Tagged: lazy sundays
Lazy Sundays: The Walking Dead Finale
Spoilers ahead!
Since I don’t analyze TV shows/movies as in-depth as I do books here are just some of my general thoughts on the finale tonight:
1. I was convinced Glenn or Daryl were going to die for pretty much the entire episode. I’m not sure why but knowing that Glenn is dead in the comics always makes me nervous when he’s in any sort of peril.
2. Morgan’s back! And he’s not crazy! He’s oddly zen and I really hope that in Season 6 they go a bit into his backstory and we find out how he went from the total crazy person he was in ‘Clear’ to one of the more sane people in the finale ‘Conquer’. Now that would be a story.
3. I kind of want Michonne to take over Alexandria. She’s got far more sense than Rick or Deanna. Rick’s riding the crazy train right now and Deanna is probably going to get there after losing her husband and son in such a short period of time. I don’t mean that Rick is as crazy as he was in the prison but he really does need to tone things down before he goes full Shane.
4. Go Carol!
5. Who are the Wolves? And what’s their endgame? They seem pretty messed up and I think they’ll be a major plot point in Season 6 but at the same time Scott Gimple has said that while people were the main threat in previous seasons, they won’t be in Season 6. (That was in the letter Chris Hardwick read aloud on Talking Dead.)
Did you guys watch the finale? Thoughts?
Lazy Sundays: Spring is Sprung
Since last year we had snow on the ground until the beginning of May, it was really surprising to actually have a spring on the official first day of spring (March 21) this year. Where I live in Saskatchewan we never have spring when it’s officially ‘spring’. That usually doesn’t happen until after Easter, sometimes later. But this year, seemingly to balance out the snow-based misery in lots of parts of the country, particularly the Maritimes, northern Saskatchewan has a spring! I even took some pictures today:
Yep, the snow has largely melted away and I couldn’t be happier. There’s still quite a bit of snow in my backyard where it’s sheltered by the shadow of the house, but overall the snow is on the outs. Now the thing causing everyone grief is the muck because only one road in town is paved and of course the frost melting makes gravel roads warp in very interesting ways. On the plus side, Tyrion is thoroughly enjoying being able to go outside for walks with me:
There he is, quite happily chewing on a piece of dried-up grass while waiting for me to put my shoes on.
So what does spring look like for you guys? Are you still stuck under several feet of snow or are you getting a proper string?
Lazy Sundays: I’m Hooked on Breaking Bad
When I was browsing through HMV the other day I noticed that the first two seasons of Breaking Bad were on sale for $40 if you bought both of them. So I finally decided to see what all of the fuss was about with the show and bought them for myself. I had watched the first episode online and thought it was pretty good so I figured the rest of the show would be just as good. And thankfully I was right.
The problem is that now I’m hooked on Breaking Bad. It’s so good! It has some pretty poignant moments (Walt’s diagnosis, the entire Negro y Azul episode, etc.) but it also has some pretty morbid humour like when Walt and Jesse have to figure out what to do with Krazy-8 and Emilio. I have kind of a morbid sense of humour anyway so this series is perfectly suited to me.
I’m only on episode 10 of season two, so please don’t spoil things too badly for me. But if you’ve watched the show, what do you think of it? Are the next three seasons as good as the first two? Who is your favourite character?
Lazy Sundays: Small Kindnesses Make a Big Difference
One of the things I think we don’t emphasize enough as a society is the importance of being kind to everyone. This was drilled into me not only by my parents but by a very important role model in my life who practiced what he preached. And I don’t think it’s said enough: everyday acts of kindness are important. So I’m going to share my story with you.
I have had body image issues since I hit puberty at nine years old. I was made fun of by all of my classmates not only for my intelligence but also for my body and more than anything else, the bullying over my looks stuck to me more than anything else. It has dogged me my entire life. Fast forward to two years ago when I had to find a dress to go to the opera.
Shopping is stressful enough for me as it is but because of the limited shopping in my area there were very few dresses to be found. I had gone to four different shops and was on the fifth shop, frustrated at trying on dozens of dresses and having those horrible memories of my bullying resurface over a decade later. I was in the changing room in this fifth shop trying on yet another dress and wanting to break down into tears because I felt like I was twelve years old again and being criticized for not having C-cup breasts. I was taken back to when I was fifteen and didn’t want to go to the beach anymore because everyone in my class laughed at my ‘thunder thighs’. And I was reliving every single romantic rejection over and over again.
But I had to find a dress.
The worst part about the whole thing was that there was no mirror in my changing stall. I had to get out of the stall, face the other women trying on clothes and walk all the way to the end of the hall which was really only about 10 feet long but felt like a mile at the time. So I started the slow walk down the hallway, forcing myself to keep my head up but really wanting to crawl into the fetal position and sob my guts out. As I came nearer to the mirror I noticed a woman also looking at herself in the mirror, also trying on a dress. When I was just a couple of feet away this woman saw me in the mirror and her face broke out into the most beautiful, most sincere smile I’ve ever seen. She turned to me and said,
“You’re beautiful!”
That nearly tipped me over the edge but I managed to smile back at her and say ‘thank you’. I managed to look at myself in the mirror and not see my perceived flaws. I saw a beautiful young woman in a dress that flattered her. So I ended up buying that dress and another one in the same style but a different colour.
What this woman did didn’t even take up a minute of her life but it had such a profound impact on me. I began to finally confront my body image issues. I accepted that I will never be 5’10” and 120lbs with a C-cup. After all those years of hating myself for how I looked, I finally began to accept how I looked and I learned to stop hating myself.
All because a woman took a few seconds out of her day to tell a complete stranger she was beautiful.
I can’t emphasize enough that being kind to everyone is so important. If there’s one thing I’ve learned it’s that everyone (and I mean everyone) wears a mask in public so you can’t see their innermost self. And behind those masks people can hide some pretty major things: depression, suicidal ideas, body image issues, etc. So be kind to everyone because you never know what they’re going through. Even the most basic human decency can change a person’s life.
I’m the living, breathing proof of that.
Lazy Sundays: Clothing Sizes are Idiotic
I have to confess that I absolutely hate shopping. Clothes shopping in particular, but especially dress shopping. Not only is it stressful because I have to drive a minimum of an hour away to find clothing stores it also tends to bring up old insecurities caused by years of bullying in middle and high school. Did I mention that it’s also nearly impossible to find a dress between ‘Amish’ and ‘Look at everything I’ve got’? Ugh.
So obviously you guys can tell I had to go shopping recently. I had to find a dress for an occasion in the summer and the two dresses I bought two years ago aren’t sufficiently formal so off I went a-shopping. When I got to a dress store the clerk asked what size I normally was and I told her about a dress size four. She looked at me like I had grown an extra head and went off to find me something semi-modest but not grandmotherly. When she came back I tried on a beautiful blue dress that fit me like a glove; it seemed to be made for me. But when I went to check the price tag it said that the dress was a size ten. I didn’t like the shade of blue so I ordered in another colour in the same style only to learn that sample dresses are often inconsistent with the actual sizes. Therefore the clerk had to take my measurements only to tell me I was a size twelve.
This just highlights the stupidity and the arbitrary nature of clothing sizes. There are no standard sizes for clothing, dresses especially. I have gained a bit of weight since I last went dress shopping but I don’t think five pounds shoots you up from a size four to a size twelve. Clothing manufacturers seem to base sizes off some mythical algorithm that bears no relation to the sizes of their competitors. This is apparent in t-shirts because I can take anything from an extra small to a medium but it seems particularly bad in dresses. It’s just very, very frustrating and is the main reason why I never shop online for clothes.
Ladies, have you noticed that dress sizes vary wildly from brand to brand? And gents, do you have this problem with your clothes too?
Please, someone tell me I’m not the only one with this problem.