First thing this morning, I received this via my work email:
Dear Ms. Jean,
This email is to confirm shipment and imminent delivery of one bound and gagged Ruud van Nistelrooy. If product does not arrive within the next five to seven business days, or arrives damaged in any way, please respond immediately.
Kind regards,
~Seth Wilson~
Made my day, that did.
Hoo boy. We tried on costumes today. There was a great variety - purple and black stripes; black polyester with velvet polka dots with red and black striped trimmings; green and black polka dots. /end sarcasm
They are so FUGLY. After struggling to fit in the hideous red one, Deb settled for the gross purple and I into the digusting green. Even then she was struggling into hers, but it was longer than the green and she’s much taller.
Sara got the red - because she showed up last haha! She only just fit by sucking her breath in. That would have been me. The green skirt is a little loose, but it will have to do. As suspected, the length of the skirt caused me to trip several times. I’m going to have to pin the skirt up next week, unless someone wants to pay me to fall flat on my face.
There’s still no music for the sevillanas. Madame Principal suggested a few tracks from a CD for us to practice and choose, but we totally could not count a rhythm what with the wailing by the singers. Seriously. In flamenco, guitarist follows the dancer, and the dancer follows the singer. Why this has not resulted in hilarious YouTube videos, I will never figure out.
Perhaps ours will be the first.
3 weeks ago…
Tom - Division Supervisor
Amy - colleague
Nathan - New employee, joining Tom’s division
Amy: Can you book Nathan’s flight? Here’s a copy of his passport.
Me: Dude, he looks like a criminal.
Tom: Haha, I’m going to tell him you said that!
Me: WAT NO.
So Nathan starts next week, but I put him on a flight a couple of days ago so that he could get over jet lag, open a bank account, etc. I requested he come into the office today to get some paperwork done, and Tom was very enthusiastic about meeting him too. Reception called, letting me know he has arrived.
Me: Hi Jan, I’m here to get Nathan?
Jan: Yes he is the gentleman seated behind you.
I turned around. Then I turned back to Jan.
Me: That’s Nathan?
Jan: Yep.
What the hell, he turned out to be hot?
All this time we referred to poor Nathan as ‘The Crim’, which Tom had coined. After I left Nathan with Tom, Amy and I had a conversation that basically ran along the lines of wtf, he’s hot? Followed by much comparison to his unfortunate passport photo.
“He had a haircut?”
“He lost weight?”
“He’s not wearing a pink shirt?”
“Dude my gaydar totally went berserk.”
“Your gaydar is broken.”
“You’re just hoping he’s straight.”
“I’m married.”
“Don’t forget pregnant.”
“Don’t remind me.”
Dear Rosita,
Please encourage* your class to perform the farruca and sevillanas at the winter fiesta at the end of this month. We want to showcase some of the syllabus. Thank you.
- Madame Principal
*encourage = coerce
EXCUSE ME, WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT?! WAT WAT WAAAAAAAAT?! PERFORM? IN PUBLIC?! YOU. HAVE. GOT. TO. BE. KIDDING.
I hate performing. In public. Absolutely despise it. But noooo, Ms Rosita has not only twisted our arms, but has started working on turning both dances into a performance i.e. positioning everyone around the stage etc. She’s nuts. We’re only in second grade, for god’s sakes. That would be like, showing people that when you’re in segundo, you will suck monkey balls.
Madame Principal took our class the last two weeks, and she was most definitely not short on criticism. I don’t understand why she wants us to perform when she spent the last two weeks telling us off for every damn little thing. I kid you not. Hold an arm the wrong way and she will totally pick it up. I work ten times harder with her out of sheer terror.
Performing. Good god. I totally did not sign up for this when I started flamenco.
Where did the week go? It seems as if it’s still end of financial year, considering my workload. I suppose the change in workflows don’t help either. In between training the HR Administrator how to do some of the tasks I’m familiar with, I’m contending with taking on an entirely new workflow. Apparently dealing with remuneration, benefits, reporting and system administration wasn’t enough.
It’s an interesting learning curve, plus, I get to attend breakfast/lunchtime events with the company’s service providers. I am all for the free food, even if it means waking up at 6am to get to a breakfast seminar by 7.15am.
Unfortunately, the only downside is I have to start bothering to at least look somewhat presentable beyond slacks and a collared shirt. It continues to boggle my mind to see women wearing a different suit every day. Also, pantyhose? WTF? I alternate 2 work outfits in a week (Friday is casual dress) out of sheer laziness. Surprisingly, no one has picked up that I wear the same thing 2 days a week, until I mentioned it over lunch with a colleague, who brightened up at the prospect of having a smaller laundry load. Haha!
That said, every time I make The Plan to finally get myself a Donna Karan suit, something else always catches my eye, and I end up um-ing and ah-ing forever. Damn you, Balenciaga.
When this fandom comes a-calling, apparently, I am still answering.
And my friends continue a-mocking. Sorryla, I know my Crazy Fandom is not smart enough to create (successful) spinoffs, or stay dead.
For starters, I was expecting The X-Files: I Want To Believe to be bad. REALLY bad. To be of EPIC FAIL proportions. I fully expected to leave the cinema halfway in disgust.
Perhaps it was my exceedingly low expectations, but it didn’t turn out to be as bad as I thought it would be, Mulder/Scully romance (ON THE BIG SCREEN OKAY, VERY TRAUMATIZING OKAY) notwithstanding.
Chris Carter & Co lovingly included a whole bunch of homages. From the sunflower seeds to the camera direction and sequence of character introduction, any die-hard fan would be delighted. And I think they’d smile. To everyone else, it would make absolutely no sense at all. Steph, I’m still looking at you ten years after Fight The Future.
Plot? Definitely dragged on after a bit. Or I’d go, uh, WHAT? Some bits made absolutely no sense at all. One could see they had a really great idea, it just didn’t pan out quite so once it hit production. It is interesting to note that while Chris Carter’s writing forte lay in the mythology of the series, the masters of standalone plots were Glen Morgan and James Wong. Guess who were missing?
I don’t really want to mention the Ship, but it’s like the invisible white elephant that won’t go away. Unfortunately, the Ship plays a huge part.
Congratulations, Shippers. The MSR is so strong, it’ll blow The Force away. Surprisingly, after all these years of reading fanfic, I still cringe at MSR. Wow, it’s like part of my 12 year old self never went away. Especially with this line:
“This is why I fell in love with you.”
Excuse me, WAT?! Who hired a scriptwriter from The Bold & The Beautiful?! Oh my god, putting Mulder and Scully in the same bed doesn’t seem so traumatizing now.
Then they break up. No, I am totally not kidding. They totally emo-ed it out and broke up. I could not stop laughing. XD XD XD
Then they get back together and have the biggest snogfest in the history of MSR, my 12 and 26 year old self barfed into the empty popcorn bag.
Hey guys, since you were so obviously going ahead with the Ship, you could have rated the movie NC-17 and given the rest of us some gratification. I ain’t complaining. I’m totally legal now. XD
The repartee between Mulder and Scully wasn’t it’s best, which is one of the stand-out things from the series. It’s lost some of it’s edge, seems a little, I don’t know, slow at times? I suppose with the exploration of their romance, some of the edginess to their dialogue was lost.
Most Cheerworthy Moment? AD SKINNER!!! Joy? We has it now!! IT’S ASSISTANT DIRECTOR SKINNER, OKAY, WHO IS SO MANY KINDS OF AWESOME.
Skinner is brought in half an hour before the damn movie ends!! THAT’S NOT FAIR. You can’t dangle his awesomeness at us for HALF AN HOUR!! SKINNER BEAT UP KRYCEK, OKAY!! HE HELD THE DAMN SHOW TOGETHER WHEN IT WAS DYING, OKAY!! GIVE THE MAN HIS DUES, OKAY!!
Oh yes, it was definitely upsetting how late they left reintroducing Skinner. Maybe it might have saved the movie, because Xzibit’s character totally wasn’t cutting it. It’s like looking at AD Kersh’s son - they had the same thing stuck up where the sun don’t shine.
Having said that, Mulder/Skinner shippers, start your engines. Totally not kidding again - they cuddle. FOR SERIOUS. XD
Verdict - Sorry guys, but this movie is definitely for the fans. Everyone else can skip it, because Mr Carter? Please stop flogging the dead horse.
Make what you will of the scene after the credits - perhaps it’s a farewell. Or a thank you for all the fish. Or both.