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This turned up in my Amazon recommended last night. After my initial UM NO reaction I sent Amazon an email pointing out this couldn’t be right. I got a response this morning.
Thank you for contacting Amazon.co.uk and for taking the time to bring
this to our attention.On checking our website, I too found that the item cost listed for this item “Angel: Complete Season 2 [DVD] [2000]” is 140.67 GBP
Please be informed that the information listed for this product on our website is all the manufacturer has passed along to us including the price of the item.
I can understand your concern that the price of this dvd box set can’t be right. In this case, I have forwarded your message to the relevant department so that this item’s cost can be amended correctly if there is an error.
Publisher fail? Okay, if you say so! Hah.
Yesterday I went to see Enron – the play. I had slightly misread description and thought it would be a more musical affair than it was, but that’s something I get over, I’ve misread descriptions before and ended up being surprised by something I didn’t fully know what was. But the play didn’t seem to quite know what it was either, which was a problem.
As their website say, Enron the play is “Inspired by real-life events and using music, dance and video, ENRON is directed by Headlong Theatre’s Artistic Director Rupert Goold”, which sounded like a winner to me. I thoroughly enjoyed Goold’s Six Characters in Search of an Author last year, which was an intense and unsettling experience.
But while I enjoyed the acting and dancing as crafts, I fully failed to be intrigued by the story as presented in the play. Enron is Serious Business, and the parts that could’ve been dramatic and intense were instead made silly and comedic. Was the play a comedy or a serious drama? The best plays are a bit of both, and this one didn’t seem to be either. The Leehman Brothers as Siamese twins? Nerd stereotypes with combed back hair, framed glasses and social issues? Two executives at Leehman having sex on a table? What was the point of these artistic steps? There was so much that didn’t add to the story or flow at all. The dance sequence with Light Sabers was funny for about two seconds before it got tedious. The frequent fast music clips didn’t work for me, and the relationships between the characters had no firm grounding and didn’t come across as realistic, with one exception, the relationship of Skilling and Fastow.
I will give props for the minimalistic staging and how the trading room was turned into a very interesting dance number. The video work was very clever, and I liked how the stock price of Enron was displayed to the audience. Corey Johnson as Jeff Skilling was impressive in his performance, despite the character himself being so uninteresting it was mostly sad. He got strong support from Paul Chahidi‘s Fastow, the interaction between the two characters was the only parts of the play that really held my attention. There was a lot I could like in the play, but it was too fragmented to fit together as a whole strong enough to keep me interested.
It’s not that I think the Enron scandal is boring, far from it. I’ve seen the documentary and I have the book. It’s a thriller of a story, but on stage it lacked tension. I agree with the New York times review of the Broadway staging of the play that it was all show and little substance. It looked great on the surface, and Lucy Pebble has guts trying to make art out of Enron, but all in all I just didn’t care about anyone in the play, not even the poor people who lost everything for believing in their workplace. Not sympathising or disliking anyone in a play makes watching it very tedious, because you go to the theatre to get engaged in a story and I was hoping that the drama of Enron in real life would play out just as gripping on stage. Sadly, it was not to be.
Very, very disappointing.
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Okay, look. It’s very silly. It’s teenagers becoming vampyres. Oh yes, with a ‘y’. And yet, it’s like a high school book, because the house of night is a school for kids going through the change to become vampyres. Or die, whichever.
The lead character has mary sue written all over her (she’s the bestest and most talented wampyre to be (aka fledling) in the history of ever! she has a million talents and the most popular guy in school instantly loves her!) and I admit it – it is utterly moronic. But it’s fun! And the lead character isn’t a Bella, as in her life doesn’t revolve around some dude, and she can stand up for herself just fine.
Good, simple fun. I like it.
So, I was a dumbass and I deleted my twitter. Boo me, I know. It was in a fit of drama lama and wasn’t very thought through, to the point where I guess I didn’t 100% realise that there was no undelete. And I miss my old username and my normal email address. Your help pages says that the username and email address are only blocked for 30 days, and it’s been more than that now, so can I please be krazycat again?
I fully recognise that I was a total dumbass and that you don’t need to do nuthin’ for me, I clicked okay after all, twice. But imagine me looking a bit like this: http://pics.livejournal.com/cleolinda/pic/001t79ff – that’s my sad little face. Don’t you want to make my sad little face into a happy face instead?
See, I’m trying to win you over with humour. Is it working? Please twitter, we’ve been buds for a while. I just don’t know how to quit you. Let me have back my username, so that I can mourn my lost @replies from michael sheen and john hodgman under my real internet nick that’s been with me since 1997.
Still not convinced? Okay twitter, I understand. I’m not gonna cry. Have a lovely fourth of July weekend, one and all. Me, I’m Norwegian (UK Resident) so for me, it’s just “weekend”.
Thanks for reading!
Love, Tinkertake
(actual support request submitted to twitter)
Dear stranger who accidentally dropped a ten pound note at Waterloo tube this morning,
I don’t know who you are, because I didn’t see anyone drop it. It was just lying there, by the ticket barrier, and I had no way of knowing who it belonged to. I thought about leaving it, or give it to the person working at the station, or asking if anyone had dropped some money. But I picked it up, and took it with me.
Did I think I’d hit the jackpot? No, that’s not who I am. I looked for the people with the buckets collecting for charity, but for once there weren’t anyone around. I didn’t see any homeless people sleeping next to the station either, which is something that hardly ever happens. But I didn’t want to spend your tenner, because it wasn’t my tenner and if I spent it for me, it would feel like stealing.
So here’s what I did. I went online and donated £10 to Shelter. I didn’t keep your money, even though I have the actual note itself. But I didn’t make any money today, I’m no better off by finding your tenner. By donating to shelter, maybe someone else would be a bit better off from the money you lost. I’m sorry I couldn’t give you your money back, as I don’t know who you are that wasn’t possible. If I’d asked around, someone else would’ve probably seen their opportunity to say “oh yes it’s mine” and spend it on themselves. This way, even though I did pick up your money, at least it went somewhere good. I’d like to think you’d be cool with that.
Regards,
the stranger who found your money.
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
It had so much potential. A girl narrowly escapes death of a car accident and ends up hearing people’s thoughts and seeing their auras. There was so many places this could go, but in the end it ended up being a hybrid of Twilight and GloomCookie, only more Twilight than GloomCookie due to the absolute bastardisation of the Goth character (did you know that if you skip instead of skulk, you’re not REALLY into the Goth scene? No, me either) and descending into really boring stereotypes.
I read the book in one evening, praying for it to improve, and I was bored. Bored bored bored. And I will read the next one because I already bought it and clearly I am a masochist. Plus I do kind of want to know where they go from where this book ended (no spoiler), because it doesn’t seem like it really needs a sequel. I wouldn’t recommend this book to anyone I know because even though it was a quick and easy read, it just made me annoyed.
Good think we kept looking. It’s been more than four years and he looks lovelier to me now than he did back then.
Picture by Simon Stacey
Hi Voltaire,
I brought my lovely Deady not bootleg figure (attached to my bag) to see rage against the machine last night. Somehow, through the magic of mosh pits, I elbowed some dude in the face (or rather, he jumped into my elbow..), I sprained my finger and Deady disappeared. I am sorry to say he was probably trampled to deathA fitting way to go, sure, but I mourn his passing.
While no Deady can replace the one you sold me in person in Oslo, I do really want a new one. But merchdirect is lame and has none of your stuff on it. Where can I go to replace my poor lost (trampled, sniff) Deady? My bag looks all wrong without Deady.
Help?
Last night was really cool. We got there late because I am trying to revise after all, and only caught the end of Gogol Bordello. But Rage Against The Machine was so much fun! And yes, I at one point could not resist any longer, I thrust my handbag into Mr Pharmacist’s arms and hurled myself into a circle pit, where I pushed and showed like the rest of them. AWESOME. Of course, I hurt my finger in the first jump in, someone fell on me, on my finger, and it was Holy Owwie. But I satisfied myself that it was not broken, and went back in. I’m surprised I’m not covered in bruises, and that the finger was the full extent of my injuries. I’m pretty sure someone else lost a tooth.
It feels highly appropriate to have a minor injury after seeing Rage Against The Machine. Afterwards I felt knackered, with a sore throat from all the shouting and I was drenched in sweat. It felt amazing. I feel like I’ve gotten in touch with my Inner Badass again. And while my finger hurts, and I have to cover it in cold patches to try to reduce the swelling, every second of ache is absolutely worth it. I felt so alive last night, like something in me resurfaced that’s been buried for a long time.
Pixies and Rage Against The Machine in one weekend. Man, I feel so alive. I needed this kick in the face (no actual kicks in the face ocurred) to shake me out of my funk.
This Thursday and Friday, the mighty Pixies played two fan exclusive shows at The Troxy in London, a venue I’d never even heard of before. It’s in Limehouse, which is surprisingly close to where I’m living and quite easy to get to from here, thanks to the magic of the new London Overground service.
The venue was a cute, old fashioned style theatre. We were upstairs in unassigned seating, and though we arrived before the support came on, it was fairly full already. There was a section of reserved seats in front of us, which had tables. I wonder how you got those seats, they weren’t on sale on the pixies website.It was warm in there. I was sitting, like everyone else (the upstairs crowd only got to their feet at the encore) and I was drenched from just dance-bouncing in my seat. And I wasn’t really expecting all that much, but I was blown away. Hit after hit, and then they played Caribou, by far my favourite Pixies song. It was just like I dreamed it would be live, intense and powerful. I was beside myself with joy. I loved every second of the gig.
On my way home, @nikki randomly came up behind me and said hello, I turned to face her and had a “oh shit this person seems to know who I am and I have forgotten them who is it come on brain come on brain” moment before she revealed her identity and I blurted out “you look nothing like your picture!” – that came out wrong Nikki, so sorry! You know what it’s like with people you know online sometimes, you have an idea in your head of what someone looks like, and some times these ideas are utterly wrong. Case in point – this time! And those seconds before nikki revealed who she was, I was racing through my mind trying to find something that fit the person in front of me. Funnily enough, her boyfriend looked entirely like what I thought he would.
All in all, a pretty good night!!
Setlist
1. Cecilia Ann
2. Rock Music [aborted]
3. Bone Machine
4. Monkey Gone to Heaven
5. Gouge Away
6. Hey
7. Velouria
8. Dig for Fire
9. Allison
10. Debaser
11. Planet Of Sound
12. Alec Eiffel
13. Caribou
14. River Euphrates
15. Cactus
16. Is She Weird?
17. Break My Body
18. The Sad Punk
19. Head On [The Jesus and Mary Chain]
20. U-Mass
21. Tame
22. Isla de Encanta
23. Broken Face
24. Wave of Mutilation
25. Nimrod’s Son
26. Holiday Song
27. Gigantic
Encore
1. Where is my Mind?
2. Here Comes Your Man