Sadly, I didn't manage to sleep enough today. Checking the translation I did last night woke me up just enough to not be able to go back to sleep. The nastiest of all states - when you are too tired to do anything useful but can't go and sleep. So I kind of vegetated: cross-stitched and finished watching 'Good Night and Good Luck' which I liked a ( Read more... )

I am still reading Arthur Bryant's The Age of Elegance, which I bought at a library sale. I was mostly interested in it because of Napoleonic wars and I was right - the 'review' chapters, where he gives broad descriptions of England and Englishmen in the epoch he describes, 1812-1822, are kind of ... cute for the almost-idyll they describe. However ( Read more... )

I seem to have abandoned this LJ - well, almost. Truth is, the same thing's going on with my other blog (especially in entries about anything but whining) and with my paper diary. I am getting out of the habit of writing, and this worries me - because it also gets more difficult to write fiction-type stuff. I love writing, but each time it's such a ( Read more... )

Re-watching Onmyoji I keep thinking that the reason Hiromasa (and some of the others) feels slightly ridiculous is mostly that he is perfectly normal and so, bound by the culture of his time. It's Seimei who is sort of outside of time and culture which is why it's easier to identify with him.

I'm missing history_spork already... And I wish there was someone sporking book-based films. I'm pessimistic because after yesterday's Persuasion today I caught our TV at showing the new Miss Marple, the McEwan one.

Also, the Elizabeth sequel soon will be out here. I wonder if it's tolerable but I am pessimistic about that, too. Maybe it's good I missed ( Read more... )

I'm reading Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon and chuckling right now at the story of a pre-war US Marine in Shanghai who went into a Japanese bar and ordered, as far as I can understand, sushi. Mostly because his friends dared him to go, but also because he was curious.

But yesterday I also started to watch Shinsengumi!, a Japanese historical TV ( Read more... )

After reading various opinions on Mel Gibson's Apocalypto I doubt I'll go see that, but I'd still like to know just how historically accurate that is. I do not trust Gibson much after what I read about Passions - and even Braveheart. Does any of you know of an article analyzing Apocalypto from that direction, or any relevant information? I had some ( Read more... )