uh huh
you are a stinge award: to the man with a briefcase and laptop, who originally asked if we had wireless set up. we don’t, so he wanted to use the free internet, but you have to be a member of the library to use it. if you don’t have an address in the state, you can only become a temporary member with a twenty dollar deposit. so he went ahead and did that, and while we were writing up his membership details, he told us he was leaving at five this afternoon.
oh for heaven’s sake, he could have spent a few dollars at an internet cafe for more time than our one hour a day maximum. also just bloody ridiculous going around the rules and making us run around just for free access. and to compound, when he was done, he came up to the desk and waved the library card wordlessly in my face. “what do you want,” i said tersely, even though i already knew. filled out the paperwork for his twenty dollar refund, cancelled his membership, collected the cash from the workroom and handed it back to him. but he had another question, could he borrow any books? aaaaarggghhh
lately i’m obsessed with the idea of watching more films. i’m trying out quickflix, which sounds like an australian ripoff of netflix. i have a ridiculous 100+ titles in my queue, which makes me think i might subscribe to it monthly, rather than have to scramble around video store closing times and their small selection. in the mail already is harold and kumar and i’ll sleep when i’m dead. hope they can find me a copy of times square soon.
If Quickflix is anything like Netflix, you’ll love it. Netflix’s success has allowed them to open satellite offices in many cities–mine included!–so there’s a 24-hour turnaround. I mail a DVD on tuesday afternoon, I have a new one Wed afternoon or Thurs morning. And the selection! My queue sits at 207 movies. I add a dozen a week. It’s pathetic. I currently have Junebug, Ong-Bak: Thai Warrior and Memoirs of a Geisha, which I just watched. It is dismal. Overlong, boring, and ill-conceived: they left out obvious and vital details from the great book that explain characters’ motivations and set up changes down the road. Every deviation from the (very filmable) novel was a mistake. And soooooo slooooowwwwwww… plus the director apparently had Michelle Yeoh, who speaks English fluently, use broken English in the film so as not to show up her co-stars. What a bung-up the whole enterprise is. Pretty to look at but painful to sit through.
You may wanbt to check out “Neighbor no. 13″. The movie as a whole doesn’t work, but it’s brilliant in parts and little what’s-her-name from Puffy AmiYumi is a delight. I can’t recommend “Rules of Dating” (or “To Do or not To Do”, depending on whose Korean translation you trust) despite the presence of Hye-jeong Kang, who lights up the screen and is impossibly cute. Lots of stuff happens but none of it seems to move the plot forward, and the two main characters are both somewhat hateful. But boy is she adorable.
Comment by him again — April 11, 2006 @ 4:53 pm
well my current queue is 171 titles. i sure hope they have lots of new things coming in soon.
i think our range of foreign films is somewhat restricted to what has been released on region 4, so not a great deal of japanese and korean titles past the horror ones. boo hoo. i can’t wait to get my hands on kisurazu cat’s eye though.
hopefully there are dvds waiting for me when i get home today.
the novel of memoirs is running like hotcakes at the library. zhang ziyi’s blue eyes stare at me, and i want to tell people, you are being fooled by orientalism! :p
Comment by rachael — April 12, 2006 @ 3:22 am