In Praise of Anthony Mackie

I went to see Captain America: The Winter Soldier (CATWS) on opening night and I really enjoyed it. (I also really enjoyed telling everyone about how I ran into a sizable component of my company's IT department who were also seeing it opening night because of course they were.) I raved about it to friends, coworkers, family, random people at bus stops, and my cats. Especially my cats.

 Because so many of my imaginary friends live there, I also took the Internet to see what it had to say about the movie. My favourite pastime became trawling my Tumblr account for CATWS related posts. What kept coming up a lot were gifs of Anthony Mackie in interviews and it was immediately apparent that the man was having a blast. He had a blast making the film and he was having a blast promoting the film. I wanted to high five him.

 

I had enjoyed Mackie as the Falcon. I thought the role was well written, I thought he was good in it, and it seems like he is going to be around for Captain America 3. But as each gif set appeared on my Tumblr dashboard, I fell a little bit more in love with Anthony Mackie as a person. Oh, that we could all have that much unabashed enthusiasm at some point in our lives for something, anything.

 

 

And then I saw this quote from him.

When I first got this role I just cried like a baby because I was like, “Wow, next Halloween, I’m gonna open the door and there’s gonna be a little kid dressed as the Falcon.” That’s the thing that always gets me. I feel like everybody deserves that. I feel like there should be a Latino superhero. Scarlett does great representation for all the other girls, but there should be a Wonder Woman movie. I don’t care if they make 20 bucks, if there’s a movie you’re gonna lose money on, make it Wonder Woman. You know what I mean, ’cause little girls deserve that.
~Anthony Mackie

This man gets it.

I was four years old the first time I was told I couldn't like something because of my gender. The thing I couldn't like was He-Man. My friend was five and explained how I couldn't love He-Man because He-Man was a boy so it was meant for boys and I was a girl. This conversation replayed itself over and over in my childhood. G.I.Joe? Boys. Star Wars? Boys. Comics? Boys. Star Trek? Boys.

While the idea that comics are just for boys is changing, it still exists. (Even worse, the long-held belief that comics are only for white boys. Racism, sadly, is alive and kicking in an imaginary world in which many of the characters are supposed to hold better ideals than the world we current live in, but that is an entire series of posts which I am woefully under-qualified to even begin discussing.) As a grown woman, I still encounter this problem on a regular basis. I would give anything, ANYTHING, to have a comic movie with a lead female protagonist because nothing says "you are welcome in this place" to a little girl than seeing a hero on the screen that she can emulate. (That lead female protagonist could be a stand-alone Black Widow movie. Hint, hint, Marvel. Scarlett Johansson is fantastic in that role and I would gladly watch a movie based around that character.)

So thank you, Anthony Mackie. Thank you for talking about it. Thank you for standing up for the dream of geek girls everywhere. Mostly, thank you for being an awesome person who is so clearly in love with his lot in life.

And if our paths ever cross, I am so chasing you down just so we can high five.

How to Start Another Year

So, this is what I ate for breakfast today:

You only have a birthday once a year so you might as well do it right!

Being the mature adult I have grown into, I ended thirty-three by going to a showing of the Sound of Music movie which was a sing-along. All I can say is that my friend who isn't a huge fan of the movie used expressions like "best night of my life" and "let's do it again". If there is ever a Sing-A-Long-A-Sound-of-Music showing in your neighbourhood, iron your best dirndl, gather your group of friends, and go.

Can we also talk about what a fox Christopher Plummer is?
I'd leave a nunnery for him.

Tonight, I start thirty-four by going to see Danny Bhoy. Just in case you don't know who I'm talking about, you should check out this video.

I've only set myself one 'goal' for this year - and it's not really a goal, let's call it a plan- and that's to read all the books in my house. A seemingly ridiculously simple plan, really. See, I suffer from a horrible affliction in which I buy books and then never read them. Sadly, there is no known cure for this affliction despite so many people I know suffering from it.

If I had a staircase, it would look like this.

I have tons of books that I have bought and either a) started but not finished because a hold came in at the library and I needed to finish that first or b) never started because I was already in the middle of a book. I actually set this plan roughly a month ago... and then had six holds come in at the library. SIX!! Those six holds will have to be back by mid-April so then I'll only be reading books already in my possession. I've started making a list of all the books that fall into either of the categories.

By this time next year, I should have a pile of books that I can take to Russell Books and a couple of empty shelves... which I will probably fill up with more books, let's be honest. (And I don't plan to get rid of all the books, just the ones that I don't plan to read again or brag about.)

Question: On a scale from 1 to Christopher Plummer, how sexy do you think Christopher Plummer is?

Friday Night

On Monday, I an email exchange with my coworker.

ME: I don't usually start planning to drink on Friday night on Monday, but it's one of those days.

HER: HA! It's 8:23.

ME: I know.

On Tuesday I picked up my gym bag to get changed before catching the bus, got distracted by a question from a coworker which turned into a conversation, and 25 minutes later was setting the gym bag down on my dinning table while realising that I had completely forgotten about bootcamp.

It was just one of those weeks. In the back of my mind was the continuing thought that Friday night would mean a bottle of wine. While on one hand that was fun, on the other I found it stressful.

To most people, a glass of wine after a long week is nothing, but in my early/mid twenties I had to deal with two alcoholics in my immediate family. At a time when my friends didn't give too thoughts to the amount of alcohol they would consume on a weekend, I became hyperaware of every drink that passed my lips. I became especially aware of when I was drinking alone. When I stopped living with roommates, I stopped drinking unless I was with people.

Yet here I was, spending a whole week planning a night of drinking by myself.

Last night, I curled up in my pyjamas with my Chinese delivery dinner, my wine in a TARDIS mug, two purring cats, and Tangled in the DVD player.

I can not think of a better way to have ended that week.

Here's to a better week ahead.

Question: what was good about your week? Cheer me up, people!

I Should Probably Start Wearing a Toga

Beware the Ides of March! Beware friends brandishing knives in the forum.

It was not my intent to go from one Roman day-of-note to the next one between posts but somethings that's what happens when you're busy being awesome. Yeah, let's go with awesome. I celebrated the Ides by waking up way too early after a night of drinking to clean gutters at my dad's house. Kind of hard to stab someone in the name of the Roman Republic when you're six feet up a ladder, dripping pine needles down your shirt, longing for some Tylenol.

Anyway, it's time for a random post because I have a lot of random thoughts in my head at the moment.

1. Running is on hold. My running partner, Katie, has been in physio due to a car accident a few months back. On her physio's orders on Thursday, she has to stop running. I'm not going to lie, without a running partner I'm not sure I'll have the get-up-and-go to continue lunch-time runs, especially with projects meaning lots of meetings with people I probably shouldn't be stinky around and evenings at the gym not leaving any other time to run.

I will still walk the TC10K because I promised someone I would moonwalk across the finish line. Silly promises like that obviously have to be kept!

2. To make myself feel better, I've listened to this cover of Frozen's "Let It Go" about three dozen times. I'm in love with it:

3. Warning: Rugby talk ahead. Ireland won Six Nations this year with a win over France this morning. There was a lot of smack talk between myself and some certain French macaron proprietors prior to the game. Sadly, the next time I'll get my macarons with a side of sports sass won't be until the World Cup. It's going to be a long three months.

4. Today's rugby game was also the last game for Brian O'Driscoll in an Ireland jersey. This is a bitter-sweet moment for Ireland fans. BOD, as his is affectionately known, has done great things for Irish rugby. He is also a fantastic humanitarian. I recommend having a hanky nearby while you watch this video.

5. I am obsessed with BBC's The Musketeers. I'm actually more excited about watching it on Sunday nights than I am about The Walking Dead and that's saying a lot. I think part of that might be simply because I've been watching a lot of fairly heavy drama TV shows and while this is definitely drama, it's a lot lighter in tone. 

Witty dialogue and a cute cast also helps.

6. Alumni Band season is starting up again. In other news, I'm a gigantic nerd. 

7.  St. Patrick's Day is on Monday. You know, just in case you somehow weren't aware of the biggest drinking day in the world.

Happy Roman New Year!

If you never did get around to making New Year's Resolutions and are feeling a bit bummed about that, never fear! Today is the Roman New Year so make those resolutions now! (Perhaps "procrastinate less" should be on that list.)

I think I'm hilarious the first 20 minutes after I wake up.

Without even remembering that today is the Roman New Year, I made a reference at work on Friday about Caesar crossing the Rubicon with an armed legion to start a civil war. It was a replacement for the oft used "is the Pope Catholic?" yes response, but the amount of time I then spent explaining what it meant to cross the Rubicon with armed legions and Caesar's reasons for wanting to start a civil war made it abundantly clear that next time I'll just say 'yes'.

Over all, February was a fantastic month. I attended the Victoria Film Festival for the sixth year in a row (and highly recommend both Good Vibrations and The Stag - I swear it's just a coincidence that they're both Irish films), made it to the gym enough times to average out my less-than-stellar-January-attendance, bought a Venus Fly Trap and promptly named it Aphrodite, failed at making macarons, watched the extended Lord of the Rings and knitted a scarf so I could say it was productive time well spent, and made another big deadline at work. My coworkers celebrated making the deadline by making me a Darth Vadar cake. For all their blank stares after the Caesar-and-the-Rubicon email, sometimes my coworkers totally get me.

The only downside to the month was the death of Harold Ramis. I had such a crush on Egon when I was growing up because he was smart and awkward and nerdy, someone I could totally identify with. He was and always will be my favourite Ghostbuster. 

Source (original artist)
Found via Epbot

I'm excited to see what March will bring!

Question: Any indie or small film recommendations?