You know you have a minecraft problem when...

I realised that I have a serious problem with minecraft addiction at about 2am this morning, when I woke up, went to the kitchen to get a drink and had a strong urge to place a torch on the countertop to stop creepers from spawning.

Also, I spent two days (people days, not minecraft days) searching the nether for a fortress, because apparently I spawned as far away from one as it is possible to be.

So I drove to my parents house this weekend. Aside from the usual road rage inspired by morons sitting on 90km/h in the 110km/h zone in the fast right lane (I'm looking at you, Lancer drivers) it was a rather smooth trip. My car didn't blow up, which is a relief, because I've still got about AU$2000 worth of work done on the engine, as parts are dying and I'm leaking from about four different place, but she's a trooper, and never lets on that she's a wee bit sick.

I also read The Fault In Our Stars again over the weekend between bouts of minecraft. It still makes me cry like a little bitch one moment and then make me laugh the next.

And on Friday night, for the first time in living memory, declined the offer of alcohol. I think it was the mood that I was in at the time: If one was to say 'deeply unhappy,' they'd be getting pretty close. What brought it on, I'm not sure that I'll ever know. But I didn't think that drinking would be a very good idea. Maybe if I'd been sitting home it would have been, so that I could sleep it off, but I wouldn't wish a drunk and depressed Sharon on any of my friends.

She can be a bit of a handful. </third_person>

I think I may just be lonely.

But that's okay.

"We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars." - Oscar Wilde

"New lovers are nervous and tender, but smash everything. For the heart is an organ of fire" - Almásy, The English Patient

My favourite indie music store is my favourite for one reason and one reason only: while the prices on their new release DVDs and BluRays makes my poor little 'broke student so far below the poverty line I can't see it anymore' budget cringe and cry for weeks, it does feature a rather excellent $10 bin. You never quite know what you're going to stumble across. The $10 bin has yielded some of my favourite movies, from Austin Powers to Mean Girls to Dirty Harry. One day a couple of weeks ago Anthony Minghella's The English Patient was hiding up the back.

I'd never previously seen the whole film. My parents have pay TV, and sometimes before I moved out it would be on one of the several 'movie channels', and I'd watch maybe ten minutes and lose interest. So I wondered, upon finding the DVD, just why it had won so many damn awards.

Of course, when watching a movie comprised of a large proportion of flashbacks, watching it from the start is ideal, which is probably where I tripped up several times before. The cinematography is absolutely stunning, beautiful flight scenes over an even more beautiful desert kept me completely captivated. Ralph Fiennes' character Almásy is, well, there isn't any other word for it: hot. Super hot. Hotter than anything that modern cinema has thrown up for quite some time. I can't, quickly searching my memory banks, think of anyone that damn hot. He's in a league of his own.

Even aside from all the bodice ripping - yes, that actually happens - the plot is wonderfully crafted, keeping me guessing right up to the very last moment, as the flashbacks to fill in Almásy's forgotten past get closer and closer to the truth are spread among the more linear timeline of events after his plane is shot down.

This film, if you haven't seen it already, should be one your to-do list, and if you have seen it, The English Patient should be on your list anyway.

"The lamp has gone out and I'm writing in the darkness."

“My thoughts are stars I cannot fathom into constellations.” - John Green, The Fault In Our Stars

Oh my. Oh my oh my oh my.


I love this book.


Completely, utterly, irrevocably, love this book.


For those who have been living under a rock, The Fault In Our Stars is the story of Hazel Grace. Hazel Grace is a teenager with thyroid cancer, and the diagnosis has never been anything but terminal. I know, another kid with cancer book. But this is something different. Bear with me. Hazel meets cancer survivor Augustus Waters at a cancer support group located in the "Literal Heart of Jesus." (Haha, in joke. Read the book). He changes her world.


This book made me laugh, stunned me - John Green really can write the most beautiful sentences- and finally made me cry. It's the sort of book that makes you feel like a different person once finished than you were when you started it. Passages from it have stuck with me, to replay in my mind in a quiet moment. There wasn't a single point at which I thought there was something that didn't work for the novel. Not only that, but I'm embarrassed that it's taken me this long to read anything by John Green.


I did lend the book to a friend, and if he doesn't return it soon, I'm going to have to kill him. I want to read it again.


Today, I will depart with this quote:

“As he read, I fell in love the way you fall asleep: slowly, and then all at once.”

Rambling and Tangets - my mind is a minefield

I might as well get this clear straight off the bat.


I have a jumpy little rabbit brain.


Many have tried to follow the leaps that my brain frequently takes from one subject to another with barely a pause. Each and every single one of those people has failed. My advice is this: just go with it.


Also, David Levithan is one of my new favorite people. He signed my copy of Will Grayson, Will Grayson today. Besides that, he's also charming, witty, charismatic, and at least once had me snort-laughing, which is something that no one should ever do in public. Doubtless I will at some point in the future of this blog write raving reviews about everything he has ever written.


Not everything that I link to/squee over/review will be a book. Some of the rare, amazing gems of fan fictions (cue horror music) may also find their way here. Much the same can be said of artwork, films that I find particularly inspiring, some of my own clumsy attempts at fiction, and maybe, depending on my mood, pictures of my dog (who doesn't live with me, and I miss very much) will also find their way here over time.


I aim only to entertain. I certainly hope that you will find the motivation and seek out some of the works mentioned, and that they bring happiness, sadness, or a little bit of something else into your life.


Happy reading, dear reader.
For now, it is 00:53, a truly forsaken hour of the morning, and time to sleep.