Sunday, December 18, 2011

Goodbye Thirties... Hello Forties

I have now entered the age of being an area in the North Sea.  Wouldn't that be something?  I would look forward to then reaching my Viking and Cromarty ages, actually that would be better than reality.  I live in a society where women over forty are...over.


So today (or rather officially in one hour thirty five minutes - I'm writing this at 21:05) I pass the fortieth year marker of being on this planet.


Whoop-doop-de-do.


I have not finished yet.  I have not done as many things as I wished and I most certainly am not living the life I thought I would have had at this stage.  I still have much to accomplish.  Also there is a bigger celebration to be had with my boys reaching double figures in eleven days.


Don't mistake me, to have spent the evening surrounded by a loved one, friends and good company would have been wonderful but life hasn't worked out that way.  Instead it is, as always, just me, my boys and the dog - cats don't celebrate birthdays, or at least human ones.  I have to be content with this and the path I've ended up on as sometimes it happens and there isn't much you can do but walk onwards.


This is panic weekend when people suddenly realise that Christmas is next week and they haven't bought a thing.  Haha.  Spending the day in Edinburgh, the Winter Wonderland, I took my first step in changing things by going on the ferris wheel.


It's 35m high, the little seating circles aren't strapped in, they wobble, especially when you are stuck at the top floating in the breeze.  The views were amazing and, by holding on tight, closing eyes at the particularly worrying bits and saying "I am safe" as many times as need be to become a mantra, it is doable for anyone with not so much a fear of heights as a respect for safety.


I don't have photos as, typically, the camera battery was dead as dead can be.  So I've recycled one from a few years back, same wheel, same height but in the daytime you can see forever.  Well, at least to the Forth on both sides!



Like this ^ but daytime!  Plus everything on the lower part is rearranged and the big bungee thing was down there....oh you get the idea!  Look at the ferris wheel, I am ridiculously proud of myself!

On the way home we decided on Chinese food for din-dins and on the calendar they gave me it said for us Piggies (Year of the Pig - read the description, I'm happy to be a pig!) that next year will be a good one.  Result!

Day 27: Movie with your favourite villain

Ah jeez, there are so many as villains always get the best lines.  Usually they have more to them than the weedy hero.  There are so many children's films that could get this (anyone else have nightmares about the Childcatcher in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang?) 

But this guy, well, he's a flippin' Nazi.  You can't get worse than that.  Oh but you can because, you see, he relishes his job and sees it as being a job - despite the results he gets.  The actor practically eats the screen time so each time you see him you are not sure what he will do next and neither does anyone else.

As a villain he is the perfect epitome of bad, and doesn't even realise it.



First time I've heard of an Oscar going to someone and thinking "yup, well deserved."  Bingo!  Now go watch the film and see if you can watch the first ten minutes or so without getting a little sense of panic over what is about to happen.

Hans Landa - Inglourious Basterds


Col. Hans Landa: Now if one were to determine what attribute the German people share with a beast, it would be the cunning and the predatory instinct of a hawk. But if one were to determine what attributes the Jews share with a beast, it would be that of the rat. If a rat were to walk in here right now as I'm talking, would you treat it to a saucer of your delicious milk?
Perrier LaPadite: Probably not.
Col. Hans Landa: I didn't think so. You don't like them. You don't really know why you don't like them. All you know is you find them repulsive. Consequently, a German soldier conducts a search of a house suspected of hiding Jews. Where does the hawk look? He looks in the barn, he looks in the attic, he looks in the cellar, he looks everywhere *he* would hide, but there's so many places it would never occur to a hawk to hide. However, the reason the Führer's brought me off my Alps in Austria and placed me in French cow country today is because it does occur to me. Because I'm aware what tremendous feats human beings are capable of once they abandon dignity. 






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