24 Hours of Catatonia with Shinja, Jeliza-Rose and... Bonnie

Someone's going to be in real trouble soon. It's been more than 48 hours and someone far away's not replying yet... I wonder why. Maybe it's too early to bitch about his missing correspondence but it was he, after all, who promised to give me news of their arrival immediately. Oh well, better not bother myself with that much. The name of the game is Waiting, my dears. I've got to give him time to marvel at this "new life" of his. (That's the bad part. He's got a new one while I don't have any. Sucks.)

Within two days, I became resigned to the fact that I am doomed for another summer in the doldrums. The sign? Spending more time with my old pal, the PC. I'm afraid the poor thing will expire before the month ends. Just yesterday I played Battle Realms from 9 in the morning to 10 in the evening, until which the computer's memory ran low again, promptly cutting another skirmish between the Serpent clan and the Lotus clan. Really, I was planning to write a story, but since I lied to myself that there was plenty of time at hand, I succumbed to the temptation of playing instead.

Throw any assumption that I'm forgetting my health out of my window. Battle Realms is not the same as online gaming. I still remembered to take breaks, eating lunch and dinner and taking a bath in between of those games. Besides, it's hard to lose myself in the world of towering Warlocks and sneaky mugging Swordsmen when I am frequently switching stations on the radio or cuddling Bonnie on my lap.

Another reason that prohibited the computer from sucking out my soul was my mind was constantly humming all day because of Tideland(2005). I watched it yesterday, and while it didn't exactly blew my mind because of its weirdness, it left me reflecting on my own sanity. Directed by Terry Gilliam (The Twelve Monkeys, Monty Python and the Holy Grail), it stars Jodelle Ferland as Jeliza-Rose, the daughter of a washed-up rocker father (Jeff Bridges) and a junkie mother (Jennifer Tilly) they called Queen Gunhilda in her death. Her father is greatly fascinated by Norse mythology and culture and vows to bring Jeliza-Rose to Jutland someday. When her mother dies of a heroin overdose, they stuff her in a blanket along with her favorite things like shoes and junk. Jeliza-Rose is brought by her father to a rural farmhouse once inhabited by her grandmother. It is then she starts living in the surreality of solitude...

Call this film creepy... strange... therefore, I loved it. The heroine herself is a prime candidate for the loony bin someday. She helps her father in his habit, she has "talking" doll heads for company, she talks to squirrels, and she reads Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Before you start pitying Jeliza-Rose, you begin to think twice. Being brought up with parents who have never had any firm grip on reality for more than a day left her to be cunning and adult-like on her own. She is constantly left to be the only decent person in the household, causing her to seek company by her own means.

The real fun begins when Jeliza-Rose meets Dell and Dickens, their neighbors, the former a total witch and the latter an epileptic with mental disabilities...

The ending is quite unpredictable, which is quite something because the eccentricities of the characters could get monotonous too. I just waited desperately for the film to end. Anyway, Tideland's still worth recommending for those of you who don't really need a plot to call a movie a movie. Get me? Let's see how many of you will last without wanting a paracetamol.