Tuesday 5 August 2014

Catching up

So as promised, I'll do some catching up on everything else I've done and not yet mentioned, which basicaly comes down to last month's reading, watching and gaming. If you're only here for the crafts, feel free to skip this entry :)

So...let's start with the reading. I only finished one physical book since the last time I posted about, and that was The Lifelist by Lori Nelson Spielman, another book my friend Steffi had lent me. I really enjoyed reading it - it's about a woman who's mother dies and leaves her a list of lifegoals she has as a teenager and now needs to accomplish in order to eventually get her heritage. The ending was a little sudden in my opinion, but it has that great message about how there are many things in life much more important than wealth or status, and I liked that.

I also finished two audio books - the first one beeing Tintenherz/Inkheart by German author Cornelia Funke. I had already read this once back when I was still in school, but despite the setting reeeally being my kind of thing (it's all revolving about a book and some of its characters who somehow managed to espcape their papery prison), I never really got into it, and as a result never read the two others in the series. Now I saw it as an audio verson at out library, and thought 'It's basically a story about reading to someone, maybe it's better if someone reads it to you', and I was right - the audio book version was really well read and I greatly enjoyed the story. So much that I now borrowed the second volume, Tintenblut/Inkblood, but haven't started it yet.

The other audio book I picked from my libraries online service to listen to on the journey to and/or from Prague - Muh! by the german author David Safier. It tells the story of Lolle, a black&white cow from northern Germany, who lives rather contend on her farm - or could, if she had not just discovered that her bull Champion cheated on her with Susi, the pretty cow with the firm udder. But those problems are almost forgotten when she meets the tomcat Jacomo who tells her what really happens to the cows that vanish from the farm. Not wanting to end as a BigMac, Lolle and her friends embarc on a journey to the country were all cows can live in peace - India! They are determined to get there, even if it means walking for three days.
I really enjoyed this one, it was hilarious, both the writing and the reading ^_^

So that was it for books, now let's get on to what I/we have watched...which is a *little* more, I'm afraid. I'll just make a list and try to keep it short:

  • Dr Who Season 2, E4 - I still enjoy this show, but for some reason I like the past episodes much more than the ones set in the future. Sadly, it has since been pulled from amazon prime, I really hope they will bringt it back or I'll be VERY angry.
  • L'Auberge Espagnole/The Spanish Apartment/Pot Luck (No idea what they've done with the titel here...) - I've held this French/Spanish movie in fond memories ever since we watched it in French class yeeears back, but I had forgotten how crazy it can be at times. Still really like it, it's about this French guy who goes to live and study in Spain for a year and moves into an apartment with other students from all over Europe, just to learn that there is much more to life than he had thought. Many different languages and subtitels, so sadly no good movie to stitch to.
  • Scandal Season 2, E4-15 - Another show I've really grown to like, and another one that's currently not avaiable on amazon prime. I'm still hoping it'll come back, but I would not miss it as much as Dr Who if it didn't...
  • Back to the Future 2 - After Nancy convinced me that this was a decent sequel, Felix and I finally watched it, and quite enjoyed it. Not as awesome as the first one, but still a good movie, and we'll get around to number three eventually.
  • Vikings Season 2, E1+2 - We still enjoy this show, only it's a little...heavy? Dark? and not what I usually want to watch in the evenings to relax, so it's a little slow. We'll get to it eventually.
  • Jack and the Giants - This one is not from amazon prime but a BlueRay of Felix' brother we watched when we last visited at his place. Like Snowhite and the Huntsman, this is a new adoption of an old fairytale, and lile the former, is somehow manages to bring Christian faith in there - not a good combination if you ask me, but still, not a bad movie.
  • Wer früher stirbt ist länger tot (literally: The sooner you die the longer you are dead)/Grave Decisions: Another one of Felix' brother...It looks like a comedy on first sight, but really is not. It's about an 11 year old boy whose mother did at his birth - and his older brothers brutally tells him that he killed her and that he'll go to hell for that. So the boy tries all kinds of stunts to either make up for what he's done or to become immortal so he'll never have to go to hell. Also, it's completely in Bavarian, but I think there is a version with English subtitels somewhere...
  • Madagascar 3 - We rewatched this with Felix family. We had only seen it recently, but it's a movie you can watch more than once so it was still good.
  • Men in Black - Felix wanted to watch part 3 with me, but after I declared that I had nerve even seen the original he decided we needed to do that first. Not much more to say, really funny and enjoyable.
  • RED - Another one Felix had decided I should watch, and I didn't regret it - I kind of like Bruce Willis and he did a good job here.
  • Men in Black II - I had actually seen this in the cinema with my dad, but couldn't remember much, so in preparation for MIB III we watched and enjoyed this one as well.
  • The Nanny Season 2, E8-16 - Not much to say here, something I enjoy to watch if I only got the twenty minutes to spare.
  • Bones Season 7, E1-13 + Season 8, E1-5 - Amazon prime recently added some Fox shows, including this, and as it is one of Felix and my favorites we of course had to drop everything and watch this - the rather short season 7 was devoured over the course of the last weekend and we began with season 8 now, loving every second of it ^___^
  • How to Train your Dragon 2 - We took a break from our Bones-marathon to go to the cinemax on Saturday evening. It was a great movie, almost as good as the first one, and it has an extraordinarily good soundtrack in my opinion. Some people say it's too brutal to be a children's movie, but I disagree, it's not really worse than, say, The Lion King or other Disney Classics. Only Downside, I didn't really notice the 3D effects here, but that might be my getting less sensitive to that...
  • Haven Season 1, E3-12 - With my other 'active' shows pulled from the service I needed to find something else to watch and decided to return to Haven which I had already tested shortly. I spent most of Sunday watching this and I'm almost finished with Season 1 - I really like it, it's about the small town of Haven which has a reoccuring history of 'strange' inccidents, and and FBI-agent who is sent there to investigate said incidents but suddenly discovers that she herself has a connection to the place.
So that's it for shows and movies...we spent quite some time with that since we returned from Prague which is awesome for my stitching as I will be able to show you soon :)

As far as my gaming is concerend, well...I did finish two of the Lego games on my Vita recently (The Hobbit and The Lego Movie Videogame) which were fun and also rather short (even when going for 100%/Platinum trophy, which I did), but still I'm not as successful with my one-at-a-time policy here as with crafting and reading. I'm working on it though, and I really hope to get the situation of half-finished games under controll before I start working fulltime, because then concentrating on one is going to be much more difficult I imagine. It would help if I wasn't traveling that much at the moment I guess, but that can't be helped so I'll do my best with what I can.

So that concludes my catching up and brings us pretty much up to date...until my next post! :D

4 comments:

Carla - Alaska Wolf Pack said...

WOW! That is quite a lot! I have another for you to add to your list: Les Revenants. It is French but does have English subtitles. Nancy had stated that it was good, but honestly I think she really meant IT'S REALLY AWESOME. Dark and gritty, and not what one expects. Just finished season 1 and am left wondering how a dead person can impregnate a live person? That is all I will tell you ha ha!

Will you be able to do hangout this coming weekend?

Leonore Winterer said...

Les Revenants sounds interesting, I'll see if I can find a way to look into it!

I'll be gone on Sunday, but might be avaiable on Saturday evening, I'l have to check what else comes up ^_^

Carla - Alaska Wolf Pack said...

Woo Hoo!!! If you need me to be on earlier in my day or earlier in yours please let me know and I'll do something about making it more convenient for you :D

Leonore Winterer said...

Felix will probably be here all evening, I'll have to see if I can find something to distract him for an hour or so :D