On one Kirk O'Bane. And death.

It is definitely the way to go, I've figured. Whenever they do make a movie of a book, go see the movie first.* There's half a chance that they might have made a good job of it. Then go read the book. By that time you'd have already enjoyed the movie (or not), in either case you would never have been able to blame the book for completely butchering the chances of ever liking the movie, which might possibly have been quite decent otherwise, simply by being so much awesomely awesomely better.

Right. So as might have faintly come through from the above bit, albeit, my return to the formerly trademark hyper-winding sentence construction might not have helped, I loved About a Boy. Absolutely to bits. I mean, he's just so totally brilliant!! I was tempted to compare bits of Hornby with Haddon, but it doesn't really hold. Except in that they've both had me laughing hysterically as they've been methodically unfurling the mostly quite gruellingly real and messed up lives of the characters....

And incidentally, I've read both in the confines of my cabin on the boat, and hence have ended up worrying if any of the occupants of the cabins with common walls had heard. Watchful glances at people on shift on subsequent days have, however, not revealed any signs that my co-workers suddenly found me any more potty than is ordinarily the case. Thankfully.

So there you have it, a sure addition to my 'all time fav' list of books. Now the only question is, should I head into the next GRRM, or should I take a slightly longer break? We shall see.

Feeling: super-charged.. unfortunately, this is bedtime :-<
Listening to: Natalie Imbruglia - City

* The obvious exception, as has been mentioned earlier in this space, no doubt, happens to be the Bourne series. Watch the movies, don't read the books.

Second time lucky!

For a change, something actually worth mentioning happened today! :D Well, I managed to finally catch a decent sunrise, having tracked down the time with sheer perseverance. But that's not entirely it :P.It so happens that at the moment we're on the run from the weather. So when the call came in from the bridge telling us that hundreds of dolphins had been spotted off the bow, I had no hesitation whatsoever in dashing up the 5 flights of stairs, cam in tow :D. Others had picked other locations, but from prior experience, the higher you are, the better.

It was indeed the largest group of dolphins, or indeed any marine mammals I'd ever seen! Including aquariums. Unfortunately, they were some distance away, and the lack of anything of a telephoto nature amongst my possessions made itself acutely felt :-<. For those of you who haven't figured it out, the chaps on the helideck in the photo above are actually looking at the dolphins. No matter, I'd been there before :D, what we do have an abundance of on the bridge, is binoculars >:).Believe it or not, the dolphins were actually even farther away when I took this photo :). Yes, yes, I'm a genius :P. It did take me a whole bucket load of clicks to actually get a few decent ones though, but it was well worth it :). What made the thing a whole lot sweeter was that about a year or so back, I think, exactly such an opportunity had presented itself. Unfortunately, I was off shift at the time, and in my cabin. Given that most people on the boat don't recall ever having seen anything like this, leave alone seeing it twice, I'd never thought I'd ever get to see such a sight. But there you go, such is life :D.
--

I don't think it's actually possible for me to read two books at the same time. Even when I start off with more than one, one or the other eventually wins and the other lies untouched till the first is done. Quite enjoying About a Boy. And since Wiki very kindly pointed out that the movie in fact ends differently than the book, there's even an element of unknown.

In the meantime, the F1 season's finally getting a bit interesting. Was absolutely thrilled to see a Massa led Ferrari 1-2. But was almost even more thrilled to see a Force India actually finish ahead of Hamilton!! :D. Also found an unlikely fellow F1 fan in the 3rd officer. And what's even better, his opinion of McLaren is almost identical to mine :). This trip is beginning to show promise!

Currently: sleepy, quite inexplicably
Listening to: Dixie Chicks - Wide open spaces

In and out of time

Really obvious things have a way of eluding me, annoyingly often. A simple adjustment of my daily schedule has 'suddenly' gifted me a full extra hour in my off time!! Remember how I keep complaining about never having enough time off shift?!! And it took me almost two years to figure this one out :|. I guess it's just that some habits die hard.

And speaking of time, New Zealand seems to have moved out of DST, and so have we. Unfortunately, the party responsible for letting the crew know about said change thought it no significant matter and consequently posted the notice well after most of the night crew had already gone to sleep. Cut to midnight, I walk in, sleepy and grumpy as usual, only to be told that I didn't really have to turn up for another hour!! X-( Not quite the best way to start off the day :|.

Currently: still bummed :(
Listening to: Radiohead - No surprises

Oh Eddard :-<

When they say the characters in A Game of Thrones are venomous, they don't tell you the half of it :|. That's a scary story if I've ever read one! And by the looks of it, things are merely warming up! This book hardly ends to be honest. There's not much by way of a conclusion, even in part. Point is, you've got to get to the next one! There's no escape.

I will however, take some time out to detox first.

Currently: smouldering
Listening to: Pearl Jam - State of love and trust

Clouds and linings, silver or otherwise

It' a good thing that for once we didn't have to head straight out to the back deck when we got back to the boat. (Oh, yeah I'm back on the boat.) But that didn't stop these last couple of days being insanely tiring. Now why I could hardly last till 3 pm before passing out since getting back onboard, despite the work situation being spectacularly chilled out, I don't really know. My usual bed time is closer to between 5 and 6 :|.

It might of course have something to do with the highly protracted travel to work. By the time I got to Singapore, I'd already been on a couple of 2.5 hour flights, and the 7 hour stopover in Bangkok in between :|. Of course, free Wi-Fi rocks, and that kinda' made things somewhat bearable :). But for all that time, I still had to rush to my gate on the way out of Suvarnabhumi thanks to a couple of frighteningly incompetent ground staff :|.Singapore was nice, especially since I've found this one place that makes absolutely awesome real fruit smoothies :D. I'd brought along enough books to easily last me way longer than this trip, but after heading into almost every book store I passed by, I succumbed to the temptation and bought another bunch.

I managed to stay away from the new Jhumpa Lahiri book. It happens to be another compilation of short stories, only, this time they aren't quite as short... Instead, I picked up Nick Hornby's About a Boy. Yes, the movie was based on the book. I liked the movie, a lot actually, so let's see how the book does. And while I was at it, got another couple of Asimovs as well :-<. On the up-side, I'm almost done with A Game of Thrones, and planning to take Histrionix's advice and not go rushing through the rest of the books and end up waiting for the last one :). So the number books I own and haven't read will hopefully soon drop a little from the -oh my God this is insane- levels.

Once on the super-long SINCHC flight, and with no sleep apparent, I decided to give Juno a watch. Liked it, and was quite impressed by Ellen Page. It is actually pretty funny for the most part. The dad was totally awesome :D. And then I finally gave in to temptation and went for 2 Days in Paris. Partly 'cos I was rather sceptical of availability in stores and even more sceptical of the actual chances of it showing at a theatre near me :|. It wasn't bad or anything, just a little bit all over the place... sort of. Of course, it didn't help that I was constantly drawing parallels with Before Sunset. Although, there are definitely more similarities than the location. Oh well, I'm glad that I did see it though.For once we weren't actually staying in Christchurch, but taking a flight straight to Invercargill. Past non-starting aircraft engines, and missed luggage (not mine) and lounging on the terrace 'viewing-gallery' we finally got to our hotel in Invercargill late in the afternoon. Unfortunately, I knew if I did go to sleep right then, dinner would be history by the time I woke up. So by the time I did get to sleep, there wasn't a lot of time left for the 5 am start :-<. This was another one of those ferry crew changes and I did try to sleep on the way, but the seats were most uncomfortable. On top of that there was the bone chilling cold :(. It was a small comfort, but I did get to drive this time. And since then, while I've been awake enough on shift, as soon as I'm off, this absolute exhaustion engulfs me and that's it for the rest of my day :|. Oh well, by the looks of it this job might just be over before long, and then it's the transit back to Oz!

Currently: firin' a hole!
Listening to: Dashboard Confessional - Hands down