La Femme Nikita ... and a few other thoughts.

I've been re-watching one of my favourite TV shows, La Femme Nikita, lately. Watching it again, getting caught up in the greatest love story ever told and the unscrupulous actions of the "Section" has made me feel good; like listening to a good song or reading a good book.

I love the series because it doesn't conform to typical "spy-noir" genre conventions. Even though Section is an anti-terrorist organisation, they are above all other agencies like Interpol and the CIA and are able to work autonomously. This means they can pretty much make up their own rules and do whatever they want to their operatives. I love this take on it. These aren't muscle-bound buffoons (to borrow a phrase from Skeletor), they are intelligent criminals themselves (except Nikita, but you'd have to watch it to get it) all plucked from obscurity to serve Section.


There are so many things I love about this show. I think the writing is brilliant and the acting, at times questionable, is subtle. For example, Michael is brilliantly played by Roy Dupuis who manages to convey his inner most feelings, not with words, but with expressions and gestures. It's very clever. I'm curious to watch some of his movies, but I don't want to see him be anyone else. I want him to stay Michael forever.


Peta Wilson's (Nikita) acting leaves a lot to be desired, but she got better as the series progressed. When I first watched the show years ago, I used to cringe at some of the outfits they put her in, but now I think her outfits added to the show's quirkiness. It separates LFN from other spy shows - and it doesn't hurt that she's gorgeous to look at. 


I hate love stories most of the time, but this one was so well done and out of the ordinary it's hard not to get caught up in it.

It's obvious from the start there's an attraction between Michael and Nikita and they play around with this a lot in the first season. It's not for a few episodes that anything happens between them, but when it does, it's electric. (I know, I cringed when I wrote that, too.) Michael and Nikita are undercover, posing as a couple to fool some guy who created some weird gas that kills people. They're guests at his house and he has some interesting perversions and wants Michael to watch as he screws Nikita. Micheal says no, but offers to let him watch while he and Nikita get it on.


So they go off to a room where there's a camera and it's all awkward, but as Nikita is instructed to dance for Micheal, Micheal sits out of camera range and lets loose a bomb, watching Nikita all the while. They get it on while they wait for the bomb to go off, Micheal says, "get ready" - a very loaded phrase - right before the explosion. It was hot that they had to get it on just to survive.


Then there was the time Nikita was captured and to bring her safely back into Section, Micheal had to beat her up to make it look like she was tortured otherwise Section would kill her. This scene was a testament to Roy Dupuis' phenomenal acting. His face showed how difficult it was for him to beat her up, but he didn't say anything. I found the whole thing incredibly romantic. Forget this flower and chocolate bullshit.

Another thing I loved about this show was all the unanswered questions. As infuriating as they are, it's a clever tactic on the writers' part to keep the viewer wondering and thinking until the next episode. 

I also love the "world within a world" concept and all the "what ifs" it inspires.

Section was a law unto itself and its people weren't allowed to function within the "real world". The show explored the "what if" of having a relationship with someone outside Section, needless to say it didn't work, and the "what if" someone on the outside got a little too close to discovering the truth about Section.


I like True Blood for the same reason. How it functions in contemporary society but with a bunch of vampires and other "supes" skulking around. I love how they try and fight for vmpires to have equal rights, just like we do.


What ifs are awesome and I love spending time thinking about them.


What if we were able to bring the dead back to life? (not as vampires.) Would the population numbers be out of control? What would the criteria of being brought back to life be? Who would decide who stays dead? The opposite of euthanasia.


It makes me think about people who have themselves cryogenically frozen. I love the idea of going to sleep to be awoken in some distant future. What would things be like then? Will they ever be able to wake these frozen people up? But what happens to the soul? Does it get frozen, too? How can it if they're frozen after they die? If the soul is gone and they're unfrozen, does another soul jump right in or are they soulless zombie-people? I've blogged about this before, but it still has me thinking.


Do we even have souls?


I am doing an assignment at the moment that explores the "what if" of the world being a matriarchal society rather than a patriarchal one. Women can be cruel and ruthless, but would they be war-mongers? I am pretty sure motherhood and babies would be a celebrated role, moreso than status and power... but then again... How would women keep men in line? Would they still occupy the same traditional gender roles? 

There was a thing going around a few weeks ago saying something like "what if deja vu is us dying and being respawnd like in a video game". That blew my mind, man.

Anyway, La Femme Nikita is awesome and I'm going to be sad when I finish it.

I don't get it.

Below is a list of things I don't understand. There are many things I don't understand and as I was sitting here earlier listening to a uni lecture wondering for the umpteenth time why the heck they changed what originally sounded like an interesting subject into something political and boring, yet sometimes still interesting, I started thinking about some things that I just don't get.

I'd also like to preface this blog by saying because I don't understand something doesn't mean I think it's wrong. Maybe someone can explain it so it makes sense, but there's no malice behind my words.

So, with that in mind, here's my list of things I don't get.

1. Fake tan. OK, wtf? I have been perplexed by this practice ever since a high school chum came to school one day with what looked like bad eczema all over her legs. I had never heard of fake tan before that and the idea of putting this weird orange crap that stays on there for days seemed completely bizarre! A few weeks ago I was at work and one of the chicks that works there was a bright shade of carrot! I thought it was hysterical but she loved her "tan". It faded and now she looks normal again but what is so wrong with being ghostly white anyway?

2. Numbers. Anyone who knows me knows I hate numbers. Part of my job has me giving change to people which is not easy sometimes. So before I leave, I get my calculator and work out all the possible amounts of cash they might give me and how much change to give from each. Makes me look smart when I don't even have to think about it. Sometimes I don't do this, though, and have to force my brain to work.. which, surprisingly, it can... mostly.

3. People who drive 20-30ks under the speed limit. Not only is this infuriating, especially if you're in a hurry and ten kms away from the nearest overtaking spot, but there's no reason for it unless you're driving a 50 year old bomb that doesn't go any faster. Admittedly, I've been the one driving up the highway in an old bomb that gets the death rattles and makes weird sounds when I push it to 100kms, but that's not 20-30ks under!

4. Getting old. Why???????????? I don't mind getting wiser (heh heh), but why do our bodies have to age?

5. Why Buckles is a bish. I love you, bish haha

6. Hair Straightening. OK, I get this one to an extent, but the amount of people that ask me why I don't straighten my hair or if I ever do seems to be increasing. Because I don't like to and I don't own a straightener. I like my boofy hair sticking out everywhere.

7. How people can stand to watch sport on TV. Oh my gods! Is there anything more boring?! Even the sound of the sport on in the background sends me into a boredom-induced coma from which I can only be awoken by a frenchie from Prince Charming... which means this must be a coma-dream...

8. Seth Rogan movies. How can anyone think he's funny or talented? I do not get it.

9. People's outrage with politicians. We all know politics is huge sham and not to believe anything anyone in politics says. Maybe we should take a leaf from Egypt's book and riot in the streets until the bastards listen to the people for a change. But then again, no matter what they do, someone's going to disagree.

10. Why people get so irate at other people's differing opinions. Can't we all just accept their opinion calmly without getting on our high horse and trying to force them into listening to why our opinion is the right one?

PMS and other matters.

Guess what. Tomorrow is my birthday and I have raging PMS. When I say raging PMS, I mean it. I have only left the house once so far today and already road raged and gave some moron driver the middle finger salute for being a fucking wanker! Work better not be a bastard tonight!

My next car is going to be a goddamn monster truck, maybe then dickheads will stop pulling out in front of me without their blinkers when I'm almost on top of them. Seriously. I drive a small car, but doesn't mean you shouldn't take me seriously - especially at this time of the month.

As Gordon Ramsay would say, "fooking 'ell!"

There is a reason I had a different job for every month I lived in Melbourne. That's not to say I changed jobs every single month.. mathematically, it just worked out that way.

That would have to be one of the positives of PMS. My tolerance for bullshit goes out the window and shit gets done! Unfortunately the shit I need to get done today isn't because some moron uni tutor won't answer her goddamn email. If she's not dead, I'm gonna be mad. NO EXCUSES.

I read a book not long ago about the history of menstruation. It was fascinating. Back in the day, women who "suffered" from PMS were diagnosed with "hysteria". Because how could women, who are supposed to be subservient fuck dolls for men, dare express an emotion other than total devotion to their men? HOW FOOKING DARE THEY? So, it must be unnatural and something to be treated. And do you know how they treated women afflicted with "hysteria"? Doctors would stimulate a woman's clitoris until orgasm, thus curing hysteria! I found a picture, this was an ad found in magazines at the time.

Seems funny now, right. But even today, if a woman gets cranky for some reason what do blokes (and women, too) automatically assume? Well, obviously, it must be that time of the month. 'Scuse me, but I get cranky and it's not always "that time of the month". So you can shove that one up your arse. (This is not one of those times.)

There are things I really enjoy about being a woman and there are things I don't.

I understand women can wield a certain power  over men which, I'll be honest, can sometimes be advantageous.

But there are some negatives, as well.

It always irks me when a bloke tells me he prefers natural looking women. I'll bet most men have never actually seen a completely natural looking woman. Would he still say that if a dark-haired, pale skin woman did not shave or wax herself into oblivion? I doubt it. What about facial hair? Some dark hair on the upper lip? "Ew," I hear everyone say. A uni brow? "Gross, why doesn't she just wax that shit off?" Why the fuck should she? Men get away with bushy, unwaxed unibrows - look at John Howard. He copped shit over it but he got away with it. Why? Because it's far too girly to get some tweezers up in that shit. If Julia Gillard let her grey roots grow out and let her leg hair grow a wild and woolly ranga down over her legs, there'd be a shitstorm!


And before anyone says it, I know women are just as harsh on other women about these things, but let's face it, why do most woman put themselves through the torture that can be de-hairing? To attract men. Of course, I'm speaking about heterosexual women here - I'm not exactly sure what the protocol is for gay people. They think this is what appeals to men - but you know what I reckon? Men will like what we tell them to. Once a concept is ingrained into the psyche, it becomes belief. If enough women let themselves 'grow out' what choice do men have? If they want their jollies they will just have to accept it. Women do.

And you know how the hairless leg/armpit thing became a "thing"? ADVERTISING. To sell shavers. Marketed as something the aristocratic women did, women everywhere started doing it because it was the done thing.

So I guess what I'm saying is, do whatever the fuck you want and everyone else can go suck it.

Anyway, I  really enjoyed my PMS fuelled rant and now if you'll excuse me, I am going to make a very terse phone call to a certain uni tutor ...

Keeping up with the Joneseseseseses

Well, it finally happened.

I finally caved and crossed to the dark side.

I did something I thought I never would.

I got an iPhone.

That's right. I, Jennie, got an iPhone and the stupid thing had been so frustrating ever since I almost wish I was dead. Stupid Optus are a bunch of turds. The Sim activation, I was told, would happened within 20 minutes to four hours and guess what. It's been 26 hours and it still hasn't happened. I've made five phone calls, the first of which I had to hang up half way through because I just could not understand the guy on the phone. The next couple told me to be patient, another one said the activation hadn't been put through and to wait another 20 minutes to four hours and it's been eight hours since then. My last call consisted of being told the process was in motion but they were upgrading their system and it might be delayed. I asked why I hadn't been told that this morning and she says, rather gaily, "Oh but I tell you now!"

Right.

So, here I am, itching to play with the fucking thing and all I've done is stick a few songs on it and stared at it, willing the fucking service to do what it has to.


Check again... still nothing.

FUCK

MY

LIFE


On a positive note: I AM GOING TO SEE THE AVENGERS 3D TOMORROW!!!!! YESS YESS YEssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss.

Yesterday I took myself on a date to the movies and saw American Pie: The reunion , which was pretty much what I expected. I had the whole theatre to myself; which ruled.

That's pretty much all the excitement going on in my life at the moment. Yep.

Women and stuff.

I have just done my weekly readings for one of my uni subjects about sexual trafficking amongst Thai and Burmese women. It was pretty heavy-going.. combined with last week's work on the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Africa, this subject has left me rather depressed. 

When the AIDS thing became mainstream in the '80s in western countries, it was passed off as a 'gay disease', but in Africa and developing countries it is the women who are most affected because of their lack of rights when it comes to sex. Women are not people, they are objects, used and taken at will by men who feel they are entitled to sex. 

http://www.cracked.com/article_19785_5-ways-modern-men-are-trained-to-hate-women.html

I read that article a couple of weeks ago and haven't been able to get it out of my head, and it seems rather apt at the moment with my uni subject.

Is it true that even in our supposedly more enlightened, feminised equal opportunity western culture that these attitudes still prevail in men? I would say yes.  You only have to watch weekend music shows to see it is true. It never matters how the man looks, he can be 400 kilos, 150 years old, wrinkly, grey-haired and have no teeth but in most of the music clips, even the most unattractive man is surrounded by scantily clad, thin, beautiful gyrating women because sex sells. But not only that, it's female sex that sells. 

If an unattractive woman was to sit around in fur coats covered in bling singing surrounded by dancing buff men in budgie-smugglers no one would take her seriously. It'd be a joke!

Where does this entitlement for sex come from? Media? Culture? Society? Do ALL men feel this way? Is it really about sex and getting jollies? Or is it also about male ego, masculinity and power? I would say so. 

Big Bananas

I spent the Easter weekend in Coffs Harbour with the family including the dogs. The dogs are such sooks, Ruby, who could tear out the throat of the biggest, toughest person did not relax the entire visit because she is a sook and wanted to go home. She spent most of her holiday staring at the door waiting to be allowed back in the car to go home. Nugget, who I thought would be clingy and whingey had a great time exploring the new house and yard. She didn't like the long drive much, but she survived.

I finally got to fulfill a lifelong dream of seeing the Big Banana. lol. There are no words to describe my euphoria over the event so I will leave it at that.

I spent too much money and now my wardrobe door refuses to shut.

And I ate the rest of the M&Ms in the bowl which means I ate them all.

Overall, was a pleasant trip. Even Buckles' teasing me on the drive home from the pub about being busting to go to the toilet was funny. She was tipsy and saying stuff like "psssssss", "Oh, look at all that water", "drip, drip, drip", "Are you going to give the toilet a golden shower?" lmfao. What a bish.

Now I am back in the bush and today I am going to lock in some dates and book some flights for my Mexico/South America trip in November, but I don't know where to start. I want to do EVERYTHING - aaaah. I'm so excited though, so on that note, I will go plan!

Some more stuff

What's with this weather?? It's hot, gorgeous and sunny... but, weather, summer ended a month ago. Piss off. Let autumn have a turn. I admit, it's beautiful weather, but tomorrow I'm supposed to go and work in it and after ten minutes of the sun bearing down on me, every ounce of energy I have begins to evaporate. So, go away. Or at least cool off just for tomorrow.

Having said that, I have enjoyed being able to take the dogs for leisurely paddles down at the river. Except at the river I wanted to go to today there were school kids doing their cross-country crap by the looks. Ahh, I remember the one time I participated in cross-country. My friends and I walked the entire course, the other two bitches ran up to the finish with two steps to go so I came last in the whole year or something. The boys who had taken it seriously and had been sitting around for us to finish for an hour were cranky but I didn't give a fuck. Suck shit to them. Sport is stupid.

Yesterday I went and saw The Hunger Games. I won't give a review because I think reviews are stupid. Although, I just had to write one for a uni assignment. Pretty easy as far as assignments go, but I still don't like them. Just tell me basically what the story is about and I'll decide how many stars it's worth, thank you very much. Anyway, now I've ranted about not liking reviews, I will say this: as far as book to movie adaptations go, I thought it was really well done but the shaky camera movements did my head in. I don't want to feel a part of the action - I want to watch it - so fuck off with the crappy camera work.

I saw the preview for The Avengers movie and I am so excited I could crap my dacks. So, in celebration last night, I watched Iron Man. I'd only ever caught bits and pieces of it before, and even though it seemed to go on for hours and hours I really enjoyed it. I'm going to watch the second one tonight even though my brother reckons I shouldn't waste my time. But I will anyway.

I am supposed to be writing my weekly work up for one of my uni subjects and we're supposed to write some bullcrap about open and closed texts. Who gives a fuck? Not I, that's for sure. *sigh* So I thought I'd do something about Snow White being an open text, which I think means it can be interpreted different ways? Fuck, I'm gonna have to try and read the boring reading again to make sure I get it, for fucks sake.

Lately, I have been skimming so many of my readings that it's spilling over into all my reading life. I skim everything now, emails, facebook stuff, books, etc. I hate fight scenes and love scenes in books and skip them. It means I misunderstand everything and often get the wrong end of the stick but I don't give a fuck. I think it's an 'i don't give a fuck' kind of day today, which is funny because I'm not in a bad mood or anything.. I just don't have any fucks to give at the moment.

Hey, I read something interesting about the word 'fuck' the other day. That it stands for something like "Fornication Under Consent of the King' because kings used to go around fucking all the wives in the kingdom and apparently they had every right to do so.

So that's all for now. Cheerio.