HappyThankYouBeerPlease - a sneak peek at Beer House Fourways

You know the old adage, "Don't go to Fourways on purpose"? No? Is that just something I say to myself? Right.

Well, Fourways has never been my favourite place - it's crowded, the drivers are mean, and the fake sky at Monte Casino gives me Truman Show anxiety.

But the other day I was invited - in my capacity as Dasia of Dasia Has A Blog, monger of puns, slayer of webseries, queen of the scandals and the first Ben - to the roof wetting of a new Beer House establishment in  - you guessed it - Fourways.

And so, to the not-so-old adage of "Don't go to Fourways on purpose", I said, "Screw you - FREE BEER!"

One of my favourite things under the sub-category of FREE STUFF.

Beer House, like most cool hipsterish things, is originally a Cape Town brand. How will they fare in heartless, stingy Joburg? Pretty well, I think. They've got a brilliant location - big and airy, it used to be a Keg apparently - in Pineslopes Centre, right next to Stones. With Billy The Bum's in the same centre, Beer House is the prime spot to chill away from the randy teenagers of Stones and the bad decisions of Billy's. Or at least get the night going at a place where you can actually hear your friends talk. (God, I'm old.)

This isn't even the free beer talking (anymore) - I seriously can't wait to go to this place once it opens. They have a huge selection of craft beers (99 bottles on the wall, 20 on tap - it's like a beer fest that's on ALL THE TIME) and though I've got the refined palate of a raccoon, the sheer variety gets me giddy. The people who run it are super friendly and very knowledgeable, sending me straight to a brilliant brew after my nearly-useless hint of "Um, I don't hate Amstel? I drink Corona on pay day?"

No, of course I don't remember which one I had. It was the tap on the left, okay?

Don't hold me to that. Might've been on the right.

So 'roof wetting' is one of those weird terms that nobody really knows the origin of (I googled it and the closest answer I got was "In Bermuda, they used to wet the roof..." wow, internet, you're the best.) But basically it was a first peek at the unfinished venue. They're planning to open mid-July 2014. You can keep up with Beer House on twitter @BEERHOUSE4ways and on Facebook for burly beerly goodness.

My night at Beer House was such fun, I've decided to do more reviews of eateries and drinkeries around Joburg (it's part of my plan to blog more in general.) So keep up with me by liking my Facebook page for new posts.
And comment below or drop me a line with suggestions for places I should review!

*Images used in this post belong to Beer House, but I totally got permission to use them because I'm "press", bitches :)

My Sherlock Season 3 Feelings

Mediocre as fuck.

I can't even with this shit. So I'm gonna express myself through gifs.

[Disclaimer: I watched each episode once before posting, so this isn't going to have spoilers because I can't even remember WTF pissed me off. BUT THESE ARE MY FEELINGS.]

So I guess the writers just looked at the style, the characters, the quality of the show and said 

And I'm just sitting there watching like 

So this is what I have to say to whomever's fault it was that this season was horrific:

yeah, you, assbutt.

Just because you have Benedict Cumberbatch strutting around all like

And Martin Freeman making me feel all

Doesn't mean you can do a half-assed version of a script that has so many plotholes in it, it may as well have been crocheted. That leaves so many questions unanswered, it may have been a - uh - a QUESTION PARADE.

When I could keep my eyes open, the only thing I kept thinking was

And WHERE THE HELL IS PAUL McGUIGAN. The phenomenal director made Sherlock the most eye-fuckable show on TV ever. And he was nowhere to be seen. By the end of the season, the show doesn't even LOOK like Sherlock anymore. UUUUGH.

I just.... man. I feel like everyone phoned it in. 

Sherlock was the ONLY show that could keep me enthralled for 90 goddamn minutes. But by the half hour mark of each episode I was just like

Well, I guess it's better to have a BRILLIANT  show deteriorate into mediocrity than to be cut off in its prime. Right? I guess it's a bit pointless to criticise it now, because they're going to keep making it until it gets so bad that the cast refuse to perform the terrible scripts (hey, that happens.) So this blog post is one big moo point.

But hey, even though I pretty much hated the third season, the first two are still my religion. And Benedict Cumberbatch is still made of sexual rainbows.

So if you're gonna call me a hater, go ahead

And anyone who tells me that Elementary is better? My reaction is, and always will be:

And yeah, of course I'm going to keep watching until this show goes down in flames. If only to blog about the fall.

Because why? Because BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH.

Yup.

Lifehack! How to Break a Habit

As I've said before, I'm a loser who's bad at life (not as bad as some people, but still pretty bad,) and that's why I read books with titles like The No-Moving 100% Ice Cream Law Of Attraction Diet and Chicken Soup for the Twitter Addict's Broken Husk of a Soul. I've probably read upwards of forty of these sorts of books and here is one of the three* that have actually changed my life in a tangible, positive way.

It's called The Power of Habit, and it's AMAZING. Not only is it impeccably researched and well written, but it offers a fascinating combination of the science behind habits, and how to apply those lessons to make everyday life more awesome.

The Power Of Habit by Charles "the shiz" Duhigg.
I just made that nickname up but here's hoping it catches on.

There are so many fun facts in this book it makes me want to cry, and Charles Duhigg's clear and engaging style made me fly through the 300-odd pages. I mean, when I learned that at least 60% of our behaviour is driven by habits rather than conscious decision making? It blew my mind. The conscious 40% of it anyway. The other 60% was eating a cookie at the time.

So here's the coolest part of the book: the habit loop. Every habit comes in this structure and learning it basically lets you break habits and hack your life and win at everything!

How does it work? Basically, every habit consists of three elements:

1. Cue: that thing that triggers the habit, like a certain time of day makes you want to have lunch or a looming sense of anxiety makes you want to check your phone so your hands look busy.
2. Routine: the actual habit you act out, like smoking a cigarette or unlocking your phone and navigating to facebook (I do that so automatically I can be halfway through replying to a message before I realize I'm even on my phone.)
3. Reward: what you're getting out of it, whether it's as vague as momentary distraction or as powerful as the dopamine rush of someone proposing to you on twitter.

As a rule, the cue will trigger a craving for the reward, and the routine is the flexible part which you can alter to make real, lasting changes.

It's really interesting to take a behaviour you want to change and dissect it into these three separate parts. Some habits are easier to analyse than others: if your cue is thirst, your routine is getting a glass of water and your reward is relief from dehydration. Bam!

Of course, nobody wants to break the habit of water drinking so let's go with something more interesting: incessant phone checking.

Dopamine may stain some fabrics.

Our cue here is a nagging little anxiety, which creates the craving for that happy little rush that social media provides. It's that craving that gets the habit loop rolling through the routine of checking your phone, and of course once the habit is established you're not in conscious decision mode anymore. The cue comes along, and just like a zombie, or a lab rat, or a soccer mom who's been sleep deprived for eight years, you automatically act out the routine in order to get your reward. In fact, the cue gets you excited about the reward so you get a pre-rush just starting the habit. It's like a little shortcut that your brain takes to save time. Isn't that amazing / terrifying?

Now that we've identified the habit, we have the power to break it - well, actually 'break' isn't the right word, because this habit's structure will always be in place: anxiety will always trigger a craving for relief and distraction.

It's the routine bit that we can manipulate to get a better result. See how the routine has a little dotted line surrounding it so you can cut it out? That means you can replace it with something else. The important part is that the new routine is triggered by the same cue, and offers the same reward. To mix metaphors, you're putting a different train on the same track in your brain! You're rewiring your powerful unconscious networks! You are the one, Neo!

It's fun to experiment with different routines until you find just the right one to hit that reward in the nuts. For our example, an alternative to checking your phone might be:

• Having a glass of wine
• Taking three deep breaths
• Popping a happy pill
• Pulling out a Moleskine notebook and writing a haiku about your feelings

As you can see, some of these solutions are better than others. But I included stuff like having a glass of wine to illustrate that the routine can have negative consequences but still serve to satisfy the craving. That explains why people who quit an addiction often replace it with another - because the craving has to be satisfied and the habit loop's already in place. But if you become conscious of it, you can replace the routine with something healthier and better for your liver.

And of course after you've changed the routines in your existing habits, you can create wholly new habits that have a much bigger chance of sticking around because you know how habits are structured. Your brain wires this stuff the same way every time: get yourself a clear cue, plan a sustainable routine and give yourself a powerful reward and see how much easier it is to make changes than when you're just white-knuckling it and hoping for the best.

Obviously this post is only scratching the surface of this cool concept but I hope it helps a bit and piques some interest in this whole process. If you dig it, I highly recommend The Power of Habit if you want to level up the train tracks of EXISTENCE.** Or if, like me, you just want to stop pulling your hair out or checking your phone so much.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to have a glass of wine while breathing deeply and writing a haiku about my feelings.


*If you're wondering what the other two are: Follow Your Own North Star by Martha Beck, and A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle. Both brilliant.
** Yes, I've mixed so many metaphors I seem to have ended up with a metaphor salad. All it's missing is the avo of truth.

Review: A Sudden Bout Of The Plague

Last night I had a tickle in my throat. This morning I felt for a dagger sticking out of my neck. That's right, kids - I have the plague again. And because I don't have the heart to leave you guys without a review two weeks in a row, please enjoy this out-of-ten approximation of my misery.

Suddenness: 8 / 10. Truly impressive, would recommend. If you're looking to get out of a fun weekend or a shotgun wedding quickly, just let me know and I'll email you some of my germs!

Plaguiness:  7 / 10. Quite plaguey, especially seeing as it's just getting started.

Boutiness: 10 / 10. It's a fun word, isn't it, boutiness? I wish it were real.

Reviewability: 6 / 10. Not as reviewable as a book but far more reviewable than a passing phase of existential doubt.

Forethought and Planning in Event of the Plague: 0 / 10. I had planned to casually read a hundred pages of the book I'm busy with, to get a review done today. But I decided to pass out for the majority of the day. If it's any consolation, I had fever-dreams about some water park I was trying to review for you guys. I even had a screen full of text in my dream.

Odds of Survival: 6.6 / 10. I've had bronchitis twice before. So this is either going to be a piece of cake, or the third bout that kills me.

Temperature: 3 / 10. An unimpressive 37.3 C. I'm sure it was higher before the Degoran, but I don't care about my blog enough not to take medicine. Medicine is my favourite.

Achiness: forever / 10. My back, hips and every single joint is radiating unhappiness. This must be what Woody Allen feels like all the time.

Sexy Croaky Voice: 8 / 10. Could totally belt out a verse of Sticky Shoes by Phoebe Buffay.



Overall Rating: I'm Too Tired To Do Maths / 10. I'm all reviewed out. Hope you guys have a good weekend full of rainbows, ponies and strong immune systems!

Review: SHERLOCK SEASON TWO OMG!

Can we talk about Sherlock now OMG.

Here be spoilers, carry on if you dare! Or if you already know!

Or if you don't care.

By the way, this isn't so much a "review" as a very long, disconnected, slashful, ALLCAPS SQUEEFEST. Cool? Cool.

So I couldn't imagine anything that could upstage the first season, which was the best television I've seen in years (possibly ever). But OMG, the second season completely exceeded my expectations, which is shocking because I’m one picky weequasher. I tried to tell myself it would suck, because that way it's easier to not get disappointed if it DID suck. But in many ways the second season is even better than the first, and I just can't stop thinking about it.

CAN WE TALK ABOUT SCANDAL NOW OMG

I’ll admit they way they ended the cliffhanger pool scene annoyed me. I was expecting explosions and wet t-shirt contests and I didn’t get any of that. Despite that, I think Scandal In Belgravia was my favourite episode of the series. The 90 minutes flew by and it gave me so many warm and fuzzy feelings.

In fact, I might even use the trite term EX-FUCKING-HILARATING to describe this episode. It was so awesome.

Irene Adler was hot, though I don't find visible ribs sexy I think she had swag and hey, everybody likes lesbians. I also deeply respect her for pulling The Naked Man on Sherlock (pity it only works two out of three times!) 

Sherlock finally got those x-ray contact-lenses to work.

It does irk me that Adler was Sherlock’s intellectual equal except she was worse than him because she was a woman ("Sentiment is a chemical defect found in the losing side" – smooth.) That was lame.

BUT WAIT, she's gay but straight-for-Sherlock, and my big heart-wrenching THING that I had to rip out of the subtext was that Sherlock was straight for her too.

Snarky Review: No Excuses! by Brian Tracy

Oh hey, guess what? I have a facebook page now! So follow the link and click like if you want to want to keep up with me over there, or if you want to contribute to the part of my self-worth that I gain from the internet (which is a pretty big part.)

Now, let's talk about THE POWER OF SELF-DISCIPLINE, BITCHES!

This double-negative stresses me out. NO No Excuses! This is an excuse-only zone!

Of course, I got this book because I'm a loser. I doubt many winners bought this just to feel good about themselves, right? In my constant half-assed quest to get my shit together, I figured I could get a few tips on how to stop sucking and be awesome instead. 

Here's what Brian Tracy taught me about winning:

1. You should stop doing those things that make you a loser, and start doing things that winners do (Though I'm paraphrasing, he literally doesn't get more specific than this.)
2. Your suckiness is at the very core of your identity and personality – so “to achieve greatly, you must become a different person.” Yup.
3. WINNERS DON'T HAVE FRIENDS. Socializing is an overrated waste of time. Are your “friends” going to give you a yacht? No? THEN WHY ARE YOU HANGING OUT WITH THEM?
4. WINNERS DON'T HAVE FUN. They're too busy winning. And if winning is fun, you're not doing it right.
5. WINNERS DON'T EAT ICE CREAM. Ice cream is equal to “personal weakness, underachievement, and failure.” That's on page 13 if you want to look it up. I'm not even kidding.
6. Winners accept responsibility for everything. EVERYTHING. Even Hurricane Katrina (p.57).

Sure, all the loser / winner talk is alienating because Brian Tracy doesn't understand that the audience of his book are obviously looking to better themselves, and so fall into the 'loser' category most of the time he mentions this great divide. But goshdarnit, Brian Tracy's a winner.

A winner who will fuck you up without getting blood on his lovely sweater.

The worst part of this book wasn't even getting called a loser every few pages, it was the constant barrage of invented terms, arbitrary definitions, and RULES. All the rules. Brian Tracy loves rules*. Rules He Can Capitalize Because That Makes It More Official. And the rule about rules is “we can put them in quotation marks because it sounds like we're quoting the Grand Handbook Of The Universe, even when no external source is noted.”

The amount of rules and invented terms is really astonishing. Because I love my readers (and hate myself, apparently) I made a list of my favourites:

Someday Aisle – the place where losers live without goals (but presumably with ice-cream?)

Excusitis – the disease losers have.

Path Of Least Resistance – the path that losers take.

The Expediency Factor –  this is defined at least three times in really ambiguous terms. But I get the gist that it's something about losers not thinking of the long-term consequences of sucking so much.

The Law Of Unintended Consequences – Uh... sometimes when you do stuff, other stuff happens... that you didn't intend? Apparently this only happens to losers.

The Law Of Perverse Consequences – Not as fun as it sounds. Zip up, losers.

The Iron Law OF THE UNIVERSE MOTHERFUCKERS – It's fantastic that Brian Tracy just casually mentions this as if he irrefutably knows how the entire universe works. Also called the Law Of Cause And Effect and the Law Of Sowing And Reaping.

The Law Of Correspondence – if you suck on the inside, your life will suck on the outside. So, look around you... that's how much you suck, apparently.

Choosing Organisms – what everyone is. Because people make choices. And are also organisms. Don't capital letters look like they're having more fun? Let's put them on every word!

The Law Of Concentration – Apparently, this law ensures that whatever you concentrate on becomes a greater presence in your life. So Benedict Cumberbatch should spontaneously materialize beside me any moment now.

Response-Ability – the ability to take responsibility (?!) I'm so glad we have a term for that now.

The Failure Mechanism – an incredibly vague part of your brain that clicks your default life setting to “lame.”

The Success Mechanism – an equally vague part of your brain that is triggered by having goals, and turns your brain into the rudder / compass / ship / mermaid of your life.

Major Definite Purpose – the goal that's most important to you. So important it gets its own military ranking *salutes* Major Definite-Purpose!

Mindstorming – exactly like brainstorming, only without the copyright violation.

Just Over Broke – the hilarious acronym that the word job apparently stands for – when it comes to losers who are just getting by that is.

Personal Services Corporation – an odd extended metaphor that has something to do with growing your own stock and also investing in yourself and also making yourself a company that you work for. Ignorance is strength. We were always at war with Eurasia.

I get the feeling the first draft of this book was 50 pages long, because the amount of padding is incredible. And it's not just tangential anecdotes, it's mind-blowingly condescending explanations of really obvious things. 

Here's a list of things that apparently take at least a paragraph each to explain to the humble reader.

• Why dinner comes before dessert.
• When to pay in restaurants, and when to pay in cafeterias.
• Parenting is an important responsibility (as opposed to the popular misconception 'parenting is a ham sandwich'.)
• The (American) Constitution and the Bill Of Rights are legal documents.
• Doing good things makes you feel good.
• Doing bad things makes you feel bad.
• Children are dependent on their parents.
• Frivolous lawsuits are frivilous.
• Writing things down is a good idea.
• Watching TV is unproductive.
• Homing pigeons are neat.

Like any condescending self-help book, this one has exercises. Deeply unhelpful stuff, too – every single one is a variation of Make a 'To-Do List. Do it. Loser.'

It's achingly clear that Tracy really believes that life is a competition with winners and losers, but when he puts it like this it's really a bit scary: “In biology, life forms are categorized from the least to the most complex, from single-celled plankton all the way up the increasingly complex spectrum of life to the human being. Similarly, human beings can be organized along a spectrum as well, from the least to the most developed.” (p.42)  GOSH THAT SOUNDS AN AWFUL LOT LIKE A PREMISE FOR EUGENICS.

No Excuses falls into every trap of bad self-help books (and even invents a few ones) – it's condescending, vague, unsympathetic, badly written, and, well, unhelpful. It also does that thing where arbitrary words are bolded AND italicized to bring the point home – I'm sorry, but unless the message is THIS PAGE IS POISONOUS DO NOT LICK, there's really no need for this ugly double-formatting.

This book is not about how to get your shit together, it's 293 pages of why people who have their shit together are happier than those who don't. SPOILER ALERT: because having your shit together makes you happy. 

So I'm gonna give it a big fat 1/5, or 2/10. Avoid!

*As Monica Gellar would say, “Rules CONTROL the fun.” Frankly, I doubt Brian Tracy would approve of the fun at all.

Friday Review: Becoming A Writer by Dorothea Brande

This book is dope.

A short but content-rich read, Becoming A Writer is a fluff-free gem of sensible advice about how to stop being a tortured artist and start being a happy and productive writer.

Written in 1934, it's a classic of the writing-on-writing genre. It's easy to see why. Even though it's been around for over 70 years, the message was fresh and relevant to me.

I repeat: dope.

There are some cool exercises, all practical things that should turn into habits rather than fill-in-the-blank homework. Some I haven't tried yet, as they tend to build on each other, but the one I love so far is getting up a little earlier than usual each day, and writing FIRST THING.

You shouldn't read (or preferably even speak) a word until your allotted writing time is up. I've done this for a few days and let me tell you: it's a pain in the ass, and it's totally worth it. Writing before consuming any information (and therefore influence) really lets you find your own rhythm and voice. Highly recommended.

Though the tone is generally kind, one moment Brande actually says that if you consistently fail at one of her exercises, you're probably not cut out to be a writer. (To be fair, the exercise was focused on discipline rather than skill.) I really respected her for saying that. Though she condemns instructors who aim to discourage writers, she doesn't offer blind encouragement either.

Did I mention this was written seventy years ago? That tripped me up a bit. Here are some fun archaic moments:

• The word 'behooves' always makes me chortle. Behooooooves.
• "The typewriter has made the writer's way more rocky than it was in the old days of quill and pen." Ah, the old days! When you had to climb into the eagle's nest to get a fresh quill. Good times.
• Brande suggests that you not allow your fancy white friends judge to you for listening to "Negro spirituals" while you write.
• NEGRO SPIRITUALS. At no point between 1934-2011 did anyone think to backspace that and replace it with something not so ridiculously offensive? 'Gospel' would've worked.
• "Talking pictures should be very rarely indulged in." Oh, them talkies are the devil's work!
• She uses the idea of 'duplicity' (every writer has two sides, the one that makes shopping lists and the one that writes poems about the moonlight) and spends at least five pages convincing the reader this duplicity is "not psychopathic". I guess back in the olden days of quill and pen, people spontaneously went on killing sprees after doing a particularly creative scrapbooking project.

Despite these jarringly oldschool moments, some of the advice is nothing less than New Age by today's standards. Brande encourages clear-eyed awareness exercises that would make Eckhart Tolle proud*, and the main technique she prescribes for unleashing your 'genius' is simply a focused meditation.

But you know what's really great about this book? It gets to the root of why most writing advice misses the point completely. Anyone who's suffered from writer's block, stared at a blank screen (or blank vellum sheet, their quill unyielding) or wondered why inspiration hit only once in a blue moon has usually sought advice. But studying plot structure and approaches to dialogue aren't the solution, because the problem isn't the writing, it's the writer themselves. Brande understands the personality pitfalls of being a writer and offers imminently practical solutions.

This is one of those rare books that makes you want to go write! I'd give it a 4.7/5 or 9.4/10 - if you're a writer, this belongs on your bookshelf right next to Stephen King's On Writing.

D. O. P. E.

*Does Eckhart Tolle feel proud about anything? I get the feeling he's perpetually just-okay with the universe, man.

Friday Review: The Selected Works Of T.S. Spivet by Reif Larsen

Basically what happens is that a twelve-year-old genius, T.S. Spivet, is obsessed with mapping the achingly ordinary world around him, until it stops being quite so ordinary – he wins a major scientific prize and has to decide whether to stay on the dry Montana ranch he calls home, or somehow travel two thousand miles across the country to claim his place among the scientists he so reveres. 

Guys, it was so good. If you missed my hints on the blog and twitter, here's how freakin' good it was:

TWO THUMBS UP KINDA GOOD! [Doing two thumbs up while holding heavy book: unsuccessful.]

You know what I loved? The experimentation with sidenotes and illustrations. I literally got this book because I saw it and went “Ooh! Pictures!” and I definitely wasn't disappointed. The little maps, sketches and graphs all add to the story and appeal to my incredibly short attention span. 

Almost every page has a little sketch leading from the text with a delightful dotty arrow.

Reading a sidenote, even at the very end, feels like you're unlocking a secret layer in the narrative. It creates an intimacy with the reader that isn't easy to come by in contemporary lit.

You know what could've been better? The language didn't strive to be childish at all, but there were glaring times when the voice was all “hello, I am an adult self-consciously writing from a child's point of view.” Luckily those moments were few and far between.

Another thing that irked me is the micro-story in the middle, which had its thematic appeal, but dragged on a bit too long. It was compelling at first, but I got through the whole thing only by devouring the side notes. There's also an annoying deus ex machina that pops up towards the end to iron over some dodgy plot points. But hey, this stuff is forgivable.

This isn't an action-packed story, but it's certainly a compelling one. Though T.S. is a little genius, he's far from cold, and there is a pervasive curiosity and clarity of vision that sticks with you after you've put the book down. What's most fascinating is the way he charts and maps his family – from the traumatic accident that killed his brother (this broke my heart a little bit, because it was never fully fleshed out, but constantly hinted at in the narrative) to the series of muscle contractions that make up his father's expressions. Larsen's also a kickass illustrator when he's not doing the whole measuring-and-charting thing, too.

One of my favourite pages, a swarm of sparrows.

Much of the book is set on a very long train ride, and it was described so well that I felt a little fatigued and motion sick whenever it was mentioned. I don't generally recommend books that make me sick, but there you go.

Too charming for words.

I loved it, not only for the rich, endearing story, but because it's so visually interesting I couldn't wait to turn each page. I could argue that the tangential structure hints at the way a genius' brain works, but to be honest it felt very natural and not at all contrived to prove some abstract literary point. It's a brief and intoxicating return to picture books mixed with the secret thrill of reading someone's journal and turning the page sideways to check what vital insight is squished along the margin. 

I wonder if Larsen designs tattoos? *pines*

I recently got a Kindle (yay!) but The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet is exactly why I'll never stop buying print books. I may be downloading classics I'm not sure about, and new stuff that'd take ages to ship to S.A., but something as beautifully crafted as this book could never really live on a screen. It's meant to be held, the weight of it showing how much talent and hard work went into it.

Also, I cried at the end. SO YOU KNOW IT'S GOOD.

I give it a 4/5, or 8.2/10, or :) / 9000. Do pick it up if you get the chance!

Friday Review: My Lame Day At Work

Friday's review day! This particular Friday is also the day before Christmas Eve (or the day before the day before Christmas Day, if you prefer), which means I'm working at my job which I totally love. Which also means I didn't get to finish the book I planned to review today (the enchanting The Selected Works Of T.S. Spivet,) nor the series which was my backup review option (the oddly engrossing anime Chihayafuru.)

But since it's review day and I'm nothing if not an obsessive blogger,* here's a review of My Lame Day At Work.

My level of enthusiasm.

Crowds: 3/10, because nobody knew we were open today.

Soul crushing: 8/10. Three people asked me who Humphrey Bogart was. One person told me my accent was weird, apparently believing this was new and valuable information to me. My second cup of coffee went cold. Trading was extended by two hours for absolutely no reason. My mp3 player's battery died. I wondered if you could really mail-order bazookas from ACME like Wile E. Coyote does.**

Sinus torture: 6/10. Dust + incense = suicidal sinuses (which would be an awesome name for a band. Give it up for the Suicidal Sinuses!)

Food: 7/10. Standards are pretty low here. I bought spring rolls and kept them down. Exciting times.

Music: -9000/10. A delicious medley of Afrikaans folk, the most arbitrary of Christmas songs (Christmas At Sea? Throw that track on repeat!) and covers of dance covers of 80's songs (you know what's better than some douchebag remixing I've Had The Time Of My Life? A random nobody making a cover of that remix with nothing but a casio keyboard, a handful of singing lessons and a heart full of dreams.)

Overall rating: :( /10.

At least tomorrow's my last working day of the year, and then I get to chill until 2012! And that's aaages away - hell, it's the end of time! Woo infinite holiday!

*For a contradictory view, see the catching up and I'm not dead tags.
**Fun fact: I always thought his name was Wiley Coyote. But turns out his middle initial's E. Go figure!

Friday Review: No Country For Old Men by Cormac McCarthy

No spoilers here, safe to read!

Basically what happens is a regular guy stumbles across some deep shit in a drug deal gone wrong – he's got to find a way out of it with both the Sheriff of his town and a really, REALLY evil hitman on his tail.

If you don't feel like schlepping through this whole review, have a visual representation of my reaction to No Country For Old Men:

I liked this book!

...But it made me sad.

You know what the best bit was? The opening was gripping – I mean, a guy's hunting and suddenly comes across a field strewn with dead bodies, abandoned cars, a stash of heroine and a case full of MONEY. Shit son, I'm interested. I'm wondering what I would do in that situation and I'm eager to read on.

I also loved the interludes of the old Sheriff's inner monologues. These were refreshingly personal and engaging, compared to McCarthy's usual dry, direct style. Which I love almost a little too much on its own. 

The entire narrative was an honest, sad portrayal of moral degradation without being didactic. I still can't quite figure out how McCarthy did that. I think he's magic.

You know what pissed me off? This was one of those books where a simple statement of what fucking year it was would've really helped. I was so confused – this guy is a war veteran from Vietnam, okay, but he seems sorta old, so maybe it's the eighties, but maybe it's the seventies because his wife is nineteen, wait, no, is that a DeLorean I see over the horizon?

And another thing... When I was expecting a massive showdown at the crux of the novel, when the guy we're rooting for and the seemingly indestructible hitman stalking him finally go head-to-head, it just didn't happen. Instead I got a straight-faced account of the aftermath from the Sheriff's point of view. I felt like I got left at the altar, man. Lame.

In a way I can understand why McCarthy made that choice, but you can have all the highbrow literary aims you like, you still left your reader unsatisfied and that's the bottom line. Nevertheless,  that one anticlimax didn't ruin the book for me, because by then I was invested in the other characters. Overall the book ended on a poetic high note.

Quotable quote: When you've said that it's real and not just in your head I'm not all that sure what it is that you've said. (p. 299) I mean, how awesome is that? Layers, dude. Layers.

Should you read it? Sure! It's one of those books where even if you didn't like it, you still know it's good. While it didn't rock my world I'm definitely glad I read it, and I'm eager to reread it soon to play spot-the-foreshadowing.

Should I rate it? That's what reviewers do, right? Well I'd give it 4/5 or 7.8/10 , whichever you like. 

What'd you think of my new review format? I'll be putting up new reviews every Friday. Don't worry, there will still be deviations and snark, but luckily not everything's as bad as Divine: The Series! 

If you have suggestions for stuff I should review, let me know in the comments!

Divine: The Series - A Snarky Review

This post contains spoilers for Divine: The Series*. You could read it cold but I'd love you to give the series a gander to see how scathingly accurate my review is. There are six twelve-minute episodes, linked below:
 

The One with the Magic Loaf of Bread

The One with the Evil Baby

The One where the Literal Fish is a Symbol for a Metaphorical Fish

The One with So Many Feelings

The One where Lady Gaga Makes Out with a Mascot

The One that’s Even More Confusing than the Last Five

Because I'm fair and wonderful and I don't want to burn in hell, I'm going to employ the sandwich-method approach to this review: positive-negative-positive.

With this bread I shall make the holy sandwich of criticism

Here are some good things about the series:

1. The lead actor, Guy Whose Name I've Yet To Google**, is naked for the duration of the first episode.

I'm okay with that.

2. Misha

3. Collins. 

4. Misha Collins plays a priest. Maybe because I wasn't raised religious, but there's something about that collar that just makes me want to... confess stuff. Granted, he doesn’t do much acting, because his character is in perpetual awe of everything, so he basically spends his days reacting…

This does not mean acting again.

Okay, are we happy so far? I'm not being horribly unfair and mean? Right, here's the negative stuff. Don't worry, there are only 8 points to get through.

1. There's a stone-faced self-flagellating superhero named Divine. Not an imposing name for a superhero. Well, not a traditional superhero, which he seems like. Could've worked for a cross-dressing superhero. In that case, it'd be great if his name was Divine! with an exclamation mark.

That would've made the series a lot more fun.

2. Blood. Lots of blood. Gooey blood. Blood makes us edgy! I’m not opposed to blood, but making someone bleed doesn’t automatically make me care about them. It just automatically makes me wonder what they use as a thickener for all that red dye.

3. Divine! has a 'sidekick' who's a hot Asian girl in a Catholic schoolgirl outfit, goth make-up, and coloured streaks in her hair, which is in fucking pigtails. I'm not entirely sure what her purpose is, because she can't climb a ladder, and can't fight anything the size of (or presumably bigger than) a baby.

It's okay, it was an evil baby.

3. In episode five, Divine saves a hooker (or doesn't save a hooker? It's so ambiguous! Loose ends make us deep!***) who's co-incidentally dressed up as Lady Gaga for Halloween. Well, that last bit's not exactly in the show, but it's the only way I can explain her outfit.

Just dance! Or pose.

The hooker is squirming in unnecessary ecstasy under a john, when she suddenly decides she's done hooking and wants to go back to school to fulfil her dream of being a nail technician. Probably. The fact that she rejects this evil dude before he attacks her is so problematic we don't even have time for it today. Let's just say that it's not enough that he's a demon beast thing and is therefore evil – no no, it's her asserting her right to choose what happens to her body that really pushes him over the edge.
  
4. In keeping with the Halloween theme, the perfectly normal guy MAGICALLY transforms into a guy wearing a crappy bull head. I assume he just put on the head because the full bull mascot costume gets him all sweaty when he beats up hookers. We just don't know.

Go Bulls!

Divine! saves the day and Asian girl crouches next to the victim, watching Divine get stabbed. She does absolutely nothing to assist, unless you count her continuing to be hot and Asian as doing something. 

5. These are just the action episodes. The poorly-thought-through talks-about-God episodes are even worse. My favourite part was when a curly-haired priest (not Misha Collins – boo) gives the old 'teach a man to fish' saying WHILE HOLDING A FISH. To REALLY bring that point home.

I had more sympathy for these fish than for any other character.

6. I almost liked a character once. There's a taxi driver who speaks probably more than all the other characters combined, and says some borderline amusing things. He generally doesn't have that ripe-for-parody serious!face everyone else does. Then he starts bleeding and mumbling in Latin and we never see him again.

./

Wait... what?

7. I get the sense that everybody thought the whole superhero + Christian mythology crossover was a great idea – but nobody felt the need to explore it or do something new and interesting with it.  There's a single moment where maybe a sticky issue is almost tackled. But then it's not. See, Curly Priest (the one who's not Misha Collins), while holding a fish, talks about how he feels guilty that a friend committed suicide because he (the friend) was gay. And Curly Priest couldn't help or support him, so now Curly Priest has angst. Unsurprisingly, this is all left open ended and Curly Priest doesn't actually say it's stupid to hate people because they're gay. He just cuts up fish and pouts. But whatever.

8. The whole series gives itself an air of gravity and importance that it doesn't earn through story development. Also, I hold a deep dislike for websites with light text on a black background. But now I'm just being difficult. Let's get the crusty top onto our review sandwich.

More good things! Continuing from the list above...

5. Um, it was free?  

6. Oh, I did like the Sin City-esque aesthetic they went for. Kinda feels like they ran out of money towards the Halloween episode. But the first few episodes look nice.  

7. The series was a public-funded project and apparently the supporters were really made to feel special and a part of the process. That's nice. 

8. Oh, did I mention Misha Collins as a priest? *scrolls up* damn it. But at least now I have as many good points as bad ones. Sandwich complete!


So that’s my – wow, very long – review of Divine. Overall, I’d recommend the series only if you have a snarky friend (or a companion blog post!) to watch it with.

For added fun, put some pictures of the cast into the Marie Claire Virtual Salon and see what they'd look like with Tyra Banks' hair, like I did with Dan Payne above. Sorry Dan, apparently we can't trust the Marie Claire robots to apply eyeshadow. But I still think you look divine.


*Not to be confused with Divine: the perfume, Divine: the gospel trio or Divine! The heartwarming TV movie about a gang of crazy kids that take their drag show from the convent to Vegas.
**Real name: Gregor Googlevitch. Ha, kidding... It’s Dan Payne. Which, coincidentally, is quite a heroic name.
***Or lazy. Or nearsighted in terms of story development. But probably deep.

Grumpy Review: The Successful Novelist by David Morrell

This book came highly recommended by the trusted strangers who review books on Amazon. But one CD* into the book I was like “Okay, yeah, that’s fine – but I don’t care that you wrote Rambo!” 

An inspiring literary figure.

Let me clarify. This guy, David Morrell, wrote the book First Blood which was later turned into the Rambo movie franchise. That qualifies him as a successful novelist, sure. But besides all the trite advice (Write things you like to write / Don’t be in this for the money / perseverance is key, you lazy bastard and such); the only image that stuck with me was from an anecdote meant to illustrate how HARD poor David Morrell had to work to get himself through college. He worked the night shift in some sort of death-and-torture factory that made car fenders and killed dreams.

He worked at this incredibly dangerous machine which was some sort of fender-presser – he’d have to put a metal sheet into the machine, then his hands (which were tied to a safety chain) would be yanked up away from the machine as the metal was pressed into shape. Imagine your job entailed being forced to do mini-Mexican Wave every 2 minutes. I’m guessing the novelty wears off pretty quick.

So David Morrell, being the sensitive literature-obsessed soul behind Rambo, was obviously friends with the equally sensitive and literature-loving factory manager, so they’d hang out and talk about Milton and Keats and shit like that. Eventually, (I assume to further his plan to make sweet love to David Morrell,) the factory manager called him up from the factory floor and announced that he’d be moved to a less dangerous job. I assume the factory manager brushed a stray hair from David Morrell’s face as he said this, but the account doesn’t specify.

Another worker (let’s call him Handless Hank – you’ll see why in a minute) was moved to Morrell’s job, and I assume Morrell himself took a less demanding position which involved him feeding grapes to the factory manager. A few hours later, the safety chain on the Mexican Wave of Death Machine failed, and Hank, Morrell’s replacement, lost both his hands.

David Morrell doesn’t even comment on this grim event, preferring it stand alone as a testament that God loves him and his beautiful prose-typing fingers more than Handless Hank. We swiftly move on to David Morrell writing his first novel in college and talking about his father issues, which – shockingly – appear in his work as male authority figures being blah blah blah WHAT ABOUT HANDLESS HANK?

I can’t stop thinking about it – here’s this probably young, inexperienced guy (if he had to be promoted to the Death Machine, what the hell was he doing before? Janitorial duty on the Vomit Projection Testing Grounds?) who’s at this new job for a couple of hours, making minimum wage, forced to do the Mexican Wave every two minutes, just hoping to get through the day so he can go home and watch some porn on VHS, when BAM. No hands. Shock. Blood. Crunchy bones and dirty fingernails pressed into the newest fender. Has to live the rest of his life on disability pension and can’t even jerk off anymore.

And the only testament to this horrific accident is a mention in David Morrell’s unhelpful book as a ‘hey, lucky me, right?’ anecdote.

I don’t know if Handless Hank is still around, or if he’s happy, or has found a lovely independently wealthy girl who’s very good at pleasuring him sexually. Maybe he’s okay, but come on – odds are he’s not, and hasn’t been since that day.

And maybe the most unfair part of the whole situation is that the horror and the injustice of this single moment in his life makes for a more compelling story than fucking Rambo.

*Loot sent me an audiobook version of this book, when I’d ordered a softcover. But because I’m a passive consumer and I figured, hey, I don’t mind audiobooks, I left it… Oh My GAWD the reader’s voice turned out to be so annoying. If this were twitter, I’d insert the hashtag #MurphysLaw, but it’s not, so I won’t.

#selfrestraint