Friday Favourites: Dirty Dancing

One of the joys of Friday Favourites of yesteryear when K and I both used to blog daily was our mutual appreciation of the Friday favourite. Sometimes we be gushing over a shared favourite thing, like Prince songs or Damon Albarn. Other times we'd just be enjoying each other's love of a favourite thing. Like K and Babs or me and NPH. So it's a shame we don't get to hear from K today. 

When we were kids there was a girl that lived up the street from us, let's call her Choo Choo. She had the Dirty Dancing soundtrack on vinyl and we didn't have it on anything so we sometimes used to contrive reasons to borrow it from her without also having to invite her over. Eventually she moved out of the street, along with the Dirty Dancing record and although at the time the best thing about that seemed that we didn't have to hang out with her anymore in retrospect the best thing was that we didn't have to be such little bitches anymore. 

At the time I don't think I even liked the movie that much but I sure knew a great soundtrack when I heard one. And I definitely under appreciated Patrick Swayze but I'm glad to say one of the gifts of age is a broad appreciation of great things and that includes this movie and Patrick Swayze. First, I love choreographed dance. Any kind of dance really but I especially love group dancing as at the end of this film. Now I own this movie on DVD and I watch it every time it's on television. Most recently on Wednesday night. It's such a delight to find it on TV and I basically smiled the entire time I watched. 

Here are some of the great things  about this movie: dancing; Patrick Swayze; the upstairs-downstairs story; the way that Baby and Johnny know how to have a great time; music; all the great lines. 

Dirty Dancing you are a bona fide Friday Favourite!

And the winner is...(PM)

I really hope the only reason J misses Pinkman is because she's seen all the Breaking Bad out there and just wants more Pinkman, not because she's seen more Breaking Bad than I have and something happens to Pinkman.  I hope that very much.

As for me, I'm not going to go back over the fun times we've shared on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays because I think J has picked some real winners.

But mostly it's because I want to sneak in another Friday favourite: Afternoon tea.

I effing love having a coffee and a biscuit in the afternoon.

Look at this delicious brown sugar and chocolate sandwich cookie I made last night just so I can have it with a coffee for afternoon tea today.

Having afternoon tea is a Friday Favourite and I just want to use MSC's last Friday post to celebrate that.

Friday Favourites: Ugg Boots (PM)

Oh man! Ugg boots! I effing love my ugg boots so much! K actually gave me my first pair for a birthday many years ago. Eleven years ago in fact. I'm pretty sure it was because I was always going on about how jealous I was of hers. Those ugg boots are long gone, probably because they were made in China (assumption not fact). But that was me gone. A life without ugg is a life half lived.

After the death of that first pair I moved on to the real home-grown variety. At the moment I have a black pair. I bought them because once at an old job someone wore a pair of tall black uggs to work and they didn't look like uggs, they just looked like cosy black boots. I always imagined doing something like that, but I'm not crazy. Having black uggs does mean I can unashamedly go to the supermarket in them though, so that's something.

Me* in my ugg boots

Oh, how I love ugg. A Friday Favourite, an everyday favourite, UGG!

*As played by Kirsten Dunst.

Friday Favourites: Ugg Boots (AM)

Yesterday I talked about that lamb/sheep/mutton's wool jacket I tried on.  I hinted at how ridiculous it is that a jacket would cost $1000. What I didn't say is that it's possibly the softest and  warmest thing I've ever worn and I think about it all the time. You can bet I thought about it last night when I came home after dinner with Scampy and Neville to discover my house was really quite cold.

But I shouldn't complain because the lamb community has given me a great gift in the past, a gift that has been giving for two decades. These:

These are the ugg boots I've had since childhood. No joke. My Mum's friend had a business importing them from her native Germany, and so when we were little, Mum bought a pair for both of my brothers. She didn't buy any for me because the feet of a girl child do not need to be kept warm. 

Jokies!

I suspect it was because my feet were too small.

From the binding. 

Jokies!

I just think they didn't have my size.

Anyway, the joke's on those guys, because at some point I claimed them for my own and have worn them around the house all through winter since about 1993. 

And look at the condition they're in!

If you're wondering what that thing inside this ugg boot is,  it's just a teatowel I stuffed in there to make them stand upright. I will probably wash the teatowel before I use it again.  

Still so wooly! That's GDR era manufacturing for you. 

Anyway, they are the warmest and best ugg boots a person could want and i'm lucky to have them. 

They are a Friday Favourite.  

Friday Favourites: Friday (PM)

Friday! Good call mate. Friday is the best. I only work 2 days a week and one of those days is Friday, and still this day is my favourite.

Music sounds better on Friday because you know there is a chance that you could go out and dance to that music that very night!

Even though Monday brings a longer break for me than Friday, I still love Friday better because it means that everyone is on break, not just me and Baby.

Plus it's just the vibe of it.
And even though I slept in this morning and was 45 minutes late for work, my computer isn't working so about 60% of my tasks are unavailable to me and BOM said it was going to be 27 degrees but instead it was cold-as degrees this morning, you know, it's Friday, so I'm doing ok.

It's like R Kelly said, it's the freakin' weekend baby, I'm about to have me some fun!

Friday Favourites: Friday (AM)

Clearly Miss Soft Crab is a pretty massive fan of the weekday 'Friday'. 

You can tell because of all the special things we do on Friday, like Hunk and Babe of the Month, Friday Favourites the use of the tag TGIF, which we have done 15 times. Also because we are regular people and all regular people love Fridays. You can tell from that too. 

I have been longing for this particular Friday all week, because of the struggles that have beset me due to the vodka situation last Friday. All week I have been eyeing it in the corner of the room that is my mind. Casually sidling up to it, basically doing to Friday what K-Stew is doing to 'that ass' in this picture.  

 

Thank you, Hey Girl it's K-Stew for this photo, and for all the good times. 

It was while thinking how fine Friday is looking (on Monday, probably) that I realised, Friday really deserves a Friday Favourites post of its own. And because of the struggles that have beset me due to the vodka situation last Friday, I couldn't think of anything else I wanted to post about today. 

So lets consider just a few things that are wonderful about this truly wonderful day of the week - apart from the fact that it is the herald of the weekend which we all know and we don't need to go on about here. 

Undeniable supremacy. Everyone knows Friday is the best day. It is a fact, it is a stone cold truth. The only days that give it a run for its money are Monday, when Tuesday is a public holiday and Thursday when Friday is a public holiday. But they don't really come close.  That Friday is so clearly superior to the other days is special, and hot, and what Lance Armstrong was trying to achieve, I assume, by cheating. You wish, Armstrong! You're no Friday! You're a goddamned Tuesday at best. 

Enduring love. I have loved this day forever and I don't think my feeling will ever change. The only other things I can say that about are certain people and hot chips.  That's special. 

It brings good things. Friday is a casual day at work. You want to know what I'm wearing? Jeans. Yeah I am. Clean jeans that I washed during the week so are a little tight but I'm managing, thanks for asking. The only work outfit that can challenge jeans for comfort and style is the t-shirt/no pants combo I wear when I'm working from home and want to really take advantage of the situation. 

Sometimes, on Friday, Russeth and I go out to lunch. We call those days Special Friday and they really are special. Only on a Friday, readers. 

I could go on and on but lets hand over to J to see what she has to say. 

Let me finally say that Friday's child is loving and giving. Well I don't care a damn what Friday's child is like, because Friday itself is one magnificent Mother. Over to you Matey. 

Friday Favourites - Supergrass (AM)

So K has brought up Supergrass a few times lately (to me, not you guys) and that reminded me, HEY! I effing love that band. In the year 2000, not long after the album Supergrass came out,  I worked at this small, awful juice bar (how early '00s are juice bars?! I got a Boost juice the other day and I pretty much thought it was 2001) and I remember really vividly this day when Supergrass were playing in Melbourne and for some reason I didn't get tickets and the (awesome) song 'Mary' came on the radio and well... regrets, I've got a few.

I recently introduced Baby to Supergrass. First we watched the video for 'Pumping on the Stereo'. A lot. But when Baby started talking about how he wanted to add "taking my head off" to his dance moves repertoire I thought we just keep moving. That's when I showed him the clip for 'Alright'. And after watching that 15 times I realised that Supergrass would have to be this week's Friday Favourite! Yes, it was listening to those great songs that made me think that, but it was also something in Gaz's adorable doofusy face too.

Do I feel weird that our last Friday Favourite was a British band of the late 90s/early 2000s? Yes! A little bit. But what can I say, I guess at that time in England someone was putting some really good shit in the water.

So why are Supergrass so good? Only because they wrote awesome rock 'n' roll that sounds like they were having the best time ever and then makes you have the best time ever!

Plus, do you know how hard it was to chose a clip to finish this with? Really hard. Know why? Cause so many songs are winners! Most of them. I love the song 'Mary' so much, but to be honest that clip is a little creepy and this is the AM post after all so let's just keep things light, shall we? And get this weekend started off right! Let's go back to where things started. For me anyway. And for this post. Alright!

Friday Favourites: Damon Albarn (PM)

What K says is true. But my mind track looks more like this:
*blllluuuuuuurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgh*
*Blur!*
*Damon Albarn! = destination reached!*

Damon Albarn is the bomb. I love Blur so much! Also I love the Gorillaz! And while that Dr. Dee opera is kind of weird, you gotta respect a man that wants to writes an opera about some old skool mathematician/astronomer/astrologer who straddled the worlds of science and magic and whose thirst for the occult led to his downfall, and then just does it.

Also did you know that Damon Albarn's girlfriend/mother of his child, Suzi Winstanley, is an artist who makes collaborative paintings and photographs with her artistic partner, which I don't really get but think is kind of great. All their work is about nature and they have quite a few wolf works, so, you know, I kind of love them. I know that doesn't really have anything to do with Damon but I guess it's just a positive association.

I know it's Friday and usually I'd like to play a party song to get y'all in the mood but I'm afraid I can't go past 'No distance left to run' for my Blur pick. I just think it's a really beautiful, sad song. I love the tired feel of it. Like he really can do no more. I pretty much think it's genius.

Damon Albarn, you really are an everyday favourite. That doesn't really have the ring of Friday Favourite, but I bet you could make it work.

Friday Favourites: Damon Albarn (AM)

Lately, I have been thinking a lot about Damon Albarn. You know, because of the Olympics. And also because of my one track mind. Which track? 

The fast track to Hunktown of course, like you needed to ask. Before you judge me, J is exactly the same as me and she has a baby, so to judge me is to judge her and please don't do that.

Here is an overview of what has been going down in my brain for the last few weeks.

*Olympics*

*London*

*England*

*Great Britain*

*Britain*

*Brit Pop*

*Blur*

*Damon Albarn! Destination = reached!*

Readers, Damon Albarn is so great. Tell me: have you ever heard a Blur song, or a Gorillaz song, and thought to yourself, gee, I wish I wasn't listening to this right now. Of course you haven't. No one has. And that's almost all because of Damon Albarn.

There are shed-loads (which is what my new boss says when he wants to say shitloads and I think it's very quaint so I am using it here) of songs I could refer to to illustrate how great Damon Albarn is. I'm sure you all have your personal favourites.  For me it's  Tender, always and forever. Everything that is good about Damon Albarn and music in general is in the song Tender. It's got a beat that won't quit, a melody so perfect it sounds like it's been around since the dawn of musical time and it's impossible not to hear it and start singing. I basically want that song to go on forever. 

Damon Albarn: because you are as pretty as a picture, because your music is as pretty as your face, and because you seem like a man who always knows what he is doing, you are Miss Soft Crab's Friday Favourite. And you know what baby? We don't even need a Friday Favourite to know how great you are. You would be our favourite any day of the week and twice on Sundays. It just so happens that it's Friday today.

Take it away, Damon Albarn.

(and Blur)

Friday Favourites (PM)

And don't forget all those song and dance numbers he does at award shows. Those are great.

Personally, I find How I met your mother so shit that even if they replaced the cast with Ewan MacGregor, Michael Fassbender, Viggo Mortensen, etc. etc. etc., I would still hate watching it, when I inevitably tuned in to watch it every night, then flicked over to GO or whatever to watch digital repeats of it.
Notwithstanding this dislike of NPH's show, I appreciate him and I appreciate that you love him enough to make How I met your mother work for you, Mate.


And in much the same way that J's favourite thing about Barbra Streisand is how much I love her, personally I really love how much J loves NPH.


I realised the depth of her love just the other day when I used the hash tag #? in an email. 
I used it because I felt that it really expressed what I wanted to say, and I thought she would find it amusing. Little did I know that NPH had used this hash tag one time, and J had found it deadset hilarious. I just thought it was an amusing hash tag!
She replied with something along the lines of
"hey, great use of the NPH hash tag, I'm totally going to write a Friday Favourites about him".




#?

Friday Favourites: Neil Patrick Harris (AM)

So, it's Friday and I thought I would celebrate with a Friday Favourite! Today the lucky guy is Neil Patrick Harris. I don't know why, but I just really dig this guy. Let's try and figure out why.

Firstly, dude played Doogie Howser. Lesser men would not have recovered from such a youth, but this guy, he doesn't seem broken by it at all.

Secondly, @ActuallyNPH does the most adorable tweets. This is kind of embarrassing to admit, but when I was having a really terrible week recently NPH’s tweets really cheered me up. I mean, check them out:

Also, the guy makes How I Met Your Mother, an otherwise kind of nauseating show, kind of watchable. So watchable I once spent a strange Saturday watching it back to back for about 7 hours. I guess I was in a pretty weird place back then. Sure, I like Jason Segel as much as the next person, but NPH is what really works on that show. The only thing really. God, Allison Hannigan, why couldn’t you just stay Willow forever?!

Which of course brings me to Dr Horrible’s Sing Along Blog.  NPH meets Joss Wheedon meets the Internet. What a beautiful ménage à trois !

All these are fine reasons I guess, but really I think that when it comes down to it, Neil Patrick Harris just has a certain je ne sais quoi. And that's why he is totally my Friday Favourite for today.

Friday Favourites: Coffee (PM)

I love coffee so much I want to take it behind the middle school and get it pregnant.

I effing love coffee. If I don't have any plans that take me further than the park on a given day I usually contrive some just so I can get a coffee in my gob. And that's usually after having a home brew first thing.

I don't have a home brew on work days and I spend my whole commute to work thinking about how awesome my pre-work coffee is going to be and then without a doubt the worst part of my day (you know, a normal day, not a shit day) is when I know I am on my last sip of coffee. And then I spend the whole morning wondering if I should have another coffee at lunchtime. Wanting one but thinking about the money and the caffeine and the feeding of my addiction.Usually I don't have a lunchtime one, but if I am having lunch at a cafe with someone then I always, always do. In fact after such an occurrence recently I said to Miguel, 'You know, I love coffee so much I always order it if I am given the opportunity, even if it is the wrong thing to do [that coffee had left me kinda wired]. I love coffee so much I always think it is the right thing to do and that it will just make good things better.'  I kinda just want to drink it like water.

This morning I loved the first sip of my coffee so much that when I went back for a second one I completely missed the little sippy hole in the take away lid and narrowly missed getting all that black gold down my front.

Coffee is not just a Friday Favourite is an everyday favourite.

Fuck this! I'm going to get another coffee.

Friday Favourites: Flamingos (PM)

I don't know much about flamingos, but I know what I like, and I like the shit out of what I am hearing.
And J, in the same way you feel kindred with flamingos because of their lactation type deal, I can relate to them because I like to call my preferred sleeping position the flamingo. It involves lying on my side with one leg straight and the other one bent up like a flamingo.
It is very comfortable.
Speaking of comfort and little birdies,  check this out.
I like the part where they put the penguin chick in the bowl with the chux in it, and you can get a look at it's beak tooth.

Friday Favourites: Flamingos (AM)

A few years ago while on holiday in Japan I saw some sort of nature documentary on a hotel TV and there were flamingos in it. There was this beautiful footage of a huge flock of flamingos walking across the desert and it was pretty mind-blowing. (I tried to find a photo on the Google for you guys but nothing compares.) And I said to LB (HB), "I love flamingos. They are definitely one of my favourite birds."

Later that holiday we went to the Ueno Zoo. They had so many beautiful birds there. Vultures! PUFFINS! A bunch of peacocks the likes of which I had never seen before or since! But you know what I could not tear myself away from? The friggin' flamingos! Seriously I could have stood in front of those bastards forever. Here are some photos I took of them.

 

Aren't they beautiful?!

Then a few days later I saw a gold pendant in a jewellery store. It was a flamingo pendant! I dropped some hints to LB that he may want to buy it for me, saying things like, "Hey, you should buy that for me." But he just didn't pick up on them.

Well I don't have that pendant but I do have a massive love of flamingos. Did you know that they are pink because of the food they eat!? It's prawns that make them look like that?! Did you know that one theory about why they stand on one leg is that half of there body sleeps at one time!? And did you know that they are one of three birds that do something akin to lactating?! This makes me really feel like we are kindred. Of course they make their "milk" in their throat and regurgitate it into their babies mouths. And the "milk" may be more like cottage cheese. But I don't care. I love flamingos so much. They are my Friday Favourite African bird! Fo shiz!!!!

Friday Favourites: The Last Waltz (PM)

George Harrison is a really great Beatle. I love that guy! And I love M.Scors. That guy really knows his way around a film! Mostly, I love his movies heaps. So many heaps. And The Last Waltz is really awesome. I love it the heapsest.

I love the music, the peeps, the vibe. But it reminds me of something of which I am a little ashamed.

Years ago I went to see The Last Waltz at the Astor. Sitting next to me was this young couple and they kept talking through the concert bits. I freaking hate that. You know, people think that because there is no dialogue it is ok to talk. It is not ok to talk! This often happens at the start of films if there is just music and images. People think it is ok to talk. But you know what people, those music and images are there for a reason. The freaking set up. Ok!? It sets the mood! Sheesh just shut the ... just shut up please.

Anyway, this couple just kept talking through the all concert scenes, not just a bit here and there but conversations, it was really interrupting the magic. I looked over at them a few times hoping that would quiet them, but it didn’t. I didn’t say anything until I had really reached the end of my tether at which point I just said to the guy, “Can you please shut the fuck up.” Boy, did that guy look affronted. I mean, he was really shocked. But you know what? He was apologetic and did not talk for the rest of the film. Still, I feel bad that I swore at a stranger like that. Oh well.

Hey, but isn’t The Last Waltz an awesome movie?! The Joni Mitchell bit and the Neil Young bit are also some of my favourite bits! You should totally go and watch Neil now!

Friday Favourites: The Last Waltz

So we're all really excited about the George Harrison documentary right? Right!
I'm totally going to watch the hell out of it this weekend.
George is, hands down, my favourite Beatle. Those dreamy eyes. The song "Here Comes the Sun".
I love George.  But really,  it's Martin Scorsese movies that I love the most, and of all the films he has made, I think the documentary The Last Waltz might be my favourite. At the very least, it's today's Friday Favourite.

I am sure everyone knows all about this film, but let me do a quick summary: it is a documentary about the final days of the band The Band, culminating in their last performance at which every 1970s man and his dog also performed.

Why don't we have a quick look at the preview?

As you can see, every 1970s (wo) man and his dog.
First and foremost, it is a music documentary, and the music in The Last Waltz rules. Joni Mitchell and Neil Young are my faves I think, but everyone is kind of awesome, even Neil Diamond.
But The Band are, of course, where it's really at. They play their little gutses out and in between times, they talk about what it's been like to be The Band and what will happen next, now they are basically letting go of it all. It's incredible really, that they give up on this thing that they have loved doing for so long, but  need to let go of or else something terrible might happen. They are basically quitting while they are ahead, which is super super hard to get right, and from the looks on their faces in this film they appear to have no idea whether they really are getting it right.

It's a wonderful film everybody. I hope you've all seen it. If you haven't, I hope you do.
Would you like another reason to see it? How about lovely Levon Helm singing The night they drove old dixie down?

There's a good reason for you.

Friday Favourites - Babs (kind of)

You know my favourite thing about Babs (other than The Way we Were, which really is pretty great)? It’s how much K loves her.

When we were kids K had Foxtel and the number of times I would go over there and find her watching The Prince of Tides or The Mirror has Two Faces! When we were younger K really had this thing where she loved giving blow by blow accounts of movies. This one time we watched the movie Primal Fear on Foxtel and because it was on Foxtel K had already seen it a bunch of times. Man, you should have seen how happy she was at the end when the big reveal came that Norton was guilty and she had sat through the whole movie and not told me. It really was impressive.

Anyways, because of this I could give you pretty accurate accounts of The Prince of Tides and The Mirror has Two Faces even though I have, thankfully, never seen them. Thanks Mate.

Friday Favourites: Barbra Streisand

One of the things I inherited from my mother is green eyes, which are set quite wide apart on my head. Not like a hammerhead or anything, just somewhat wide compared with other people. People sometimes say that I look like her, which is a massive compliment because when she was my age, she was a total fox.

Am I right?

Anyway, another thing I inherited from her is complete and total love for Barbra Streisand. When I was little, it seemed sensible to enjoy the music of Barbra Streisand, because Mum would play it all the time and there was nothing any of us could do about it. And like going to Church, we just did it without questioning whether it was a good thing to do.  Now I am grown and I don't have to like Barbra any more. But again and again I find myself hearing one of her songs and totally loving the shit out of it. I can't help myself. In my mind, she is kind of like the benchmark for lady singers. I hear all these singers they have these days. Adele. Amy Winehouse. The other ones. I hear that they sing well but they don't make me feel like Barbra Streisand makes me feel. She's the best guys, what can I say?

She's great in the movies too.
Have you guys seen Funny Girl? Do, it's awesome!
Yentyl? Also great. And young Mandy Patinkin is a total peach.
The Way We Were? Forget about it, that movie is the best.

There are so many YouTubes I could insert here to illustrate how great Barbra Streisand is. But i 'm going to go with this one, because I love what she is wearing. I know you're all super busy and at work and stuff, but please watch it all the way to the but where she is on the ferry at the end.

I love you Barbra Streisand, and I always will. 

Pride and Prejudice: You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you

Mate, you've said it all.
That book is a dead set Friday Favourite. My copy aint as pretty as yours, but it is definitely full of the same awesomeness, obviously because it is the same book, i.e. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen.

Like everyone who has ever read it, at first I hated Mr Darcy's guts until I realised that he was actually the best guy ever and Mr Wickham is the true knob jockey. Now I love Darcy very much, especially when he is also Colin Firth.

Apparently Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle (the lady who played Lizzie in the 1995 BBC version) were doing it in real life when they were making that series. Hot.

Three cheers for Pride and Prejudice!

Friday Favourites - Pride and Prejudice

The other day I was perusing a book shelf of my folks and found this adorable version of Pride and Prejudice.


I have read this book a bunch of times and in fact even read this very copy of it before. But I saw it on the shelf and thought, isn’t that a lovely edition, I want to read it. Then I thought, come on, you’ve read that book a bunch of times. But a few days later I couldn’t resist and started reading it. I mean, look at it ! About the size of my hand, cloth bound AND an awesome book!

You guys, it is totally a Friday Favourite! I love this book so much. It is so rich. And full of tension and excitement. Even though I knew exactly what was going to happen I still was so swept up in it and felt the bloom of love and all the attendant disappointments. Seriously, I couldn’t stop smiling when Elizabeth and Darcy got together. But it’s not just that, there is so much depth to the world created in it. I really dug on imagining Bingley and Darcy sitting around talking about how in love with the Bennet girls they were. There is so much in it that it creates this really full world that you can think about and imagine.

Of course I can not read it without thinking of this Darcy.


What an excellent Darcy. I love that guy!

I guess what I am trying to say is that I love the shit out of this book. And I am really happy I read it again.

Although it is not as wonderful of the book, just in case people feel like a little Friday distraction, perhaps you would like to watch a clip from the BBC series. This one shows Darcy to advantage. (A gentleman and his dogs).