I can't shake this feeling I've got
Fuck abridged editions. No, seriously: fuck them. What's the point? If I'm going to read something, I want to read it. Not some lame watered-down version - the actual work itself. Movie adaptations need to be, well, adapted. I understand that. I might not be happy if I'm a fan of the original, but I'll still deal with it. But abridged books? Fuck them. I just don't see the need for them.
The reason I'm ranting about abridged editions is because when I checked out The(?) Sign of the(?) Four from the library, I didn't know that it was the ~abridged version~. I read it, enjoyed myself, and that was about that. It wasn't until I was forced into a compendium to get at Adventures that I realized what had happened. The first volume of such has the first two novels as well as the first three short story collections, and I jumped right into it. At some point, however, I took a gander at the summary on the back, just because it's what one does with books, and I came across this bit that said "The Sign of Four presents Holmes's famous 'seven percent solution' blah blah" and my mind went "wait, HOLD UP" because I had no recollection of such a thing. So I turn to that book and right there, on the very first fucking page, is this sort of loving description of Holmes shooting himself up with a seven per-cent solution of cocaine.
The first. fucking. page. Because I was wondering when the drugs would crop up, and when I started on Adventures I looked at the last page of Four just for continuity's sake, and Holmes's last sentence was something about a cocaine bottle, which he had certainly not said in my Four, so I was like "oh, shit, censored version D:" but I didn't realize there was any more than that until I read over the first page and a bit. I don't quite have the strength to read the entire thing again so soon, but I know I'll have to eventually, because it will niggle at me until I do.
But really, abridged editions suck. It's like when we "read" The God of Small Things in 10th grade, and we were only supposed to read until Chapter 3 because if we went any farther we'd see Unpleasantness. I read the whole thing, naturally, and ended up talking to the teacher about the whole not-reading due to Unpleasantness. He was saying that he wanted there to be a way for everyone to read it, and that it would most likely involve blacking out a paragraph or two. Now, I understand that some people can't handle things at a certain age, which is why we had to sign a release form to watch the opening of Saving Private Ryan in 7th grade or R rated movies in 12th. But I think 15-year-olds can handle vague descriptions of a pedophilic non-consensual hand job. And if the teacher is not confident in a particular class's collective ability to handle it, then it just shouldn't be introduced. Anything else is just dicking around with a book's intended form, and that ain't right.
Ok, invective over! I'm really loving the Holmes canon so far. It's another one of those beat-myself-up-for-not-reading-sooner cases, although I'm sort of glad I didn't, because I have so much more under my belt now to appreciate it with. I'm also glad I have no prior exposure aside from "elementary, my dear Watson", a one-off crossover fic, looking up "Three Garridebs" and what happened at the Reichenbach Falls, and the Wikipedia page for "Golden Pince-Nez". Even knowing what I do about Watson having more than one wife and the whole "I'm not dead!" thing, my enjoyment of the series is not altered a whit. I never really fancied mysteries that much, because I'm pretty bad at guessing, and that seems to be why people read them (although I did quite like Poirot back in the day), but I'm kind of getting into it now. I'm steadily improving the rate of my successful guesses. I even got the "what" of "The Yellow Face" when Holmes didn't, even if most of the "why" passed me by. So yeah, fun times. If I've time left after Memoirs and American Psycho, I'll go ahead and read The Hound of the Baskervilles down here.
We got a new dog! Well, puppy, really. Her name is Chlöe (...don't ask about the umlaut) and she's a Japanese Chin. She's also ADORABLE. Here is huuuuuuge picspam:
Hee~ ♥ She's got a pug face and sounds like a squeak toy sometimes. She's just too cute for words :3
We went to see Tropic Thunder on Friday. It...wasn't exactly all I'd hoped it would be. The funniest bits all involved RDJ, which was only to be expected. (Well, the agent's kid was pretty lol-tastic.) It's weird. Like, I know I laughed my ass off all through the movie, and yet it didn't really leave any impression at all. People seem to be comparing it to Zoolander, which makes sense, although I thought that one had some incredibly draggy bits, whereas even where TT dragged, it was funny. But whatever, none of the movie could compare to the absolute perfection of the Satan's Alley trailer. I can't wait till that shit goes online, because I will be watching it, like, 10 times a day. It was just that perfect.
Top Gear is still owning my soul, as evidenced by my bulging external. I just finished series 10 yesterday, and while I adored the Africa special (because the three of them and used cars and OLIVER! and the Stig's African cousin and the tent shenanigans and Hammond/Oliver is so fucking canon omg), my favorite part was in the last episode. It was actually the last 10 minutes of the last episode, when they got back to the second half of their German saloon face-off, and at the very end, when the boys traded cars for the drive back home and "Saeglopur" started playing and they all admitted that the others were right about their cars and it was just so full of friendship and loyalty and goodwill and trust and love that I choked up completely. I know how lame that is, but I really don't care, because those few remarks touched me to my soul.
To be a little less sappy and more fangirly, I liked how TG had both the best and worst hairstyles on TV, as well as the fact that James was the "Weird Crush of the Year" in Heat magazine. Especially the latter, because as undeniably attractive as Hammond is, I have got such a thing for Captain Slow it's ridiculous. It's not even that I think he's hot, although he is in a strange sort of way - it's simply everything about him. Maybe it's just the tweed jackets. That way I have another thing to pin on Stephen.
Olympics is ongoing. People need to get off of Michael Phelps's dick already. I'm not sure yet how much of track and field I actually care to watch. It seems as though no matter when I tune in, there is always some fucking volleyball going on.
All right, I'm hungry now. I should also check in with Chlöe-bear here soon, because she's only three months old and needs all the attention we'd give a baby. I mean, she is a baby. So...yeah. I'm off to do all that. Buh-bye!
The reason I'm ranting about abridged editions is because when I checked out The(?) Sign of the(?) Four from the library, I didn't know that it was the ~abridged version~. I read it, enjoyed myself, and that was about that. It wasn't until I was forced into a compendium to get at Adventures that I realized what had happened. The first volume of such has the first two novels as well as the first three short story collections, and I jumped right into it. At some point, however, I took a gander at the summary on the back, just because it's what one does with books, and I came across this bit that said "The Sign of Four presents Holmes's famous 'seven percent solution' blah blah" and my mind went "wait, HOLD UP" because I had no recollection of such a thing. So I turn to that book and right there, on the very first fucking page, is this sort of loving description of Holmes shooting himself up with a seven per-cent solution of cocaine.
The first. fucking. page. Because I was wondering when the drugs would crop up, and when I started on Adventures I looked at the last page of Four just for continuity's sake, and Holmes's last sentence was something about a cocaine bottle, which he had certainly not said in my Four, so I was like "oh, shit, censored version D:" but I didn't realize there was any more than that until I read over the first page and a bit. I don't quite have the strength to read the entire thing again so soon, but I know I'll have to eventually, because it will niggle at me until I do.
But really, abridged editions suck. It's like when we "read" The God of Small Things in 10th grade, and we were only supposed to read until Chapter 3 because if we went any farther we'd see Unpleasantness. I read the whole thing, naturally, and ended up talking to the teacher about the whole not-reading due to Unpleasantness. He was saying that he wanted there to be a way for everyone to read it, and that it would most likely involve blacking out a paragraph or two. Now, I understand that some people can't handle things at a certain age, which is why we had to sign a release form to watch the opening of Saving Private Ryan in 7th grade or R rated movies in 12th. But I think 15-year-olds can handle vague descriptions of a pedophilic non-consensual hand job. And if the teacher is not confident in a particular class's collective ability to handle it, then it just shouldn't be introduced. Anything else is just dicking around with a book's intended form, and that ain't right.
Ok, invective over! I'm really loving the Holmes canon so far. It's another one of those beat-myself-up-for-not-reading-sooner cases, although I'm sort of glad I didn't, because I have so much more under my belt now to appreciate it with. I'm also glad I have no prior exposure aside from "elementary, my dear Watson", a one-off crossover fic, looking up "Three Garridebs" and what happened at the Reichenbach Falls, and the Wikipedia page for "Golden Pince-Nez". Even knowing what I do about Watson having more than one wife and the whole "I'm not dead!" thing, my enjoyment of the series is not altered a whit. I never really fancied mysteries that much, because I'm pretty bad at guessing, and that seems to be why people read them (although I did quite like Poirot back in the day), but I'm kind of getting into it now. I'm steadily improving the rate of my successful guesses. I even got the "what" of "The Yellow Face" when Holmes didn't, even if most of the "why" passed me by. So yeah, fun times. If I've time left after Memoirs and American Psycho, I'll go ahead and read The Hound of the Baskervilles down here.
We got a new dog! Well, puppy, really. Her name is Chlöe (...don't ask about the umlaut) and she's a Japanese Chin. She's also ADORABLE. Here is huuuuuuge picspam:
Hee~ ♥ She's got a pug face and sounds like a squeak toy sometimes. She's just too cute for words :3
We went to see Tropic Thunder on Friday. It...wasn't exactly all I'd hoped it would be. The funniest bits all involved RDJ, which was only to be expected. (Well, the agent's kid was pretty lol-tastic.) It's weird. Like, I know I laughed my ass off all through the movie, and yet it didn't really leave any impression at all. People seem to be comparing it to Zoolander, which makes sense, although I thought that one had some incredibly draggy bits, whereas even where TT dragged, it was funny. But whatever, none of the movie could compare to the absolute perfection of the Satan's Alley trailer. I can't wait till that shit goes online, because I will be watching it, like, 10 times a day. It was just that perfect.
Top Gear is still owning my soul, as evidenced by my bulging external. I just finished series 10 yesterday, and while I adored the Africa special (because the three of them and used cars and OLIVER! and the Stig's African cousin and the tent shenanigans and Hammond/Oliver is so fucking canon omg), my favorite part was in the last episode. It was actually the last 10 minutes of the last episode, when they got back to the second half of their German saloon face-off, and at the very end, when the boys traded cars for the drive back home and "Saeglopur" started playing and they all admitted that the others were right about their cars and it was just so full of friendship and loyalty and goodwill and trust and love that I choked up completely. I know how lame that is, but I really don't care, because those few remarks touched me to my soul.
To be a little less sappy and more fangirly, I liked how TG had both the best and worst hairstyles on TV, as well as the fact that James was the "Weird Crush of the Year" in Heat magazine. Especially the latter, because as undeniably attractive as Hammond is, I have got such a thing for Captain Slow it's ridiculous. It's not even that I think he's hot, although he is in a strange sort of way - it's simply everything about him. Maybe it's just the tweed jackets. That way I have another thing to pin on Stephen.
Olympics is ongoing. People need to get off of Michael Phelps's dick already. I'm not sure yet how much of track and field I actually care to watch. It seems as though no matter when I tune in, there is always some fucking volleyball going on.
All right, I'm hungry now. I should also check in with Chlöe-bear here soon, because she's only three months old and needs all the attention we'd give a baby. I mean, she is a baby. So...yeah. I'm off to do all that. Buh-bye!