The weeks in culture: June 2-15

Watched:
Crocodile Dundee II (Josh and I are considering a trip to Australia)
Apollo 13 (Josh and I were watching some space documentaries)
You Don't Mess With the Zohan (Josh and I have questionable taste)
Nancy Drew (I have the taste of a teenage girl)
Iron Man ... for the second time
Michael Clayton
Syriana (Clooney kick!)
P.S. I Love You
Over Her Dead Body
Something New
Pride and Prejudice (movie version with Keira Knightley)
We're also looking for another TV show to start watching during the summer lull. Any suggestions?

Read:
The Post-Birthday World by Lionel Shriver
Took my time and savored this one, a smart, perceptive pleasure. While the idea of a life split into two versions based on one event isn't new (see, e.g., Sliding Doors, the smart parallels in this work make it really interesting and full of new surprises.
Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict by Laurie Rigler
One of those books that, though it does have a good premise, doesn't quite live up to it with either the plot or the quality of the writing. The kind of book that makes me want to write because I think maybe I could do it better. (Maybe.)


The week in jewelry:
Grandma, remember the moolah you sent for my birthday? Well, I finally spent it, and this is what I bought:


The gems are apatite and green onyx, and you probably know more about them than I do. I just know I thought it was pretty. :) Thank you for my lovely gift!

Pop culture site of the week:
The Unique Vintage clothing store that Abbey pointed out to me. I love all the retro duds -- pencil skirts, swimming caps, dramatic silhouettes. I think I was born during the wrong time.

The weekends in soccer:
The first weekend was tournamentastic -- five one-hour games in two days, in hot, windy Morgan Hill. Games at 8 in the morning both days. Hours of sitting and waiting between games. We didn't do that well, but I scored a goal and we won a game, so it wasn't a total flop. And I did get to play hours of travel Scrabble. The next weekend the fam came to watch the game, and that was an unusual delight. So seldom do I have a cheering section!

Activity of the week:
Fathers' Day kite flying!

Did the kites behave? Not exactly. Was it fun anyway? Yes! And the Mexican food afterward was deeeelicious.

The weeks in culture: May 12 - June 1

This is late, but I'm splitting it up into two posts anyway. Deal with it.

Watched:
Cloverfield
Hoop Dreams
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
Sex and the City (plenty of eps, and the movie, too)
Charlie Wilson's War
The Golden Compass
Laurel Canyon
Grindhouse: Planet Terror
Grindhouse: Death Proof
Sorry, Dave, those last two weren't my cup of tea...but I did absolutely love Hoop Dreams. I can't believe it wasn't even nominated for an Oscar. BOOOOO. For best movie of those few weeks, it's a toss-up between that and SatC, which totally ruled, even if it didn't end on quite as great a note as did the series. Darn I love those ladies, though.

Read:
Starting Your Career as a Freelance Writer by Moira Allen
Stiff by Mary Roach
Then We Came To The End by Joshua Ferris
I used to hear all this talk about how great Stiff was. I liked it, but I didn't think it was the absolute bee's knees. It was published a few years ago, and I feel like it was at the beginning of a trend of more accessible, entertaining nonfiction for the masses, so it got a lot of great press. (Actually, it might've just been the beginning of when I started to hear about good nonfiction, since before that I'd always been a fiction fan.) Anyway, while it was a solid read, compared to a kick-ass fiction book like The Devil in the White City, it wasn't anything to write home about.

Heard:
Hideaway by The Weepies

Visited:
Ensenada. What, you didn't spend Memorial Day on a Carnival Cruise to Mexico? 'Cause I totally did. During which time I learned that apparently aviators are a total dude magnet. Or maybe reading is. Either way, I got hit on a lot more than I wanted to. Gracias, pero no gracias, gentlemen.


But I did eat some incredibly delicious shrimp tacos, drink an incredibly delicious mango margarita, and talk to a senior citizen named Bob about how incredibly great a show My So-Called Life was. So...win?

Site of the week:
Scrabulous. I forgot how fun Scrabble is! I've been playing online with a friend from work, and it's a great little break when my brain needs a few minutes to de-stress. My one gripe is that the double/triple word/letter scores aren't clearly defined. But since it calculates the score for you automatically (when I play I'm usually too lazy to take score), I guess I shouldn't be too hard on the poor game. Challenge me to an email game sometime* - you don't even have to join the site.

* If you're not my dad. Or, if you're my dad, and won't be too ashamed that I score about 1/3 of your score, you crazy word-knowing freak.

The weeks in soccer:
Took a bit of a break, and now it's the start of a new season. It looks like we'll have a pretty good team, and I'm looking forward to playing with a few of my teammates instead of against them like the previous two seasons.

Since I don't have too much to say about this season yet, and yet I feel like oversharing, remember those leg bruises I mentioned a few weeks back? I took pictures at the time and wanted to show them off a bit. Check it:


I am sooooo hot. No wonder those drunk 21-year-olds wanted to be all up on me.