I should probably change my default icon now

After three nights of bubble baths and theatre, I'm catching up on Tumblr, Twitter and LiveJournal. I'll tell you all about my adventures later, here's already a summary:
Day 1: traveled from Z. to LND, read The Hunger Games - Suzanne Collins
Day 2: did some (book)shopping and started reading Catching Fire - Suzanne Collins
Day 3: went sightseeing and finished reading Catching Fire
Day 4: traveled back home, read Mockingjay - Suzanne Collins

Can you tell I didn't have access to the internetz? *grins*

In between reading I made 255 photos, most of them featuring Stonehenge. It will take me a while to sort them and to be able to completely focus on that, I need to get something out of my system first.

I have some questions for anyone who already read The Hunger Games trilogy. First of all: should I watch the film? (I'm leaning towards ignoring it, but am wondering about certain characters, also: Stanley Tucci!). Does it cover all three books, or is it a TBC?


From the nineties I remember a whole bunch of disasterfilms, like Dante's Peak, Volcano, and other Oh Dear THE WORLD IS ENDING films, that all kind of blurred together in my mind. So I don't know which one of these had the scene I always refer to; after a lot of people had died gruesome deaths and our heroes are walking through a devestated city, all of a sudden they hear barking and whatdoyaknow: the dog made it.
Now you may already be aware I'm not a pet-person, and those kinds of scenes do not move me as is probably intended. If anything they piss me off, because all of a sudden it's implied all the deaths are not that bad, because at least the precious pet survived and all is well again.

I was reminded of this by one of the final scenes in Mockingjay, where low-and-behold, the cat turns up alive at the end. I think my "you got to be kidding" was uttered out loud, even before my sigh of exasperation.

Hey, I don't kick puppies, I just can't stand the gratuitous use of them, okay?

I'd rather have found out what happened to the pearl instead of the cat. Or maybe that was explained, while I was moping about my pet-issues?

Don't get me wrong: I loved the books, or I wouldn't have devoured all three of them in four days, regardles of lack of internet. After all I did bring my e-reader filled with BB-fanfics as back up, but I just couldn't stop reading about Katniss & Co;)

Besides being a little annoyed about the 'at least the dog survived'-moment, I am even more frustrated about the epilogue. I should have learned from Harry Potter to not read that tagged on 'happily ever after', but what's done is done.

So even though I thouroughly enjoyed (well, you know what I mean) the story of Katniss and adored her for her doubts and ignorance about other people's feelings and her own abilities, I'm now left with a bitter taste. Because what the fuck? It had to have an ending with kiddies? Colour me cranky.

Nevertheless I'm hoping there is a cure for my grumbles. I was wondering if there is anyone who was thinking like me that Katniss didn't have to choose between Gale and Peeta and they ended up in a relationship together, fighting memories of bad experiences between the three of them. I have no doubt there is HungerGames fanfiction so if anyone knows of a fic about this, I'd love to hear about it. (Even if it features pets;)

There are a lot of specific scenes I'd happily discuss further, but I better get started on selecting photos now:) Feel free to disagree in the comments!

J.

Now I've seen both Captains on stage!

From my previous post you already know I did a lot of reading during my time in London. I had about 15 hours of traveltime and spent all my evenings in a bubblebath. In between reading I did manage to go into town and do some shopping and sightseeing. I also visited the theatre for a musical, a comedy show and a play.
Here's a picspam of the first two days: Tuesday August 14 + Wednesday August 15.

( London, Day 1: Trains & Theatre )

( London, Day 2: Camden & Captain Jack )

Then I went to the ARTS theatre for The Complete World Of Sports (abridged) by the Reduced Shakespeare Company. Years ago I had seen The Complete Works Of William Shakespeare (abridged) which was fun and I figured this new show would be fitting to make up for me completely missing the Olympics. Basically it's three guys on stage (the funny bald one + the smart sophisticated one + the dumb pretty one) doing all sorts of sketches about the history of sport.

The girl who sold me the program said I could have it signed after the show, which I thought was nice. But when I discovered who was part of the group this time, I went into fangirl mode and worried about it for the rest of the performance.... because the role of the pretty one was played by Matt Rippy.
I admit that name didn't ring a bell with me right away, but his face looked familiar and from the program I learned why: Matt Rippy also acted on TV as a sexually confused WW2 pilot, the REAL Captain Jack Harkness, in Torchwood.

( Obviously I had to get HIS autograph )

To be continued! (I have almost 100 photos of Stonehenge to go through)