Sunday Sundries

1. It took four boxes of throat lozenges, 1 bottle of DayQuil, 1 bottle of NyQuil, and a lot of doing nothing for me to be able to say that I'm finally better... almost. There's still the occasionally coughing fit and a semi-persistent sore throat but I feel like doing things. That's a far cry from how I've been feeling these past two and a half weeks.

Due to work commitments, I couldn't miss any days but it meant my evenings were naps, followed by some TV, followed by bed.

I'm happy to have that part of the illness behind me.

2. Dunkirk is fantastic. The movie is less a story and more a moment in time. If you are interested in seeing it, definitely see it in the theatre.

3. Sticking the with movies (because when you want low-energy activities, you go see all the movies), Atomic Blonde is a lot of fun. If you enjoy James Bond films and like strong female protagonists then check out this one. The fight scenes are pretty intense but unlike most action flicks, the characters become tired and affected by their injuries as the scenes go on. Thumbs up on that.

Now, the one thing I didn't like. I'm going to preface this by reminding you that the use of Xhosa in Captain America: Civil War bothered me because NOT THE RIGHT REGION. The movie takes place in the days immediately before the fall of the Berlin Wall and there is a scene set in East Berlin. When the lead character crosses the street, you can clearly see the crossing signs behind her and they are not the correct Ampelmännchen. They should look like this:

The former East Germany is the only place in the world with these symbols. But Andrea, I hear you say, why would they change the crossing sign for a 5 second shot? Because East Germany never got rid of these signs. They started to but after a huge public outcry, the government decided to keep them. They are an endearing symbol of East Germany, one of the few items to survive into the modern era. They might as well have digitally removed the Fernsehturm from the skyline and it wouldn't have been as jarring to my eyes.

Now to tuck that complaint away into the same neglected corner as my Civil War complaint!

4. Monaghan and Armagh both won their GAA Gaelic Football games this past weekend. We now have a pub in Victoria that shows the games live. I'm the only person in there watching them but at least I don't have to watch them on super sketchy Internet sites. YAY! Monaghan faces off against Dublin this coming Saturday. In the meantime, I'll be psyching myself up by watching this classic on repeat.

That ad is a thing of beauty, I tell you. Also, it's nice to know that 31 of the Irish counties will be cheering for Monaghan this weekend because everyone hates Dublin.

5. Updating your CV for a job in the same place you currently work is annoying. I really just want to hand them a paper that says "you know what I'm capable of so do you think I can handle this position or not?" It's that fine line between talking yourself up but not overstating your abilities to the point where they can call  you out on it because they also worked on that same project. Ugh. Just ugh.

Please?

Ugh...

I just finished watching tonight's episode of Game of Thrones. If you want to know my response, click here. It's not really a spoiler but it kind of is so you may not want to click if you haven't seen the episode yet and desire to have your heart ripped from your chest and held, still beating, before your eyes as you die.

I don't know how to handle these emotional episodes of Game of Thrones now that the series is entering territory beyond where the books are at. How did the non-book readers do this for five seasons?

In an attempt to make myself feel better about what happened in a fictional world tonight, I present "Random Things That Have Been Rattling Around in My Head".

First, if you ever need to Rickroll someone but, like, in a classy way (I'm sure that's totally a thing), I present Postmodern Jukebox:

I encourage you to go check out more of their videos on YouTube.

While I was sick with teeth pain, I was up at all hours which meant that I was actually awake when the Hillsborough verdict was announced. I'm guessing that few of the people who actually read this blog - hi Mom! - but I tried to write about it and it turned into this long depressing paragraph and I'm not ready for that after tonight's Game of Thrones. If you want to know more, here are the Google results. What I did want to share was the video of the crowd singing "You'll Never Walk Alone" at the memorial.

I mean, YNWA makes me cry on a good day. I was bawling - but in the best possible way - while watching this. (By the way, 'seeing a LFC game and singing YNWA' is totally on my bucket list. Someday!)

I have seen Captain America Civil War. Seen it more than once, actually.

Hello, my name is Andrea. I'm a little obsessive over movies.

I stand by my original assessment that I like Winter Soldier better, but in the way that I like rashers better than streaky bacon. They're both bacon and I'm not complaining if you put either of them in front of me. Bacon in any form = fantastic. Captain America films = fantastic.

Having said that, I do have a complaint. (Just one, mind you.) The map of the Wakanda people - Blank Panther's tribe. Keep up - clearly shows them in what is South Sudan/Ethiopia. In that region, one of the most predominant languages in Nuer. It is even spoken in Ethiopia. But no. They have T'Challa and his father (T'Chaka) speak Xhosa with each other. Xhosa is spoken in a region of South Africa.

Google Maps says you can drive this in 69 hours.
Google maps is ridiculously optimistic.
I've seen those roads.

Yes, many of the languages spoken in the area of the mythical Wakanda are Bantu (I will note that Nuer is not a Bantu language) and Xhosa falls in the Bantu family, but French and Italy are both Romance languages but speaking one doesn't mean you speak the other. AND THEY SHARE A BORDER!!

Still, I doubt there are many people in the theatre pulling apart the movie because it used a real language that occurs nowhere near the real location that a superhero movie gave to a fake people.

Hello, my name is Andrea. I'm a little obsessive over movies.

I lied, I have another complaint. When [someone] doesn't want to hear [that other person] say [something], why did he try and escape? Why not just, oh I don't know, stick his fingers in his ears and say "la la la, I can't hear you" repeatedly?

Despite this, I did come away from the movie very excited about the Blank Panther movie set for release in 2018.

More of this? Yes, please!

I have signed up for another year of GISHWHES because I have no shame and/or dignity.

My sock monkey hat is ready and raring to go. Bring on August 1st!

I think I've done enough cheering myself up since watching Game of Thrones that I can head to bed. It's a long weekend in Canada so I plan to enjoy my last day off!