know, I WORRY! What if he ends up hurting her?

LJ is having PROBLEMS! Oh, I am getting a bit tired of this. I was ready to feel for them during the first (and even second) wave of DDoS attacks, but this is getting old pretty fast. LJ folks! T'is the time to do something, you had plenty of time already.

Forgive my old-school sensibilities , my younger friends, but this season seems to be the time for some of the ugliest fashions I have ever seen. Namely - girls wearing tights without wearing anything else (please see the illustration below). This look belongs (may be) in a gym or in a ballet performance, but NOT in a café, unless the aim is to cause gastrointestinal disturbances.



You might say that these are not tights but leggings, but how the casual onlooker is supposed to know? For the record, thin-ish leggings worn without a long top over them look as ugly as any tights. And matched with UGG boots (the ugliest foot wear invented) the look is terrible, even on the gorgeous ladies like Olivia Wilde:



I have shamelessly stolen the pictures from the Internet, but I see 5-10 examples of this "fashion" every morning I am walking to work, especially around the University area.

This is a hilarious chart I have stolen from lage_nom_ai: Am I wearing pants?. This chart needs to be spread all over the world, and I am going to help the good work. Young ladies and gentlemen! Please consult the chart before stepping outside!

OH I AM SO HAPPY AND RELIEVED. THIS POST IS A BIT TOO SQUEEFUL, I AM AFRAID.

( Here is the first footage from the season 2 of Game of Thrones, in case you havent seen it yet )

It might have been something the show's creators said or it might have been the abundance of Robb/Jeyne related posts in ontd_asoiaf (just a note: I am all for freedom of shipping and freedom of fannish opinions! I have ranted about the matter many times already and I honestly won't today. Today is the day of happy news.I am just trying to explain as to where I got the idea from), but I got somehow very worried that The season 2 is going to be all about Robb and his doomed Twilight-like love story with Jeyne.

BUT!!!!!!!!!!! It seems that the first look into the season 2 might indicate that the season is going to pay rather big attention to the storyline I am personally interested in: Stannis, Davos, Melisandre, and the rest of Baratheons. Oh, hot and "mature" pair of Stannis and Davos! Oh, fabulously gorgeous Melisandre! Come to my screen and make me happy this season. Make all the Stannis haters into loving converts and show a thing or two to people who think that "Davos is boring".

Also, it seems that the wigs and costumes have undergone a bit of a change. Everyone looks much better, especially Renly and Loras. But this said - have I ever seen anything as ridiculous as Renly's crown? I don't think so. :D Not on my TV. THE CROWN IS FULL OF HORNS. MANY HORNS. And it sits ridiculously low. It makes Renly look like Prince John from Disney's Robin Hood. Please see the picture comparisons below. My apologies to any of Renly's fans on my friends list, but I think Renly is forever ruined for me. I won't be able to look at him again without giggling inside. I am going to call it The Crown of Horns.




Also, a fan of Sandor Clegane in me is very happy too. I have a big heart and I am fan of many characters, and Sandor is one of my favourites. I am so happy to report that I think Season 2 Sandor looks seriously hot. Has the actor lost some weight? Is it the new beard and the new hair? Anyways, you will have to bear with me this season because I will be doing all sorts of fan-lady things about Sandor.

( Sandor in season 2: )

Misfits I have been watching the show, and it is fun. I am reporting a rather amusing thing: I have been told by my colleagues that I am somewhat like Kelly. Not in the crazy dress sense, in "I will not suffer nonsense gladly" sense. OH YES.

PS: These happy news have managed to tear me out of my "I am all about work" mood. EEEEEEEEEEEE!

I don’t get really angry very often. Not at all. This is probably the first time I am ANGRY on LJ pages.

I HATE APPLE: Apple!!!!!!!!!!! I never liked the brand in the first place, for principal reasons, but now I have a reason to HATE IT PERSONALLY. I will dedicate my life to campaigning against this evil bunch. Why? The story goes like this:

1. My daughter dropped her ipod touch. She is fairly small, so the fall was quite small, BUT! The front glass smashed completely! I must say this never happened to me before! I tend to drop my phones, laptops and other devices, I am just prone to drop things. THIS NEVER HAPPENED TO ME BEFORE. Once I dropped my mobile down a flight of stairs and it bounced all the way down. Did it smash? No - I got away with a scratch!

2. I remember something about "1-year warranty", so I go to the Apple store. THE ONLY APPLE STORE existing in West Yorkshire (Leeds/Sheffield area). There I have to stand in a queue for 1 hour ten minutes, in the store that was literally stuffed with people with broken laptops and iPhones.

3. I get told by a too-cheery sales guy (Why were you so cheery, the Apple guy? Was looking at the shop stuffed full with idiots who buy the rubbish Apple stuff for large sums of money cheer-inducing?): because the ipod is under 1 year old APPLE WILL DO ME A FAVOUR AND "replace" it for 119 pounds. IT IS MY FAULT (well, my daughter’s) that she DROPPED THIS VERY FRAGILE DEVICE. But did it come with "fragile" warning? NO IT DID NOT.

4. I feel that I was used and I do not like the feeling AT ALL.

I HATE THEM ALL. I hope Steve Jobs is turning in his grave somewhere in a special place reserved for people who cheat other people out of their money by brainwashing (please do not lecture me about respect, I am too materialistic to feel any respect after spending 119 pounds on "replacement"). I WILL NEVER EVER BUY ANYTHING FROM APPLE AGAIN AND I WILL TELL MY STORY TO EVERYONE.

5. I bought the iPod against my better judgement (my daughter has a peer pressure at school :D) , but paying 250f for something that obviously doesn't cost as much to produce I expected a better customer service. And how mistaken was i!

LJ hate
And today LJ has UPGRADED SOMETHING AGAIN and my Flexible Squares LJ layout is all weird, cutting off the images that don’t fit in the "square". I had to switch off "Disable customized comment pages for your journal" for now, and I also am getting "Content error" all the time. OK LJ. STOP BEING IDIOTS. STOP IT. LJ people - I know you are not as rich as "the father founders" of Apple, but I still do not like you. You have to stop this idiocy already.

PS: Insert selective swearing of your choice in my thoughts about Apple and LJ. This is one of those rare moments when I wish I knew how to swear.

Positive thoughts: My new Android phone
I have bought myself an Android phone! It was cheaper than the ipod "replacement" was. AND I LOVE IT. I don’t know why I haven’t done this for ages. It is like having a little computer in your pocket and it can do practically anything you want it too. I LOVE IT. It syncs with my Google account and is looooooovely.

We had a "team building" event at work, doing Myers-Briggs Personality tests. This was rather interesting and surprising!

My test came as:

ENTP, which stands for:

Extrovert - "I like getting my energy from active involvement in events and having a lot of different activities. I’m excited when I’m around people and I like to energize other people. I like moving into action and making things happen. I generally feel at home in the world. I often understand a problem better when I can talk out loud about it and hear what others have to say.

THIS WAS A SURPRISE (even though I didn't score too high here). I always though of myself as an introvert! And then all my work colleges started saying that I indeed a total extrovert, and I was "OH?? REALLY??" and still not being at all convinced. The trainer, who knows me a bit from the previous courses I had with him also said "Yep. I think you are an extrovert". THIS MADE ME THINK. Learning something new about yourself at my age? Interesting!

Intuitive - Preference for taking in information through a "sixth sense" and noticing what might be (as opposed to concentrating of facts and figures): Ideas, Big picture, Imaginative, Abstract and Theoretical.

Thinking - Preference for organising and structuring information to decide in a logical, objective way (as opposed to a personal, value-based way): Focus on cause and effect, logic, task.

Perceiving - Preference for living a spontaneous and flexible life (as opposed to planned and organised life).

Although I am still not sure about the Extroversion part, the rest is SO ME:

Quick, ingenious, stimulating, alert, and outspoken. Resourceful in solving new and challenging problems. Adept at generating conceptual possibilities and then analyzing them strategically. Good at reading other people. Bored by routine, will seldom do the same thing the same way, apt to turn to one new interest after another.

I have done many very nice things on my holiday break. I went out to eat every day of the last week. :D I do like eating out. I can cook, but for me cooking is like programming: you put things in, you get the food out. The only non-programming thing about it is the mess afterwards.

When I cook for guests, I usually use one of my mother's or my friends' recipes I brought with me from Russia. Oh, and I have a nice Indian recipe from a co-worker. When I cook for everyday, I usually cook something "healthy" and fast at the same time (i.e mushrooms + sweet peppers + onions + pesto + penne I am cooking tonight) . I abhor pre-packed meals and I don't like to slave away. Food is just food, after all.

My daughter and I caught up on a lot of TV whilst on holidays:

Haven: It left me fairly lukewarm. I guess I am not fond of "special person" stories. I loved Audrey Parker when she had a promise to be "a normal girl in abnormal circumstances" with some female friends as well as with a couple of male admirers. But it seems that all the other female characters either died or disappeared from Haven and all we have left is a "special" Audrey, a man-magnet with whom everyone is in love with.

Also - Reverend Driscoll is such a "straw Christian".

Merlin: I am still loving my way through the season 4, especially appreciating the fact that something is finally happening in this story. After 3 years, the story is finally moving! There was even a baby dragon hatched by Merlin last week! I loved Merlin to bits for his "I want all dragons to be FREE" speech.

Supernatural season 6: My guilty pleasure of the day. My brain switches off, my eyes sparkle with "Dean! Pretty! Castiel! Awesome!". That is all.

Vampire diaries: I am giving up on this. It just seems to be the same the same the same. Life is too short! It could have been a good guilty pleasure show if not for the fact that Stefan is boring and ugly and Damon seems to be wiggling his eyebrows a little too often.

Endgame: We finished this short-lived show about a Russian chess master with agoraphobia who is solving various crimes from his hotel room. This show did have some potential and Alcina is probably my favourite female character of last year's. I need some gifs from this show, of both Arkady and Alcina.

I have forgotten! Today is Halloween! Getting into the spirit of things, my favourite EVER Halloween-y film is "The Addams family".

MAMUSHKA!!!!!


Halloween! Enjoy yourselves!!!! Eat a lot of chocolate but look after your teeth (I am eating Dark Chocolate Cherry Liqueurs as we speak)!!