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Busy weekend is busy
Dec. 19th, 2011 09:43 amOne of the upsides of one's family finally getting a clue about Amazon wishlists is that one tends to get one's wishes granted: witness the book-alanche on my otherwise unenjoyable and barfalicious birthday. One of the downsides is that if one has been placing recent orders of one's own, one forgets not to rip the package open when it arrives instead of saving it to unwrap for Christmas - Especially if family member didn't spring for gift wrapping the contents of said package.
What this means is that I came home Friday night, found an envelope in the mailbox and had it halfway open on the way up the stairs before feeling the simultaneous oh joy-oh crap upon discovering said package contained Shogun on DVD from my sister and her family. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot moment was further enhanced by the tatty gift message. Given Amazon's huge profit base which is further enhanced by cheating on state sales tax and small-business-killing tactics, you'd think they could do better than carelessly ripping a printout down to 1/4 of an 8 1/2 x 11 sheet, crumpling it up in a ball and stuffing it in the package. Tacky, Amazon, just tacky.
Got up relatively early-ish on Saturday, put together an apple pie for that evening's party and spent most of the day assembling my new karaginu. Given that there was bugger-all on cable to sew to, I decided to risk stabbing myself in the hand and popped the first disc of Shogun in.
Bear in mind, O My Readers, that I hadn't seen this since it aired in 1980, with the exception of the bit that Dafydd Netflixed on Thanksgiving (which was what made me put it on my wish list). A few years ago I reread the novel after reading Giles Milton's Samurai William and managed not to fling it across the room in disgust. There are things Clavell got wrong and things he got right and it holds up as a decent yarn loosely based on historical personages.
The score and editing movie, and you can't help noticing where the commercial breaks would've gone, but the production values are ichiban, the Japanese cast is rock solid and Richard Chamberlain does dashing hero very capably and does not get blown off the screen by Toshiro Mifune. As I remembered from the novel, most of the Europeans (with the exceptions of Blackthorne and Rodrigues) are pretty one-dimensional. John Rhys-Davies is a blast as Rodrigues, BTW.
Headed over to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
didjiman and karisu_sama's for their holiday party, which was fun, and I managed not to make too late a night of it.
Got in a couple more hours of sewing on Sunday morning, then went tocallistotoni's birthday party/trunk show for acanthusleaf for a bit, then home for a light dinner and more stitching.
I have about half the collar of the karaginu to attach (which I plan on doing tonight) and it's done. It's frigging gorgeous and I'm really proud of it.
What this means is that I came home Friday night, found an envelope in the mailbox and had it halfway open on the way up the stairs before feeling the simultaneous oh joy-oh crap upon discovering said package contained Shogun on DVD from my sister and her family. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot moment was further enhanced by the tatty gift message. Given Amazon's huge profit base which is further enhanced by cheating on state sales tax and small-business-killing tactics, you'd think they could do better than carelessly ripping a printout down to 1/4 of an 8 1/2 x 11 sheet, crumpling it up in a ball and stuffing it in the package. Tacky, Amazon, just tacky.
Got up relatively early-ish on Saturday, put together an apple pie for that evening's party and spent most of the day assembling my new karaginu. Given that there was bugger-all on cable to sew to, I decided to risk stabbing myself in the hand and popped the first disc of Shogun in.
Bear in mind, O My Readers, that I hadn't seen this since it aired in 1980, with the exception of the bit that Dafydd Netflixed on Thanksgiving (which was what made me put it on my wish list). A few years ago I reread the novel after reading Giles Milton's Samurai William and managed not to fling it across the room in disgust. There are things Clavell got wrong and things he got right and it holds up as a decent yarn loosely based on historical personages.
The score and editing movie, and you can't help noticing where the commercial breaks would've gone, but the production values are ichiban, the Japanese cast is rock solid and Richard Chamberlain does dashing hero very capably and does not get blown off the screen by Toshiro Mifune. As I remembered from the novel, most of the Europeans (with the exceptions of Blackthorne and Rodrigues) are pretty one-dimensional. John Rhys-Davies is a blast as Rodrigues, BTW.
Headed over to
didjiman and karisu_sama's for their holiday party, which was fun, and I managed not to make too late a night of it.Got in a couple more hours of sewing on Sunday morning, then went to
callistotoni's birthday party/trunk show for acanthusleaf for a bit, then home for a light dinner and more stitching.I have about half the collar of the karaginu to attach (which I plan on doing tonight) and it's done. It's frigging gorgeous and I'm really proud of it.
