OMG! They DID it!














Drogba is a BEAST!!!!!

The last day of the season was unbelieveably edge of seat!
At least 6 teams facing HUGE repercussions.
The match that dominated everything, was- of course- Manchester City versus Queens Park Rangers. Both NEEDED to win. Man City to get their first League title for 44 years. QPR to avoid relegation to the league below and a massive drop in income.

It was hard to decide who to root for.

Man City- 20 years in the shadow of Man United.The grim failure of it. But now, they are rich, bought by a fabulously wealthy owner, spent over £400m on players.
QPR a proud club with a long tradition which has had great players. Not having had the investment they needed. And their manager had been unjustly sacked when manager of Man City.

Ooohhh. Pure Soap Opera.

If Man City win, they snatch the league title from the jaws of the arrogant, almighty Man United.
Well, they outclassed QPR on paper, so we all thought the match would be one sided.
Not at all!

QPR were amazing- fought, fought and fought again.Went 2-1 ahead and were in the lead up to 90 mins into the game.
And then...
The 92nd minute- a header from Dzeko made them 2-2. But word had already come through of Man United winning their match, and claiming the title.Some City fans had started leaving the ground in tears. Mancini the manager of Man City, and all the coaching staff are screaming, screaming at the players to attack, shouting for everyone to go forward. but its too late. They're in the last minute of extra time...then Agüero gets the ball, puts it in the net.

And Man City have done it. Finally.

If they'd made a film that ended like that, we'd have scoffed and said typical Hollwood cheese.
But it actually happened.

I thought the loss at the end meant that QPR- who had been the better team throughout the match, and fought even when down to 10 men after that asshole Joey Barton was sent off- were definately relegated- but poor old Bolton got the chop. Phew!
Sorry, Bolton fans!
I'm an Arsenal fan- armchair only- and we started the season so atrociously I cant believe where we finished up. We've got the 3rd place, so...still in Champions League next year. :)

Weird to think that if Chelsea lose next week, they wont be in the Champion's League next year....I hope de Matteo gets to keep the manager job, he's earned it.

And yeah, one has to feel glad for Man City after 44 years. Noel Gallagher of Oasis has been insufferable all day. Much of BBC Radio has been going on and on about yesterday's shennanigans with the various Premier League matches, and Man City fans' delerium. News is on the radio now of massive celebrations in Manchester.
And, I repeat, Joey Barton was an asshole. He should never be allowed to play for QPR again, doing that in a match so important. Tevez is an asshole. He should never be allowed to play for Man City again, having had a strop and gone AWOL for 4/5 months in Argentina.

Yep. Seen it.
The Avengers. On an IMAX screen. In 3D.
Had little choice,really.
Marc, my movie buddy with whom I venture to see films regularly was going, and phoned me. The 'Son and Heir' (yeah, all 6 foot five of him) is a comic book geek, and had been hyperventilating about it for a year. Ever new trailer, picture, meme and whatnot gave him an attack of the vapours.
So, I went yesterday.And, though I'm not a Geek, or a Nerd or a comic book fanatic- yeah I read them as a child, but c'mon, that was 4 decades ago!- I can take 'em or leave 'em.
I had mixxed feelings about Joss Whedon doing it. I worried we'd get too many quips, his 'female empowement' schtick, and didnt think he'd be able to handle the action scenes. And..oh yeah HE LIKES TO KILL PEOPLE!
But, I went, and I'm glad I did.

=
HOLY CRAP! FILM, PEOPLE! FILM!!!



We had the BEST of Whedon- great character building. We had the BEST action - the last 40+ minutes was so testosterone laden, bombastic, well put together, crammed with amazing, that I couldnt spare 3 minutes to nip to the loo, in case I missed something.

Great ensemble cast, all that talent was not wasted. I knew little about Hawkeye before going in and was not a Jeremy Renner fan- now I am.
I wondered if Scarlet J's casting as Black Widow was due to Whedon having a crush. But no! Holy shit, she Kicked. So. Much Ass! There was days worth of ass-kicking by Ms Johanssen, she was the most skilled fighter on the team. I want to learn hand to hand (and hand to foot, mouth and other parts) like that! What can you say about Samuel L Jackson? He just...is. And agent Hill was almost as badass as Black Widow- hope we'll be seeing more of her, Nick Fury's right hand woman. And Agent Coulson- he too was a BAMF.

Robert Downey Junior was awesome, Tom Hiddleston was epic as Loki,-he played it Shakesperian, and it worked- loved Hemsworth as Thor, BUT... the person who stole the film? Mark Ruffalo as Bruce Banner and the Hulk. I'm not a huge Hulk fan, I loved Bill Bixby's tv version. The films had two good actors cast as Hulk, the writing and direction didnt work out.I'd wanted Edward Norton to reprise the role, thought 'Meh' when Ruffalo-who I respect as an actor- was cast. But I was wrong, people. So, so wrong.


Mark Ruffalo's Hulk, is the heart of The Avengers film.
As Banner he is soft spoken world weary, gentle,trying to do good. He's the only person Tony Stark respects intellectually. They used motion-capture to get Ruffalo to do Hulk then added SFX over it. Great choice. This Hulk was believeable, incredibly dangerous to the team, but also able to be part of the team when he wanted to. He could follow Captain America's orders- nicely underplayed by CHris Evans, by the way.They need to..improve the costume, though-and he had his own way of dealing with Norse Gods who get above themselves.Two scenes with him brought the house down. The audience cheered in this film- fanboys and fangirls left and right were having orgasms of glee during it.

Highlights: Loki's pimp stroll as he subjugates a building full of humans
Captain America showing the cops just why he's the one in charge
The Loki-Black Widow confrontation
Hawkeye's deadliness during the final battle
Nick Fury showing his weapon handling skillz
Agent Maria Hill showing all kinds of badssery as Nick Fury's no 2
Agent Coulson-every scene(where does SHIELD get these amazing people?)
The Iron Man-Thor punch up

But, above all....HULK SMASH!!!

(Crap. I sound like a rabid fangirl:( )
Well done, Joss. you did the fans proud. But just one more thing STOP KILLING PEOPLE!

A little boy spent a whole summer making an arcade. Out of cardboard. But he didnt have any customers.Until a lovely person used the power of the internet to get a flashmob down to the arcade. Because its nice to make a little boy's dreams come true..

Tony Lee,who came from humble beginnings, and started work at Ring Masters, a company that makes engine rings for industrial use, was still a factory floor worker when it faced closure. He had no experience of business plans, balance sheets etc.He'd never been to college. But he wanted to save his job and the jobs of his co-workers.

He had vision, determination, guts and drive.
So he went ahead, and tried. Turned out, he had what it takes to save an ailing company.Today, he's co-owner of Ring Masters. See the video...
Here's the link, as I can't embed it

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/driven/janitor-turned-owner-rescues-failing-ohio-factory-195149281.html

Oh, and Tony Lee started out at the company as a janitor.

The incredibly long gap since my last post was unintended.Specially as I've been lurking around the 'Net, reading other people's LJs and Blogs.
My routine is to always check certain Lj's particularly their Friends pages. I read- on a DAILY basis, Xanthe's Livejournal, and Cesperanza's,as they are amazing writers, and the comments in their Friends page, or in the comments section of their main journal entries are interesting.

For fic, I religiously check KieraMarcos' journal daily, and other greats in the SGA fandom like Jane Davitt, Lavvyan,Seperis, Auburn.

Auburn wrote one of the best SGA AU novels EVER called 'Unnatural Selection' and I urge everyone to run to AO3 to read it. It has everything- scifi concepts, character development, and uses what happened in SGU (being stranded on an Ancient exploratory vessel)in a way that exposes the SGU writers as talentless cretins.

And I've been faffing about trying to organise myself to get some of the writing I've written but not finished over the last few years (NaNoWriMo I'm looking at you!) done and converted to ebook format for Kindle, etc.

Friday was my birthday.
And maybe things are looking up, after a pretty horrible 2 years, wherein my Mum had a stroke and lost the ability to walk (and much of the more pleasant parts of her personality), work became very precarious due to the cuts in Universities even before the present government's 'slash and burn' approach. The son and heir retreated into a computer game life (World of Warcraft) making the development of social skills even harder -he has dyspraxia, so that's a worry- And my scifi novel writing kept stuttering and starting, and then ground to a halt.Middle age for me has meant worries about health, the changes in my body,a sense of isolation...

Woe.

However, Friday a girlfriend dragged me out to the West End, I saw the Christmas lights, ate a gorgeous meal at John Lewis' restaurant on the 5th floor, and we wafted around the food hall. I talked to my Dad on the phone in the Caribbean- and determined to try and visit asap. And I got cards!And a friend I havent seen for YEARS got in touch! And yesterday, my best friend from school that Ive known since I was Eleven (to show how long that is, I was a teen in the 70s!)gave me a call.

So, I've decided to grit my teeth, hang in there, persevere... reach out to peoples I havent seen for years. Get back involved in social activism, as I used to. All the good stuff.

I'm going to savour and celebrate my birthday over this week and next. I started off by enjoying the hell out of the latest episode of Channel 4's amazing 'Misfits' (a totally different, grungy and British take on the sudden getting of superpowers). I cooked a gorgeous Sunday dinner, Caribbean style. Read/re-read fics by some of my favourite authors- Lavvyan, Jane Davitt, Xanthe,KieraMarcos,Auburn the incomparable Cesperanza.

And I've resumed my 2010 NaNoWriMo attempt,determined to get to that 50,000 word goal.

If you're reading my blog, I say 'Late birthday greetings happily received' *hint, hint*.

Happy birthday to my fellow Saggitarians. :)

Would you believe I got this music video off my Friends page? (That's the wonder of blogs. You never know who/what you may link or be linked to, or wha might come up on an RSS feed)

This music video tells a complete (short) story, that could spark great ideas for a film. Its wonderful because you have a female central character, its set in an Indian town/suburb, theres a good soundtrack, danger, mystery... AND SCIENCE FICTION ELEMENTS!

Yeah. What do we want? Science Fiction! Set in African, Asian, Arab countries, with protagonists from those countries. And we want stories where indigenous peoples - North or South America, Australasia, or the Indian sub-continent, or Inuit- are the heroes, the tellers of the tale,who save usfrom the aliens!!

Damnit- I want a scifi tv film that is set amongst the Dogon, rooted in their cosmology...