The Squeee

Wishing everyone a Merry Yule/Christmas/Hanukkah and a Happy New Year - or, as we say in Swedish, God Jul och Gott Nytt År! Hope you have a great holiday, regardless of denomination. :) In Sweden, we had our Christmas celebrations yesterday, but it's still a time to see the family and enjoy the season. Hopefully the snow sticks around until tomorrow!

Hello. If you have ever considered submitting a guest review or any other kind of post, to my humble haunt here, now is a great time to get your hands dirty! I'm going to be offline for a few weeks, but I'd still like there to be some posts while I'm gone, if possible. I'm working on writing reviews myself, and so far I've managed to cover six out of nine posts (or twelve, preferably), but if you ever wanted to contribute, now would be a good time, as it gives me time to focus on a bunch of stuff I'll need to sort out in the week ahead. If you have anything you'd like to write, you can email the finished post(s) to blog(at)traxy.co.uk before Friday 21 September, and I'll let you know what date it'll be scheduled for, which will be early- to mid-October. If you've never contributed before, a short blurb about yourself would be great so that you're more than just Random Name. See Guest Posts for examples of previous guest posts. :) Thank...

Holy moly, it's been a year already! Or rather, it's been three. I can't believe I've managed to post regularly on a blog for three years now. Uh-MAY-zing! :) Thank you for reading this blog, and thank you for leaving a comment now and then, if you do. (Lurking is fine, not like I don't do that myself!) I started this blog to have an outlet for all my pent-up fangirliness, and I think I've succeeded in that. Now, I just like to have reviews of films I've seen so that I pay more attention to what's happening. Writing them down also means I remember whether or not I've seen or read something, and maybe, just maybe, it will be useful to anyone out there who loves to watch films just to be entertained and is wondering whether to watch the latest Twilight flick or Tropic Thunder . Or a Jane Eyre adaptation. Things to look forward to for the rest of 2012: The first part of The Hobbit - which is now a trilogy . Not sure I like that or not yet, consi...

No more worries for a month or three. Fun and laughter on a summer holiday, to make our dreams come truuuuuuue ... Or, as I am finally finished with 5 Weeks - 5 Themes , and with summer (hopefully) pounding at the gates, I've decided to change my posting frequency. Or I say that, but what I actually mean is that I'm planning on halving (roughly) the amount of reviews posted. Starting tomorrow, instead of posting one review every day, Monday through Friday, I will instead limit myself to Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, for the duration of June, July and August. I might go on with that indefinitely, I don't know yet.

Well, what a week! I haven't had much time to look at other posts, let alone respond to comments here, but that means that FanstRAvaganza 3 is far from over. While the actual event is over now, the posts are still there to read and to comment on, and that goes for all the participants, not just myself. Thank you all for stopping by and reading what I've had to say. I've tried to mix business-as-usual with FanstRAvaganza, which means a lot more work, but it's worth it. Big, humongous thanks to the organising crew behind this year's event, and amongst those, I'd like to give honourable mentions to Servetus , who has done the nigh impossible here and managed to herd cats organise bloggers, and to CDoart, for keeping track of all the posts . Thanks also to all fellow participants, old and new. You're all awesome, and it's going to be lots of fun catching up with everything in the weeks, and probably months, to come.

... Also known as "stuff I do when I really should be doing a lot of other stuff". *cough* To start off with, let's look at when books were released and the ratings I gave them. That shows that even though we're talking three different centuries, they're fairly consistent in average quality/enjoyability: The 21st Century (2000s): 3.78 (based on 45 items) The 19th Century (1800s): 3.59 (based on 8 items) The 20th Century (1900s): 3.21 (based on 20 items) Note that unrated and/or "date unknown" have not been included here, for obvious reasons. As most of the written items are from the 2000s, I've whittled it down to a per year thing: 2000: 3.8 (1 item) 2001: 5 (1) 2002: 4 (4) 2003: 4 (1) 2004: 4.75 (4) 2005: 3.35 (2) 2006: 3 (2) 2007: 3.6 (3) 2008: 3 (4) 2009: 4 (4) 2010: 3.62 (10) 2011: 3.82 (9) There's a similar story for films as well. The 21st Century scores 3.45 on average, with the 20th Century coming in at the lower 3...

Hoping you have a fabulous day, wherever you are! :) And clickie here to hop over to Y I Mum and ogle a couple of very saucy santas ... :D

All of next week, or "starting tomorrow", I should say, there will be giveaways galore here. Well, it's coming up to Christmas, and I thought it would be fun to spread some Christmas cheer. :) I've even bought myself a new mug - because when I saw it, I thought it was a good size - been wanting something a bit bigger! - and the colour and pattern on it is a pretty good match for this blog! Perfect! £2.50 from Asda as a separate mug. They also have entire sets of plates and stuff! :D It will be a double giveaway every day, or at least most days. A book, and a little something to go with it. Err, except they are done as separate giveaways, but if you're lucky you might get one of each. ;) Nothing will be received before Christmas, or indeed shipped, as winners will not be drawn until Christmas Day. What's on the menu, well ... come back tomorrow and you'll find out! :) Along with what should be a review of the new Sherlock Holmes film, of which...

It's called Disqus. You can comment using Twitter, Facebook, Google and all sorts. Like a pimped version of the old system. And it's easier to reply and there's a "Like" button and everything, including on the comments themselves. Enjoy! :) Ohh, and also, there's now a Review Policy . Have seen plenty of blogs with one of them, and figured I should have one too, realistically, dabbling in reviewing as I am and all. Just didn't quite know how to word it. Waking up at 4am and not being able to fall back asleep for a couple of hours or so made me think about a lot of things, so when I got up, I know how to write it. :) Oh, and if you like to know what's coming beforehand, I tend to post about upcoming reviews on Facebook, or even just quick notes as to what's recently been seen (and will therefore be popping up here as reviews in the future). "Like" below to tune in!

I'm looking for nominations in these categories: 1. Tall, Dark and Handsome and 2. OMG that VOICE!! ♥ The nominated peeps should preferably be actors, but I'll accept musicians as well. It's for a list. Like Amazing Gaze: Top 5 Brilliantly Breathtaking Blue Eyes . Darling Richard Armitage is a given on both of them, of course. ;)

So, I've been thinking about giving the blog a facelift for a while now, and only over the weekend, I realised which colour I fancied switching to. And then things kind of came together a bit. This is the result. If you're using a feed reader (such as, but not limited to, Google Reader , which is a tremendously good idea for keeping up to speed with all the blogs you follow, just a tip), you'll have to actually - gasp - click through to the post to see. But anyway. Whatcha reckon? Yay or a nay? :)

Today is the second anniversary of the launch of The Squeee ! A lot of things have happened during these past two years. To begin with, the template used to be green ... There was the Fanstravaganza and Brontë Challenge in 2010 and then there was Fanstravaganza 2 in 2011. This year, I've also got a shiny own domain name for the blog (www.thesqueee.co.uk as opposed to just thesqueee.blogspot.com), and settled for an actual (fairly) regular posting pattern. Thanks to everyone who reads my crazy ramblings, thanks to those who comment on posts made, and thanks to those who follow the blog in one way or another. I can't believe how many people are actually listed as followers, and every time I see the number, I'm amazed and humbled. Thank you so much! Here's one of the reasons for starting up this blog ...

You can ignore it. Oh, and while I'm at it: Steps are re-forming , apparently. Was it the last thing on your mind as well? ;) By the way, if you're signed up to getting email notifications of new posts to this blog ... could you let me know in a comment whether or not you've been receiving any email updates recently? Thanks! Just trying to make sure things are working like they should.

Soon, my preciousssss! [Source: Fabolaktuko's blog ] Have I been too quiet about Richard Armitage these past couple of months or so? I think I have. Of the things that drive traffic to this blog, Richard Armitage is one of the biggest, and here I am, writing virtually nothing about him. It's just not right, is it? There's a reason for it, though. Actually, there are a few, probably, such as the boring "there are only so many hours in the day and I have to prioritise writing reviews as this is kind of meant to be a review blog" and it was probably a couple of months ago or so that I decided I was going to try writing a review a day, Monday to Friday, which meant less flexibility with other posts. Sort of. (I've told myself I'm at liberty to write whatever I like outside of one review a day, so it's not as if I suddenly have to stop writing posts that aren't reviews.) No, I've found the biggest reason for not posting about Richard Armitag...

URL MOVE SUCCESSFUL STOP BLOGROLL BUGGERED STOP Fortunately, I had backed up the non-RA blogroll by putting the links under the "Links" page . Sadly, I had not yet got around to do this with the Richard Armitage blogs, so that whole list is gone. Can rebuild it easily enough, as most of us link to one another anyway, but it'll take some time. To prevent any future problems of this matter, and also because the list was getting insanely long, the resurrection will be moved to the page now entitled "Blogroll & Links" page , which I've seen other people do. :) Also, check back tomorrow for the first ever GIVEAWAY, oooh. :)

Entertainment Weekly have released three pictures from The Hobbit . The one I’m most excited about is this one, because it has dwarves on it: The dark-bearded fellow in the middle of the picture is bound to be Thorin (Richard Armitage). :D Also: Dame Edna has been cast in the film. Or, rather, her actor Barry Humphries has. One of the blokes from Jackass has died in a car crash, says BBC News . Ryan Dunn, for reference. I have no idea who he is, I’ve just heard of the show … and it doesn’t make me inclined to watch it. David Suchet has got a CBE and the Beeb are going to dramatise the big rows around Monty Python’s Life of Brian . Should be interesting. I’m intrigued to learn that Andrew Lloyd Webber’s latest musical, Love Never Dies (the one that isn’t a Phantom of the Opera sequel, except it is), is due to close in August . The part that intrigues me most was this:

The good news is that Blogger has finally come back. Hooray! On Wednesday, there was supposed to be a one-hour downtime due to some maintenance work, but something went awry and the system was really buggy. I could post things as normal yesterday, and the only thing I struggled with was trying to get the system to save the edits I had made to the New Moon review. And for some reason, it wouldn't save it, it just eventually said "you're about to leave this page, are you sure you want to do that?" which then lead to "page not responding". In the evening, when the Squeeze was clicking on a link on Facebook to see a blog post, it wasn't there. And on closer inspection this morning, as it turns out, Blogger had switched off the Blogger Dashboard access and reverted to a backup done before their maintenance work, which meant every post and every comment made until that time were temporarily gone. At the moment, the posts I was missing have returned, and the...

Tonight, in an hour, the UK will pass from 2010 to 2011. Almost half the world is already there, in fact! I hope 2010 has treated you well, and even if it hasn't, I hope 2011 will be (even) better. :) Here's a quick re-cap of the year of The Squeee . The Squeee in 2010 - A year of unabashed fangirling January opened with the All About the Brontës Challenge , where I set to work straight away, listening to some old radio plays of Jane Eyre , watched the 1996 film adaptation of the same and finished reading Wuthering Heights for the very first time. I also wrote about my visit to Haddon Hall the year before, and had ideas on how you might be able to make sports interesting , because let's face it, it's not exactly all that interesting. I also discovered I was Marianne Dashwood , even though I don't really play the piano. February announced the first International Magic Day , the blog got itself a makeover, and we were being spoiled rotten by Mr. Armitage n...

This morning was a special event: the first full lunar eclipse on the Winter Solstice for about 400 years. In Nottingham, there was a solid cloud cover, so not much to see, unfortunately. Also, I woke up with my right foot hurting like the blazes, so I couldn't try to see if I could spot it anyway. This is what a lunar eclipse looks like, if you haven't seen one before: First time I heard of one was maybe ten years ago or so, when I decided to set the clock in the middle of the night to watch it. I thought it would be a quick thing, like a solar eclipse (never seen one - there was a partial one in Sweden once, but again, cloud cover ... with rain), but it took such a long time that I went back to bed. When I got up around 6 or 7, the moon was still red! It goes on for hours ! If you have the time and patience to wait all through it, or even just a few minutes, it's an amazing astronomical display. :) I thought that I wouldn't join in with the Christmas wishes this ...

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