Ruby Slippers

Must Love Dogs

2010-08-16T15:36:00.000+02:00

Last night on my way home from rehearsal I saw a little Jack Russell wandering on the side of the road. I'd been seeing signs posted up on the side of the roads in my area for days now, about a missing Jack Russell, so I immediately stopped my car and got out to try and catch the poor little thing, in case it was the right one. He/she was so scared, though, that he just bolted away from me into the darkness. I drove to find one of the signs about the dog and called the owner to tell them what I'd seen, and he drove straight out to the intersection. He smsed me later to say thanks, but they hadn't been able to find the dog.

I felt so sad that it hadn't worked out. I love dogs so much (all animals, really), and I just lay in bed feeling sad and missing my dog Shadow, who had died in 2006 at the age of 17, and thinking about how devastated I would have been if she'd ever disappeared and I'd never found her. And in fact, feeling sad and missing all my pets that have passed on. And I've had a lot.

I'm so weird, but I'm really upset about this poor dog and its poor owners. :-(

This is Shadow. What a sweet girl.

The Little Things

2010-07-20T15:59:00.000+02:00

Little things make me happy. This morning I got into my car and saw that Mel, our landlady, had painted red flowers all over the black rubbish bins. I smiled. It kind of made my morning.

Later I was at the shop, and when I put the tub of margarine into my trolley I saw that it had a picture of some perky, smiling little insect on the lid, instead of just the usual branding. It was adorable, and I burst out laughing.

I went to photograph some tablescapes for a magazine, and my friend Eve gave me the leftover white tulips because I love them so much. I had to stop off for a lunch date on my way home, and they turned into the child of Floppy Mcfloppyson. Now I've got them in a glass of water, trying to nurse them back to perkiness. This makes me happy.

After I did my Trash the Dress recently, my wedding dress has ended up hanging over the back of a chair in our bedroom, while I get around to having it dry-cleaned. It makes me smile every time I see it.

I put in a cd I haven't listened to in a while, and I forgot that one of my favourite songs was on there. I got so excited when I heard the intro.
And bubbles. Bubbles make me happy. Don't ever lose your childlike joy. I need mine to make it through the day.

TV that shaped my life

2010-07-01T17:19:00.000+02:00

You might have noticed that I'm a leetle obsessed with movies. I'm also pretty much as obsessed with tv shows. This leaves my previous lifelong obsession of book-collecting on the shelf for the time being (ha, see what I did there?), but it's ok; they're still there looking pretty, and anyway, movies are cheaper. And tv is even cheaper. And this is an important thing in my world at the moment, cos it's slow season and Mr Ruby Slippers just pointed out that I he forgot to ~~pay~~ ask me to pay rent at the end of May, so I just got walloped with double rent this month. Oh, the fun.

I reckon tv shows kind of shaped my life. I'm an incredibly nostalgic person; one whiff of the theme to The Littlest Hobo and I'm pretty much finished. That show made me cry at the end of every episode, ergo I cry now when I hear the theme song, even though it's been at least twenty years since I last saw it.
Here are the end credits, because this is where I was usually crying my eyes out. He came along like Mary Poppins, helped everyone, and then left. :-(

However, despite the epic tears, I don't really remember that show very well. I didn't, for instance, record it every week and then watch every episode every single day when I came home from school, to the point where I could (and still can) recite entire episodes. The 6-year-old brain is a sponge. That honour was reserved for the best cartoon of all time:

Hell to the yes. There will never be a better cartoon than Gummi Bears; not Ducktales, Thundercats, My Little Pony, Bionic Six or even Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers, all of which I used to watch and love. My childhood kicked ass. We seriously had the best cartoons in the 80s.

Speaking of the 80s, we also had this guy, the most ingenious gadget-maker and bomb-dismantler of all time. Oh yes, say hello to the mullet-sporting (but we won't hold that against him), army knife-carrying pacifist.

Famous lines from pretty much every episode: "What are you doing?" "Getting us out of here."

I think I had a crush on this guy even when I was five years old. I don't remember what night it aired (Friday, maybe?) but the whole family would gather round and watch MacGyver create some crazy thingymajig to get the baddies/stop the baddies/escape from the baddies. I could watch these credits over and over and over; they totally kick ass.

There was also a spate of sometimes funny, sometimes sappy family sitcoms. Who remembers Growing Pains, Family Ties, Full House and Who's the Boss? Always with an issue to be solved, always with a little moral at the end. And the violins start playing. And Dad has some moving, poignant lines. Awww.

Ah, yes, Kirk Cameron when he was young and cute, and not a crazy ranting lunatic trying to tell the world that atheists use big words to confuse you into believing in evolution.

Aw. look at little Alyssa Milano! And Katherine Helmond. I loved her.

OMG, Mary-Kate or Ashley! And now they run a trillion dollar empire. And damn, John Stamos was kind of cute. Pity about the hair, though.

I loved this family! And who doesn't enjoy Michael J. Fox? He was awesome in this.

In the early 90s I was a tween and young teenager, so I branched out from the family viewing and started watching my own stuff. Grownup stuff! Santa Barbara and Loving were my two earliest soap encounters. I have to give props to my parents for not forbidding me from watching this stuff when I was all of eleven years old. They made sure that I knew that what I saw on tv was *not* real, and that people didn't act like that in real life, and left me to it. I just enjoyed the scandals and family feuds and romances and kidnappings and paternity suits. If I wanted to see real life I could watch the people on the bus home from school. Yawn.

Cruz and Eden, my favourite couple of all time. She was a spoiled little rich girl, and he was a Latino policeman from the wrong side of the tracks. Soapie perfection. By the time I stopped watching Santa Barbara they still hadn't got married! Sigh.

Recently I've been getting a kick out of Beverly Hills 90210. Not the shitty remake, the real one with dreamy Brandon, rebel Dylan, nice girl Brenda (haha), spoilt Kelly and bimbo Donna. In the 90s it was really daring with it themes of sex, drugs, alcoholism. Now it's more "Oh look, an issue with a moral". Kind of lame, but still something awesome about it.

Whoa, look at those high-cut bikinis! Scary.

The mid-nineties was a great time for tv. Sitcoms were moving on from being about families to being about single people, so there was a nice mix of the two on the air at the same time. Two of my favourite sitcoms of all time came from this period. Guess what they are.

Still guessing?

Ok. Here you go:

Duh.

And:

The Nanny! This show is still hilarious. And incidentally, did you know that the youngest girl (the cute one in the black and white checkered dress) is the slutty girl from Californication who punches and fucks David Duchovny and then steals his book? Blows my mind every time.

Special shout-outs to Frasier, Will & Grace, 3rd Rock from the Sun and Cybill for being awesome 90s comedies. I think I watched pretty much every sitcom that was on tv at the time, but those stand out for me.

Still on the 90s, but only discovered later by me, a show that became an obession:

Hooo boy. If Joe Lando was any hotter my tv would have melted. I did love the quaintness of the show, and their old-fashioned lifestyle and comments on "new-fangled" inventions like trains, but I think we all watched it because we wanted to be Dr Quinn. Not to be all pioneering and fighting for feminism and saving lives; no, we just wanted to be kissed by Sully. Swoon. If he walked into my room I'd do him right now. He's on my list. Yes, THAT List.

Another show I seem to have got into years after everyone else, but that became an obsession anyway:

In fact, this was completely stupid (not the show, just my timing) because I got into the show on its 9th and final season. Yeah, talk about being late to the party. In X-Files terms I arrived at the party after everyone had pretty much packed up and left. That didn't stop me, though, and thanks to BFF Ruby Slippers I had a supply of some earlier seasons and recommendations of which others to rent. Just like Dr Quinn, I quickly became obsessed with the relationship between Mulder and Scully. When they kissed (you could count the number of times on one hand, sadly) I got butterflies. The alien stuff was only secondary. Who cares that Cigarette Smoking Man is going to destroy the world with an alien colony? Mulder and Scully shared a meaningful glance!

PS - the recent film was SHITE. If you saw it, don't judge The X-Files on it.

PPS - The X-Files has some of the best dialogue ever. In fact, the only dialogue that can match it comes from this next show, which I adore:

Joss Whedon is a genius. That is all. But Buffy, in my opinion, is his best creation to date. I thrive on well-written dialogue, humour in the face of despair, fearless plots and the fact that you don't always KNOW who is going to win. If someone important needs to die for the sake of the plot, Joss Whedon will let it happen. And that, my friends, is tension. Watch it. Seriously. This means you, sister Ruby Slippers. If only she read my blog :-)

I'm going to do the rest in a Part II, because seriously, the 2000s deserves an entire blog post of its own. That's how obsessed I am with the tv it produced. So, so good.

Books & shelving

2010-06-25T13:33:00.000+02:00

Lately I've kind of been obsessing over shelving. Especially bookshelves. Mostly because I have what Mr Rubyslippers would call a metric fuck ton of books. And dvds. We have nine, yes, NINE, bookcases in our bedroom and Spare Oom, and the depressing thing is that I've left hundreds of books at my parents' house because there was nowhere to put them here, and I kind of miss them. I mean, I probably wouldn't be reading them anyway, but I miss having them around. Books to me are twofold: they are awesome to read AND they look awesome on a shelf. Maybe it's the collector in me, but I just love the look of rows of books. Especially if there's a full series. MMm. This is probably why I still look out for the Nancy Drews I don't have, even though I haven't read one for years. I am a completist.

Anyway, lately I've been saving a lot of pictures of bookshelves and just shelving in general. Some practical, some not at all, but still totally awesome.

This is what I've always wanted: a full wall of shelving (except mine would go all the way up to the ceiling, because, really, that's just wasted space up there!)

Another one that's pretty awesome:

But then I see awesome things like this, and I want them, no matter how much space they waste:

Clearly I like tree-shaped things. :-)

And then I get into swirly shapes, and it just sets my heart aflutter:

And my personal favourite:

Look, another tree:

I love the idea of this, even though the book-lover in me cringes at the idea of leaving a book lying open face-down like that. It's SO bad for the spine! But look how cute, like a little birdhouse!

This is so elegant:

And this is completely crazy:

I'm so obsessed with interior decor at the moment!

Randoms & Ramblings

2010-06-10T00:14:00.000+02:00

Just a bit of a brain-dump for you this fine Wednesday night; or actually, early Thursday morning.

Pick 'n Pay has started making their own Jaffa Cakes. Result? One very thrilled Mr Ruby Slippers, and one "suddenly-really-liking-guzzling-Jaffa-cakes-late-at-night-oh-shit-this-is-bad" Mrs Ruby Slippers. I've already gained enough weight this year. I could barely fit into my wedding dress anymore at my TTD. It's all this sitting on my lazy ass in front of the computer all day I'm doing now. Gah.

I just watched season one of Beverly Hills 90210 (the original one; that all my friends and I were obsessed with when we were 12/13, not the shitty remake/re-imagining). It's so awesome. TOTALLY cheesy, and so dripping with moral messages that you could sink and drown in them, but I'm loving it! I'm so getting season 2 ASAP.

I just about died during the Grey's Anatomy season finale. I don't know how I'm going to wait until September to see what happens. One of the best finales EVER, I thought. Unlike Lost, which was, as I suspected, a huge letdown. I should have stopped after season one. Clearly, like Heroes, they had a fantastic premise which just couldn't last. At least I managed to stop putting myself through Heroes, but I got too invested in Lost, and the time-travel stuff in season 5 was so frikkin AWESOME.

My awesome husband is in the production of Noises Off that my theatre group is putting on, and tonight I went along to rehearsal. It's turning out soooo good! If you're in Johannesburg at the end of July/beginning of August, you have to come see it! The cast is working really hard, and it shows.

On a related note, I wish I could have seen the Noises Off production that starred Patti LuPone. Bootleg, anyone? Or of anything else with Patti? We are so out of the loop here at the arse end of Africa.

One of my friends is in the USA right now, and just saw Liza in concert on Sunday, and Promises Promises with Kristen Chenoweth and Sean Hayes today. I am completely eaten up inside with jealousy, especially because he does things like this all the time. Bloody rich people. But at least he knows how to spend his money. Dammit, someone pay for me to go to America and see shows. Seriously.

A friend of mine went to Australia for business (also jealous!) and brought me back some chocolate, some cocoa-flavoured body lotion, and chocolate kisses lip balm. I guess I'm just really obvious.

That's it for now! Sleep tight/good morning/good evening, wherever you are!

Do it at home, people.

2010-06-04T23:10:00.000+02:00

Today on my way home from an awesome photography workshop-slash-get-together, I got the following text from Mr Ruby Slippers:

"Supper plans? Because I was thinking (doesn't need to finish sentence)"

Which made me chuckle, because obviously - to me - he was referring to eating out, which we both love, and which is probably our one vice as a couple, because it tends to eat into your bank balance a lot more than cooking at home. So naturally I said yes.

Anyway, once I got home we decided on ribs from the only place near us that makes ribs worth eating, Thundergun. NOM. We then had to decide on somewhere else, because it was nearly 7pm and I made Mr RS call and make sure there was a table. Which there was...in "at least an hour". So it was back to our old faithful, Ruby's sushi, which has great sushi and is never jampacked. And I'm kind of glad we did, because we got to hear the couple at the table next to us having a fight, which totally made my evening, if only because it highlighted how much cooler we are than them. Ugh. We would never go out for sushi and then spend the evening bitching at other in lowered tones that everyone around us could hear anyway about "never listening" and "this is shit" and "I care more about you than you do about me" and other such crap.

I have to say this tiff at the table next door really aroused my curiosity, because I'm nosy like that. It took Mr RS longer to cotton onto the fact that there even was a fight, but then I think men don't eavesdrop as easily as we women do. Sorry ladies, fact. So there we were in the middle of a fab conversation about how they could possibly make a continuation series of Firefly (which would have to be a prequel so that Wash could be there, but then that would leave out River and her brother, which I was fine with because Summer Glau has always kind of annoyed me anyway, but Mr Slippers, for some reason, likes her, so he disagreed) and all the while I was straining my ears to hear what on earth was going on with this crazy couple, while still listening to Mr RS and responding intelligently. If ever you want to test your powers of concentration, do this. It's hard.

Anyway, I somehow got the feeling that the beginning of the fight sprung up, seemingly out of nowhere, soon after the arrival of their sushi (where they discussed which piece was which), because "you never talk to me and you never listen" (guess which gender said THAT). And I couldn't help but think it was because they were listening to us talking and laughing and making it look so easy to be a fun, in love couple who could happily just talk about random interesting things. Because there certainly was a pause from their table (seriously, these tables were close. I could have stretched out and taken their sushi without getting up) while we were having a conversation about alleged top movies, and why 2001: A Space Odyssey needs a rewatch to be sure it is that bad (Mr Slippers) and why Butch Cassidy was awesome, and ergo why we should watch The Sting (me). Maybe it's all in my head, but I think they envied us. So of course we endeavoured to make our conversation all the more sparkling and witty, because that's just what we do. All in unspoken agreement, of course. Afterwards, when we both admitted we'd been doing it, I fell in love with Mr Ruby Slippers just a little bit more. :-)

As for the couple, eventually the woman got up and hissed, "I don't want to argue in front of these people," and I thought "I thought you already were", and the man said, a split-second later, "I thought you already were." I almost went "SNAP!"

Then they stalked off outside, and when we left, the woman was sitting in her car alone, and the man was halfway down the block, sulking next to a streetpole. As for us, we went and got delicious icecream and said things like "I love us" a lot.

I wish people would have the decency to fight in the privacy of their own home, but since it happened that they didn't, I rather enjoyed it. I just wished I was someone like House, and could come up with some flabbergastingly brilliant remark, and actually have the guts to say it. Now that would have been awesome.

Movie Resolution List: More Done!

2010-05-31T23:56:00.000+02:00

So I had to be doing something in all this time I haven't posted (aside from working, which I really HAVE been doing!). Anyway, remember my Movie Resolution list? I've since watched the following:

On The Waterfront (#19)

Eh. It was ok. I'm really not a Brando fan, but it was watchable.

Chinatown (#21)

I've come to the conclusion that I really don't like 70s movies, as a rule (despite my all-time favourite movie, What's Up, Doc?, being from the 70s). Chinatown was slow and kind of dull. And it wasn't even set in Chinatown; they just talked about it a bit. Well done, Roman Polanski, I knew I didn't like your movies.

Duck Soup (#60)

Duck Soup was AWFUL. It was painfully bad. It was one of the most unfunny things I've ever seen. Which is a shame, because I quite enjoyed A Night at the Opera, and I had great hopes for this one.

Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid (#73)

This, on the other hand, was AWESOME. Full of funny lines and great adventure. I loved these guys! No wonder they made another movie with Paul Newman and Robert Redford (which I'm definitely watching ASAP); they work really well together. LOVED it.

The Bridge on the River Kwai (# 36)

I loved Bridge on the River Kwai! Alec Guiness is awesome in just about everything he does (just about...see next). Great story; the ending was a bit rushed, maybe, but overall it's fantastic!

Lawrence of Arabia (#7)

What a snoozefest. Seriously one of the most boring films I've ever seen in my life. Even Alec Guinness couldn't save it. Neither could the ever-awesome Claude Rains - nor Peter O'Toole, who is always good. I think I've seen enough riding through deserts to last me a lifetime. Soooo boring.

So all I've got left to watch are:
The French Connection
A Streetcar Named Desire
Modern Times
Bonnie & Clyde
MASH

I can so do this! :-)

Friday Night movies

2010-05-31T13:52:00.000+02:00

So on Friday night I went to go watch Sex and the City 2 with my BFF and some other friends. I tried to get hubby to come along, because I hadn't really seen him all week, but I wasn't particularly surprised when he pointed out that I'd have to pay him to watch that movie, and much as I love him, I wasn't prepared to part with perfectly good hard-earned cash so that he could sit in masculine agony beside me while Carrie stressed about her marriage, Samantha talked about - and had - sex a lot, and Charlotte and Miranda were basically filler. (Note: I thought all this before I saw the movie, and guess what? I was right! :-))

I'm not a huge Sex & the City fan, actually. But I am a huge Liza Minnelli fan, and knowing that she was in the movie was enough to get me there on opening night - where, as predicted, I was surrounded by fuckwits who spent the entire movie repeating the dialogue and adding pointless commentary of their own. But since I was only there to see Liza, I didn't turn around in my giant chair - Oh, Monte Casino, your cinemas delight me - and tell them to shut the fuck up, like I normally would have.

Liza was on on the first five minutes, and she was AWESOME, of course. The rest of the movie was just "Lalala, this is vaguely fun and entertaining, but I hope it ends soon because I have to work tomorrow" for me. PS - it didn't end soon. It was incredibly overdrawn. Sigh.

Oh, and by the way, am I the only person who thinks the fashion those girls purport to love is pretty much heinous? You'd have to pay ME to wear half those overpriced, designer outfits. Ugh.

So when I got home my husband had watched The Human Centipede while I was out, and tweeted the following:

I watched The Human Centipede. @katforsyth watched Sex and the City 2. I guess we both watched a horrible abomination tonight.

Heheh. If you don't know what The Human Centipede is (and I wouldn't blame you) you can go watch the trailer on Youtube. But be warned, it's a horrible, horrible concept, and you might have scary dreams about it. Or maybe that's just me.

So later on, while we were in bed, we got to wondering: if the girls from Sex and the City had to be made into a Human Centipede, who would be in the front and who at the back? Ok, actually my husband got to wondering, but I thought it was pretty funny. Because we're kind of quirky-gross like that. My theory was that Carrie would have to be at the front because she has to narrate, which I stand by, even though hubby pointed out that the narration is voiceover, so she doesn't actually have to physically be able to speak. I still think she needs to be the head, though, because she's the lead. And Samantha would be at the back so she can still have sex. Because that's what she's there for. True, she'd have to stop making crass comments, but hey, when you're a human centipede, you win some, you lose some.

And this is how we spend our Friday night pillow talk. I love us.

Oscar Predictions!

2010-03-07T22:06:00.000+02:00

With just a few hours to go before Oscar lift off, here are my predictions. But first I have to say that for the first time in ten years, I will not be watching the Oscars as they are broadcast live. Except for that time two years ago when we had stock take on the morning of the Oscars and my boss wouldn't let me have the day off. But that was all conspired against me. This time I'm doing it on purpose.

It's always kind of a pain to get up at 2am and drive off to someone's house (usually BFF Ruby Slippers, who has satellite tv). But it's worth it to enjoy the show. However, when they put ad breaks between every single award, and play the same three ads in those breaks over and over over the 4 hour period, not to mention during the pre-shows, it kind of makes me want to stab my eyeballs with a fork. It's funny, really, that the Oscar bigwigs are always trying to find a way to make the show shorter and more interesting, and if they just took out ALL THE BLOODY AD BREAKS it would be, and people might actually watch it. And then they'd make no money. Ha.

Anyway, I'm still pretty Oscar-keen, so I'm getting up at about 6:30am and driving through to BFF's house. I should arrive as the show ends at around 7am, and then she'l give me the tape she recorded it on, and I'll drive home, eyes averted from all news headlines on the side of the roads, and watch it With No Ad Breaks. Bliss.

So here are my predictions:

BEST PICTURE
Avatar

BEST DIRECTOR
The Hurt Locker (Yup, I'm predicting a split here)

BEST ACTOR
Jeff Bridges, Crazy Heart

BEST ACTRESS
Sandra Bullock, The Blindside

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Mo'nique, Precious blah blah

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Christoph Waltz, Inglourious Basterds

ANIMATED FEATURE
Up

ART DIRECTION
Nine

CINEMATOGRAPHY
Avatar

COSTUME DESIGN
Nine

EDITING
Avatar

MAKEUP
Star Trek

ORIGINAL SCORE
Sherlock Holmes

SONG
Crazy Heart

SOUND EDITING
Avatar

SOUND MIXING
Avatar

VISUAL EFFECTS
Avatar

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Up in the Air

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Inglourious Basterds

FOREIGN FILM
The White Ribbon

As you can see, I'm predicting a bit of a sweep for Avatar, as is, you know, THE WORLD, but aside from all the effects and CGI stuff and sheer beauty of it, I don't think it deserves too much. It was a visually stunning film with a tired old plot and very little heart and soul. Personally, having now seen 8 of the 10 best picture nominees (The Blindside hasn't opened yet and Precious only opened on Friday, and I didn't have the time) I think the best films are An Education and Up in the Air, but if we're equating groundbreaking and impressive with "good", then Avatar will win every time. But it won't stand the test of time, once every movie looks like that...

AFI Movies # 2, 3 and 4 done!

2010-03-06T23:27:00.000+02:00

I'm totally on a movie roll this month. I've been trying to spend less time arbitrarily clicking round the internet, and more time watching movies I've been meaning to forever. Which is why I made that list of 15 movies on the AFI Top100 List to watch this year. I already posted that I'd watched Jaws. Since then, I've watched:

Which was rather sweet and quite fun. You have to be in the right mood for Chaplin (well, at least, I do), but when you are he can be such fun!

Which was about what I'd expected: typically 70s, angry protagonist in an imperfect world, and not my kind of movie at all. It's not bad, though, and I'm glad I watched it eventually.

This was pretty good. Maybe a bit too over-acted, but that's how they did stuff back then, and the 40s is one of my favourite movie decades. It's pretty much all about greed and how it affects one. Good stuff.

This leaves me only:

1) On The Waterfront (#19)
2) Chinatown (#21)
3) Duck Soup (#60)
4) Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid (#73)
5) The French Connection (#93)
6) A Streetcar named Desire (#47)
7) The Bridge on the River Kwai (# 36)
8) Modern Times (#78) .
9) Bonnie and Clyde (#42) .
10) M*A*S*H (#54)
11) Lawrence of Arabia (#7)

But right now, I'm off to catch up on my Oscar movies. Predictions tomorrow!

Movie #1 Done!

2010-02-19T12:23:00.001+02:00

Remember my New Year's Goal to watch 15 movies I hadn't seen off the AFI Best 100 List? Well, I started in at the bottom and watched this:

And, much to my surprise, I really enjoyed it! I don't see what it's doing on a Top Film list, to be honest, but it was a great, fun, adventure, with a nice number of "jump in your seat" moments (though, to be honest, the one that startled me the most had nothing to do with the shark at all!), and a nicely-paced story. I'd been worrying about how on earth they could be on a boat looking for a shark for the length of an entire movie, but the set-up took a good portion of the film, and I enjoyed it too.

Not a bad start to my 15! Let's hope the next 14 are as enjoyable, though I have my doubts about a few... :-)

Oh, by the way, I found the most wonderful time-wasting movie site. It's called ICheckMovies, and it's basically a checklist of every top movie list ever made, including the AFI, Oscar winners, Roger Ebert and so on, as well as things like "top sequels" and "top horrors". Go. Play.

Another one gone

2010-02-19T00:22:00.000+02:00

I just heard that Kathryn Grayson died yesterday, and I'm inexplicably sad. Now before you all go, "Kathryn who?", she was one of the big musical stars at MGM in the 1940s and 50s. She co-starred with people like Frank Sinatra, Gene Kelly, and Mario Lanza. She was in Showboat and Kiss Me Kate. I'm not exaggerating when I say she was one of the biggies.

And I didn't even like her.

I never was a big fan of the soprano leads in musicals, like Kathryn and Jane Powell. I found them a bit shrieky and I never liked the songs they chose for them. I'm much more of a jazzy, alto, Judy Garland-type lover (well, duh, if you know me at all). But I'm so SAD about Kathryn's death. You see, with her passing, we come ever closer to losing every last one of the great stars of my favourite film era of all time - the Golden Age of Hollywood. And THAT makes me want to cry.

As soon as I heard the news of Kathryn's passing, I went and dug out the list I made a few years ago of the big classic stars who are still alive. Maybe it's a bit of a depressing list, but I'm morbid that way, and anyway, I LIKE lists. I hadn't looked at it for some months, and I immediately had to delete Jennifer Jones, Jean Simmons and Karl Malden, as well as Kathryn. What saddened me is I didn't even know that Jean Simmons had died until a friend told me last week. I guess it just wasn't big enough news, which makes me even sadder.

I love old Hollywood. I adore it. And yes, I know these stars will live on through their films, and them being alive or dead really makes no difference in the grand scheme of things. But for me, it's like a piece of magic has disappeared off this earth.

Here is the list of those magic-makers who are still with us. Please let me know if I've forgotten someone, because I very likely have! And it would make me feel so much better if the list were longer. The dates next to them are their dates of birth.

Luise Rainer (1910)
Tony Martin (1912)
Kirk Douglas (1916)
Olivia De Havilland (1916)
Joan Fontaine (1917)
Lena Horne (1917)
Ernest Borgnine (1917)
Celeste Holm (1917)
Maureen O' Hara (1920)
Mickey Rooney (1920)
Jane Russell (1921)
Deanna Durbin (1921)
Esther Williams (1921)
Doris Day (1922)
Eva Marie Saint (1924)
Lauren Bacall (1924)
Tony Curtis (1925)
Gloria DeHaven (1925)
Angela Lansbury (1925)
Farley Granger (1925)
Patricia Neal (1926)
Leslie Nielsen (1926)
Gina Lollobrigida (1927)
Sidney Poitier (1927)
Ann Blyth (1928)
Shirley Temple (1928)
Jane Powell (1929)
Tippi Hedren (1930)
Joanne Woodward (1930)
Rita Moreno (1931)
Debbie Reynolds (1932)
Peter O' Toole (1932)
Elizabeth Taylor (1932)
Omar Sharif (1932)
Kim Novak (1933)
Shirley Jones (1934)
Sophia Loren (1934)
Shirley Maclaine (1934)
Julie Andrews (1935)
Margaret O'Brien (1937)

Please tell me someone else is sad about how short this list is! And I can't even let BFF Ruby Slippers know, because she's on holiday in the bush, with no cellphone reception. :-(

Yours, sadly,
Ruby Slippers

The best Trash the Dress photo EVER.

2010-02-11T21:31:00.001+02:00

I just wish it was mine!

It won't let me save it, but do yourself a favour and go see it here. Because, wow.

Dream Home

2010-02-10T21:27:00.000+02:00

I think I might have found my dream house (or loft, in this case):

Look at the low-running bookcases! I want!

There is a little garden IN the kitchen! And the space! Divine.

I think this might be the most perfect bathroom ever. Be still my beating heart.

See the rest here.

in the hospital

2010-02-07T15:04:00.001+02:00

So. Remember my last post, where Mr Ruby Slippers had a stomach bug and I was sitting on the computer in the middle of the night to avoid his possible vomit? Yeah...turns out, not so much a stomach bug. We went off to the doctor in the early morning, after the poor guy was unable to sleep because he was in so much pain. Many X-Rays and ultrasounds and even more $$$ later, it was discovered that he had a blockage in his intestine. And they had to operate. Twelve hours after I wrote that last post, he was being prepped for surgery.

I did NOT see that coming.

I was assured that he was never in any danger and that it was all pretty routine, but it was just so...hard. Hard seeing him lying there, barely able to move, with tubes down his nose and in his arm and up his...well, you know. Hard to drive to the hospital two or three times a day to see him. Hard to be strong for him when I just wanted to cry. And hard to carry on with work when all I wanted to do was curl up in bed and sleep. I never realised just how exhausting it is to have someone in hospital. I don't cope well with stress, I think.

Mr RS was released from hospital eight days after his operation. He hobbled around at home for a while, and he had his stitches out last Thursday. Now, aside from a painful and quite scary-looking scar, he's doing okay. And my mind is getting more or less back to normal. I felt quite hazy for a while there.

As for what caused the blockage, we still don't know. The surgeon said it was something he ate, something mostly fibrous, that hardened into a bezoar (and yes, I also immediately thought "ooh, those have magical properties!"). Unfortunately we didn't get to keep it :-)

Anyway, so that's where I've been for the last two weeks.

I'm going to leave you with a pretty picture I found on desiretoinspire.net:

It's a fairytale. LOVE it.

Middle of the night ramblings

2010-01-22T01:50:00.000+02:00

So it's 1:30am and I'm here, writing. It's not unusual for me to be up this late - in fact, since I started working from home, I often find myself going to bed at 2am and waking up at 11. I'm sorry, I know you're all gasping in envy, but I seem to need 9 hours. It's what my body wants. If I get less, I just sit there craving a nap the whole afternoon. And I can work whenever I want, so why not sleep half the morning and do my work at night? Sounds reasonable to me!

Anyway, right now Mr RS is is the throes of a stomach bug of some sort - he seems particularly susceptible to them - and is lying groaning on the bed. I was keeping him company, until he suggested that he might need to vomit at some point, at which point I left the room at the speed of light. You might remember my intense fear of vomit. So now I don't know if he has - you know - or not. I much prefer stomach flu that only comes out the correct end. I won't be able to sleep if I think he might throw up. Which kind of ticks me off because I LOVE sleeping. No, I'm not pissed at my poor husband for being sick. I'm pissed at my own stupid phobia for making me unable to sleep in the suggested possible tentative chance of the presence of vomit.

Funnily enough, the cat vomit doesn't bother me. Well, that's because I don't believe Gollum know how to chew, because he always brings up a neat pile of unchewed cat pellets. They just look like damp new ones. So those I can pick up. Also, they smell like cat food, not like vomit. That's a big part of it.

So apparently this is just going to be a rambling, middle of the night post. Sorry. I'm bored. I don't feel like watching tv anymore, and nothing's happening on Twitter or Facebook in the middle of the night. My night. Actually, there is stuff going on on Twitter because it's still evening for the Americans. I'm just not in the mood. Maybe now would be a good time to go and read some of the novel I wrote for NaNoWriMo in November. I haven't even looked at it since I finished it.

*Excuse me while I go read a 50000 word novel. I'll be right back.*

Movie Lists

2010-01-17T15:57:00.000+02:00

Ha, so I've already broken one of my New Year goals - which was to post on here at LEAST once a week. Oops. Anyway, I thought I'd expand a bit more on some of my goals, and the first one that caught my eye was the one about watching 15 of the 40 AFI Top 100 movies I haven't seen. When I told Mr Ruby Slippers about this, he said it was a pointless endeavour, because "top" lists of anything are usually stupid, and influenced only by what the makers think people should think. Or something. Still, I think it's worth seeing some of them, especially the ones that are considered "important" films. Also, I like to see films just so that I can truthfully be able to say "I thought that was the most incredibly overrated film of all time" (*cough*BarryLyndon*cough) instead of, "Oh...I haven't seen that yet." But then, I am a movie person. :-)

So I thought I'd make a list of the fifteen films I intend to watch this year, and then I can cross them off publically on here as I watch them. That might motivate me a bit. :-)

For interest's sake, here is the full AFI list (the recent 2007 version). Everything I HAVEN'T seen is in red.

1. "Citizen Kane," 1941.
2. "The Godfather," 1972.
3. "Casablanca," 1942.
4. "Raging Bull," 1980.
5. "Singin' in the Rain," 1952.
6. "Gone With the Wind," 1939.
7. "Lawrence of Arabia," 1962.
8. "Schindler's List," 1993.
9. "Vertigo," 1958.
10. "The Wizard of Oz," 1939.
11. "City Lights," 1931.
12. "The Searchers," 1956.
13. "Star Wars," 1977.
14. "Psycho," 1960.
15. "2001: A Space Odyssey," 1968.
16. "Sunset Blvd.", 1950.
17. "The Graduate," 1967.
18. "The General," 1927.
19. "On the Waterfront," 1954.
20. "It's a Wonderful Life," 1946.
21. "Chinatown," 1974.
22. "Some Like It Hot," 1959.
23. "The Grapes of Wrath," 1940.
24. "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial," 1982.
25. "To Kill a Mockingbird," 1962.
26. "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington," 1939.
27. "High Noon," 1952.
28. "All About Eve," 1950.
29. "Double Indemnity," 1944.
30. "Apocalypse Now," 1979.
31. "The Maltese Falcon," 1941.
32. "The Godfather Part II," 1974.
33. "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," 1975.
34. "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs," 1937.
35. "Annie Hall," 1977.
36. "The Bridge on the River Kwai," 1957.
37. "The Best Years of Our Lives," 1946.
38. "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre," 1948.
39. "Dr. Strangelove," 1964.
40. "The Sound of Music," 1965.
41. "King Kong," 1933.
42. "Bonnie and Clyde," 1967.
43. "Midnight Cowboy," 1969.
44. "The Philadelphia Story," 1940.
45. "Shane," 1953.
46. "It Happened One Night," 1934.
47. "A Streetcar Named Desire," 1951.
48. "Rear Window," 1954.
49. "Intolerance," 1916.
50. "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring," 2001.
51. "West Side Story," 1961.
52. "Taxi Driver," 1976.
53. "The Deer Hunter," 1978.
54. "M-A-S-H," 1970.
55. "North by Northwest," 1959.
56. "Jaws," 1975.
57. "Rocky," 1976.
58. "The Gold Rush," 1925.
59. "Nashville," 1975.
60. "Duck Soup," 1933.
61. "Sullivan's Travels," 1941.
62. "American Graffiti," 1973.
63. "Cabaret," 1972.
64. "Network," 1976.
65. "The African Queen," 1951.
66. "Raiders of the Lost Ark," 1981.
67. "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?", 1966.
68. "Unforgiven," 1992.
69. "Tootsie," 1982.
70. "A Clockwork Orange," 1971.
71. "Saving Private Ryan," 1998.
72. "The Shawshank Redemption," 1994.
73. "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid," 1969.
74. "The Silence of the Lambs," 1991.
75. "In the Heat of the Night," 1967.
76. "Forrest Gump," 1994.
77. "All the President's Men," 1976.
78. "Modern Times," 1936.
79. "The Wild Bunch," 1969.
80. "The Apartment, 1960.
81. "Spartacus," 1960.
82. "Sunrise," 1927.
83. "Titanic," 1997.
84. "Easy Rider," 1969.
85. "A Night at the Opera," 1935.
86. "Platoon," 1986.
87. "12 Angry Men," 1957.
88. "Bringing Up Baby," 1938.
89. "The Sixth Sense," 1999.
90. "Swing Time," 1936.
91. "Sophie's Choice," 1982.
92. "Goodfellas," 1990.
93. "The French Connection," 1971.
94. "Pulp Fiction," 1994.
95. "The Last Picture Show," 1971.
96. "Do the Right Thing," 1989.
97. "Blade Runner," 1982.
98. "Yankee Doodle Dandy," 1942.
99. "Toy Story," 1995.
100. "Ben-Hur," 1959.

There are actually quite a few on there that I really WANT to see, and I've just never got around to it. Why on earth haven't I seen Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid, for goodness' sakes? Luckily I have a couple of movie-crazy friends, and I'm pretty sure they can hook me up with the ones I want to see, which are:

1) On The Waterfront (#19) ~ it doesn't sound that interesting, and Marlon Brando always annoys the heck out of me, but it won a bunch of Oscars, including best picture, which means I can cross it off THAT list too. And it's supposed to be good. I might enjoy it.

2) Chinatown (#21) ~ I hear it's good, and it has Jack Nicholson in it, which usually takes a movie up a notch. Unfortunately it's directed by Roman Polanski, and I'm usually not a fan of his films. Still, I'll give it a go. The plot sounds good.

3) Duck Soup (#60) ~ I actually really want to see this one. I love the Marx Borthers. I just haven't been able to get hold of a copy.

4) Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid (#73) ~ Young, gorgeous Paul Newman and Robert Redford. In an adventure getaway caper. I'm there. And yes, I do already know how it ends.

5) The French Connection (#93) ~ A classic I keep seeing clips from everywhere. It looks like a good plot, so why not?

6) A Streetcar named Desire (#47) ~ I really have to watch this. It's just that I did the play at university, plus a bunch of other Tennessee Williams plays, and I really, really dislike his work. But bloody hell, if I sat through 'Who's Afraid of Virgina Woolf' I can get through this.

7) The Bridge on the River Kwai (# 36) ~ I've been meaning to watch this for ages. Secret? Ssshh. I already have a copy. I'm such a procrastinator.

8) The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (#38) ~ Another one of those "it's famous, it looks good enough, it has quotable lines, why haven't I seen it?" movies.

9) Modern Times (#78) ~ I can watch Chaplin. In small doses, maybe, but he does have a quality about him. I enjoyed The Gold Rush, so I'm keen to see how this one turns out.

10) Bonnie and Clyde (#42) ~ Kind of middle of the road for me, but I reckon I'll enjoy it once it's there.

11) M*A*S*H (#54) ~ I'm starting to push it here as thing appeal to me less. It looks ok, though. And it can't be too bad if they made a soin-off TV show (that was how it went, right?)

12) Taxi Driver (#52) ~ I should TOTALLY have seen this. It just doesn't appeal to me. But I really should, and will!

13) City Lights (#11) ~ Ok, I can do two Chaplins.

14) Lawrence of Arabia (#7) ~ Sigh. It's high on the list, and it's famous....and stuff. I'll try.

15) Jaws (#56) ~ Hopefully this will now be too naff to scare me, which is why I've avoided it all my life. And it's famous, I should have seen it.

So...That's that. If I can make it through these 15 movies I'll probably never see any of the others, most of which I'm avoiding because I don't like the subject matter/plot (Raging Bull, Rocky, Do the Right Thing, Spartacus, Easy Rider, The Wild Bunch, Apocalypse Now, Nashville...) But hey, you never know.

In case you're interested, my picks for "WTF is this movie doing on any kind of Top List??" (that I've seen) are: The Godfather, The Last Picture Show, The Maltese Falcon, Snow White (being groundbreaking doesn't mean you're brilliant, IMO - in that case include Star Wars and Toy Story as well), Network, Raiders of the Lost Ark (it's fun, but it's Indiana Jones, for goodness' sakes!), and Blade Runner.

My picks for "hell to the YES for including this!" are: Singin' in the Rain, The Shawshank Redemption, Sunset Blvd, Bringing Up Baby, Some Like it Hot, It Happened One Night, All About Eve, The Wizard of Oz, The Sound of Music, Forrest Gump and The Sixth Sense. And perhaps Swing Time, though I have to say that Top Hat would have been a better choice if they wanted a Fred & Ginger movie.

Did I mention I'm a film nut? Does anyone else make lists of movies to watch, or lists of movies they've seen?

Yet another year, with bigger and better goals

2010-01-04T01:19:00.000+02:00

Two years ago, at the beginning of 2008, I was newly-engaged (a whole two years and ten days ago I got engaged! Wow), and because of that, my New Year's goal for 2008 was pretty much "get married awesomely". Most of 2008 was sucked away in accomplishing this, but I'm okay with that, because I DID accomplish it, and it was awesome. I also managed to break free of the horrible chain bookstore job I'd had for three years, which I hated 98% of the time*, and found myself in another retail job that I thought I'd like more, but which I ended up despising for different reasons (except for the customers. I hated them in both shops).

One year ago, at the start of 2009, I posted a list of New Year Goals. You can see the full list and explanations here, but I'm going to go through them now, and see how I did. This is a bit scary, because I haven't actually gone back and looked at these since I wrote them, or at least not since early last year, so I'm not really sure how I did. Even now I haven't looked at them. I'm going to go through them one at a time.

1. Get a new job. DONE
I started my own photography business, although I probably still need a part time job to bring in more money so I can afford stuff.

2. Take at least a month off before starting alleged new job. DONE
I took my photography course during this time. I REALLY needed this break. I felt like I was going to have a nervous breakdown, the way I started crying every time someone asked me how work was, or how I was.

3. Buy a house. NOT DONE

Yeah...we just didn't have enough money to consider this one. But we still need one, so badly. Renting is horrible.

4. Take singing lessons. NOT DONE
I don't mind so much that I didn't get to do this one. When it came down to it, I had to decide whether to put the money I had towards singing lessons or photography classes. At the time I wasn't 100% sure I wanted to make photography my career, but I knew I most certainly wasn't going to make one from singing, so I chose photos. And I'm glad. I can always do it one day.

5.Do a Photography course. DONE
Self-explanatory. Best thing I ever did.

6. Be happy within myself. MOSTLY DONE

This is a hard one, because there's no tangible evidence that I accomplished it. I AM happier, though. I finally have a new job I love, and that makes a huge difference. No one is trying to steal a piece of my soul anymore, I'm not treated like a moron, and I can go to the damn toilet without having to ask customers to leave, lock up, and get a security guard to watch the outside books. Oh, and I get a lunch break. Of my very own! :-)

You see, I'm a person who likes solitude. I go crazy in busy places, and I get all weirded out. My brain starts going fuzzy and I forget words and talk nonsense. It's not as bad as it sounds, but I do go slightly weird. I really should never have worked in retail. I'm surprised I never had an anxiety attack or something around Christmas time. Working as a photographer is perfection for me. You get to spend time with people on their happiest day, and then go home and work on their images in peace and quiet. And eat lunch without interruptions.

So, now for THIS year:

1) Shoot at least twelve weddings as the primary photographer.
2) Grow Kat Forsyth Photography into en established business, with a recognisable name (or at least, the beginnings of that)
3) Buy a house (well, there has to be one carry-over, right?)
4) Get some kind of part-time income in order to afford to buy and decorate said house.
5) Tidy and clean the house more often (I'm a lazy slob sometimes)
6) Go to gym at least once a week (technically it should be twice, but I might have mentioned I'm lazy)
7) Watch at least fifteen of the forty movies I haven't seen on the AFI's 2007 Top 100 Movies of all time list.
8) Have a proper Date Night with my husband once a month.
9) Post on here once a week, at least. Preferably twice.

I think that's enough for one year!

I hope you all have a great one. I intend to.

*I still miss the 2% I didn't hate.

On being a cinema snob

2009-12-11T11:31:00.000+02:00

I used to be a huge film-goer. I'd see practically every movie that came out on circuit (unless it was a horror or something with the Wayans Brothers). I just saw random stuff because it was there. When I first met Mr Ruby Slippers, we used to go to the movies at least once a week, if not more. It was what we did together, because we're both movie nuts. But gradually it kind of started tapering off. Partly that's because the last year or two, or three, have produced some pretty crap movies. But mostly it's because we hate the way people behave in the cinema.

Yes, I'm a cinema snob. I don't believe you should talk during a movie, EVER. Unless you're dying and need to alert someone. People who sit there and have a chat during a movie that they've paid good money to see completely mystify me. If you wanted to have a fat chat, you could do it at home without paying for two tickets and popcorn. And spoiling it for everyone else who paid for their tickets because THEY actually want to see the movie, and not listen to you talk talk talk.

Anyway, the reason I bring this up now is because of something that just happened on Twitter. The movie INVICTUS opens here today, and of course everyone is keen to see it because it's about...um, South Africa. Actually I have very little idea what it's about, other than the Springboks winning the World Cup in 1995 and Nelson Mandela being there. I don't know how you make a whole movie out of that, but anyway. I couldn't care less about sport if I tried. I think the way people get worked up about sport is quite insane. Do you know what I was doing when the Boks won that game in 1995? I was at the opera with my family. Yep, we watched The Merry Widow (ok, I was at the operetta) instead of watching our country win a sports competition. Because we don't care.

I've just got totally off the subject. The point is, I'm actually pretty keen to see Invictus, if only to see Matt Damon putting on a heavy Afrikaans accent, and Morgan Freeman trying to emulate Madiba's unique voice. And see local places that we don't usually see in movies (I loved District 9 for this - I loved it anyway because it was excellent - but it was great seeing Johannesburg on screen!). So today on Twitter some guy says, "Are you a South African? Then you've bought tickets for INVICTUS, opening nationwide tonight, the movie every SA-n must see? Yes? Good."

To which I responded, "No; I'm waiting because I don't see movies with the talking masses."

His response: " do you ever go to stadiums or are you generally living with Heidi's grandfather in a mountain hermitage?" AND "think you should make an exception here. Be an enthusiastic citizen of your own country, belong to a sense of community"

At which I, of course, took offence. So apparently I must go and PAY good money to sit through a movie on a Friday night, which will be filled with loud talkers and silly teenagers and people loudly mocking the attempts at the South African accents on screen? Because this will somehow give me a sense of community?? (Yeah, a sense of 'I hate my community') Because if I don't go, then I'm living like a hermit (and why is that a bad thing, anyway?)?

If I don't want to see a film about a sport I despise amongst a crowd of people whom I will begin to despise as the opening credits roll, and they all start talking, playing on their cellphones, and laughing, WHY DOES THIS MAKE ME A BAD PERSON???

*Rant Over*

And yes, I AM going to see Invictus. Just at a time when the cinema is mostly empty. And that won't be this weekend at any time. Should I apologise for that? Cos I'm not going to.

How Babes on Broadway stole November

2009-12-10T00:15:00.001+02:00

Having NaNoWriMo in November was a really bad idea, for me, because November is also when my community theatre puts on its musical show. And if you say the words "musical show", I'm there. If you say the words "Broadway musical show", I will be there five hours early with a list of songs I'd like to sing (I'm like a less pushy Rachel from Glee), fifty musical soundtracks, and the complete score of Wicked. If I had it.

This show was called "Babes on Broadway", and they had me at the title. The "babes" part came in because, as per usual, no men auditioned for the show. What is it with men and theatre? In Allo Allo they had to have two women playing some of the men's parts, although at least they had five men, which is five more than we had!

We started rehearsing in August, and by early November most of the cast never wanted to hear "You Can't Stop the Beat" ever again. Or "Fame", or "There's no Business like Show Business". Except me, cos I'm theatre-geeky that way. :-) The show was to go on stage on the last two weekends of November, with three shows the first weekend and two the second. And as November wore on there was more shouting, more tantrums, more people crying because they were being picked on, more threats of walking out (between August and November we did lose about 12 cast members, but you get that with every show. There are always people who can't be bothered to show up and perform properly), and lots of yells of "You're not ready to go on stage in front of an audience!" from the director. And yes, we do this for fun. :-)

And it was fun! I LOVE those 15 girls who were in the cast with me. Not only did they include Sister Ruby Slippers and BFF Ruby Slippers (whom I blackmailed into joining by promising to watch all her June Allyson movies, because she adoes June and I kind of hate her), but a there were a few old friends and some fantastic new ones! And not a bitchy diva amongst the lot of them. Which is unbelievable.

Anyway, the long rehearsals and then weekend performances really took it out of me, especially since I was spending all my free time writing that darn novel. Which is my second ~~excuse~~ reason why I haven't been around on here.

And when we get the dvd of the show I'll try post some clips on here. It went amazingly well; we played to almost packed houses every night, and people couldn't gush enough. But the best part was making all these new friends, who are now my karaoke posse and party pals!

Here are some pictures of the fun we had on Sunday at our Christmas party:

Bombs away!

The Producer of the show, Paul:

Something so great about sitting round on the grass in the evening, eating boerewors rolls and salad...

This is a running joke that I can't even begin to explain...

There's me on the left at the back. The downside to being the photographer is that you're never in any pictures! I can't remember who I got to take this one, but I'm glad I got to be in one with my lovely ladies.

How NaNoWriMo stole November

2009-12-09T00:15:00.000+02:00

Because in November I pretty much vanished from this blog, didn't I? I'm not going to keep apologising or make excuses. Except this:

There was NaNoWriMo.
Have you heard of NaNoWriMo? It's short for National Novel Writing Month. You can read more here, but the basic premise is that you have to write 50 000 (yes, fifty thousand) words during the month of November. It can be any kind of story you want, but you're not supposed to go back and read over what you've done and change things, because that slows you down and discourages you. The point is to make you write, however bad it might be; just to let the words flow out, and worry about fixing it later.

Mr Ruby Slippers and some of our mutual friends were taking part, but I wasn't sure if I was gong to have the time and, let's face it, the dedication to do it. But I'm terribly guilty of starting stories and never finishing them. I write the good bits and then I give up after 2000 words, or something. And there was a novel I'd been writing on and off for over two years, which really needed some impetus. In two years I'd written about 16000 words of it, and, while those wouldn't count - everything has to be written in November - it was something I could definitely carry on with. You don't need to write a complete novel, just 50000 words of it.

However, by the time November rolled around, I was still dithering about taking part. Mr Ruby Slippers got cracking on Day One (a Sunday) and wrote even more than the daily target (which was a1667 words). I, on the other hand, went off to rehearsal, danced, painted, sang, and came home exhausted. Wash, rinse and repeat on the Monday and Wednesday, and by Saturday I still hadn't decided if I was even going to take part. And if I did, I was going to be incredibly behind - the target for that day was 11667 words. Still, it was Saturday, I felt bright and chirpy (for once), so I decided to start and see how it went.

Of course, once I'd started I had that "I will not fail and get beaten by my husband and friends" competitive feeling come over me, so I persevered and wrote nearly every day, even when I wanted to throw the keyboard on the floor and scream at my characters for talking like a really bad soap opera. Even when my arms and neck were aching and I just wanted to watch Glee or House or ANYthing that would let me sit back and not have to think about what to write next.

Here's my stats graph for November. Having a graph you can use to see how you're doing compared to the target and compared to others is really motivating! The blue bars are the daily targets, and the brown ones are where I was each day. I started late, but I trucked along just behind target every day, only finally hitting it on the last day. But that's typical of me. I was always the one having to get up early to finish school projects on the morning they were due, and writing essays during break before they had to be handed in. Oh, school. You were...fun in spots, but better to look back on. :-)

Anyway, my point is - I WROTE 50000 WORDS IN NOVEMBER! It's completely crazy, and the book is nowhere near finished, and it's pretty damn sucky, I'm sure, but I DID IT.

Skreeeeee!!!

And that, readers (if you're still out there!) is what happened to my November. Well, it's part of what happened to my November...

That Guy Thursday #6

2009-11-20T16:06:00.000+02:00

I've been so neglecting this blog lately! I even forgot to do a That Guy Thursday yesterday.

So, one day late, here's That Guy, who, today is That Gal:

Ok, you probably know who this is. Some of you are going, "Hey, it's Stiffler's Mom!", aren't you? Or "It's Elle's friend in the Beautyshop from Legally Blonde!"

In case you aren't, but you know her face anyway, her name is Jennifer Coolidge. She was also on "Joey", which I never watched - I didn't want to spoil Friends with a bad spinoff - and appeared in Lemony Snicket, Down to Earth, American Dreamz, and tons of tv shows.

That Guy Thursday #5

2009-11-12T17:07:00.000+02:00

Today's That Guy:

Now don't tell me you've never seen this guy. Maybe as a therapist? A writer? That quiet guy with a bit of a nervous tick or stammer? Yeah, that guy.

His name is Bob Balaban.

(I just totally went, "His name was Robert Paulsen" there) :-)

You've seen him in License to Wed, Capote, No Reservations, Lady in the Water, all those Christopher Guest movies such as For Your Consideration and A Mighty Wind, The Tuxedo, Gosford Park, Ghost World, and the Mexican. He hasn't guest-starred in as much tv as some of my previous That Guys, but he has been on The West Wing and (if you're a Friends nutter like me), he was Phoebe's father in the one where she meets him at her Gran's funeral. Yes, That Guy!

Question for the Americans

2009-11-11T13:13:00.000+02:00

This is completely random, and will probably never happen, but call it idle curiosity in case it ever does.

If Mr Ruby Slippers and I were to move to America, where would we want to live?

Firstly, my priority would be weather. I need to live in a place that:
1) is generally warm, but when it gets hot it's a dry heat, rather than a humid, sticky heat that makes you feel like you've been hit in the face with a hot, wet towel.
2) Doesn't go over 30 C (86 F) as a general rule. (I used an internet converter; hope it's right :-))
3) Doesn't ever go below freezing in winter, and preferably stays a bit above. (Is freezing 32 F for you guys?)
4) Doesn't snow.
5) Stays fairly mild all year round; no massive temperature fluctuations
6) Where you can go out in the evening in summer wearing a light dress, and in winter wearing no more than one jacket/jersey/sweater/similar.

(I really want the moon and stars, don't I?)

Other priorities:
1) Must have a good number of cultural activities like a number of professional theatres, amateur dramatics, choirs etc. Actual celebrities appearing in plays/shows would be a bonus :P
2) Must be open to various lifestyle choices, such as homosexuality, atheism, etc. I don't want to live somewhere where people get beaten up because they don't believe everything everyone else does.
3) Doesn't have to be a big city; in fact I love peace and quiet, but must be nearby enough so one can attend functions mentioned in #1, and have a good supply of stores.
4) Prettiness. I'm thinking mountains or the sea. I'm deprived of those where I live, and I'm always happier when I'm near them.

I don't want much, do I? Seriously, does such a place exist?

Love Ruby S xxxx

PS - now I'm singing "I like to be in America, okay by me in America..." :P

Last night...

2009-11-09T16:49:00.000+02:00

...I dreamed that I was pregnant and both Mr RS and I were totally excited about it.

However, I'm not reading too much into it, since I also dreamed that I was held hostage by a group of people and made to live on the upper level of a double decker bus, where they ran episodes of I Love Lucy in a loop.

I just wish that at some point we could decide if we even want children. Because at this point, I haven't a freakin clue. I really thought that after being married for some time I would just KNOW what I wanted. But I don't.

My problem is I can only see the downside of having children. I can't see the upside, because I think you need to have your own in order to experience said upside. My Dad says, "children bring you so much joy." Yeah, and I remember him yelling at us for hours while we stood there sobbing. Not so much joy in that, for either party. And I have my Dad's temper. Oh dear.

Last night at rehearsal some of the backstage crew had to leave early because they had an exam to write the next day. I turned to one of my cast members and said, "This is why I'm never studying anything ever again. I can't stomach exams, tests, speeches, projects..."

Her answer? "Don't have children, then. You'll be doing homework and projects for the next twenty years."

GLEEP.

Not to mention I feel like I'm way too selfish. Sorry, I kind of enjoy sleeping for 10 hours uninterrupted, thanks. So if you wouldn't mind shutting up, tiny baby, and letting me sleep, I'd be forever grateful. If only that would work!

Anyway, we're nowhere near having enough money for a child, so our problem is temporarily solved for us.

I feel like there's a ton more I could write about this, but I need to go make dinner. Which is mission enough just for two of us. Did I ever mention I'm lazy about housework? Um, yeah.

I ♥ Faces Fix-it Friday

2009-11-07T14:35:00.000+02:00

I missed last week but I did it anyway, at the same time I did this week's! Here they are:

and

Drakensberg

2009-11-05T20:36:00.000+02:00

I had such a great anniversary. I'll tell you all about that tomorrow (hopefully), but in the meantime here are some shots from the Drakensberg. You can see the rest on my photography blog.

They look better big, so head on over!

That Guy Thursday #4

2009-11-05T11:25:00.000+02:00

Now I know you know This Guy's face. I did too, when I spotted him having a birthday mention on the imdb. But unlike the That Guys I've featured so far, I couldn't put a name to this one! Or think of anything he's been in. Well, like most good That Guys, he's been in tons of stuff.

Meet Dylan Baker.

He was in Spiderman 2 and 3 (and apparently 4 as well), Revolutionary Road, Across the Universe, Kinsey, Road to Perdition and Requiem for a Dream. He also had a recurring role in Murder One in the nineties (I didn't watch it, though, so I don't know how "lead" he was), and he seems to have a penchant for appearing as attorneys and law enforcement officials in shows like Oz, The Practice, and Law & Order. Half his film credits seem to be senators, FBI agents, lawyers or doctors, so chances are you've seen him playing some of those. Or all of those. Now all you (and I) have to do is remember his name...

That Guy Thursday #3

2009-10-29T12:24:00.001+02:00

If you don't recognise today's That Guy, you can't have watched any television for the past twenty years. Even I was amazed at how much stuff this guy has been in.

His name is Stephen Tobolowsky. If you're a Glee fan, you'll probably recognise him as Sandy, the teacher who was fired for inappropriate behaviour at the beginning. If you managed to get into season 2 of Heroes (I didn't, but I watched it anyway) he was Elle's evil father. In movies, you will have seen him in: The Time Traveller's Wife, Wild Hogs, Failure to Launch, Miss Congeniality 2, Win a Date with Tad Hamilton, Freaky Friday, Memento, The Insider, Groundhog Day, Basic Instinct, Single White Female - and that's just the tip of the iceberg. This guy has been making a living out of being a That Guy since the early eighties! He's also guest-starred in tons of tv series', including Will & Grace, The Practice, The Closer, The New Adventures of Old Christine, Deadwood, Desperate Housewives, CSI Miami, Curb Your Enthusiasm and The West Wing.

Ste-phen To-bow-low-sky. Say it with me now. :-)

Last year this time...

2009-10-26T13:03:00.000+02:00

...I was freaking out. It was T minus 5 days, and I was completely overwhelmed and stressed and just generally being a weepy, snappish mess. I don't think I'd ever want to go back there, but I wouldn't trade the actual five days later for anything.

I'm so glad I have this blog, because I've forgotten so much of that time. This excerpt from this post on the 29th of October last year made me laugh:

I have Bride Brain (def: a sieve). I left today to go print the menus and table listings. Halfway there I realised I'd forgotten the cardboard I was to print on. I turned around, went home and got it. (Actually I went upstairs, patted my cat, Gollum, grabbed some water, went outside, locked the door, realised I still didn't have the cardboard, unlocked and went back inside). Got to the print shop and discovered I hadn't embedded the fonts in the documents, so they were all Arial. Yuck. Back I went home again. Returned finally, printed the stupid things, had the lady there slice them up so I wouldn't have to, got into my car, realised I had no food for supper, hurried back to the supermarket and then came home.

Attempted to breathe.

I can still feel my panic. But in the end, it was worth it, because I have this:

and this:

Mr Ruby Slippers and I are going on a mini anniversary holiday to the Drakensberg on Thursday. Our actual anniversary is on Saturday, and we'll return home on Sunday (in time for my rehearsal, boo). I can't believe it's been a year. They say the first year is the hardest, and we have had a few bumps along the way, but on the whole I'd say being engaged was a lot more stressful on our relationship. That was when we were snappy and short-tempered and weepy (me) and frustrated (him). Planning a wedding isn't easy on a relationship. If you can do that, the first year should be a breeze!

Happy almost one year, Mr Slippers! I love you.

That Guy Thursday #2

2009-10-22T10:00:00.001+02:00

Hey look, it's that guy!

His name is Larry Miller, and he's in everything you've ever seen. He was the father in 10 Things I Hate About You, crazy lawyer Edwin Poole in the early episodes of Boston Legal, the smarmy shop manager who sucks up to Richard Gere in Pretty Woman, and the haidresser who has to transform Mia into a Princess in both of The Princess Diaries movies. He's also appeared in lots of Christopher Guest films, including For Your Consideration and A Mighty Wind, and had roles in Get Smart, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, The Nutty Professor 1 and 2, Runaway Bride and LA Story. Finally, he's guest-starred on a ton of sitcoms, including Seinfeld, Mad About You, 3rd Rock from the Sun, Monk, Desperate Housewives, 8 Simple Rules, My Wife & Kids, and Just Shoot Me.

Yes, THAT guy.

I ♥ Faces Fix-it Friday

2009-10-16T10:00:00.001+02:00

I have to admit, I really struggled with this one. The lighting in the original was so bad that I practically had to paint half of her skin back on, and I can never make that look 100% natural. See what I mean:

The left side of the picture is completely blown out, and the right side completely underexposed. I immediately knew that the only way this photo could work would be to make it monochrome, so that the colours of the lightened shadows on the little girl's arms and back couldn't be seen. I also had to soften this area a lot.

This is what I came up with:

I have to admit, I'm not blown away by it, but it's better. I hate oversoftening that results in images looking like they were taken through gauze, so I tried not to go that far!

And I can't list what I did, because in the end I think I used about thirty different actions on this one, not to mention all the cloning for the skin! The major thing is that I made it B&W, warmed it up with a little cinnamon toast from TRA, and softened using Super Fun Happy and something else, painting back the bits I didn't want soft, and then added contrast, painting back the bits I needed to keep soft! Oy.

A house, take 1

2009-10-15T13:04:00.000+02:00

Yesterday I found a house. The house I want to buy. I love it, and I've only seen pictures. It has all my prerequisistes:

1) It has a high wall and electric gate.
2) It has a little garden of its own so Gollum can do his kitty business.
3) It's part of a little set of five houses built on one property, but all separate, but therefore small enough not to have to maintain a big area.
4) It's bright and airy with big windows
5) It looks fresh and new and makes me feel happy.
6) It's in the same suburb that we live in now, and I like living here.
7) This wasn't a prerequisite, but we know the people who are going to be selling it, so they won't try to stiff us or mess us around.

We can't afford it. Unless I get some fantastic kickass fulltime job and make my new photography biz pay in big time simultaneously, we can't afford it.

I feel sad.

Hey, it's That Guy!

2009-10-15T10:00:00.001+02:00

It's no secret that as well as being a blogstalker, I'm a movie nut. And along with being a movie nut comes an obsession with:
1)owning everything I might ever want to see again,
2) a desire to know lines off by heart, and
3) the need to know who every actor or actress is in every movie I see.

Most people (except my brother-in-law, who is appallingly bad at recognising actors) will know who the main actors are when they go to see a film. But it drives me crazy if I recognise someone in a film and I know I've seen them in something else, but I don't know what their name is. Call it one of my quirks. I have to know, so the next time I see that guy, I know who he is. You've probably come across some of these yourself. And so, in the interests of helping my fellows (assuming you care), I introduce:

THAT GUY THURSDAY.

(This, hopefully, will help me blog more often as well.)

You probably do it all the time. You're watching Grey's Anatomy/CSI/House/whatever, and a recognisable guest star appears. "Hey, it's that guy!" you say. "What guy?" says your spouse, partner or significant other. "That guy! He's from...I don't know...he's in stuff! I saw him in something just the other day!" you reply. And you get a funny look in return. Unless, of course, your spouse, partner or significant other also recognises That Guy, and you spend the next hour not enjoying the show, because you're trying to figure out who the heck he is, and where you've seen him.

Or maybe it's just me, and you guys don't let this stuff bother you. :-)

Anyway, my first That Guy is one of my favourites, because he's been around for absolute ages, and he still hasn't graduated to a known name for most people. Some of you might know him, but I had to explain to THREE PEOPLE tonight who Stephen Fry is (I nearly fell over), so I'm not assuming anything.

So today's That Guy is DAVID MORSE.

Who? This guy:

You might recognise him from movies like Twelve Monkeys, The Green Mile, The Long Kiss Goodnight (is it just me who totally loves that movie?), The Rock, Contact, The Negotiator and Disturbia. Recently, he was the cop who hated House on season 3 of House. He was also apparently in 40 episodes of Hack, which I've never seen. Maybe you all know who he is after all! And if you were old enough in the eighties, he was on St Elsewhere as well.

Hmm, I just read up on St Elsewhere, and now I totally want to watch it. We never got it here.

Today, I...

2009-10-13T00:01:00.000+02:00

...tidied out my closet (well, my part of the shelf section, anyway), and actually found stuff to give away! I have this terrible habit of hanging onto clothes for sentimental reasons. Actually, I don't know why that's terrible, but I get the impression it is.

Look how neat and tidy!

Maybe having clothes in neat, folded piles is normal for some of you, but my usual approach to putting clothes away is throwing them on the shelf and hoping they stick.

And here's what I'm donating, when I get around to it!

Notice how pretty much all my clothes are black, white and blue. It just happens that way! And yes, that white bag you can see on the cupboard door in the background is my wedding dress. I don't know where else to put it. :-)

Tomorrow...well, I'd like to say tomorrow would be tidying my chest of drawers and that I'd start painting those boxes we bought, but I have to go grocery shopping, get photos printed, stand in line to hand in a repeat prescription at the pharamacy (LOVE doing that) and then go to my Mom's for her birthday. So maybe Wednesday.

It kind of feels like that's all I did today. Oh, I went to rehearsal and sat watching everyone else for most of the time, and got freaked out because I cannot remember the moves to "You can drive a person crazy". Words, I can learn without even trying. Movements are something I have to concentrate really hard on, because they will never, ever come naturally. If I lose concentration I can finish singing a whole song without knowing how I got there. But the moves won't happen. :-/

Five Photographers I want to be

2009-10-12T12:22:00.001+02:00

As you all know, it's no secret that I'm a huge blogstalker. Especially wedding photographer blogs. Don't freak out, but I have 129 blogs in my "favourites" folder alone. And that's the small folder! I tried to count the rest but I got tired when I hit 180-something and I wasn't nearly finished, but take it from me, it's a lot. Most of the time I don't even get to look at ~~some~~ most of them, but I can't bring myself to delete them. I'm a frickin hoarder, people. Didn't you know you can hoard online? Oh yes, you can.

So when people ask me who my favourite photographers are, I don't know how to answer that question. I can't have 129, obviously. And I do know that I like some of those more than others, but that I can't keep dividing the folders into more and more subdivisions: "Perfect Photography", "Near Perfect Photography", "Usually Awesome Photography", "Really Great Photography", "Pretty Good Photography" - yeah, those are the types of categories I would need to start having. So, for now I just have favourites, 2nd tier, and The Rest. But to pick the favourite favourites out of the Favourites? How do you do that?

Well, when I started thinking about it, I realised I could look at it in another way: Which photographers do I want to BE? Whose style and use of colour, lighting, settings and imagination do I want to emulate? Whose portfolio gives me the same feeling that I want my clients to have when they see their photos for the first time? Hmm. This was slightly easier. You see, while there are numerous photographers I admire and love, their style just isn't mine. I'm excited to look at their work, but I can't picture myself producing work like that. It isn't "me". So that immediately cut the list down...a bit. The rest was just a long hard look and an even harder cull. But here is my list, in no particular order. Getting them to five was difficult enough. Ordering them would be impossible.

1. VUE PHOTOGRAPHY

Oh, the bliss. The HAPPINESS that I get from pretty much every single one of their pictures is indescribable. The colours are saturated while still being light and fresh. I don't believe that every one of their weddings can possibly be so beautiful and perfect in real life. But somehow they make them look like it! Feast your eyes on some more:

2. CAMERON INGALLS

Magical is the word I associate with Cameron Ingalls. His photos feel like stepping into a beautiful wedding-fantasy land. I wouldn't be surprised if he had a lens filter called "fairytale magic" that he uses, because, whoa, are his pictures gorgeous. Take a look and see what I mean:

A rainbow? Are you freaking kidding me with the magicalness? Or is that "magicality"? :-)

3. CHRISTINE MEINTJES

Fresh, clean and simple. That's what Christime Meintjes' photos always say to me. I love her use of light and how bright and happy her photos are. And yes, it was her workshop I attended some weeks ago. I really want to ~~steal emulate~~ be inspired by her style! :-)

Here are some more:

4. SUSAN STRIPLING

The magic light photographer. That's what I call Susan Stripling in my head. Because somehow she seems to take any light she has, and turn it into a magical glow. I don't think I really appreciated this until I started photographing myself. Now I have deep admiration and huge respect (and a lot of envy) for how her pictures turn out!

Delicious light, can I marry you?

5.CHELSEA NICOLE

I chose Chelsea Nicole for this last spot because her work really stands out for me. There's something "fashion shoot"-ish about it, but it never looks overposed or overflashed. It still has a natural look for me, and I'm sure it takes a lot of hard work to achieve that behind the scenes! I want to learn how to do that!

PS - If you want to see the cutest dog ever, go see this engagement shoot Chelsea did! ADORABLE.

HONORABLE MENTIONS

Dear:

Trista Lerit, DrewB, Andrea Carlyle, Shooting Gallery, Bobbi & Mike, Ed Pingol, Ksenija Savic, Lauren Clark, Mario Sales, Leigh Taylor, Tinywater, Natasha Du Preez, Lizelle Lotter, Sarah K Chen, Clayton Austin and Marie Labbancz, you totally rock my world as well. Some of you are beautiful, some of you are funky, some of you are fashiony, but you're all brilliant.

Today, I...

2009-10-12T00:16:00.000+02:00

...nearly freaked out at the sight of a parktown prawn on my floor, till I realised it was an old leaf that had blown in under the door. Then I came downstairs later and did it again. My husband obligingly stood on it and crushed it to smithereens. It definitely wasn't a parktown prawn. They aren't killed that easily.

I really need to get a doorstop of sorts so this doesn't happen again.

...went shopping for the first step of my home improvement program, and bought four sturdy wooden boxes to stand our computer screens on. Why they don't just make screens the right height for your head, I'll never know. But these will be a huge improvement on the magazine piles and old cardboard box we've been using, and we can also use them to store things we never use. Ooooh. I love storage. Mr Ruby Slippers was quite excited by the trip, mostly because he loves boxes. "They're so full of potential," he explained. I love him.

...had to sing Le Jazz Hot for the first time holding a microphone. It wasn't easy, but it sounds so much nicer! We also had to work out how to pass the four microphones around the six soloists during "You can't stop the beat". That was...interesting. Five and a half weeks till opening night. Yelp.

Home improvement

2009-10-11T14:36:00.000+02:00

A few months ago, I was ~~whinging~~ ~~complaining~~ mentioning that I really wanted a house of my own. I just have this idea that once I own a home I can decorate it the way I want, and it will all by beautiful and matchy and fabulous, and I can take you on virtual tours of its awesomeness, like Blue-Eyed Bride does with her yummy home. At the moment we're renting a garden cottage, and we've been here for three years and four months. And I haven't really done squat to decorate it. Why?

Well, partly it's the age-old money issue. We don't have the cash to buy matching furniture (or a dining room table) or pretty things. The other thing that's holding me back is we don't own this house, so we can't paint anything or put up shelves (we asked). We have hung a few pictures; I hope they don't mind those holes. I don't want to make curtains because every house has different sized windows, and "when we move out" (our constant phrase for the past three years) they might not fit the new place. And that would be a waste...and I hate waste. Thanks for that, Mom. :-)

But we're not moving out anytime soon, it appears. So why the heck can't I bring myself to make the place a bit more...I don't know.... How I'd like it?

It's funny, because the type of rooms that appeal to me are bright, clean, and minimalist. And I think that's only appealing to me because I've never had it. I am a Hoarder, people. It's not like those scary shows on tv, but I have bits and pieces everywhere, and tons of books and dvds and albums and mementos and a gazillion little thingymabobs and whatyoumacallems and doodymalairys. So I figure I'm just hankering after rooms that look like THIS because I've never had them, right?

I mean, come on. Could I even keep a room like that clean? Never mind tidy??

As proof, I offer you these photos. I can't even believe I'm doing this. I just took two photos of our computer room (affectionately known as the Spare Oom) and one of our bedroom. I didn't pick up or move anything. This is how untidy we are. I also apologise for the bad quality pics. I didn't feel like unearthing batteries for my flash.

Ok, so it's not 'crazy hoarding people on tv' material. But look at the piles of clothes by the bed (especially Mr Ruby's side!) Look at the stuff on the floor between my bedside table and my bookcase. Look at the stuff ON the bedside tables! And the cute kitty sleeping under the window on the left hand side :-) He makes more mess with his hair and little pawprints than we do.

This is our Spare Oom:

Yes, we each have two screens, because we're nerdy like that. Just look at all the crap on the desks, though!

And here's the opposite side of the room:

(Yes, we have a sink in our computer room. We don't use it, though. As far as we can tell, our house used to be an office, and this was their kitchen. It also accounts for the fluorescent striplights in the bedroom). Anyway, just look at all that random stuff on the floor and on the sink. It makes me sad. How pretty are my dvds, though? :-)

A few days ago I stumbled upon a darling little blog called Life in the Fun Lane. Thank you (and I mean that sarcastically) to whoever linked me to it, because I'm completely enthralled by the author's adventures in renovating and in refurbishing old furniture and making it look all white and beautiful and shabby chic. I want some of that shabby chic action in my house, please.

LOOK at this. I mean, come on. No house should be that adorable, right?

The Halloween decor - elegant and delicious!

One of the items of furniture she's revamped.

And then, to make matters worse, I found these two pictures lurking on photography blogs, and they just leapt out at me and made me crave them. Seriously. I desire them in an unhealthy way.

Not the baby. The TREE. The beautiful, gorgeous tree, spreading its branches protectingly and lovingly. Swoon.

AND:

The BIRDS. Flying free from those cages that I love so much right now. I could cry, it's so beautiful. Waaaaaant. So badly.

And actually, this shouldn't be too hard, because I have a husband who can paint. I just have to convince him that he wants them too :-)

The other day that same husband of mine made me have an epiphany. I said, "I want to decorate our living room in black, white and green one day." And he said, "Why don't you start now?"

And I said. "Why DON'T I start now?"

Sometimes I'm so obtuse it frightens me :-)

I ♥ Faces Fix-it Friday

2009-10-09T22:28:00.000+02:00

Another one!

Here's the before. Not too much wrong with it, right?

But look what you can do!

I was going to keep him in colour because of his beautiful blues, but when I tried the B & w (with cinnamon) he just looked adorable too! Children look so gorgeous in black & white.

The main thing I had to do on the original photo was even out the shadows on his face using the clone tool. Then I lightened, warmed, sharpened, made it contrasty, and voila.

Full of Pride

2009-10-06T22:27:00.018+02:00

On Saturday I went with my friend Paul to the Johannesburg Pride Parade. Paul wanted to hand out flyers for our upcoming show, Babes on Broadway, and I wanted to help with that and take photos of the festivities. Mr Ruby Slippers decided to come along too, which was fab, mostly because he kept steering me out of harm's way when I was looking through the camera instead of where I was going :-)

It was SUCH fun! I love bright colours and clearly I had my fill of those! They closed of one of the busiest streets in Johannesburg for us, which left quite a few disgruntled motorists, but for the most part people were waving and cheering and hooting as we went by. I loved it. I loved it so much I didn't even notice we walked six and a half kilometres. This is not normal for me, and I felt like I'd been hit by a bus the next day. It was totally worth it, even though I had to go and dance at rehearsal. Ouch.

PS - apparently neither Mr RS nor myself can put suncream on properly, because we both have a lovely red rim around our hairlines.

Onto pictures!

These rainbow robot guys were AWESOME.

It takes balls to be a fairy..mwahaha.

Look at the little dogs! Awwwwww.

The girls on the left's T-shirts say "The Right to be right here right now", in case it's too small for you to read. And I love how they'd decked out this wheelchair in the middle pic!

These guys in the first three pics were representing a church that accepts everyone. Actually there were three churches there like that, but these guys had the best props! I loved the big crosses and the "Jesus inside" shirts. (To be clear: I don't care for religion particularly, but I do think it's good to be accepting of all people. Basically I just liked their props and things.)

The bottom pic shows us filling up Jan Smuts Avenue. It was such a pleasure not to have to stop at every traffic light as one usually does!

Two of the parade traffic guys, dressing up for the occasion. Loved them!

Bright colours and fairy wings. I was in my element.

Next:

Top left: this van was stopped in the traffic jam we were causing, and the group of guys in front of us had this idea for a photo. I thought it was hysterical!

Middle left: I wanted to take some close-up pics that showed the love and closeness of the participants. I caught this nice casual moment of the one guy tucking his hand through his partner's belt. There are a few more like that scattered through the other storyboards.

My favourites were the crowd reaction shots! These guys were hanging out on their balcony the whole time with a "We heart you" sign:

These construction workers all stopped working to hang over the scaffolding and see the crazy rainbow people:

A general "Um, okaaaay" look from passersby:

These guys were my favourite! Look at the middle guy. You could put his face in the dictionary next to the definition of "What..the...hey...?"

I had the most fun! And, while not wishing to use this blog as a politican platform, I'm so glad gay marriage is legal here. People who love people should be able to marry said people. The end!

I ♥ Faces Fix-it Friday

2009-09-26T11:44:00.003+02:00

Oh, it's Friday again. This one was an interesting challenge - trying to rescue a completely underexposed photo without making it look terrible.

The problem with underexposed photos is when you lighten them they become very grainy and very reddish in tone. After I'd cropped and lightened this picture I opened the colour channel and moved the red options way across to blue and cyan. I also increased the yellow a little. Then I used Pioneer Woman's "Soft and Faded" action to get the little guy a bit less noisy and more soft, and then I used TRA's "Super Fun Happy" to make him even softer. Usually I don't much like the effect of Super Fun Happy, but I think in this case it worked!

I ♥ Faces Fix-it Friday

2009-09-22T22:47:00.003+02:00

Yeah, um, I totally forgot to post this on Friday. Probably because I was ranting on about surrogacy :-)

So here is last week's Fix-it Friday from I ♥ Faces:

Before:

When I looked at this picture I decided two things. Firstly, her hands were way too distracting because they were becoming the focal point of the picture, and secondly, I wanted to draw attention to her cute freckles and red hair. This is what I came up with:

I really like the little light rainbow that fell across her hair!

Could you loan out your body?

2009-09-18T22:28:00.002+02:00

I remember the day that Mr Ruby Slippers, BFF Slippers and I met Emma Thompson. It was in February 2007, and we (ok, BFF RS and I) were so giddy and excited that one of our favourite celebs was actually coming to little old South Africa, that we were on a high the whole day. Picture drunken, gibbering idiots and you have us, without the drunken. We were just drunk on celeb-stalking. Anyway, afterwards the three of us went out to lunch, and Mr Ruby Slippers got to listen to us yabbering on about how lovely Emmawas (she really was!) and how we wished we could be best friends with her. At one point I said, "Oooh, I wonder if she'd like a surrogate mother so she could have another child? That way we'd always have a bond and I could totally become her friend!" We laughed, and Mr Ruby Slippers didn't. He said, "Um, no."

I was taken aback, because Mr RS and I have a very easygoing relationship, and he doesn't usually say the "N" word to me! So I was all, "What, you wouldn't want me to do that?" and he said, "No, I wouldn't", and I said, "So if I wanted to be Emma's surrogate you would actually forbid me from doing it?" and he went, "Yes, I would." At which point I probably made some stupid comment about how he couldn't because we weren't married (it was a bit of a sore point with me that we'd talked about it but he had yet to propose), and we stopped arguing about it because it got awkward. Possibly more for BFF Ruby Slippers. Anyway, it wasn't like I was actually serious. It's the same thing as saying you wish you could marry Josh Brolin so Barbra Streisand could be your stepmother (BFF Ruby Slippers wants this). You know it's never going to happen, and when it came to the moment you probably wouldn't even like Josh Brolin in that way, so it'd never happen anyway.

So what I took away from this conversation was that Mr Ruby Slippers had very definite ideas about my loaning out my uterus, even to someone totally awesome like Emma Thompson, and his ideas were that I was forbidden from doing it. Which might be the only time he's stopped me doing anything. I can wear what I want, watch what I want, go where I want, because, hey, we have that easygoing relationship. But clearly my body is his.

(So no letting Robert Redford have sex with me for one million dollars, darn it).

Anyway, it wasn't like I was serious.

Fast forward to now. A few days ago, a friend of mine mentioned on Facebook that he was looking for a womb to incubate his baby. You gotta love Facebook; nothing is TMI. :-) So everyone started making jokes in the comments, and I went, "How much are you offering?", and there was a bit of back and forth banter about me being *wide open* (read in all the innuendo you like) to high offers, and so on and so forth. And I started feeling very weird about it, because although it started off as a joke, and it was still kind of playing out as a joke on Facebook, I had caught myself wondering, "could I actually do that? If someone paid me enough money to be a surrogate mother, could I do it?"

My first instinct would be to say, "No, of course not! That'd just be weird. I couldn't be pregnant and then give the baby up, could I? Could I?"

But thousands of women do it. How do they reach the point where they're able to go through the amazingness of having a child inside them, and then just handing it over to someone else to raise at the end of nine months of sickness, aching backs, peeing all the time, and utter awe at seeing a tiny body move inside their own? How do you not become attached to that child, even if you know all along that it isn't yours, that it doesn't carry your DNA, and that you're just growing it for someone who is unable to?

But other people can do it, I told myself. And then the mercenary side of me kicked in. If they paid me enough money to do it I could have things I'd always wanted but was never able to afford. We might be able to afford to emigrate, which we keep talking about but never actually do because we're poor. Or we could have our own house. Or see the world. Or.....you see, I've grown up without money. We weren't well-off when I was growing up, and the money I made at the bookshops I worked at shocks most people when I tell them. So I live without spending much, most of the time. I've moaned about this before, so I don't want to harp, but because I live on so little money I get really excited about free stuff (Yeah! Free sweets at a function! I'm going to take them all home with me!), and when I see some way of possibly making a ton of money I'm all over the idea without really thinking it through.

You see where this is heading? I had actually started, in a mild way, considering carrying a baby for my friends. Mostly for the money, because it's not like I'm going to go through the crap that comes with pregnancy without any of the joy to go with it for FREE. But these guys would be great parents. Yes, they're both men. Which makes me want to help them out even more, because I'm 100% for gay rights, and so many people will NOT want to help them just because they're gay. And they would be great parents. They got married two years ago and were together for at least four or five before that. The husband that I know better, from my community theatre, is something awfully clever in IT that I don't understand, has a really sharp, clever sense of humour, is a good actor with an hysterical sense of comic timing, and just an all-round fun guy to hang out with. His husband is a doctor (hello brains and money!) and loves musicals and theatre (of course, I love that about him.). They love each other and they want a child. They have money with which to pay for said child. And the very fact that I considered doing this for the money scares the heck out of me.

Enter Mr Ruby Slippers who, of course, put a stop to any notions I was having, by forbidding me from doing it. I asked him, if I really wanted to do it, if I was 100% certain and wanted with every part of me to do this, would he really stop me? And he said it would just freak him out too much, to have me pregnant with someone else's baby. (Can you imagine those awkward scenarios when you run into old friends? "OMG you guys are having a baby!" "No, we're just keeping it warm for someone else.") But jokes aside, it's too personal, too intimate for Mr RS to deal with. I think it really is for me too. As usual I've just let money cloud my judgment. But I can't help wonder, if I was single, would I be considering this more seriously?

This is quite the controversial issue I've raised here. What do you guys think? Would you be able to carry a baby and give it up? Do you think it's something that should only be done out of love and friendship, and money is just an awful thing to bring into it? Because I know how mercenary I sound when I say I might do it for the money. I really do.

If it was your sister or your best friend who was desperate for a child, could you do it? Would you ever be able to "forget" the baby that was part of you?

Anniversary Help!

2009-09-15T22:05:00.004+02:00

I need your help, readers. My first anniversary is coming up next month (can you believe it? Because I can't) and I should obviously get Mr Ruby Slippers something fab. My problem is I'm, well, somewhat strapped for cash, what with starting a new business this year. And we're not big gift givers in our little family - I mean, we always give gifts, but we don't spend big money on them. This is a very special occasion and I thought I had a great idea, but I didn't realise how much it would cost. No way can I afford it now! My second great idea was getting boudoir photos done, but I disregarded that as too expensive too, especially if you get them bound in a beautiful album. Plus...um...I'm a little pudgy round the middle. Yes, I know my husband knows that, but still. On the other hand, I'll probably never look this good again, so now might be the time! :P

Mr RS is a little hard to buy presents for (I'm already flipping out about Christmas and his birthday, because there are no more dvds or books he wants, and that's all I usually GET for him!), so I really need some help here! The first idea I had was these custom illustrations from etsy, done in an anime style. Well, anime-lite, I would say. Mr RS likes anime shows, along with sci-fi of the Buffy/Dollhouse type (he doesn't do things like Battlestar Galactica or Farscape or Star Trek), so I thought a picture of us would be perfect! But I underestimated the cost. Boo.

Any suggestions? I feel like I'm much easier to get gifts for, because I have things that I regularly gush and swoon over (you know, Judy Garland, Broadway, Wicked, heck, even chocolate). But Mr RS isn't given to passions about anything. He'll enjoy stuff, but he won't go crazy like I do. So...I'm totally screwed. HELP.

Twitter makes me lazy

2009-09-15T01:18:00.004+02:00

Too lazy to blog, that is. It's so simple and fast to tweet an idea that, really, you could have expanded upon and made a really good blog post about. Or at least a little blog post that isn't too boring. And then you kind of feel like you've said it already, so what's the point. Then before you know it, you haven't blogged for a month.

So I'm going to try and expound on some of my twitter thoughts, and see how that goes. Because I tweet a LOT. Lots of them are replies to people and retweets, but still. It's a lot.

I'm Facebook friends with this girl I was in a show with 3 years ago. She keeps sending me random chat requests with enticing messages like, "I'm going to tennis later and I don't feel like it, LOL" or "I'm so sleepy today. LOL" or "I'm taking drama class next year, LOL". I'm just not sure why she feels the need to tell me these things. She's still in high school, and I'm 30. This wouldn't bother me (I've got a bunch of fab high school gals I follow on twitter, cos they're AWESOME), but she and I have nothing in common. We were in a show 3 years ago. That's it. We don't need to chat. I barely know her.

And what's with "LOL" lately? It's gone from meaning "Laugh Out Loud" to, "I have nothing to say here." Mr Ruby Slippers and I have started using it ironically now; it's the only way.

I'm obsessed with Broadway and musical theatre. Oh, right, you knew that. I desperately want to get to Ravinia next summer (USA summer, not mine) for the Sondheim 80th birthday celebration. And apparently Patti LuPone is playing Annie Oakley there! Aaargh. You Yanks have all the awesome stuff. So now I need to make money to go to America next year. It'd be perfect timing because it's winter and therefore non-wedding season here. Anyone want to hire my Photographer Alter Ego for a shoot in the US? *HINT* :-)

I'm tired. I'm always tired! Oh wait, that's not news, either.

Goodnight, then. I'm going to try this twitter-blog thing every day now!

And because I love pictures, here's a photo I took of some birds outside my window. I took it through the glass, which is why it's not 100% sharp (and if you saw how dusty my windows are, you'd know it's a miracle you can see them at all! :-))

PS - if you want to follow me on twitter, you can find me at http://twitter.com/KatForsyth .

I ♥ Faces Fix-it Friday

2009-09-04T16:03:00.005+02:00

It just keeps rollin' around every week!

You might have noticed that I love making photos of children black and white. And this week is no exception.

Original:

Now the problem with this photo is it's a little too dark, but lightening it brings up all the noise in the underexposed areas. Which makes it PERFECT for black & white, because it never shows up as badly then. Good thing I wanted to do b & w anyway.

I lightened just a little. Then I ran TRA's Bitchin' B & W, then ran Oh Snap! over that. I added Antique tone at around 30%. Then I used pro retouch to soften his face and brighten his eyes. Et voila!

Oh I also cropped the tiniest bit, but you can see that.

No go to I ♥ Faces and see what everyone else did.

The workshop...

2009-09-02T23:54:00.004+02:00

...kicked ASS. It was fab, it was brilliant, it was everything I hoped! I got some great pics (go see my photo blog if you haven't already!) and Christine was a really great "teacher", for want of a better word, even though it really wasn't a teacher-student dynamic. Christine said she wanted the workshop to feel like a group of friends discussing stuff around a dinner table, and it did (and the stuff we ATE around the dinner table was fantastic too). :-)

For those of you who care, my flight was delayed by over an hour, but luckily I'd set aside enough time so I was still there nice and early, although I did have to forgo the nap I'd wanted (I don't DO getting up early). The best husband in the world ( Mine. Suck it!) dropped me off and fetched me on Sunday evening, so I didn't have to face the long airport drive. And my GPS came though and told me where to go properly, there was no hassle picking up my car (even though it was a VW Golf, which are impossible to drive. And I've driven a BEETLE, so I know what I'm talkin 'bout!).

So all in all, a fab weekend. I feel really fired up about my business now. First up, a better blog; second, fab business cards! Oh yes. Hopefully fab weddings will follow. :-)

And because a post is not a post without a picture, here's a favourite from the workshop e-shoot:

Workshops & Broadway and stuff

2009-08-26T16:08:00.004+02:00

On Friday I will be going to Cape Town to attend a workshop by one of my favourite photographers, Christine Meintjes. This is kind of a huge deal for many reasons:

1) Christine's photography kicks ass, so I'm nervous;
2) This is only the second time I've flown and arrived somewhere alone;
3) I have to pick up a rental car;
4) I have to DRIVE said rental car in a city I've never driven in and have only been to twice in my life. And I'm a person who gets lost a lot. The GPS had better be fanfrikkintastic to me. I don't think I'd GO if I couldn't take Mr Ruby Slippers' GPS.
5) The last workshop I attended kind of sucked in many ways, so I don't want this one to as well.

In other news:
I'm doing a Broadway musical revue with my community theatre group (remember Allo Allo?), and I'm LOVING it. Singing is one of my greatest passions. Broadway musicals - heck, any musicals - are another! Sister and BFF Ruby Slippers are also in it, and I'm making lots of new friends! Nothing like three-part harmony to help you meet people. The last two rehearsals we've been learning the dance for "You Can't Stop the Beat" from Hairspray, and let me just say that they don't call it "You can't Stop to Breathe" for nothing. You can barely breathe in the song itself, let alone breathe while dancing. I have the greatest respect for all those performers who sing and dance and make it look easy.

I'm hoping for some solos. I have my eye on "Le Jazz Hot" and "Don't Rain on my Parade"...I'm also singing the role of Link in "You Can't Stop to Breathe", because, well, there are no men in the show. I don't know about you, but I've found men are notorious for NOT coming to community theatre...oh well, now we get two dressing rooms! Whoohoo! And we get to be Broadway Babes.

And now I'd better go wash some dishes. Peace out, and stuff.

I ♥ Faces Fix-it Friday

2009-08-23T23:03:00.004+02:00

I swore I wasn't going to go a week without blogging, and yet here I am again. I've been really busy editing and rehearsing this week, though (yeah yeah, excuses excuses). :-)

Here is this week's Fix it Friday Entry.
BEFORE:

AFTER:
Because I did this yesterday I can't entirely remember what I did. I know I lightened and increased the contrast with something like TRA's Oh Snap! action, and then ran the boring selenium tone over it. Um, yeah, something or other like that. Obviously I fixed skin imperfections, sharpened the eyes, and cropped too.

This was a great picture, actually! A really expressive face. Nice.

I ♥ Faces Fix-it Friday

2009-08-15T16:37:00.006+02:00

I loved this week! I love really having to FIX a problem photo, rather than just playing around at improving an already good one. This week's little boy has a skin condition on his face, so I set to work to clear that up!

Here's the original:

And my fix:

It's still not perfect, but it's a start.

First, I cropped the image. I decided to keep it in colour because I didn't want to waste those beautiful blue eyes on black & white! Then I went around with the spot healing brush. Anywhere there was flaking white skin or little red bumps, I took them out. Once that was done, I was still left with a lot of red texture around his mouth and cheek, so I made a copy of the layer, then applied gaussian blur to the bottom one. I made the top one a layer mask, and then just painted over the bits where I wanted the gaussian blur to show through.

So now I was left with a smoother face, but still very red. I made another layer copy (I flattened the last two first) and adjusted the red balance on it till the red areas looked normal. This left the rest of the picture very blue, but that's okay, because I just made that top layer into a layer mask again and painted off the blue I didn't want. Flatten again.

I used the clone brush at 20% opacity to paint over areas on his face that still looked uneven. This is a long process! Then I sharpened his eyes and applied a warm layer. The End.

Get along, little dawgies

2009-08-11T20:52:00.000+02:00

My in-laws are part-timers at a dog obedience school, so a few weeks ago I went along on a cold Sunday morning to see if I could get some doggy shots. And boy, was it not easy. Those little canines move FAST. However, I did get a few shots I like!

This is Rolex. Why is he called Rolex, I hear you ask?

Wait for it....

Because he's a Big Watch Dog.

*cue cringing at bad pun* But he's a very sweet dog. And only seven months old. Yikes.

This guy was just waiting patiently outside the clubhouse (ok, he was tied there with his leash, but he looked patient!

I love Weimeraners. So graceful. Now don't go and tell me this isn't one! He's still graceful, okay!

This lady/gent (never got up; couldn't see, didn't ask) was very good at posing. I got about eight shots of her/him looking exactly the same.

I like what I did on the editing on this one.

PUPPIIIIIES!!!!

This is Thelma or Louise. They're sisters, and I couldn't tell the difference. SO ADORABLE.

Adorable tongue!
Adorable mouth!
Aw, look at this little guy concentrating on walking the plank:

Wheee!

I love the jumping shots!

"I did good, mom? Huh? Huh?"

"I'm just gawna sit over here..."

Aw, look at the little one jumping over the same height pole as the big dogs. "Wheee! I'm flying!"

Did I ever mention I love dogs? Man. If people ask me if I'm a dog or cat person, I firmly say "BOTH". Sure, cats are less work, they're cleaner, less smelly, and they make that really cute throbbing sound when they sit on your lap. But dogs are so loving and happy, and fun to DO stuff with. You can't take your cat for a run round the garden, that's for sure. So I love them both.

Top Ten Movie Lists

2009-08-09T14:36:00.000+02:00

Ages ago, I decided to do a bunch of top ten movie lists. And then never completed it. If you've noticed my wedding theme at all, you might have spotted that, well, I like movies. So it's pretty hard for me to narrow stuff down into a list of favourites. Therefore, thus and ergo, the only way to do it is have a ton of categories! I present you with Ruby Slippers' Top Ten movies (times many, many lots, etc):

ROMANTIC COMEDIES

The Mirror Has Two Faces
Just Like Heaven
Love Actually
Return to Me
Down With Love
Sleepless in Seattle
Bridget Jones' Diary
Wimbledon
My Best Friend's Wedding
Notting Hill

COMEDIES

What's Up, Doc?
Foul Play
Snatch
Ruthless People
Clue
Much Ado About Nothing (bit of a stretch but it is a comedy of sorts)
Dogma
The Addams Family
Clueless
Junior

DRAMAS

Sense & Sensibility
Stranger Than Fiction
American Beauty
The Truman Show
The Prestige
Dead Poet's Society
Fight Club
The Majestic
Being John Malkovich
V For Vendetta

ACTION/ADVENTURE

The Princess Bride
Back to the Future
Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl (ignore the 2 crap sequels)
Peter Pan (2003)
Hook
Stardust
Galaxy Quest
Jumanji
Mirrormask
Catch me if you Can (another stretch but it is adventure-ISH)

MUSICALS

Singin' in the Rain
Moulin Rouge!
My Fair Lady
Chicago
In the Good Old Summertime
The Wizard of Oz
Mary Poppins
The Sound of Music
Hairspray
Top Hat

ANIMATED

Beauty & The Beast
Team America: World Police
Wall-E
The Little Mermaid
South Park: Bigger, Longer, Uncut
Ratatouille
Shrek
Aladdin
Hoodwinked
101 Dalmatians

CLASSICS

It Happened One Night
Bringing Up Baby
Rebecca
Some Like it Hot
Pillow Talk
Stage Door
Monkey Business
Jezebel
Sunset Blvd
Witness for the Prosecution

OTHER MOVIES I LOVE BUT CAN'T FIND A CATEGORY FOR:

Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey
The Parent Trap (1998)
Three Men & a Little Lady
Father of the Bride
Lemony Snicket's Series of Unfortunate Events
The Butterfly Effect
Centre Stage
Frequency
Se7en
Pride & Prejudice (1995)

I guess most of these would be "family comedies", perhaps? Pride & Prejudice is technically a miniseries, not a movie. And is Frequency a drama with a sci-fi twist? Ditto The Butterfly Effect? And I couldn't leave Se7en on a list of serial-killer cop dramas all by itself...

I have to warn you this is just the tip of the iceberg of movies I own.

Bookishness

2009-08-07T11:02:00.001+02:00

I was reading a post on Good Finking earlier about choosing books, and I got to wondering why I'd never really mentioned my book collecting thing on here. It's weird that I haven't, because books have been a really huge part of my life for as long as I can remember. I had a bookcase earlier than I can even remember getting it, and it was filled with picture books and comics at the bottom, and Enid Blytons and Roald Dahls on the top two shelves. I practically existed on a diet of Blyton for the first five years of my reading life. My mother would read me a short story every night before I went to bed (thanks, Mom!) and the first story I ever read by myself was a Blyton story called "Colin is a good policeman". Sigh. Those were good days.

It's come to my attention since then that Enid Blyton really didn't happen in the USA, so some of you might not know what the heck I'm on about. But if your childhood lacked the Faraway Tree, where a different magic land appeared at the top every so often, the crime-fighting Famous Five (or Secret Seven), the jolly fun at Malory Towers or the enchanted toys and fairies of many of her stories, then, well...I don't want to say I feel sad for you, because I'm sure your childhoods were perfectly happy, and not filled with a Blyton-shaped void, but I don't know *what* I would have been doing if I hadn't had her books, so I'm glad for myself. :-)

Anyway, I carried on reading these well into my teens, under cover, of course, because The Flying Spaghetti Monster forbid you are a 15-year-old reading about kids catching smugglers instead of Sweet Valley High. But at some point I'd had enough of them. Not because I was tired of the delightful happiness of them all, but because I was literally tired of reading the same books over and over and over and over and over. I couldn't even begin to tell you how many times I reread some of my favourites, but it must be well over a hundred.

And it was round about this time that I discovered the delight of BRITISH SCHOOLGIRL STORIES.

Mostly written between the 1920s and 1950s, this type of boarding school story, where everything revolves around hockey matches, midnight feasts, playing tricks on the French Mistress, and being bound by the schoolgirl code of honour, lost impact in the 60s, and as a result, most of the titles have been out of print for over 50 years. Which makes it even more fun to collect them, because you can't actually buy what you want, you can only buy what you find! That, my dears, is the excitement of it all. Not to mention that (a) I still really enjoy these old-fashioned stories, and (b) some of the rarer titles are worth a truckload of money. Except that I'd never sell them, of course. So I spend my life hoping for duplicates to come along. :-)

Now I'm a collector by nature. I have to have a complete set of something, all pretty and (hopefully) matching on the shelves, so you can imagine how this drives me nuts. The holes in my collection keep mocking me, I tell you. They cry out to me in the night, and I dream about finding that elusive copy of The School in the Woods or The Chalet School in the Oberland. Which is probably never going to happen, considering how impossible it is to find these books, and how much they COST on ABE (which, by the way, is the second-hand book-buyer's best friend).

Here's a quick shot I took of one of my bookcases. There are more, but some of them are still hanging out at my parents' house because we keep thinking we're going to move and then don't.

They're so PRETTY. I love the old dustwrappers and the thickish, browned pages. They smell so delicious.

One of my favourites.

Oh, and if you were wondering where I got this book-collecting thing from, take a look at my parents' house:

And I promise you this isn't all of the shelves. I also feel the need to apologise for the photo quality - it was very dark in there and I hadn't brought my flash with me. Pop-up flash is not cool.

Now what?

2009-08-06T12:26:00.004+02:00

Guys, I'm in that place. That place where I just don't know what to blog about anymore, despite the fact that I do totally want to blog! Really. I love it. It's just that this blog started out as my wedding planning space (it was my own little version of Weddingbee, because, you know, I didn't get accepted onto Weddingbee itself!), and now that the wedding and the endless recaps are over I don't know where to go from there. I even got over featuring photos I liked because I got into photography myself! Does that make a difference? Maybe I should feature them anyway. I do still love them and look at them all the time!

Right now, I'll just tell you some random things about myself, to get the ball rolling. The thing is, I do live quite a boring life, to be honest. No family drama or weird things happening at work!

At the moment I'm addicted to this chocolate:
Cadbury's coconut and cashew milk chocolate. The words "heaven", "perfection" and "I don't ever want to eat any other kind of regular chocolate* again" come to mind.

*obviously I'm not referring to things like Lindt or Cote D'or or any kind of Belgian truffle yumminess, but, you know, chocolate that I can afford to buy and eat daily.

The problem? They seem to have STOPPED MAKING IT. It's a calamity. I have to go into every shop I pass in case they have old slabs still. I could cry. No, really. You have noooo idea how much I love chocolate of any kind, let alone the squares of heaven kind that this flavour is.

At the moment I'm also addicted to Stephen Sondheim. I just play those soundtracks over and over and over. Kind of weird because in many cases I've never seen the shows to which they belong, but hey, that never stopped me being addicted to Wicked.

Speaking of Wicked reminds me. I've always wanted to go to Broadway. It's a desire that's always there, and sometimes it's just "oh, that would be cool", and sometimes it's a full-blown "I would give my first-born child to go to Broadway" obsession. Ok, it's never that bad. But it does make me want to spend every cent I have, and since I barely have any cents, this is what I would call A Bad Thing. I'm just going to lay it out there: I'm getting heartily sick of never having any money. I didn't expect to have any money this year; you don't when you're starting a business and you have to buy expensive equipment for it without seeing any monetary returns, really. I thought I could handle it, and for the most part, I have been. But I had to go to the doctor the other day and buy medication worth R500, and while I was at the mall where the doctor's rooms are, I made the mistake of going window shopping. And it just killed me that I couldn't afford to buy anything, but I'd just had to spend R500 on drugs. And there were all these pretty summer clothes with ribbons round the waist and rouchy lacy bits, and I wanted to cry. I went to look in my cupboard to confirm, and do you know what clothes I've bought this year? A pair of black ballet flats for comfy wedding shooting (R60) and I purple satin blouse, also for wedding shooting (R70). That's IT. I'm still wearing clothes I bought last decade. (Ok, only one or two awesome pieces, but in most cases my clothes are happily three or four years old).

I feel so despondent. I've never made a lot of money (in fact, I've only ever had poorly-paying jobs), but this is really starting to get to me.

Bet you wish I hadn't blogged now :P

I ♥ Faces Fix-it Friday

2009-08-01T13:11:00.004+02:00

It's that time again...yesterday :-)

Here's the original pic:

They wanted a more 'vintage' look to tie in with the little girl's outfit. This is what I came up with:

Problem is, I tried so many different things that I can't remember what I did! I'm fairly sure in the end I used Pioneer Woman's Heartland action but adjusted some of the layers so that it was less washed out. I darkened it with a darkening/dim the lights kind of action, and sharpened. I think I might have added a warm layer as well. Then I did an edge burn. I think!

Allo Allo

2009-07-25T13:11:00.009+02:00

My community theatre group is currently putting on Allo Allo as their mid-year comedy. I decided not to be in it, since I really prefer musicals (but wait for the end-of-year show!) so Sister Ruby Slippers asked me to come to the dress rehearsal to take photos. Last night Mr Ruby Slippers and I went to see the actual show, and let's just say it's ten times funnier when you aren't concentrating on taking pictures of moments that look interesting! I wonder if it's the same for weddings? Hmmm.

Anyway, here are some of my favourite photos:

"Are you standing comfortably?"
"No, Herr Flick!"
"Good."

"I am called Coquette..." (Note the breadrolls in Bertorelli's ears. I think Sister RS found it hard to sing out of tune on purpose.)

"Good moaning."

"You see, sometimes on rainy nights, this policeman come to change his trousers here, as it is a long walk to the station..."
"But it is not raining tonight."

Is that a sausage under your apron, or are you just happy to see me?

The portrait of the fallen Madonna with the big boobies is revealed! What a mistake a-to make-a!

We are over-Hitlered...

This show is such fun. I know I don't really have many readers in the Johannesburg area, but if this play is ever on near you, go and see it! It can't help but be hilarious.

I ♥ Faces Fix-it Friday

2009-07-23T00:31:00.004+02:00

I was at a photography workshop over the weekend (more on that later), so I didn't get a chance to do the I ♥ Faces weekly fix-it challenge until today!

Here's the original:

And my fix:

I'm not crazy about it, to be honest, but at least it's better than it was before.

I need a house

2009-07-22T13:28:00.000+02:00

Mr Ruby Slippers and I have been wanting to buy our own house for ages now. We're renting, and it does seem kind of a waste to be throwing money at our landlords every month with nothing to show for it in the end. Also, we really want our own place where we don't have to share a garden with other people who are constantly talking loudly and having parties. Our landlords are very nice (we had some horrors before them!) but the fact is there are just too many people always around, making noise. I like a quiet existence. Plus there is always someone in the garden; be it the maid, one of the two gardeners, or all the scores of people who seem to come and work with our landlady every day. This means our wimp of a cat is too scared to go do his kitty business in the garden. Which results in him screaming at me all day, which is just a teensy bit annoying.

Ok, it's annoying as all hell.

Quite aside from the problem that we actually don't have any money to buy a house, I'm a bit picky. (Read as: everything I want is expensive). And we REALLY don't have money for expensive.

These are my "must-haves" when it comes to a house:

1) Must be in a non-dodgy (expensive) area.
2) Must have walls on all sides that are higher than I am.
3) Must have electric fencing or similar on all of said walls.
4) Must have an electric gate.
5) Must be a stand alone house, not a cluster-home/townhouse complex, unless said complex has separated houses with no shared walls.
6) Must be light and airy, for I cannot function in a dark, cramped space.

Do you see my problem? 1-5, and probably 6, all scream EXPENSIVE!!!! But I refuse to live somewhere where I don't feel at least marginally safe, and I need all that stuff to feel safe. And #6 to feel happy :-)

And we haven't even got inside the house yet!

Actually, I don't want much from a house. I'd like the kitchen to have a free-standing island, and I'd like the sink and/or cooking area to face the tv, because I like to watch concerts and movie commentaries while I cook and wash dishes. I'd like the rooms not to be too small and pokey, I'd like big windows, and I'd like an upstairs, because I just enjoy the view too much to give it up.

Unfortunately I'm not seeing this happening any time before we win the lottery.

Down the Yellow Brick Road Part XIX: Dancing

2009-07-16T20:23:00.018+02:00

And then there was dancing. Mr Ruby Slippers and I are not dancers by any stretch of the imagination, so we asked Groomsman Andrew, who takes dancing lessons and sometimes gives them, too, to choreograph an incredibly simple dance for us. And when I say "simple", it meant a basic rumba step with a few twirls thrown in...

Look at my Ruby Slippers!

...one of those "hold-long-arms-and-walk-round-in-a-circle" thingys...

And an impressive dip at the end...

So impressive, in fact (because it's us!) that I have to show you it from two different angles. Who knew we could dip??

Look at my tiara trying to tip off! Luckily it was gripped on very tightly.

This is our song, "Under Your Spell" by Amber Benson (from the Buffy musical episode)

Then it was time for the father-daughter dance! Now I have to say my Dad is even worse at dancing than Mr RS and I are. I didn't want to freak him out by having a rehearsal, so I told him we'd just wing it on the day. He knew the song I had chosen - Steve Tyrell's "The Way You Look Tonight" from Father of the Bride - but that was it!

I love this one, because it's so typical of my Dad, who is going a bit deaf, and always leans right into you when he wants to hear something.

I think we did quite well.
I had decided ages before that I didn't want to dance only with my Dad. He had already walked me down the aisle, and it feels very old-fashioned; the father "giving away" his daughter, with no mention of the mother who raises the child just as much. I wanted to share this moment with my mother as well, so halfway through the dance I steered my Dad back over to where my Mom was standing waiting, and they switched.

My mom and I often used to dance randomly in the kitchen while we cooked, so this was a nice way to acknowledge our past and her "giving me away" as well. Also, this is her favourite song! She has a CD that has four different versions of "The Way You Look Tonight" on it. Seriously.

Mr Ruby Slippers has never danced with his mother in his life. But he started that night!

Look how colour-coordinated our Moms are!

And we hugged and cried.

I don't know if they did, but we sure did.

Previously:
Part I: The Night Before
Part II: Salon, Supermarket & Judy Garland
Part III: Setting Up
Part IV: Prettifying
Part V: All Bridalled Up
Part VI: For the Boys
Part VII: Going to the Chapel and We're...
Part VIII: Meanwhile, Back at the Chapel...
Part IX: Down the Aisle
Part X: Readings, Vows & Tasty Treats
Part XI: Man and Wife
Part XII: Cake and Family
Part XIII: Boys & Girls
Part XIV: Couple Shoot the first
Part XV: Couple Shoot the second
Part XVI: Details - Programs
Part XVII: Details - Reception
Part XVIII: Speeches

I ♥ Faces Fix-it Friday

2009-07-04T13:30:00.004+02:00

Another one!

Here's today's original picture from I ♥ Faces.

And my fix:

Yet again, there wasn't much wrong with this picture except that it was a little too "cold", so I just warmed it up a bunch, smoothed out the little girl's skin where it had marks by the eyebrows and on her left cheek, and cropped it. Oh, and I sharpened and lightened her eyes. Sweet and simple!

Down the Yellow Brick Road Part XVIII: Speeches

2009-06-30T17:08:00.000+02:00

Guys, I am SUCH a nana. And by that I mean short-for-banana, not that I'm someone's grandmother. :-) The reason I'm a silly banana? I forgot I'd never finished my wedding recaps.

Cue shock, horror, and possible fainting.

I know, right? I start a blog about planning my wedding, and then forget to finish the wedding! But, in fairness, all this business of me photographing other people's weddings kind of took over. And I was almost done! There's just the reception left, and...well, I don't know if being a wedding photographer has rubbed off on me, but the reception really isn't the most interesting part of the day. Not that I didn't like mine. But still.

Anyway, onward down the road of yellow bricks! If you want to catch up on everything that happened before, scroll to the bottom of this post and follow the many links. Otherwise, continue...

We arrived into the reception hall to the fanfare that comes in the middle of "Rose Tint My World" from The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Did I mention we're quirky movie nerds? Yeah.

Then Mr Ruby Slippers swept me around for a kiss...

Don't get freaked out by this next photo. We're really NOT licking each other's tongues. It just looks like we are.

Look! A wedding ring on my new husband! Yay!

Then we sat down and my mom helped me get my veil off and hook up my train. I also dumped my bouquet in the champagne bucket. I'm so classy.

It's getting on for eight months later now, people (EIGHT MONTHS), so details are a bit hazy. I know there were some speeches, from my Dad:

Want to know what's special about his tie? It's the one he wore when he married my Mom in 1971. I just thought it was the best idea to have him wear it...happy marriage mojo, and such...

My Dad is the king of bad puns. Here we are reacting to one:

Best Man Ricky gave a great, funny speech. I KNEW he was going to talk about the night Mr Ruby Slippers and I got together, and he did. See, it was a Christmas party, and Mr RS and I got to kissing on the bed (that's all, I promise!), and Best Man Ricky came bounding in to say goodbye. There was much hurried sitting up and straightening of hair on our parts, and awkward, "Um, ok, I'm going now, because I don't know what to say and I'm embarassed" shuffling stammers on his part. Good times. :-)

I've been trying for DAYS to get the video of this speech uploaded. Blogger isn't playing ball. If I ever get it in, I'll send you an updated heads up! Sorry.

There was toasting of and to each other at some point:

Finally, Mr RS got his turn. As he arrived at the mike, the DJ cut in with "I'm too sexy...", and my hubby played along:
His speech - when he got to it, was sweet, funny, and loving, just like him. I think I teared up a tiiiiny bit, but remembering the high I was on that day, not much.

I love you, hubby Slippers.

Previously:
Part I: The Night Before
Part II: Salon, Supermarket & Judy Garland
Part III: Setting Up
Part IV: Prettifying
Part V: All Bridalled Up
Part VI: For the Boys
Part VII: Going to the Chapel and We're...
Part VIII: Meanwhile, Back at the Chapel...
Part IX: Down the Aisle
Part X: Readings, Vows & Tasty Treats
Part XI: Man and Wife
Part XII: Cake and Family
Part XIII: Boys & Girls
Part XIV: Couple Shoot the first
Part XV: Couple Shoot the second
Part XVI: Details - Programs
Part XVII: Details - Reception

I ♥ Faces Fix-it Friday

2009-06-26T19:43:00.006+02:00

Ah, it rolls around so quickly. Seems like just yesterday I was posting last week's entry...

Here is today's original picture from I ♥ Faces.

Actually, I think there's very little wrong with this picture. It's beautifully exposed and clear, and there are no weird shadows or sunny spots anywhere. I subscribe to the "if it ain't broke" school of photoshop; that is, since this picture is so lovely I'm not going to mess with it too much and do all sorts of weird effects and softness and odd things. I did, however, decide that I needed to get in closer on his face, so I cropped in a bit, and then I decided that his expression and big eyes would be best served by making the photo black & white. Babies and amall children look gorgeous in black & white, in my opinion. Before I converted it I lightened and sharpened his eyes, just to bring them out. And voila:

Such a sweet, beautiful boy.

I ♥ Faces Fix-it Friday

2009-06-25T14:15:00.005+02:00

I realised I forgot to post my entry from last week's Fix-it Friday at I ♥ Faces! So here you go.

This was the original picture:

And here's my version:

There wasn't much wrong with this sweet photo. I cropped it a little to make the focus more on the little girl than the background, used the clone tool to fix up the shadows on her face, and used Pioneer Woman's soft and faded on her at 25%, with the desaturated layer down to 0%. I also sharpened her eyes, lips and nose edges, as well as her hairband. The End!

Alice

2009-06-25T12:27:00.010+02:00

So I've been a bad blogger. Sometimes, you know, I just don't feel like it. I can't think of anything interesting to say, I've got nothing specific to post about, and I've been busy with my photography business and getting stuff moving along with it. I will tell you that I might be going to do something really huge. And, of course, it might not happen, so I can't say what it is. Just that it would mean a complete life change and a wonderful learning experience. But it depends on so many factors coming together.

Anyway, yesterday BFF Ruby Slippers emailed me in excitement that she'd seen pictures from Tim Burton's new Alice in Wonderland film online. Now I'd conveniently forgotten all about this, mostly because I've tried to block Tim Burton from my mind ever since the heinous, hideous mess that was his humungously disappointing version of Sweeney Todd. Seriously, if any of you saw that film and thought that's what Sweeney Todd is LIKE, you had better go and rectify that now. If Stephen Sondheim were dead, he'd be turning in his grave. So go and watch either this version or this version. And if you still don't like Sweeney Todd, well then, you clearly just don't Get It.

Anyway, to get back to the original point, I'm extremely intrigued by the new promo pictures from Alice in Wonderland. My first thought was "Oh, great, Helena Bonham Carter's going to be pale with dark eyes and wild hair. You know, like in every other Tim Burton movie she's been in."

Even the one where she was animated. :-)

But I'm really intrigued by her somewhat freakish and slightly computer-generated look in the new movie:

And here's Anne Hathaway as the White Queen:

And Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter:

What I'm REALLY keen for are pictures of Alan Rickman as The Caterpillar and Stephen Fry as the Cheshire Cat, but I can't find any as yet. But look at the film visuals:

Aargh, I want that last one painted on my wall. Minus the freakish Tweedledum and Tweedledee, of course.

And this is Alice:

Now from what I can gather, it's more of a SEQUEL than a retelling of the original Alice. Seems that Alice, as a 17-year-old, finds herself coming back to Wonderland after many years. Hmm. Sounds like Tim Burton has borrowed heavily from American McGee's Alice (which has been in movie development hell for years), as well as the novel The Looking Glass Wars by Frank Beddor (which I loved).

Either way, I'm keen for awesome fantasy gorgeousness. Is this a good time to admit I've never even seen the original animated Disney version, nor read the full novel? I know, I know...

Alice in Waterland

2009-06-15T23:37:00.008+02:00

Some of you may know the site DeviantART. It's an amazing forum for photographers and artists to display their work and get inspired by others. Some days I've practically lived on there, there is so much gorgeousness to see. It's like photography porn (in the best way, just as sites like Style Me Pretty and The Brides Cafe are wedding porn:-))

Anyway, I was wandering about there tonight, and I came across the most gorgeous set of underwater images by sugarock99. She's taken a series of Alice in Wonderland-themed shots (except they're Alice in WATERland, in this case) that are absolutely breathtaking. I just had to share some of them.

Go see the rest! And look at her other underwater pictures; they're magical.

Now I want underwater housing for my camera, boo.

Photographer Friday: Christine Meintjies

2009-06-12T16:26:00.013+02:00

Another South African photographer feast for you today! This time it's Christine Meintjies.

Wellingtons - soooo cute!

The reflection shot on the right is sublime. And I love the horses!

I don't even like wine, but boy do I like this picture:

Gorgeous.

Photographer Friday: Lizelle Lotter

2009-06-05T16:06:00.017+02:00

Ah, Photographer Friday...if only I remembered to do it every week! This time I'm back with another amazing South African photographer, Lizelle Lotter. I've just discovered her over the last few months, and boy oh boy, is her work beautifully wonderful.

The most fun groom shot I've ever seen!

I love the negative space here...I'm a sucker for that.

I love a photographer who gets awesome "details" - like this cat guarding the shoes at a beach wedding!

Swoon.

I ♥ Faces Pet Photo Challenge

2009-06-01T18:58:00.006+02:00

The competition this week at I ♥ Faces is Pets. And, of course, I have a gazillion pictures of my sweet little terror, Gollum. Who else am I going to practise taking photos of? So here's my entry:

Isn't he just darling? I also made one with the caption "Do Not Want." You sci-fi/Star Wars geeks will know where that's from. :-)

That Wife's May Food Challenge

2009-05-30T16:35:00.005+02:00

Jenna over at That Wife has been issuing these photo challenges for months, but I've always been too lazy to enter. Yeah, yeah, I know, I'm terrible. Anyway, the challenge this month was to get your Mom to give you a recipe that she had always made, and make it yourself. I decided this was a Good Thing because my mother is a good cooker of tasty things, and I should have more of her recipes. And especially, I need to bake more. I never bake, which is stupid because I adore baked goods. I'm just, well, lazy about it.

On thinking about cake-making, I realised that part of the reason I never bake a cake is because it seems like a mission. Often you have to make two layers and put them together with something yummy in the middle, and then you have to ice the whole thing. Way too much effort for this lazy Slipper! And at that moment, I thought of my mom's lemon loaf cake. It's lemony and yummy and it has no icing or middle creamy bit! I immediately asked her for the recipe, and I made it yesterday afternoon.

RECIPE FOR LEMON CAKE

INGREDIENTS
CAKE
225ml Castor Sugar
400ml Flour
10ml Baking Powder
125g softened margarine
2 eggs
Rind of 1 Lemon
125ml Milk

TOPPING
125ml Castor Sugar
50ml Lemon Juice

METHOD
Cake:
Sift dry ingredients. Add everything else and beat well with an electric beater. Pour into cake tin. Bake at 180C for 45-60 minutes until done. Turn cake out.

Topping:
Mix lemon juice and castor sugar and pour over cake while it is still hot. Garnish with a little grated lemon rind.

It looks like it could be kind of dry and boring, right? But all the yumminess is in the lemon juice & sugar topping. It makes the top all shiny and sticky, and because you put it on when the cake is hot, it soaks through into the cake and makes it moist and lemony inside too. Yummmm.

The original recipe calls for a loaf pan, but I used a round one because it has a greater surface are to pour the lemon juicy goodness on. (That and I don't actually own a loaf pan, but whatever).

Easy-peasy cake! Thanks, Mom! :-)

I ♥ Faces Fix-it Friday

2009-05-29T20:22:00.004+02:00

It's Fix-it Friday over at I ♥ Faces! This is the first time I've done one of their challenges...but hey, I love me some Photoshop practise!

This is the "before" picture they put up:

And here's my edited version:

It also looks beautiful in black & white:

What I did:

1) Cropped to a square
2)Used Image > Adjust > shadows/highlight to lighten the shadow on her face
3)Pioneer Woman's 'Warmer' action
4)Used the Clone and Spot Healing brush tools to fix the imperfections in her face and even out the colour
5)Lightened and sharpened the eyes
6)Pioneer Woman's soft & faded action at 30% with some tweaking off inner layers
7)Burned the edges
8)Filter > Noise reduction

And then for the b & w I added Pioneer Woman's B&W Beauty with bump at 40%

All in PS3.

Bridal Shoot!

2009-05-29T12:57:00.002+02:00

Simone's Bridal Shoot at the Military Museum is up on my photography blog! At least, Part I of it is. :-) There were so many pictures I loved I think it will definitely have to be a two-parter!

Go see it here.

Here's a teaser (another one!)

Loves & Loathes

2009-05-28T21:16:00.009+02:00

So not much is up at the moment in the usually-mad world of the Ruby Slippers'. So I thought I'd do a little post about things that I'm loving at the moment, and things that are just ticking me off!

At the moment, I lurve:

1) Salmon & Avo California rolls.

YUM. I don't know why I'm so addicted to them at the moment, but I could eat a pile of these babies everyday. Salmon plus avo plus seaweed plus those little seeds must be the best flavour EVER. (this pic isn't right, but it's the closest I could find. I like it when they have seeds on the outside!)

2) Woolworths double cream coconut yoghurt.

I've basically been eating this for lunch nearly every day for months (with fruit, of course, but not together!). I have a weakness for anything coconut. Best drink I ever had was a coconut shake in Thailand.

3) Monopoly.

Mr Ruby Slippers and I have been playing this a bunch lately. I brought over my old set that I got for my 7th or 8th birthday, and it still works. :-) Tonight we played two games... One All.

4)The soundtrack of Sweeney Todd (Broadway cast with Patti Lupone; not the putrescent mess that was the Tim Burton film. Ugh.)

What an awesome musical. If you hated the movie but expected to like it, try getting hold of one of the dvd concert versions with either Angela Lansbury or Patti Lupone starring with George Hearn. Both are excellent.

And I'm Loathing:

1) People who close the stall doors in public toilets so you think someone is in there. Seriously, are you just trying to make people wait in line so you can point and laugh? It's people like you that make other people push on the doors when you are in there, because they think it's possible no one is. And I hate that, especially if the catch is a bit iffy and the door doesn't stay closed properly.

I don't have a picture for this.

2)Cooked raisins.

I'll eat them out the bag (raw, I guess, though that seems an odd term for a dried fruit), but by golly I do not like them cooked in buns (see above), apple pie, etc. Uuuugh. They get all bloated and disgusting. Shudder.

3)Electric Gates that close automatically after a few seconds. They terrify me. I've had a few narrow shaves with these bastards, and I find them completely unnecessary. What, so you have one in case you possibly forget, one day in the future, to close the gate? Isn't it far more likely that someone's car will get pranged by by the stupid thing closing on them?

4) Car guards in parking lots. I'm sick of them saying hello and goodbye in that wheedling tone and expecting me to give them money. Gah. Could we just have a parking lot safe enough not to need guards??

Funny how you can't find pics of the bad stuff...

Movies watched! I keep forgetting about this:

Star Trek - Pretty good. I used to date a Trekkie, so I saw all the recent films, and this one was definitely better! I got a bit distracted trying to count every time there was flare, though.
Into the Woods - the Sondheim musical in concert. LOVED it.
Bride Wars - Hey, it wasn't as bad as everyone made out. Watchable, but probably not rewatchable.
My Fair Lady - One of my top musicals of all time. I hear they're doing a remake; whyyyyyy??
The Wizard of Oz - Ditto, except for the remake bit. It has Judy and it's magical. That's all there is to know.
The Princess Bride - Not really; I just watched the commentary on the new edition. This was my favourite movie for years, and it's the one I can quote pretty much by heart. Which led to me quoting lines while Rob Reiner was talking...

(It looks like I've fallen off a bit here, but in between this I did watch seasons 3, 4 and 5 of The Nanny, and a bunch of other tv...)

Have a good weekend, everyone!

Teaser & new logo

2009-05-25T18:56:00.004+02:00

Here's a teaser shot from the bridal session I did today. It's also up on my photography blog.

I actually like it a lot more, and I can put the slippers on any corner I want (though I think I'll stick to the bottom two!), which makes it less obtrusive on a 'busy' photo.

Thoughts?

Photo of the Day

2009-05-23T12:46:00.003+02:00

Guys, I'm sorry I haven't posted this week. I've been sick with flu, as well as just feeling a bit overwhelmed by life in general. I appreciate all your responses on my logo issue, and I've actually been fiddling around with a different take on it (thanks, Galadriel) to see if I can get more consensus on it. IE, more people telling me that it's good, instead of half and half :-) Heheh. I'll debut that soon.

In the meantime, I'm going to go and cough my head off, so I'll leave you with a photo by Funkytown Photography. I'm all about the grunge at the moment.

My Logo - EDITED for an Extra Option (17 May)

2009-05-16T15:25:00.008+02:00

Mr Ruby Slippers has finished my logo, I've chosen a font, and I'm pretty damn pleased with the results! But I need advice from all of you about WHERE to put it on the photo. I originally liked the idea of placing the logo slightly over the photo, and I posted one lot like that, but then I started worrying that it looked too cluttered. As if in answer, someone kindly left a comment on that post, saying that they found it too distracting. So I've tried moving it back down into the white border. Now you guys look at these three and tell me which you like best:

OPTION 1:
Option 1 has the slippers slightly over the picture.

**EDIT** I thought maybe it was looking cramped because the white block was too small, so I made that bigger. We'll call this Option 1a:

OPTION 2:

Option 2 moves that logo down so that it's all in the white border block, and makes the white border bigger as well.

OPTION 3:

Option 3 uses the same size white block as Option 2, but the Ruby Slippers have been moved slightly down to be more on level with the text.

Which do you like best? Or suggest anything else you think might work! I'm open to ideas.

Adsense

2009-05-14T23:50:00.001+02:00

Do any other bloggers use adsense to make money on their blog? Is it a good option, or do the ads everywhere just annoy people? Also, I'm hesitant about giving out my personal details and/or banking details to "some company on the internet". What do you guys think?

Photography Blog

2009-05-13T18:15:00.005+02:00

Hi everyone,

My new photography blog is up at http://katforsythphotography.co.za

It's not complete yet (the logo is coming, I promise!) but I've put lots of photos up in the meantime!

Go check it out.

I'm FEATURED on Cake Wrecks!

2009-05-13T16:15:00.002+02:00

Is this a good thing? Why, yes. My wedding cake was hideous and we all know it, and Cake Wrecks is bloggy awesomeness that often makes me cry with laughter. Just not usually at my own expense.

Still, if I can bring a little joy into your humdrum lives, it means my cake wreck aint been in vain for nothin'.

Go see it here.

Thunderclouds, any clouds

2009-05-11T20:32:00.011+02:00

We have been having some bizarrely stormy weather lately. It doesn't usually rain at this time of year. That also means we've been having some amazing cloud cover, and - occasionally - spectacular sunsets. Here are some cloud pics I took over the last week.

Note: I didn't change the colour on any of these, except one where I added a smidge of a pink filter. I've boosted and upped contrast and all that sneaky stuff, of course, but the colours are really that gorgeous in real life. I was in cloud heaven.

This is from my bedroom window. See that white dot in the low cloud above the tree? That's the moon. Seriously. I took this at about 5:40pm.

It got darker right before my eyes. Before I knew it, the pink was all gone.

This was a different day, different sunset. The gold on this cloud made me want to marry it.

This one looks really fake, right? It's not. A storm blew up over a bright blue sky, and before you could say "faked in photoshop" there was this massive black swirling mass of evil over a powder-blue, My Little Pony sky. I swear, this cloud could BE a My Little Pony bad guy, come to ruin their Pony fun and rainbow happiness.

On another day, Mr Ruby Slippers and I jumped in the car and drove down to a nearby school, where we took pictures from their playing field. Unfortunately we missed the actual sunset (this was PINK when we got in the car five minutes before!) But I think it's gorgeous like this too:

This is the one I added the pink cast to. It just made it less blue-grey and more sunsetty. You can barely see the pink, right? That's cos it was so overpoweringly blue before.

This is right before we left the house to take the two above. See? It was pink!

And purple and grey and white and lilac and mauve and GORGEOUS. Swoon. I want to marry this one too.

It must be so sad not to appreciate the beauty in nature.

Photographer Friday: Joy Marie

2009-05-08T11:52:00.014+02:00

Today's gorgeousness overload comes from the ultra-talented Joy Marie...

Random photo I took and liked

2009-05-07T23:52:00.003+02:00

This could be the beginning of another Photo of the Day Series, but this time MINE. We'll see. I don't know if I take enough photos for that :P

So the other night this moth came and landed on the books on my bedside table. He picked a great one because the metallic red cover reflected onto him beautifully. I leaned over and picked up my camera out of its bag by my bed, and got this:

Pretty.

A Flashing Sign

2009-05-07T00:08:00.004+02:00

Ever since I went mad and quit my job to do photography (yes, that is to be said with an ironic twisted smile) I've always had this idea that if I got into dire financial straights, I could return to my previous-previous job (that is, two jobs ag0) at a big chain bookstore. Maybe just parttime, but I know they're always looking for people, and they'd be happy to have me back because I was totally good at my job. Book knowledge coming out of my ears (not, I hasten to add, because I've READ that many books, but I'm really good at recalling details).

So tonight my friend Simone and I went out for a chick flick. In this case, Confessions of a Shopaholic.* And afterwards we stopped in at our old bookstore (we both used to work there, but she got out before I did) to say hello to some of the nightstaff we used to know. And while we were there this bizarrely rude man came up to us (we were standing at the counter talking to the night manager) and started asking odd questions, and then getting angry when no one could understand what he wanted. He stormed out and then stormed back in again, pointed at random customers and asked "Who's that? Who's that?" and then stormed off towards the back of the shop when one of the staff answered, "They're customers...?"

A few minutes later he came back and said rudely at all of us, "I'm going now. Thanks for all your help!" I didn't see why Simone and I, who were standing on the outside of the counter and clearly not staff, should be included in this, so I said - politely, honestly - "Actually, she and I aren't staff; we were just talking to them." And he came back right up to us and said, "Why did you lead me to believe you were staff, then?" (???????) And Simone said, "Well, some of the people standing here are staff, but we aren't." And he gets right in her face and goes, "I suppose you think it's fun to belittle people like that, huh? Does it make you feel better?"

Seriously, What The Fuck.

Funnily enough, Simone was one of the more polite people we ever had on staff, so this was pretty weird and uncalled for. But this man was clearly off his rocker. A few clowns short of a circus. A couple of sandwiches short of a picnic. A few grapes shy of a bunch. Lift not going anywhere near the top storey. Oxen most of the way out the kraal. Etc.

And what did this say to me? In a giant, flashy, neon sign:

I AM NEVER WORKING RETAIL AGAIN, AS LONG AS I LIVE.

So there goes that back-up job. Oh well. I would have had to have been pretty desperate, anyway.

*This reminds me, I was supposed to be listing the movies I watched in every post, and I forgot. Go away now if you don't care. :-)

Everything I watched since the last time I did this:

Neverwhere - Actually a miniseries which I gave Mr Ruby Slippers for his birthday. I love the idea (I'd read the Neil Gaiman novel ages ago) but the effects were pretty, well, budget-friendly.
French Lieutenant's Woman, The - Nice Enough, but ultimately unmemorable. Meryl is fab, though (when isn't she?)
Eulogy - This was supposed to be as good as Death at a Funeral. It wasn't.
Hoodwinked - Always fun! If you haven't seen this, go rent it! It's so cute.
Calendar Girls - Hilarious Brit-com. Love it.
Shaun of the Dead - See above. Even funnier.
What's Up, Doc? - One of my favourite movies of all time. I watched this to perk up the night before I shot my first wedding.
Easter Parade - Guess when I watched this. It's Judy Garland, and is therefore a treat.
Minority Report - I really enjoy this movie. Great futuristic sci-fi action.
Little Mermaid, The - Twenty years since I first saw it, and I still love it.
Presenting Lily Mars - It's Judy Garland, and is therefore a treat.
Mermaidia - No funny looks. I borrowed this from Tanja's daughter. It has a very My Little Pony sweet simplicity, and I lurve under-the-sea stuff.
Honey I Shrunk the Kids- Fun family comedy classic.
For Your Consideration - As offbeat as Christopher Guest's comedies usually are.
Lost in Austen - BRILLIANT. It's actually also a miniseries, but it feels like a 3-hour movie. I can't begin to say how much I enjoyed this. If you like Pride & Prejudice, rent this!
Wild Child - What can I say, I like school movies. It was fun but average.
Twilight - Better than I expected, but not as good as the book.
Mame - RIP Bea Arthur. You were the best thing in this tired-feeling movie. If you don't watch it very often it's okay, though.
Wolverine - Hugh Jackman runs around naked. SOLD. (Actually it's fun but not great).
Last Chance Harvey - Meh. It should have been funnier, but ultimately it's a lacklustre drama. I just love Emma Thompson, though.
Confessions of a Shopoholic - Light and frothy, and barely sticking to the books, it's sweet but forgettable.

THE END