qwiddity | Entries tagged with happiness

So I've realised all by myself that I generally blog when I have deep thoughts or when I'm really angry, scared, lonely, frustrated, bored, or depressed about something. I want to change that by attempting to blog about nothing other than the good day I've had.
I went to the medical centre again today and booked myself into a Medicare-sponsored health care plan to see a counsellor (of some persuasion, I can't remember). Apparently that will kick off on Sunday, so I'll try to keep everything sorted until then.
My mother babysat Xavier at her patchwork shop while I was in the consultation so I collected him afterwards and we went shopping for a gazebo. I am now the bemused owner of a dread gazebo. I can barely lift it by myself, but at least my tent will fit underneath it. I've said the CWA can hire it from me for $20, for which I'll help them set it up and take it down (after the experience of setting it up and taking it down, which is worth about that much to someone who doesn't want to deal with the hideous attack bonuses of the dread gazebo).
Following the gazebo-purchase, which afforded me many chances to say the word 'gazebo' which is just fun to say, I went to the hardware store for clear sheet polycarbonate with which to build an ant farm for Xavier who has recently become interested in ants. I wanted to buy MAPP gas as well but there's nothing I need it for and I couldn't justify the $134 for an impulse purchase of something just because it's dangerous and awesome, so I settled for impulse-buying some welding rods and fertiliser.
When I bounce back from severe illness I seem to do so in a big, big way, so when we got home I installed SimAnt on Xavier's PC and while he was playing ate a bunch of stuff. My first real meal in a few days. I opened a steak sealed in one of those cryovac packs and there was quite a lot of blood held in the plastic. For whatever reason it just smelled so amazingly good I decided "Well, if Masai tribespeople can whisk bovine blood and milk together for a kind of warm, curdled milkshake..." so after 10 seconds of thinking I brought some cream to a simmer with some duck fat and poured it all in and whisked briskly. It turned into what would probably be a base for something like blood sausage or black pudding, but I used it for a sauce. Not for everyone, but interesting nonetheless.
After that sort of meal I needed to lie down for awhile. So I had Xavier heat up some heat packs in the microwave and fell asleep for 30 minutes. Then we went to the park to play frisbee and swing on the swings. Xavier refuses to use the "baby's swing", and because I refuse to be an adult, we have to take turns on the only swing big enough for me to use. Then we chased each other around until we got tired, watched the ants in their colony for awhile, then walked back home. That night, we all watched Star Wars episode 2. Xavier loves Star Wars. I'm quite impatient to get to the original movies, because, hey, I'm an original Star Wars fan over episodes 1-3. Those films are amazing, and by comparison when watching the newer ones I just keep thinking of George Lucas's comment on all the CGI after the release of ep1: "We can do anything now!"
Referring of course to the Industrial Light & Magic input for these works, the animation is ageing quite well. Indeed, using digital effects which completely paint the entire frame sets produced by cinema projectors you literally CAN display anything--not that doing so is necessarily a good idea, though. The choppiness of the film is awful, for a 2hr18min film, there are so, so, so many needless cuts. In the effort to prove that they can show literally any part of the story, nothing is left to the imagination, the viewer soon feels underwhelmed, spoon-fed every tasteless morsel of unintelligible alien/droid dialog. Also, I'm sorry, Samuel L. Jackson was NOT a good choice for a Jedi master (especially opposite Digital-Yoda. Hayden Christiansen was not a good choice for lead character. Natalie Portman and Ewan McGregor languish for meaningful dialog and are just under-utilised as the real talent in front of the camera. There's so much which is bad about the first three chapters as films it's hard to go on, mostly because so many people have trodden that ground ahead of me it's been squashed into an actual road leading to a town called "HowNotToMakeAMovie".
Also the musical hook from the Game of Thrones theme is very clearly audible in a certain refrain concerning the Empire at the end of SWep2; I'm wondering if John Williams is responsible for that. :)