Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Cinema neurotics

Going to the movies has become an event and a rare occasion for me these days, much like it was when I was a little kid. In today's world we need not go to the cinema to see a new movie, we have direct and immediate access to movies the moment it's released (we won't say much else on this *hush hush*). Hence, there is no real point to schlepping it to the cinema and having to fork out the price of a movie ticket...

So, when I do happen to go to all this trouble I expect it to be worth my while (and my money). I tend to only go to the cinema these days if I truly believe a movie is going to blow my mind completely and it's something that I truly want to see on the big screen and know that I won't regret,  like The Avengers.

I also expect the experience to be quite an awe filled one - like *BIG SCREEN* - AAAAHHHHHH - *stares in wonder and amazement*. I want to enjoy the movie in its full glory on the big screen, with surround sound, and just be 'wowed'. If I just wanted to watch a movie, I would have done that at home.

Thus, there are certain requirements that I expect to be met, certain things that should be done and others that just shouldn't be done. (I am a very fussy person, I know this, its just the way I am, but hey I like to think that I just expect better of the world, thus pushing the world towards better qualities and standards. I mean, if you came to my home you'd expect a decent cup of tea, not drain water...).

So this is basically what I expect, as well as what I DON'T expect, when I go to the cinema:


  1. I have a ticket with a specific seat number, I DON'T expect to see someone sitting in my seat when I get there and having to deal with the awkward task of asking them to move. Seriously, specific seat numbers were assigned for a reason! Not just for fun. If you cannot read (or see) ask someone else for help.
  2. Once seated I expect my seat to be clean and usable, NOT broken and sticky with who knows what gunk! (the floor should also be clean, I don't want to have to wash my shoes after a visit to the movies). As a cinema house you are providing a service, you better do it right.
  3. I'm paying for the surround sound, I'd better get surround sound. If there's a problem, FIX IT. Again, promising to provide a service...
  4. People with babies, WHY would you take a baby to a cinema? WHY?! Unless you have a super baby who is able to remain silent for hours on end or will just about sleep through anything, you should NOT take a baby to the movies. Get a babysitter or something or just get the DVD and watch it at home. Yeah, babies are cute and all, but I didn't pay money to hear your baby cry!
  5. The seat in front of you was NOT meant to be a footrest NOR is it a kicking bag. So please refrain from putting your feet on it and kicking it! Its kind of difficult for a person to concentrate on what's happening on the screen when someone's foot keeps bumping their head and when their back is being constantly shoved and kicked. It is also very annoying, uncomfortable and just plain rude and selfish. It can also be painful... (true story). 
  6. I absolutely cannot stand it when people either blow their nose loudly or pull their noses loudly. I can actually hear all the mucus being sucked up their nostrils and into their throat. Disgusting. I do NOT wanna hear (or picture) that, no thank you. So please deal with your mucus some other way.
  7. Cell phones - please switch them to silent before the movie can begin. Like, yay for you for having such an awesome ring tone, but really now if I wanted to listen to music I'd be at a concert, not the movies. And if you really have such an urgent call - leave and take the call outside! Why be so selfish as to sit in that little theatre and have a fat conversation making it practically impossible for everyone else to watch the movie. Seriously, your conversation (and your voice) is not that fascinating.
  8. One of my biggest pet peeves about going to the cinema - people who talk during the movie! Okay, so I get that you're super excited to be at the movies and you're so keen to watch the movie of every trailer you've seen and you're so super proud to know all the actors names and where they've acted before and you have such amazing thoughts on every scene and piece of dialogue and what not - but PLEASE, I CAME TO WATCH A MOVIE, NOT YOU. If you really think that you have something to say thats just totally amazing and HAS to be said, think it through (thoroughly) and store it in your memory bank and share it AFTER the movie. Please. 
You can call me rude, you can call me impossible, you can say I expect too much, but I just expect certain standards to be met. And meeting these standards would obviously make the world a better place... So people really should try... Its not that hard.

Basically though, cinema houses propose to provide a certain service, so they should ensure that they do so and that its done to the best of their abilities. And people really need to be less selfish. I'm a pretty self centred person myself, but there's a limit. You cannot be so full of it as to completely disregard the needs of others, especially other paying customers. 

Wednesday, October 3, 2012

50 Books To Read Before I Die



I recently wrote a blog post "25 Books To Read In This Lifetime". This post was based on books which I HAVE read and thought were so good that one couldn't go through life having NOT read them.

So that got me thinking about the books that I'd like to read before I die. These are books that I've heard about here and there. From people, movies or other books. Intentionally or by accident. And some are just books that are famous worldwide and I think I should read them for myself to  see what all the fuss is about.

Without further ado, here is my list (in no particular order) of 50 books I HAVE to read before I die:


  1. The Shining - Stephen King
  2. Little Women - Louisa May Alcott
  3. The Scarlet Letter - Nathaniel Hawthorne
  4. The Catcher in the Rye - J. D. Salinger
  5. Utopia - Thomas More
  6. The Winter of Our Discontent - John Steinbeck
  7. Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy - E. L. James
  8. Breakfast at Tiffany's - Truman Capote
  9. Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl - Anne Frank
  10. The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
  11. The Chronicles of Narnia series - C. S. Lewis
  12. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
  13. Lord of the Flies - William Golding
  14. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
  15. 1984 - George Orwell
  16. The Harry Potter series - J. K. Rowling
  17. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
  18. The Art of War - Sun Tzu
  19. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
  20. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
  21. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
  22. Bleak House - Charles Dickens
  23. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
  24. Dracula - Bram Stoker
  25. The Alchemist - Paulo Coelho
  26. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
  27. Middlemarch - George Eliot
  28. Gone With the Wind - Margaret Mitchell
  29. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoevsky
  30. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
  31. Confessions of a Shopaholic - Sophie Kinsella
  32. The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
  33. Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding
  34. Diary of a Nobody - George Grossmith
  35. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo
  36. The Color Purple - Alice Walker
  37. Moby Dick - Herman Melville
  38. The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
  39. A Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
  40. Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
  41. Watership Down - Richard Adams
  42. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
  43. What We Talk About When We Talk About Love - Raymond Carver
  44. The Age of Reason - Thomas Paine
  45. Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
  46. Life of Pi - Yann Martel
  47. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
  48. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - Ken Kesey
  49. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
  50. The Satanic Verses - Salman Rusdie 


Tuesday, October 2, 2012

Holiness - Eagle Christian Centre

The Mark of Athena...


I got my hands on the first book of the "Heroes of Olympus" series : "The Lost Hero" early this year. I couldn't put it down till the end - it was SO amazing! I immediately went out and got the next book, "The Son of Neptune", which was just as amazing and intense!

As the book neared the end I had this great sense of dread that it would not end as I had planned for it to. The entire story of "The Son of Neptune" was basically building you up to a certain point, and I had expected that point to be met  by the end of the book... It was however NOT.

I was utterly devastated and on the verge of pulling out my hair! I knew this series could just NOT end, it would be completely lame to end so open ended and unfulfilled. So I went online and saw that there was to be another installment, "The Mark of Athena" - the only problem was that it was only coming out on the 2nd of October!

After some ranting and raving I eventually managed to calm down and accept the reality - I would just have to wait, there was nothing else that could be done. I distracted myself with other books and managed to get by...

THEN, sometime later, I get an email from my cousin telling me that the book is available on "Fishpond" AND it is at a much cheaper price than I can expect to get it at anywhere else. I want to be sure of this before just ordering the book, so Sahil and I check out numerous book retailers online - Fishbond is the cheapest (and they also don't charge a delivery fee). So I order the book. However, something my cousin did not know, is that they charge a conversion fee - to convert our rands to their dollars. (Yes Leri, I'm blaming you for this one, only a little though, just for the bad/incomplete info - actually buying the book from there is my own fault). Alas, it turns out that after this conversion fee, the book works out to the same price as some stores, and even more than others...

So you can imagine the pain I went through on learning of this, but as Sahil put it, the book was already ordered and the money already gone through, there was nothing that could be done... I just had to write it down as a lesson learnt and NEVER to order from "Fishpond" again!

Today, the day "The Mark of Athena" came out, the day I've been eagerly awaiting, I find out that I am only to get my book by the 16th of October! And that's at the least! I guess I should have taken into consideration the travel time and what not, but I had just assumed that they would most probably get their hands on the book and post it for it to arrive to me by the 2nd October! (I clearly was not thinking clearly).

Hence, I am now completely disappointed. I could have just waited and bought the book at Exclusive books today at a cheaper price AND earned points for it!