Strange Machines

I used to be a very different person before I had my children. I loved horror movies, junk food, place without children, and sleeping.

Okay, I still love to sleep but I realise that my personal time is more important to my mental well-being than sleep.

I have cut out junk food from my diet and have turned organic.

And most tellingly, I actually feel nausea when I watch horror movies. This, from a woman who found humour and irony in horror.

I try very hard to explain the last because it perplexes me the most. I have the strongest stomach and yet motherhood ha turned me into a softy who prefers comedy, romance, and adventure.

The latest flick I caught, Piranha 3D was testament to that. I feel nothing but nausea, even at this humorous gory movie.

And with that I believe I have laid to rest the horror me, the girl who loved horror because it mocked death, laughed at death, made fun of it – at the end of every horror movie you tell yourself, hey I am still here. I am alive.

But not so with dramas and comedies or even adventures. They either hit close to home or reflect something simply unattainable that just depresses the hell out of me in the end.

Horror used to just entertain as a movie or be simply an outlet for venting my frustrations in writing. Now to me it is just gross and keeps me up at night.

So now I join you, Mom, in my distaste for campy horror movies, the ones I used to enjoy (yes, Dead Alive, I am talking about you). My sister in law will never hear me joke about horror movies being comedies anymore. And my dear brother will have to watch them on his own now.

For I have changed. Maybe through those hormones that have turned my body into a milk-making machine and rewired my brain to find those 2 munchkins I gave birth to unbelievably cute.

Motherhood has purged me of my dark side. That is the only explanation. I actually wear pink now. Shh…

So farewell to my beloved zombies and vampires (I’ll still watch Breaking Dawn and Buffy though) and things that bump in the night but are not real yet no longer entertain me. We had a good 30 years.

And hello comedies!

After having to hitch rides twice today, with kids and pram, I decided I better get serious about getting my driver’s licence. It isn’t about the cost of it, really, although here is one of the most expensive places to get a licence, although at my age even for a new driver, it is crazy how inexpensive auto insurance is. It is the time! Someone has to watch the kids for the 2 hours I need for each lesson and plus the additional travelling time.

I have the book(s). We need to take the basic theory and pass. Then get a learner driver permit, and then take the advanced theory and pass. And then take some 20 practical driver lessons, pass the practical, get some inexpensive auto insurance, and then get the nerve to strap both my kids into car seats and drive all over town (like the song goes).

Honestly, by the end of the day like now, I am too beat to read the book, let alone digest anything it says. Everything at this hour is purge purge purge. There is an iPhone app teaching the basic but I’ve only gone through it twice. I guess what is holding me back is that it is such a tedious process which eats up the only time I have to rest and have a mental break, which are the days my parents help out with the kids, and I am loathe to give those up.

Still, it has to be done someday. Go for the lessons, pass the exams, buy the inexpensive auto insurance, and use the car. Just not today.

Overall it had been a weak season for HIMYM. The Robin-Barney pairing was boring and even worse was their breakup.

Then Robin and Don started getting serious and things got interesting. In fact, Twin Beds is one of my favourite episodes right up there with all the Slapisodes and Robin Sparkles episodes.

Why did they have to ruin it by letting Don go and having Robin and Ted almost kiss and then make a big deal out of his blonde hair stopping that “bad idea”.

If it was such a bad idea why did they have Ted want Robin back because she was the girl of his dreams 2 episodes ago? Surely what would have been more realistic was to have them kiss since she was the one he wanted to marry?

I can’t believe they can write the characters out so unrealistic. I think the writers are just out of it (Robin-Barney suddenly breaking up and then Ted suddenly not grabbing The Window and dating Robin again).

Trust me, when the final closing curtains fall, they would have pulled a Lost and Robin will turn out to be The Mother in the end.

Why? Because we are so emotionally invested in her, rather than some random chick who will appear in a few episodes then be declared The Mother.

The writers can pull a Lost and have Bob Saget say in a Barney voice, haha I lied. Robin is your mother after all.

There, I said it twice. It must be true. (And you can tell I’m still bitter from Lost.)

SPOILER ALERT!

PLEASE DO NOT READ THIS IF YOU HAVEN’T WATCHED THE LOST FINALE.

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

So I slept on it and I am still mad. I feel so cheated. What a cop out! And the lies… After watching 6 seasons, this is what we get? I quote Hurley early in the finale, “I have a bad feeling about this.” Indeed I did.

The 1 hour and 40 minutes trudged along, splashing the occasional surprise return of a long-dead cast member (but where was Walt and Michael?) in the Sideways world and an absolutely lame non-event of Wolf vs MIB, which had potential but ended way too fast. And the ending… well, I’ll talk about that below.

What I liked:

Okay, there were some things I liked.

1. The surprise of Juliet being David’s Mom and Wolf’s ex!

2. Sawyer and Juliet’s reunion.

3. The beautiful realisation between Sun and Jin when Juliet did the ultrasound and showed them Ji Yeon. (My fave!)

4. Ben finding redemption and being a good guy after all.

5. Eloise showing some heart when she asked Desmond not to take her son Daniel.

What I absolutely hated:

1. The Sideways world being purgatory!

2. No explanation of what the Island was.

3. No explanation of what the numbers mean (if the Island was purgatory then it might make sense but it wasn’t).

4. No explanation of what the light was other than it had to be plugged or else the Island would sink.

5. The whole churchy feel of the last 6 minutes.

6. Christian Shephard. How come we never saw it?

7. Why I get the feeling the whole story of Lost WASN’T thought out and the whole of Season 6 was just, quick let’s tie up loose ends and finish it. Didn’t the directors promise the Island wasn’t some sort of purgatory? Yet the Sideways world was. Is that cheating?

Final thoughts:

The ending, which brought everyone together in the purgatory Sideways world, so they could move on, was just too unreal. When the question of what is real and unreal in a story like Lost, the last thing you want to bring in is a third element. It’s like 1+1 is… oh but hey look, here is 25.

I wish they had answered more questions about the Island like:

1. Why was it special?

2. How did MIB become Smokey?

3. Why did it have to be protected?

4. Those damned numbers again.

5. If the light existed before Jacob and MIB, why did it have to be protected against MIB. Loophole!

Tons and tons of questions they could have addressed but they copped out when they introduced Purgatory and the light. It totally spoiled Lost for me.

Other opinions:

The best explanation I’ve read was given in a comment by someone called Pamela on ScreenRant:

I do not believe the island was ever a real place in terms of something tangible. Whether you call it purgatory or something else, it was most definitely a battle ground for redemption. That is also the only explanation that could explain, although loosely, all the mysteries that we never got answers to. A place where you can travel through time via donkey wheel or where you have to push a button to “save the world” or where 48 people could survive a terrible plane crash is probably not real, logically speaking. I leave with this, I think the writer’s made some big mistakes along the way. I think they dug themselves some holes for which they did not know how to dig out of.

And the best conclusion from Hot Air:

I absolutely hate what the show degenerated into. I thought the plot of the finale was a stunning act of creative cowardice, which no amount of effort from the talented cast could redeem. I offer these thoughts as a memorial to what I thought Lost was trying to be, and a critique from someone fascinated by the art of storytelling.

A commitment was made to the fans, both implicitly through the scientific trappings of early episodes… and explicitly through interviews given by the producers… that it would all make sense in the end.

But it didn’t.

What the… was more my thoughts when I watched the episode.

Some parts just didn’t gel.

I found it hard to believe that Charles Widmore would venture from the safety of his sub (away from the boom things that protect him from Smokey) ALONE, with Zoe to the exact spot where Ben, Miles, and Richard were going. And then, hide in Ben’s (his arch nemesis) secret compartment when Smokey was arriving to kill them.

Not logical.

Wolf deciding to be The Candidate was just too predictable. Unless it is a seat warmer till another one takes his place in the finale. But my thoughts are it is unlikely, as he is the hero of the show and a showdown between him MIB is inevitable.

What did make sense was MIB killing Richard just like that. He was expendable and his swift death served to tell the audience that.

It was interesting to see Ben in the Sideways world being a nice guy, even flirting with Danielle and being a father figure to Alex. I think that put to rest the rumours that he and Alex were supposed to be romantically involved. Gross. But no time now. Only 2 and a half hours left to go.

Also kind of perplexing is Jacob reappearing and then saying he will be gone forever when the fire dies. Aren’t the ghosts all around anyway? None are gone forever. A discrepancy in the ghost explanation is Walt. How come Walt appeared as a ghost after he was with the Others? He wasn’t dead. Where is Walt anyway? Why was he so central in the early seasons and now just written off?

The light thing is just too out of it. Is it some wormhole or electromagnetic centre? What makes it so special? I vaguely recall the directors saying that there was a scientific explanation for everything. So far there is no explanation for Smokey or now, another device, the light?

Anyway, all will be answered… or not, on Sunday night. Can’t wait!

Quite a few people I know have lost their jobs. Either from extended retrenchments or straight out “you gotta go in 24 hours and security guards are gonna make sure you don’t steal any company secrets”.

Fortunately for a loved one, it is from the former.

He has also had the foresight to look into business opportunities overseas. As a business degree holder and having many years of experience, he told me that insurance for business is something constantly overlooked.

He went on to tell me about 2 of his former clients who had business insurance in Arkansas when he conducted a business there and was covered when it failed (not really his fault) and another guy neglected to get his business insurance in Alaska when he started a business there and lost everything when the business failed.

So moral of the story was he is prepared to go with some business ventures but is going to cover himself with insurance just in case (since our economy is rather uncertain these days). I never knew there was insurance for businesses, which really goes to show how much of a worker bee I have been all my life.

My 100 year old grandmother, fiesty as a whip in her day, succumbed to organ failure from advanced pancreatic cancer, and passed away peacefully on Friday with her family around her.

Just one week ago she was lucid enough to recognise and smile at me but last Wednesday she was out of it, dazed from the morphine administered to ease her pain.

She was on oxygen when we went to say our farewells and took her last breath only after my sister and her family arrived, as if she was waiting for all of us to gather to send her off.

She was a titan in her time and we all admired her for her strength, her love, and her steely will to survive. Rest in peace, Mama. It was one helluva ride.

My Grandma has been diagnosed with advanced pancreatic cancer. I hope she will feel the love and comfort we bring to her in her final days. She’s lived 99 years. I hope she will see 100.

I must confess first. I was a TV addict.

After work, dear hubby and I would cuddle up in from of ole Faithful and watch our fave programs like CSI and munch on junk food. I could not live without TV.

Fast forward to year 2006 and Wolf was born. I read that the cost of watching TV was the opportunity lost spent on other more creative and productive things like reading, playing, or talking to Mom. According to many peer-reviewed studies, kids who watch TV have less vocabulary than kids who don’t, and the latter are more sociable.

I was sold. I swore my kid would never watch television. Ever. And I had to set an example. The TV became a glorified plant holder and took up half the space of the living room. Surprisingly I found life without TV pretty alright, since we were busy with the kids and really have no more free time. I do fantasize about the days when the kids are off to college and I can finally turn on my 35″ TV and watch all the dramas I missed in the last 18 years.

As for the old clunker, we gave it away to an elderly neighbour who was thrilled to have it. She was retired and watching TV every day on a tiny 20″. We figured that by the time the kids were old enough to watch TV, our CRT would have decomposed and we could get a brand new plasma t.v. for $200. And let’s make it a Samsung plasma tv or a Panasonic plasma tv.

And is there credence to all the reports about increased sociability and higher vocabulary? According to people who have met Wolf, he is very sociable with people of all ages and speaks non-stop like a Duracell bunny.

I don’t know about other children, but after 3.5 years of no TV, Wolf isn’t fond of watching it and he would prefer to play or read than watch TV. He went through a brief phase of TV phobia, probably from something he saw on it at Grandma’s house. But he sat through The Lion King (his cousin was watching at Grandma’s) just last week (which from a child’s eyes, seems awfully negative about brotherhood and rather pro-revenge and violence). His first actually.

According to the scientifically-based Nurtureshock, kids pick up extracts from a story, so even if a story with conflict that gets resolved at the end, the child may simply pick up the conflict and not the resolution.

We can’t shelter our children from the media – heck I want my TV back one day – but the first few years are crucial to protect them from the effects of the media, much of which we as adults are already immune to or unaffected by. But children are vulnerable and judging from our viewing of the “children’s movie” The Lion King, I won’t be letting Wolf watch any more till he is much older.

Sometimes we’re so busy cataloguing our lives, we forget to live in it.