Happy Thursday! The fish are doing fine, thank you very much. I got them a new filter/pump, and that sloshes them around while they stare at Edward and Jacob that I taped to the back of the tank. Even Bowie had the Dempsey. It's a tradition.
Also, I forgot that sometimes the hottest part of the year is falltime, and this week reminded me of that. Because, haha, I decided that it was fall now, since it clearly wasn't summer anymore. But even when the sun isn't scalding my skin off at 10 in the morning (haha, you know I mean 11:30), there's a sort of...fallness to the air, which makes me want to create some kind of spicy pumpkin treat.
Last Friday was unique in that it was memorable. Me and Carolyn caught the 11:10 AM showing of DISTRICT 9. It was more like the 11:30 showing, because there were just about a hundred trailers. I don't know if you've heard of DISTRICT 9? I never really caught any press for it other than my insider emails, so I was surprised to see it top the box office its first weekend.
So if you haven't heard anything about it, it's a documentarish account of these aliens who landed over Johannesburg and got put into a slum there. More or less. It's very poignant and harsh, and very much more gory than I expected (Mom, this one's not for you). I liked it more intellectually than viscerally, simultaneously entertained and repulsed. A truly interesting ride. I wouldn't see it again, but I'm glad I saw it? That sort of reaction.
I wouldn't see THE FOX AND THE CHILD again, but I'm mostly glad I saw it. Very pretty cinematography, kind of a MILO & OTIS story-excuse to film animals doing animal things. Better for a younger audience with a longer than average attention span.
I also rented Bioshock for the PS3, since now we're playing a game trailer sampler loop at the store, featuring such things as Bioshock 2, Beatles Rock Band, and the new Kingdom Hearts DS game (want). Bioshock is up my alley in terms of story and setting (gotta love that retro-futurism/alternate history art deco madness), and not up my alley in terms of it being a shooting game. I just can't aim and reload when I need to. Or, I can, but with undue strain to my processing capabilities. Or, I don't like to. I wikipedia'd the storyline, so now I don't have to finish it.
But there's something great about exploring the ruins of an under water utopia, a wary ear listening for sounds of crazed mutants around every corner, and catching instead the scratchy tone of "Beyond the Sea" playing softly from some unseen radio.
Tuesday I rented season one of DEXTER, and Wednesday I watched it. A group had screened the pilot for us in that one class, Christianity and ethics...I cannot remember the name of that class. The one I wrote my thesis for. Senior Sem! (ty, Sam) At the time, I remember being put-off, not by the content, but by the film making. It felt disjointed and unclear...but as I heard from others and now have seen for myself, the first episode is not all that indicative of the show proper.
Liked it better than WEEDS, that's for sure. I was unprepared for how clever this show is, from the narration to the title-plot interactions to the dialogue and of course the mystery. Also the acting! Sharp characters presented by trained professionals. There were one or two episodes, however, where the B-plot seemed superfluous and aimless, but for the most part I really get the show. Strong arc development here; everything (well, almost) wraps up neatly. Next week: season two.
While I was cooking today, I slapped in ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT season three disc one because for some reason I only ever purchased season three. Funny, funny show. Not for everyone, sure, or else it wouldn't have been canceled. Michael Cera at his best, hands down. And everyone else in their own way, some of the best character acting out there. Watching a whole half-season in one go really brings out running gags, especially the repeated lines, which just makes it that much better. Wish I had the first two seasons.
And tonight my mom and me watched MISS PETTIGREW LIVES FOR A DAY. I'd seen ten minutes or so with Megan one time, but now I severely question her reasons for not demanding I sit down and watch it completely. What a charming little film! Talk about art deco--my little pre-War heart was over indulged by its setting and theme. And by beautiful Lee Pace, who didn't quite master his English accent (not nearly as smooth as Frances McDormand, for sure) but toughed it out and was also beautiful. Lil' Amy Adams with her "quirky yet lovable out-of-this-world" character card firmly tucked under her belt. Simple, straightforward, tidy, poignant, and out-and-out charming. Very much worth a rent.
Made this little pasta salad today, good for hot weather. Substituted tuna for the salmon fillet in the freezer, and the roasted peppers for a fresh one, scallions for green onions, and no one really likes capers, anyhow. Used the whole box of pasta, which spread the sauce pretty thin, but oh well. I think it's the first time I've used yogurt or a blender in making dinner, so that's sorta exciting. If you don't have to cook the fish like I did, it's also a very quick and painless little affair.
OH, I almost forgot about the crazy space day we had. There was this fundraiser/craziness in Santa Paula, themed "out of this world" and coordinated to some extent by a family friend. So I totally cosplayed in my BSG digs, as unfinished as it is. But there were true to life adults dressed up in crazy stuff, and some cosplaying in their own right. An ensign/lieutenant couple in the command track (Star Trek), a Leia and Han, a guy with a Bumblebee mask. There was also a guy with a really specific costume, clearly from something, but he disappeared before we could ask him who he was. I decided it was Stargate: Atlantis.
They had old planes strafe us and movie props and stuff lying around, and art deco travel posters depicting space liners en route to Jupiter etc. It was pretty cool. My favorite parts were the posters and the fact that that was something that sometimes sane adults did. Also the "free" food samplings for dinner. It was totally fun and totally dorky.
Arright, that's about all I can report on for this week. I wish you luck, those of you who are back in school or are soon to be. HAHA SCHOOL! I'm so over that.
-Steph
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Thursday, August 20, 2009
The August Traitor
Happy Thursday! So August happened and scared summer away. It's very much like June now, all dark and cold until afternoon when it's hot for a few hours. I miss summer :<
Uwah I'm so tired. Due to other people dropping the ball, I ended up working...sixteen hours over the weekend. That's more than I scheduled in this entire week. Time to buy a DS next paycheck!
Okay, so I know the weekend was many days ago but I'm still tired. Staying up too late. Freakin' Facebook and its farming/gaming/questing apps. I could go to sleep right now if I weren't in a chair (ordinarily I could, chair or no chair, but this one is wheeled and I might die).
Sometime this week I bought fish. Pets type fish. Two gold fish named "Jacob" and Anderson. I took their picture but there wasn't enough light so I'll have to wait til daytime to get a non-grainy picture for you. Anderson is white with a red dot on his head, and "Jacob" is goldfish with a black stripe on top. They're pretty dumb, but I get stuck watching them do nothing for minutes and minutes. When I get a filter that works, I'm gonna get some neon tetras. But those are two, three dollars apiece whereas my current fish were 28 cents total with tax.
The fair ended, so I went and picked up my stuff and my ribbons. The agriculture pick-up time was right during work, so I'll never see my funny looking lemon again. They mailed me my $5.
Yesterday work was at night, so I spent the day re-watching BSG season one and cutting out construction paper. Remember Showtime? You might not. He's the dog I drew, the only one in the history of the circus to be both a dog and a magician? I printed him out on several colors, cut out just those shapes that should be that color, and glued them down on a left over piece of board from art class. Negative spaces! Not sure what possessed me to do that, but he turned out all right.
It was that board I was looking for when I found that Harry Potter book, btw. Continuity yay.
Tuesday I drove with Carolyn and Steven to drop him off at the airport. Then we skulked around Burbank for a while, which was sorta great. There's a wonderful wonderful bakery near the airport, Porto's, and it has very good bread. Nearby there are no less than two comic/movies/nerd collectible shops, and a creepy petstore. I'll take you there some time.
Other than that it's been hanging out, makin brownies, playin video games. Driving recklessly, planting plants, sleeping.
Now, I believe, it's time to try writing. I haven't been, but I need to. I'll keep you updated on that.
Uwah I'm so tired. Due to other people dropping the ball, I ended up working...sixteen hours over the weekend. That's more than I scheduled in this entire week. Time to buy a DS next paycheck!
Okay, so I know the weekend was many days ago but I'm still tired. Staying up too late. Freakin' Facebook and its farming/gaming/questing apps. I could go to sleep right now if I weren't in a chair (ordinarily I could, chair or no chair, but this one is wheeled and I might die).
Sometime this week I bought fish. Pets type fish. Two gold fish named "Jacob" and Anderson. I took their picture but there wasn't enough light so I'll have to wait til daytime to get a non-grainy picture for you. Anderson is white with a red dot on his head, and "Jacob" is goldfish with a black stripe on top. They're pretty dumb, but I get stuck watching them do nothing for minutes and minutes. When I get a filter that works, I'm gonna get some neon tetras. But those are two, three dollars apiece whereas my current fish were 28 cents total with tax.
The fair ended, so I went and picked up my stuff and my ribbons. The agriculture pick-up time was right during work, so I'll never see my funny looking lemon again. They mailed me my $5.
Yesterday work was at night, so I spent the day re-watching BSG season one and cutting out construction paper. Remember Showtime? You might not. He's the dog I drew, the only one in the history of the circus to be both a dog and a magician? I printed him out on several colors, cut out just those shapes that should be that color, and glued them down on a left over piece of board from art class. Negative spaces! Not sure what possessed me to do that, but he turned out all right.
It was that board I was looking for when I found that Harry Potter book, btw. Continuity yay.
Tuesday I drove with Carolyn and Steven to drop him off at the airport. Then we skulked around Burbank for a while, which was sorta great. There's a wonderful wonderful bakery near the airport, Porto's, and it has very good bread. Nearby there are no less than two comic/movies/nerd collectible shops, and a creepy petstore. I'll take you there some time.
Other than that it's been hanging out, makin brownies, playin video games. Driving recklessly, planting plants, sleeping.
Now, I believe, it's time to try writing. I haven't been, but I need to. I'll keep you updated on that.
Thursday, August 13, 2009
I found it!
Happy Thursday! While looking for something entirely unrelated, I managed to discover that my house has contained for some time the last Harry Potter book. "WHAT'S THIS?!" I laughed, "WHAT IS THIS." I started reading it at maybe seven or so Sunday night, paused halfway through for sleeping, and finished it at 4:30 Monday afternoon.
A deep breath.
Those are going to be a pair of amazing movies. I just now realize that perhaps my first thought should have been on the quality of the book itself, but when I know there's movies on the way, I can't think of my experience being complete just yet. Anyway, the sad things were super sad, and nothing at all happened the way I expected it to. I wonder what reading the first one now would be like.
Even sadder, however, was the Pixar film UP. Just saw it at the cheap theater with Carolyn on Friday....it had me close to tears no less than three times. Like, stare hard at the screen and pretend I'm not crying sort of sad. Maybe I was just over emotional that day, but man did it get to me. Try it yourselves.
Tuesday I -- wait for it -- started cleaning my room. ! I threw out three containers of trash and spelling tests from the third grade. Came across a fill-out sheet of beginnings of sentences to be completed by the student: "Today I feel ---," "When I finish high school ---."
It finishes with "I often worry about --- fire." which made me LOL so much.
Another great thing I found was a story by my sister, which I will reprint here without her consent. It's called "The Princess."
One opon a Time Thar was a Princess. the princess was Loving. She had a Favivrit tree.
one day she want to the Forist. She saw a Farrey.
She was prety. she had a wonde.
the princess said haloww. thay toct
the Farey said you can have 1 wish
I wish I had a Princ
the Farrey said I will sow you a pitchr' ov him (poof!) I will give you him in a week
I love that story so much.
Yesterday was work and then I kidnapped Jacqi on the way home because she was in the bad side of town (because it was my side) and then took her to Carolyn's house, as all good kidnappers do. What did we do? Geometry wars, Rock Band. The reg.
Today we went to the fair! I do believe we saw and did everything! We watched tap artists and turkey races and an animal show and crystal-glass-playing and I pet a donkey and a baby goat!! We laughed at all the kids' drawings (I hope they make it to facebook) and ignored all the people trying to sell us stuff.
I just checked last week's blog and it looks like that was before I went the first time with my folks. Maybe that was Friday, too. My lemon won first, and I got a second-placed story and pillow, and a third pillow, too. So that makes about $10 won. Pays for getting in to see 'em! That's the way to do it.
Me and my dad started putting together this tv signal transmitter today. It's like for broadcasting a VCR signal to any tv in your house. It would work great if any of our tvs were capable of picking up broadcast signals. XD Oh well. We soldered on the big pieces for now, and I'm not so good at that. Next time we really gotta open a window, too, 'cause I'm feeling a little toxified after that.
You can sleep off lead poisoning, right?
-Steph
A deep breath.
Those are going to be a pair of amazing movies. I just now realize that perhaps my first thought should have been on the quality of the book itself, but when I know there's movies on the way, I can't think of my experience being complete just yet. Anyway, the sad things were super sad, and nothing at all happened the way I expected it to. I wonder what reading the first one now would be like.
Even sadder, however, was the Pixar film UP. Just saw it at the cheap theater with Carolyn on Friday....it had me close to tears no less than three times. Like, stare hard at the screen and pretend I'm not crying sort of sad. Maybe I was just over emotional that day, but man did it get to me. Try it yourselves.
Tuesday I -- wait for it -- started cleaning my room. ! I threw out three containers of trash and spelling tests from the third grade. Came across a fill-out sheet of beginnings of sentences to be completed by the student: "Today I feel ---," "When I finish high school ---."
It finishes with "I often worry about --- fire." which made me LOL so much.
Another great thing I found was a story by my sister, which I will reprint here without her consent. It's called "The Princess."
One opon a Time Thar was a Princess. the princess was Loving. She had a Favivrit tree.
one day she want to the Forist. She saw a Farrey.
She was prety. she had a wonde.
the princess said halo
the Farey said you can have 1 wish
I wish I had a Princ
the Farrey said I will sow you a pitchr' ov him (poof!) I will give you him in a week
I love that story so much.
Yesterday was work and then I kidnapped Jacqi on the way home because she was in the bad side of town (because it was my side) and then took her to Carolyn's house, as all good kidnappers do. What did we do? Geometry wars, Rock Band. The reg.
Today we went to the fair! I do believe we saw and did everything! We watched tap artists and turkey races and an animal show and crystal-glass-playing and I pet a donkey and a baby goat!! We laughed at all the kids' drawings (I hope they make it to facebook) and ignored all the people trying to sell us stuff.
I just checked last week's blog and it looks like that was before I went the first time with my folks. Maybe that was Friday, too. My lemon won first, and I got a second-placed story and pillow, and a third pillow, too. So that makes about $10 won. Pays for getting in to see 'em! That's the way to do it.
Me and my dad started putting together this tv signal transmitter today. It's like for broadcasting a VCR signal to any tv in your house. It would work great if any of our tvs were capable of picking up broadcast signals. XD Oh well. We soldered on the big pieces for now, and I'm not so good at that. Next time we really gotta open a window, too, 'cause I'm feeling a little toxified after that.
You can sleep off lead poisoning, right?
-Steph
Thursday, August 06, 2009
A Thursy sort of Day
Happy Thursday! Did you know that Wolfmother and Billy Idol were in my top five most listened artists this week? Don't worry, Linkin Park was in the top ten! Spellcheck is not fond of "linkin."
I abandoned my studies this week as there were friends abound in my vicinity. Carolyn's back from her journeys and Jacqi brought Greg along to play. I would say the thing I did most this week was watch movies I'd already seen, followed closely by driving to the wrong place.
Saturday was home to a grand adventure indeed, as I spirited Carolyn away to the elusive Hunting STATE beach to frolic with Sam and Jake and various others. First we went to Bolsa Chica State Beach! Took over two hours, maybe three, to get there, a half hour line to get into the parking lot, and a half hour to realize it was the wrong place.
Back to the car!
More driv driving gets us to Huntington Beach. "Are you before the pier or after it?" I ask Sam. Sam says "what pier?" "Did you pass Twin Dolphins street?" "LOL whut. Look for Brookhurst."
More driv dravving and finally we see signs for the State beach, but it's another twenty minutes in the right turn lane before we're even sure if the street sign up ahead says Brookhurst. Luckily, it does. (we ignored the sign that said "Brookhurst <-- 4 miles")
But we made it, sat around for a bit and watched some people bury their super sad baby in the sand. Then we went to go to the Crab Cooker (which I took a picture of, when we went to Newport) but the line was too long, so we decided to find somewhere else.
We got separated, the boys pulled in at a donut place while I missed the turn and circled the block -- I spotted a "Santa Monica Seafood" in the detour, which we went to after the donut place turned out to be wonderfully terrifying -- Carolyn spotted a sushi place the other direction at the turn to the seafood place, which we went to after finding the seafood place to be a fish market.
So we had sushi after a delightfully illegal left turn. A crazy day, but worth it, I think. I'm trying to get Sam and Jake to come over for the fair. And Beth. And Megan. The fair's on right now! No time to waste!
Speaking of the fair, I entered two pillows, two stories, and a funny shaped lemon. Out of this lot, I'm sure I'm going to win the class for lemon, and the five dollars that comes with it. Gotta go and find out!
Jacqi and Greg and Carolyn and I went and saw HARRY POTTER again. I still liked it, and I feel pretty much the same about it as I did before. "Lyrical" is still the term I'm applying to its cinematography, but this time I realize it's in large part due to the haunting score that very tastefully augments the emotional moments. Beautiful.
We rented a bunch of movies, watched 28 DAYS LATER and RESIDENT EVIL. Hadn't seen the first, but it was a little arty for me. Res Evil was hard to hear. Today Greg and Jacqi were AWOL so we just watched TWILIGHT, which Carolyn hadn't seen. Second time through really highlights the nonsense of it all. I had originally boggled at how quickly these people arrived in Arizona from Washington state, but this time I caught the fact that they jumped from one place to the other in no more than forty-five minutes. And I'm pretty sure the first guy did it in five. If you have a better explanation than "they're vampires," I'll gladly hear it.
I know intellectually that we've hung out for four chronological days, but I've only recounted events from two or three different ones. Oh, right. Movie day was yesterday, day before was Harry Potter and also Happy Hour. The peach margarita was the best, the melon the worst.
Well, Happy Thursday to you all, I'm off to write about vampires. That's where the money's at.
-Stephanie
I abandoned my studies this week as there were friends abound in my vicinity. Carolyn's back from her journeys and Jacqi brought Greg along to play. I would say the thing I did most this week was watch movies I'd already seen, followed closely by driving to the wrong place.
Saturday was home to a grand adventure indeed, as I spirited Carolyn away to the elusive Hunting STATE beach to frolic with Sam and Jake and various others. First we went to Bolsa Chica State Beach! Took over two hours, maybe three, to get there, a half hour line to get into the parking lot, and a half hour to realize it was the wrong place.
Back to the car!
More driv driving gets us to Huntington Beach. "Are you before the pier or after it?" I ask Sam. Sam says "what pier?" "Did you pass Twin Dolphins street?" "LOL whut. Look for Brookhurst."
More driv dravving and finally we see signs for the State beach, but it's another twenty minutes in the right turn lane before we're even sure if the street sign up ahead says Brookhurst. Luckily, it does. (we ignored the sign that said "Brookhurst <-- 4 miles")
But we made it, sat around for a bit and watched some people bury their super sad baby in the sand. Then we went to go to the Crab Cooker (which I took a picture of, when we went to Newport) but the line was too long, so we decided to find somewhere else.
We got separated, the boys pulled in at a donut place while I missed the turn and circled the block -- I spotted a "Santa Monica Seafood" in the detour, which we went to after the donut place turned out to be wonderfully terrifying -- Carolyn spotted a sushi place the other direction at the turn to the seafood place, which we went to after finding the seafood place to be a fish market.
So we had sushi after a delightfully illegal left turn. A crazy day, but worth it, I think. I'm trying to get Sam and Jake to come over for the fair. And Beth. And Megan. The fair's on right now! No time to waste!
Speaking of the fair, I entered two pillows, two stories, and a funny shaped lemon. Out of this lot, I'm sure I'm going to win the class for lemon, and the five dollars that comes with it. Gotta go and find out!
Jacqi and Greg and Carolyn and I went and saw HARRY POTTER again. I still liked it, and I feel pretty much the same about it as I did before. "Lyrical" is still the term I'm applying to its cinematography, but this time I realize it's in large part due to the haunting score that very tastefully augments the emotional moments. Beautiful.
We rented a bunch of movies, watched 28 DAYS LATER and RESIDENT EVIL. Hadn't seen the first, but it was a little arty for me. Res Evil was hard to hear. Today Greg and Jacqi were AWOL so we just watched TWILIGHT, which Carolyn hadn't seen. Second time through really highlights the nonsense of it all. I had originally boggled at how quickly these people arrived in Arizona from Washington state, but this time I caught the fact that they jumped from one place to the other in no more than forty-five minutes. And I'm pretty sure the first guy did it in five. If you have a better explanation than "they're vampires," I'll gladly hear it.
I know intellectually that we've hung out for four chronological days, but I've only recounted events from two or three different ones. Oh, right. Movie day was yesterday, day before was Harry Potter and also Happy Hour. The peach margarita was the best, the melon the worst.
Well, Happy Thursday to you all, I'm off to write about vampires. That's where the money's at.
-Stephanie
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Lunam portare possum.
Happy Thursday! This week has been strange and exciting due to the fact that, thanks to external influences beyond my control, I have begun schooling myself in different subjects and referring to parts of my day as "class."
I have Latin in the morning. I am on chapter six, and have begun to translate full sentences. The strangest one so far has been "Servum e terra ad lunam equitare iubent" = "They order the slave to ride from the earth to the moon." But really, Latin seems to be a bit less complicated to learn than some of the others I've tried, and since there's no other alphabet to memorize, I like to think I've been making progress. Making flashcards tomorrow. Learn it with me!
After Latin I either go to work or have art class. Art class has been fuze beads, mostly, but I'm planning on returning to sewing one of these days. But first I'm going to make a Mario block and maybe 8-bit Mario. I've already made a bunch of geeky stuff, which you can see on Facebook. Today I tried making some Star Trek emblems that sorta don't work, and Captain Hammer's shirt logo, although it's a little unaccurate. My fave is the Watchmen smiley.
The class I have not been putting as much effort into is electronics. My dad brought home an "electronics learning lab" from Radio Shack, which is a little console for setting up circuits and seeing what switches and relays and potentiometers do. My goal is to build a radio. I checked out a book on repairing old radios, but it's a little specialized in its language. But I'm learning! It's one of those subjects that I need to absorb in coats. Splash a basic explanation on me, wait for it to dry, and then do it again until I know what you're talking about. I can do it!
The last subject I have really really been neglecting, since I haven't even pulled those books out of my bag yet. Cartography! Something I love in theory, but don't actually know one way or the other. I don't know how the books are yet, so I'll let you know how that's going once I really get started.
Other than that, I've been Harry Pottering it up--that's right, I should go back to the beginning. It all started at Jacqi's garage sale, which I helped put up signs for and did many illegal U-turns in the middle of Day Rd. Then I visited her and helped take the money from strangers and got the craziest sunburn ever and then took home many of her unsold books, like Hiroshima and Learn to Read Latin, and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. (I also took a dart board and a train book and a Twilight Zone reader and a Gameboy color and a skirt I'm going to make into a pillow and give back)
So that's how I got Latin and Harry Potter. It is, actually, a very good book, which is what everybody says. They are not wrong. There was one sentence that even made me tear up! I would say that the movie takes a much more artistic approach, or shall I say lyrical, even, with they way they show us the things that actually happen offscreen to Harry's world. I guess I mean, in relation to Draco's storyline. Seeing the movie and reading the book are like two halves to a full whole, they complement each other nicely, and it feels like I'm getting to see more than one side of the world in which these people inhabit. In other words, now I'm going to have to see the movie again.
Yesterday I was reading the TV guide because I thought it was EW (they've really beefed up their information delivery!), and had several freaks out about casting decisions in upcoming seasons of things. For instance, now I'm going to have to watch SMALLVILLE for Callum Blue. But it also informed me that the DOLLHOUSE season one was out on the 28th, so I popped out to get it. While I fished around at the Barnes & Noble I accidentally also was coerced to buy the DR. HORRIBLE DVD that was staring me in the face, so I did.
Commentary! The Musical is almost better than the show itself. NO JOKE. And the DOLLHOUSE unaired episode was strange and depressing, and I dunno how to feel about it, just like how I feel about the show at large. I don't even know if I'd watch season one again, lol. Oh dear, the things I do for this man. It's been a couple of Jossy days.
The only other thing I would like to comment on is my Blockbuster song. In Glendora, we got KROQ pretty good. So I would listen to that most days, or if STAR was being too rappy. I ended up hearing this one song a lot, and particularly when I was going to work. I believe it must be by the Offspring, but I really don't know. Anyway, this year we get KROQ in V-town, so I still listen to it. Two days in a row I heard it on the way--and--when I had to go in one day before it ended, it was magically playing the end of it when I left and drove home. It was like it had paused for me and I couldn't believe it.
That, or they play that song way too much.
-Steph
I have Latin in the morning. I am on chapter six, and have begun to translate full sentences. The strangest one so far has been "Servum e terra ad lunam equitare iubent" = "They order the slave to ride from the earth to the moon." But really, Latin seems to be a bit less complicated to learn than some of the others I've tried, and since there's no other alphabet to memorize, I like to think I've been making progress. Making flashcards tomorrow. Learn it with me!
After Latin I either go to work or have art class. Art class has been fuze beads, mostly, but I'm planning on returning to sewing one of these days. But first I'm going to make a Mario block and maybe 8-bit Mario. I've already made a bunch of geeky stuff, which you can see on Facebook. Today I tried making some Star Trek emblems that sorta don't work, and Captain Hammer's shirt logo, although it's a little unaccurate. My fave is the Watchmen smiley.
The class I have not been putting as much effort into is electronics. My dad brought home an "electronics learning lab" from Radio Shack, which is a little console for setting up circuits and seeing what switches and relays and potentiometers do. My goal is to build a radio. I checked out a book on repairing old radios, but it's a little specialized in its language. But I'm learning! It's one of those subjects that I need to absorb in coats. Splash a basic explanation on me, wait for it to dry, and then do it again until I know what you're talking about. I can do it!
The last subject I have really really been neglecting, since I haven't even pulled those books out of my bag yet. Cartography! Something I love in theory, but don't actually know one way or the other. I don't know how the books are yet, so I'll let you know how that's going once I really get started.
Other than that, I've been Harry Pottering it up--that's right, I should go back to the beginning. It all started at Jacqi's garage sale, which I helped put up signs for and did many illegal U-turns in the middle of Day Rd. Then I visited her and helped take the money from strangers and got the craziest sunburn ever and then took home many of her unsold books, like Hiroshima and Learn to Read Latin, and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. (I also took a dart board and a train book and a Twilight Zone reader and a Gameboy color and a skirt I'm going to make into a pillow and give back)
So that's how I got Latin and Harry Potter. It is, actually, a very good book, which is what everybody says. They are not wrong. There was one sentence that even made me tear up! I would say that the movie takes a much more artistic approach, or shall I say lyrical, even, with they way they show us the things that actually happen offscreen to Harry's world. I guess I mean, in relation to Draco's storyline. Seeing the movie and reading the book are like two halves to a full whole, they complement each other nicely, and it feels like I'm getting to see more than one side of the world in which these people inhabit. In other words, now I'm going to have to see the movie again.
Yesterday I was reading the TV guide because I thought it was EW (they've really beefed up their information delivery!), and had several freaks out about casting decisions in upcoming seasons of things. For instance, now I'm going to have to watch SMALLVILLE for Callum Blue. But it also informed me that the DOLLHOUSE season one was out on the 28th, so I popped out to get it. While I fished around at the Barnes & Noble I accidentally also was coerced to buy the DR. HORRIBLE DVD that was staring me in the face, so I did.
Commentary! The Musical is almost better than the show itself. NO JOKE. And the DOLLHOUSE unaired episode was strange and depressing, and I dunno how to feel about it, just like how I feel about the show at large. I don't even know if I'd watch season one again, lol. Oh dear, the things I do for this man. It's been a couple of Jossy days.
The only other thing I would like to comment on is my Blockbuster song. In Glendora, we got KROQ pretty good. So I would listen to that most days, or if STAR was being too rappy. I ended up hearing this one song a lot, and particularly when I was going to work. I believe it must be by the Offspring, but I really don't know. Anyway, this year we get KROQ in V-town, so I still listen to it. Two days in a row I heard it on the way--and--when I had to go in one day before it ended, it was magically playing the end of it when I left and drove home. It was like it had paused for me and I couldn't believe it.
That, or they play that song way too much.
-Steph
Thursday, July 23, 2009
We Need a Mascot
Happy Thursday! I think that Thursday needs a mascot, a cute and friendly sort of a thing that's always ready to make you smile. Brown and red, of course, perhaps something cuddly that is already those colors? Send me your ideas!
I feel like at various times this week, I mentally threw down tons of detailed discourses on tons of subjects that I would write about today. Like on book-to-movie adaptations and why people get so worked up about it....and I think at 5 this morning I was reciting my dream to myself so I would remember and tell you all about it.
The thing about me, is that whenever I start thinking up some argument or my opinions on a subject, I'll really think it over, and once it's properly sorted out, I'll forget all about it. You know, it's sort of like writing stories that I do--as long as they're unfinished, they'll come back to me and I'llwork think on them a bit, but as soon as I stamp the date at the bottom of a document, I hardly ever think about that storyline after that.
DID YOU KNOW that the last thing I wrote/finished for my superhero series was over a year ago?? That means that all the things I've thought up for that series in the past year have never been written. I believe I've got a few pages on the second installment, but that's it. Kinda intense slacking on my part, seeing as I try to think about these storylines most every day.
I saw WATCHMEN this weekend, which is one of the reasons I was going to talk about film adaptations. Especially after seeing the Harry Potter, it became clear to me how some people get it right, and some people get it oh so wrong.
Some of that film was actually and literally taken straight from the pages, frame by frame emulated in moving sequence. Dialogue, too, whole scenes copied word-for-word. And then there were the deviations and abridgments one expects in an adaptation. I know they toted it as being super faithful to the graphic novel, but some times the undiluted passages came over extremely dull. And the stuff they changed in order to make it all fit (and to make the ending more palatable to a modern audience) was really rather contrived. (Also, the acting was horrendous.)
Alan Moore, the writer of Watchmen, has for years insisted that should a movie ever be made of his work, he would refuse to see it. You'll note his name is no where to be seen on that DVD. His reason being that when he set out to do what he did, he was aiming to reinvent the way comics did things. He was going to show the world what comics could do, narratively, visually. Things that only comics could do, a showcase not only for his art but for his art form. To make a movie, a different art form, from it would defeat much of its purpose.
And in the WATCHMEN's case, he was pretty much right. Normally, I would take a different stance about this, but that particular film was a poor adaptation, and chances are no one could have done better. Normally, my opinion is this:
Comparing a book to the film adaptation (specifically, criticizing the film for not matching up to the book point for point) is like comparing a sculpture inspired by a painting. Say someone paints a beautiful tree, and then someone decides to sculpt that same tree, only in the three dimensional medium of stone or what have you. The content is the same, the heart of it is the same, but clearly the methods of delivering the content to your eyes is utterly different. They're meant to be.
Saying something like "the Harry Potter movies are inferior to the books because they don't show every little detail" is like saying, "this sculpture is all wrong. Look, they even messed up the color of the sky! No, wait, they didn't even bother putting the sky in!" Well DUH you can't put a sky in a sculpture, just like you can't put fourteen pages of a character's thoughts into a 2 and a half hour movie.
What you have to do is see if the movie is, at it's very core, the same as the book. Does it impart all the meaning as the book? Does it make you feel the same? Then, as long as the movie is well made--by movie making standards--then that's a good adaptation, whether you like it or the book better. If you absolutely have to know what Harry was thinking at any given moment, you're welcome to read the book.
That's not a very good example of complaints the book fans have with the movies, but I can't actually think of any real ones at the moment. My point is, good books are defined by a set of standards, and good films have their own set. You can't judge the movie simply by how it fails to be a book.
Unless it's WATCHMEN, which, even as a movie, could have been improved greatly. I remember in ninth grade having to film a couple of scenes from Romeo and Juliet for English class--if you can imagine us standing around in silly costumes reading the foreign text in listless and unschooled voices.........that was WATCHMEN.
Well that's not really how I meant to spend this Thursday. Oh well. It was probably more interesting than how I spent the week, which was pretty uneventful as far as I can tell. Saw STAR TREK again at the cheap theater with Carolyn and Jacqi. I unashamedly wore my Ops shirt there, and I think the ticket lady was laughing at it, but it was very hard to tell whether or not she was actually laughing, and if so, what specifically she was laughing at.
-Steph
I feel like at various times this week, I mentally threw down tons of detailed discourses on tons of subjects that I would write about today. Like on book-to-movie adaptations and why people get so worked up about it....and I think at 5 this morning I was reciting my dream to myself so I would remember and tell you all about it.
The thing about me, is that whenever I start thinking up some argument or my opinions on a subject, I'll really think it over, and once it's properly sorted out, I'll forget all about it. You know, it's sort of like writing stories that I do--as long as they're unfinished, they'll come back to me and I'll
DID YOU KNOW that the last thing I wrote/finished for my superhero series was over a year ago?? That means that all the things I've thought up for that series in the past year have never been written. I believe I've got a few pages on the second installment, but that's it. Kinda intense slacking on my part, seeing as I try to think about these storylines most every day.
I saw WATCHMEN this weekend, which is one of the reasons I was going to talk about film adaptations. Especially after seeing the Harry Potter, it became clear to me how some people get it right, and some people get it oh so wrong.
Some of that film was actually and literally taken straight from the pages, frame by frame emulated in moving sequence. Dialogue, too, whole scenes copied word-for-word. And then there were the deviations and abridgments one expects in an adaptation. I know they toted it as being super faithful to the graphic novel, but some times the undiluted passages came over extremely dull. And the stuff they changed in order to make it all fit (and to make the ending more palatable to a modern audience) was really rather contrived. (Also, the acting was horrendous.)
Alan Moore, the writer of Watchmen, has for years insisted that should a movie ever be made of his work, he would refuse to see it. You'll note his name is no where to be seen on that DVD. His reason being that when he set out to do what he did, he was aiming to reinvent the way comics did things. He was going to show the world what comics could do, narratively, visually. Things that only comics could do, a showcase not only for his art but for his art form. To make a movie, a different art form, from it would defeat much of its purpose.
And in the WATCHMEN's case, he was pretty much right. Normally, I would take a different stance about this, but that particular film was a poor adaptation, and chances are no one could have done better. Normally, my opinion is this:
Comparing a book to the film adaptation (specifically, criticizing the film for not matching up to the book point for point) is like comparing a sculpture inspired by a painting. Say someone paints a beautiful tree, and then someone decides to sculpt that same tree, only in the three dimensional medium of stone or what have you. The content is the same, the heart of it is the same, but clearly the methods of delivering the content to your eyes is utterly different. They're meant to be.
Saying something like "the Harry Potter movies are inferior to the books because they don't show every little detail" is like saying, "this sculpture is all wrong. Look, they even messed up the color of the sky! No, wait, they didn't even bother putting the sky in!" Well DUH you can't put a sky in a sculpture, just like you can't put fourteen pages of a character's thoughts into a 2 and a half hour movie.
What you have to do is see if the movie is, at it's very core, the same as the book. Does it impart all the meaning as the book? Does it make you feel the same? Then, as long as the movie is well made--by movie making standards--then that's a good adaptation, whether you like it or the book better. If you absolutely have to know what Harry was thinking at any given moment, you're welcome to read the book.
That's not a very good example of complaints the book fans have with the movies, but I can't actually think of any real ones at the moment. My point is, good books are defined by a set of standards, and good films have their own set. You can't judge the movie simply by how it fails to be a book.
Unless it's WATCHMEN, which, even as a movie, could have been improved greatly. I remember in ninth grade having to film a couple of scenes from Romeo and Juliet for English class--if you can imagine us standing around in silly costumes reading the foreign text in listless and unschooled voices.........that was WATCHMEN.
Well that's not really how I meant to spend this Thursday. Oh well. It was probably more interesting than how I spent the week, which was pretty uneventful as far as I can tell. Saw STAR TREK again at the cheap theater with Carolyn and Jacqi. I unashamedly wore my Ops shirt there, and I think the ticket lady was laughing at it, but it was very hard to tell whether or not she was actually laughing, and if so, what specifically she was laughing at.
-Steph
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Thursday and the Half-Blood Prince
Happy Thursday! I had stopped reading them at Goblet of Fire, and only this week read Order of the Phoenix for the first time (after having seen it for the first time the day or so before that) so I was quite surprised at the meaning of the title! I will start reading it tomorrow.
This Thursday seems prematurely short, seeing as I woke up with enough time to dodder about before work, which was at 1. Left work straight for the movie, which, incidentally, is just across the parking lot. Home a little after 7, jogged while watching a bit of THE OFFICE and SMALLVILLE, and basically here I am.
I got my free Star Trek shirt today! I sent Kellogg's my nine tokens (ten, just to be safe), and finally I gots my free shirt. It's red, which was the color for Ops personnel from 2265 to the 2270s. I'd be in Ops because I would be the navigator on a starship, and my quarters would be covered in old maps from many different planets. For away missions, I would cartogaph new worlds! That would be my dream job if I had Starfleet training.
I'm pretty certain that the only things I've done this week are read Order of the Phoenix and play FFVIII.
OH. One thing I forgot to tell you last week, even in the undestroyed version of the note, was that at the AX I picked up a new Greatest Hits copy of FFVIII for twenty bucks. I thought that was a good deal until I checked out Amazon just now. VII and VIII are out of print now, so their prices skyrocketed, and I'd always said my biggest regret was not buying VIII for the PS2. When it was new, I bought it for the PC for $40, lol. And I never beat it because playing on the PC was ridiculous and I didn't know enough about gaming when I started to really have a chance.
(see, now, a new original copy of VII at the AX was going for $200, while at the booth I bought my VIII it was less than that; new from Amazon it starts at $165.)
FFVIII was my first video game, probably after Pokemon Blue. I'd grown up watching my brother play previous installments (I can remember when he got II, VI, and VII: I hid at the top of the stairs watching Cloud dangle from a ledge instead of going to sleep that Christmas), but neither my brother or my cousin knew anything about VIII when I bought it. It's shocking to see now how much I was missing ten years ago, I've learned so much about the game play this week that I just didn't know about. How I made it into the third disc at all is beyond me!
FFVIII is my VOYAGER. It may not be my fave, but it's my first, so it has a special place where I don't have to judge it, I can just think on it with fond nostalgia. Playing it all the way through to the end is going to be great.
Although, this makes it three different Final Fantasies that I'm currently playing and have not defeated. One day, my pretties. One day.
We had an inexplicable excursion to Taco Bell yesterday. They had strange "work here!" signs as we entered, which depicted a leaping girl dissolving at the extremities into swirling rainbows bursting with music paraphernalia and tacos. Inside, we were pelted for the duration of our stay with unremarkable classical music. My mom ordered a burrito supreme, and I, the grilled stuft. We were given two burrito supremes. $1.99 for one of those, 3-something for what I wanted. She ordered another grilled stuft and we received another burrito supreme, this time costing 2-something. Exchanged that one for what I had wanted all along, which only reinforced my idea that going to Taco Bell should be carefully reconsidered.
Oh my gosh, this blog is so geeky today. I cannot, for the life of me, think of one hip thing I did this week.
-Ensign Stephanie Anderson
This Thursday seems prematurely short, seeing as I woke up with enough time to dodder about before work, which was at 1. Left work straight for the movie, which, incidentally, is just across the parking lot. Home a little after 7, jogged while watching a bit of THE OFFICE and SMALLVILLE, and basically here I am.
I got my free Star Trek shirt today! I sent Kellogg's my nine tokens (ten, just to be safe), and finally I gots my free shirt. It's red, which was the color for Ops personnel from 2265 to the 2270s. I'd be in Ops because I would be the navigator on a starship, and my quarters would be covered in old maps from many different planets. For away missions, I would cartogaph new worlds! That would be my dream job if I had Starfleet training.
I'm pretty certain that the only things I've done this week are read Order of the Phoenix and play FFVIII.
OH. One thing I forgot to tell you last week, even in the undestroyed version of the note, was that at the AX I picked up a new Greatest Hits copy of FFVIII for twenty bucks. I thought that was a good deal until I checked out Amazon just now. VII and VIII are out of print now, so their prices skyrocketed, and I'd always said my biggest regret was not buying VIII for the PS2. When it was new, I bought it for the PC for $40, lol. And I never beat it because playing on the PC was ridiculous and I didn't know enough about gaming when I started to really have a chance.
(see, now, a new original copy of VII at the AX was going for $200, while at the booth I bought my VIII it was less than that; new from Amazon it starts at $165.)
FFVIII was my first video game, probably after Pokemon Blue. I'd grown up watching my brother play previous installments (I can remember when he got II, VI, and VII: I hid at the top of the stairs watching Cloud dangle from a ledge instead of going to sleep that Christmas), but neither my brother or my cousin knew anything about VIII when I bought it. It's shocking to see now how much I was missing ten years ago, I've learned so much about the game play this week that I just didn't know about. How I made it into the third disc at all is beyond me!
FFVIII is my VOYAGER. It may not be my fave, but it's my first, so it has a special place where I don't have to judge it, I can just think on it with fond nostalgia. Playing it all the way through to the end is going to be great.
Although, this makes it three different Final Fantasies that I'm currently playing and have not defeated. One day, my pretties. One day.
We had an inexplicable excursion to Taco Bell yesterday. They had strange "work here!" signs as we entered, which depicted a leaping girl dissolving at the extremities into swirling rainbows bursting with music paraphernalia and tacos. Inside, we were pelted for the duration of our stay with unremarkable classical music. My mom ordered a burrito supreme, and I, the grilled stuft. We were given two burrito supremes. $1.99 for one of those, 3-something for what I wanted. She ordered another grilled stuft and we received another burrito supreme, this time costing 2-something. Exchanged that one for what I had wanted all along, which only reinforced my idea that going to Taco Bell should be carefully reconsidered.
Oh my gosh, this blog is so geeky today. I cannot, for the life of me, think of one hip thing I did this week.
-Ensign Stephanie Anderson
Thursday, July 09, 2009
Funtimes + Coldtimes + Angrytimes
Happy Thursday! And a shout out to my lucky friends Carolyn and Brianna, who had Thursday Birthdays today! 00t! Hooray for you guys!
So the AX was a week ago! It was great, but so short. :<
HERE I'm really angry because when I added that stupid picture in at the bottom of the post, a bunch of my post got deleted, like my reflections on the AX. So now you don't get any of my insights on how fun it was, or how we didn't get tired like normal, or how we went to events instead of hanging out in the hotel or how I was in the same room with my favorite power ranger. UNHAPPY.
my new Facebook album I just spent the last hour arranging. Did you know you can put 200 pictures in an album now?! Unbelievable! So I splurged and added some blurry ones and some not-so-pertinent ones. Enjoy!
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2087328&id=56903048&l=0e113d217e
I lost two pounds at the AX. I wish regular life consisted of strolling around all day. I don't do nearly enough random strolling.
And on Tuesday I lost three pounds! I caught a cold, perhaps from the multitude of parks me and Carolyn visited on Monday. I'm mostly better now, but for the draining of excess head fluids. :<
AND also here it took out everything about what we did today for Carolyn's birthday, like make sandwiches at the park and switching parks and looking at the dog park and playing Wii Mario Kart which is hard. And my thoughts on all the movies we watched this week, which were generally mediocre. UPSET!!
I cheat!" or "Waluigi lose!!"
Then we watched I AM LEGEND. It was a nice movie, as movies go, but I wasn't invested. Liked the dog. Then we watched an ep of DUE SOUTH, remember that one? Only six left, oh no!! That particular episode was not one of the best.
BUT I heard that Katee Sackhoff and Callum Keith Rennie are gonna be on 24!! I believe Katee already is/was? That's Starbuck and Leoben, fyi. Together at last, lol.
Also in that episode of DUE SOUTH, Michael Hogan aka Colonel Saul Tigh was a creepo country music manager. I would have loved to see Rennie and Hogan's first meeting on the BSG set and being all "ohhhh I remember you, lol."
And then I came home and I should really go to sleep so I don't die at work tomorrow. That would not be the best for anybody.and I'm the best at what I do.
-Steph
PS
Here's my chair:
Hope it was worth it.
So the AX was a week ago! It was great, but so short. :<
HERE I'm really angry because when I added that stupid picture in at the bottom of the post, a bunch of my post got deleted, like my reflections on the AX. So now you don't get any of my insights on how fun it was, or how we didn't get tired like normal, or how we went to events instead of hanging out in the hotel or how I was in the same room with my favorite power ranger. UNHAPPY.
my new Facebook album I just spent the last hour arranging. Did you know you can put 200 pictures in an album now?! Unbelievable! So I splurged and added some blurry ones and some not-so-pertinent ones. Enjoy!
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2087328&id=56903048&l=0e113d217e
I lost two pounds at the AX. I wish regular life consisted of strolling around all day. I don't do nearly enough random strolling.
And on Tuesday I lost three pounds! I caught a cold, perhaps from the multitude of parks me and Carolyn visited on Monday. I'm mostly better now, but for the draining of excess head fluids. :<
AND also here it took out everything about what we did today for Carolyn's birthday, like make sandwiches at the park and switching parks and looking at the dog park and playing Wii Mario Kart which is hard. And my thoughts on all the movies we watched this week, which were generally mediocre. UPSET!!
I cheat!" or "Waluigi lose!!"
Then we watched I AM LEGEND. It was a nice movie, as movies go, but I wasn't invested. Liked the dog. Then we watched an ep of DUE SOUTH, remember that one? Only six left, oh no!! That particular episode was not one of the best.
BUT I heard that Katee Sackhoff and Callum Keith Rennie are gonna be on 24!! I believe Katee already is/was? That's Starbuck and Leoben, fyi. Together at last, lol.
Also in that episode of DUE SOUTH, Michael Hogan aka Colonel Saul Tigh was a creepo country music manager. I would have loved to see Rennie and Hogan's first meeting on the BSG set and being all "ohhhh I remember you, lol."
And then I came home and I should really go to sleep so I don't die at work tomorrow. That would not be the best for anybody.
-Steph
PS
Here's my chair:
Hope it was worth it.
Wednesday, July 01, 2009
It's that anime time of year again
Happy Thursday! I confess that as I write these words, it is not Thursday yet in the strictest sense. But if I have any hope of waking up tomorrow at 6 AM, I had best start writing now.
"Tomorrow" is Thursday, July 2nd, aka AX opening day. That's right, folks, the day when I put on a silly costume and parade around amongst similarly attirednerds fellows. This year our troupe is going primarily from Soul Eater, a show about kids who are weapons or their wielders, who go to a school to train for harvesting the souls of the corrupt. Hooray!
My name is Black Star, and I'm somewhat of a ninja, discounting the blue hair. My weapon partner is Tsubaki, whose weapon modes include little scythe things that have a proper name I don't know, a smoke bomb, a giant ninja star, and also a fey blade mode which makes Black Star crazy. Most people only have one or a mega form as weapons, but we're ninja so we're special.
I didn't get around to taking pictures of my chair, but I promise next week this thing will be FULL of pictures of all sorts.
I did a lot of sewing this week, mostly sewing is what I did. We also went and saw TRANSFORMERS: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN, which is pretty much like the first one, all the same pros and cons. If you like robots and explosions for two and a half hours, go see it!
There was a trailer for the new Harry Potter movie, too, and I was all "I wish I was excited about that." So we went and rented the first three movies and watched those. I hadn't ever seen the first! I'm pretty sure I haven't seen the fourth or fifth, either. After this anime ruckus is over, I'll be Harry Pottering.
Did I do anything else? OH LISTEN EVERYONE LISTEN.
There's a pilot going by the name of VIRTUALITY, and you can watch it here. It's a sci-fi drama co-written and co-produced by the mind behind the BSG reimaging, and it's one of the best things I've seen in my life. During this two hour pilot, I remarked aloud something along the lines of, "I'd be willing to watch the next ten seasons of this," referring to the plot's ten year mission to another solar system. Little did I know that NO ONE has plans to pick this up as a series, so as it stands, this two hour "movie" is all there ever will be of this concept.
THIS CAN NOT BE ALLOWED TO BE THE CASE. It's like when you hand a little kid a puppy, they fall in love with it, and then two hours later you grab it away and throw it into an ice-fishing hole. Or you get to go to Disneyland for the first time, and after two hours, the ghost of Walt Disney comes out of the castle and burns the place to the ground. It's like saving up all year to go to your favorite fancy restaurant, and after two hours of standing in line, the FDA guy comes up and closes it forever.
So I'm doing my part and creating what little buzz I can muster, and recommending this strongly to everyone who reads this. At least AT LEAST click on the link. You can also watch it here. Rarely has a pilot ever had such an impact on me, and with the decline of scripted television there's always the fear that there will never be another show of this caliber. I NEED it to continue. You do, too. You just don't know it.
VIRTUALITY. Tell your friends.
I can't think of any thing else superly exciting from this past week, and it is actually Thursday now, so I might just close this off now! Happy Thursday!
I'll bring you back something dorky from the expo!
-Stephanie
"Tomorrow" is Thursday, July 2nd, aka AX opening day. That's right, folks, the day when I put on a silly costume and parade around amongst similarly attired
My name is Black Star, and I'm somewhat of a ninja, discounting the blue hair. My weapon partner is Tsubaki, whose weapon modes include little scythe things that have a proper name I don't know, a smoke bomb, a giant ninja star, and also a fey blade mode which makes Black Star crazy. Most people only have one or a mega form as weapons, but we're ninja so we're special.
I didn't get around to taking pictures of my chair, but I promise next week this thing will be FULL of pictures of all sorts.
I did a lot of sewing this week, mostly sewing is what I did. We also went and saw TRANSFORMERS: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN, which is pretty much like the first one, all the same pros and cons. If you like robots and explosions for two and a half hours, go see it!
There was a trailer for the new Harry Potter movie, too, and I was all "I wish I was excited about that." So we went and rented the first three movies and watched those. I hadn't ever seen the first! I'm pretty sure I haven't seen the fourth or fifth, either. After this anime ruckus is over, I'll be Harry Pottering.
Did I do anything else? OH LISTEN EVERYONE LISTEN.
There's a pilot going by the name of VIRTUALITY, and you can watch it here. It's a sci-fi drama co-written and co-produced by the mind behind the BSG reimaging, and it's one of the best things I've seen in my life. During this two hour pilot, I remarked aloud something along the lines of, "I'd be willing to watch the next ten seasons of this," referring to the plot's ten year mission to another solar system. Little did I know that NO ONE has plans to pick this up as a series, so as it stands, this two hour "movie" is all there ever will be of this concept.
THIS CAN NOT BE ALLOWED TO BE THE CASE. It's like when you hand a little kid a puppy, they fall in love with it, and then two hours later you grab it away and throw it into an ice-fishing hole. Or you get to go to Disneyland for the first time, and after two hours, the ghost of Walt Disney comes out of the castle and burns the place to the ground. It's like saving up all year to go to your favorite fancy restaurant, and after two hours of standing in line, the FDA guy comes up and closes it forever.
So I'm doing my part and creating what little buzz I can muster, and recommending this strongly to everyone who reads this. At least AT LEAST click on the link. You can also watch it here. Rarely has a pilot ever had such an impact on me, and with the decline of scripted television there's always the fear that there will never be another show of this caliber. I NEED it to continue. You do, too. You just don't know it.
VIRTUALITY. Tell your friends.
I can't think of any thing else superly exciting from this past week, and it is actually Thursday now, so I might just close this off now! Happy Thursday!
I'll bring you back something dorky from the expo!
-Stephanie
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Introducing...A Thursday
Happy Thursday! So many people died today, like Michael Jackson and Farah Fawcett. Craziness. Moving on.
The AX is next week! I got the time off! I'm half way done with my costume! My wig shipped today (urrr I hope I get it in time)!
This year has been the year of painting costumes. I don't remember what the first item was, but Carolyn was faced with the need to affix a different color onto a large portion of an existing shirt or whatever. She was going to cut and sew it on! I said "what if you just painted it?" And now she's painted part or all of pretty much everything. Ties, shirts, boots, jackets, skirts, hats, canes. No purses this year.
In my dream last night, there was a part where Jacqi came over "just in time to paint ties."
Mine doesn't have any paint, but then, I'm making most of it myself. The shoes might have paint. My gloves are 99% done, my pants are 90% done, I just need to construct arm-weights, and sew a bowl onto my shirt collar. And style the wig. I hope that works out.
This is also the first year I've used the sewing machine for anything substantial. I used to insist on hand sewing things, which took forever. I didn't really ever use the machine until pillows, so I'm still sorta new at it. Practice practice practice.
Yesterday we went thriftingone last time and I bought the most beautiful chair. 14 dollars, comfortable, light-weight, and straight out of someone's drug trip. I forgot to take a picture to show you. I could do it now but I don't want to. Next week. Remind me.
Me and my mom watched RASHOMON today for the first time. Pretty good. A little different than what I thought I'd been told what it was. Makes me really want to finish SEVEN SAMURAI. I liked that one a lot.
I'm trying to remember the rest of the week, but it's not really working. Oh I guess Tuesday was a really good day. I sold 8 passes at work, which is a personal best and also one less than the store total today. Larry was really happy with me, which is good, since he wasn't so happy about me not letting him know about the AX sooner. But it's alright now. Yeah, Tuesday was just all around a good day. It was like a Thursday in spirit.
Oh ahah, we watched THE SPIRIT. Sucks sucks sucks. Also OUTLANDER, but it sucked a good deal less. VALKYRIE was fine, but not very engaging. I think I may have mentioned Valkyrie last week? I don't know when any of this happened.
For Father's Day we took a very long excursion down the beach and back. I got a tar foot! We were only going to go as far as to where the river lets out, but it was sanded across so we just kept going and going and going probably twice as far as that. It was a nice day AND we saw dolphins. But going back took twice as long because I was dying. :< I thought I was in better shape than that?
Ah alright, I'm a-sleepy, so I'll let you go for now.
For Now.
-Steph
The AX is next week! I got the time off! I'm half way done with my costume! My wig shipped today (urrr I hope I get it in time)!
This year has been the year of painting costumes. I don't remember what the first item was, but Carolyn was faced with the need to affix a different color onto a large portion of an existing shirt or whatever. She was going to cut and sew it on! I said "what if you just painted it?" And now she's painted part or all of pretty much everything. Ties, shirts, boots, jackets, skirts, hats, canes. No purses this year.
In my dream last night, there was a part where Jacqi came over "just in time to paint ties."
Mine doesn't have any paint, but then, I'm making most of it myself. The shoes might have paint. My gloves are 99% done, my pants are 90% done, I just need to construct arm-weights, and sew a bowl onto my shirt collar. And style the wig. I hope that works out.
This is also the first year I've used the sewing machine for anything substantial. I used to insist on hand sewing things, which took forever. I didn't really ever use the machine until pillows, so I'm still sorta new at it. Practice practice practice.
Yesterday we went thrifting
Me and my mom watched RASHOMON today for the first time. Pretty good. A little different than what I thought I'd been told what it was. Makes me really want to finish SEVEN SAMURAI. I liked that one a lot.
I'm trying to remember the rest of the week, but it's not really working. Oh I guess Tuesday was a really good day. I sold 8 passes at work, which is a personal best and also one less than the store total today. Larry was really happy with me, which is good, since he wasn't so happy about me not letting him know about the AX sooner. But it's alright now. Yeah, Tuesday was just all around a good day. It was like a Thursday in spirit.
Oh ahah, we watched THE SPIRIT. Sucks sucks sucks. Also OUTLANDER, but it sucked a good deal less. VALKYRIE was fine, but not very engaging. I think I may have mentioned Valkyrie last week? I don't know when any of this happened.
For Father's Day we took a very long excursion down the beach and back. I got a tar foot! We were only going to go as far as to where the river lets out, but it was sanded across so we just kept going and going and going probably twice as far as that. It was a nice day AND we saw dolphins. But going back took twice as long because I was dying. :< I thought I was in better shape than that?
Ah alright, I'm a-sleepy, so I'll let you go for now.
For Now.
-Steph
Thursday, June 18, 2009
A 1940s Moon Base
Happy Thursday! How are you all? Fine, I hope? Excellent, perhaps? Effervescent? Wonderful!
Jacqi's home for a bit, so me and her and Carolyn have been hanging out and doing ridiculous stuff all week. Pan after pan of Rice Crispy treats (if I ever made a fake brand for a show, it would be called Ricey Crispoes), movie after movie, etc. We rented all sorts of things but so far we've only made it through TRANSFORMERS. And we also saw 17 AGAIN, which was good.
Speaking of TRANSFORMERS, I invented a new game. It's the connect X Hollywood person to Joss Whedon game. Like Tom Cruise. He's in TROPIC THUNDER with RDJ, who's in KISS KISS BANG BANG with Megan whoever, who's in EAGLE EYE with Shia, who's in TRANSFORMERS which was written by Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci, who wrote STAR TREK which had John Cho, who is in HAROLD AND KUMAR with Neil Patrick Harris, who's in DR. HORRIBLE, written and directed by Joss Whedon.
I think there might be a quicker one, but that was just the first route I thought up the other day.
Between hanging out with my buddies and sifting through film star trivia, I started reading WATCHMEN. I don't know if I should recommend it, because parts are a little rough for a conservative reader, but it really is all it's cracked up to be. Definitely finishing it tonight.
My favorite part is between the chapters (which were separate issues when it was first published) are various texts from within their world. At first I thought they were cute and colorful, but it's getting to the point where I'm realizing that they're actually part of the story in the sense that they contain hidden pockets of information that are key to the development of the plot overall. I mean, I thought the chapters taken from one vigilante's memoirs were just for flavor, but these last few pages from another's scrapbook put a whole new spin on an old assumption.
It's pretty fine writing.
Something I've been tossing around for a while is the idea of a sci-fi story framed by 1940s sensibilities. Not just any sci-fi will do; no, I must have a moon base AND fighting Nazis. Have you ever been to Legends? It's this sweet vintage style diner and ice cream bar, and when I'm in there all I can think about is if the memorabilia covering the walls were still current icons, and if one of WWII's battlefronts were on the moon.
One of these days, I'm gonna write it. Just you watch.
Reminds me a bit of SKY CAPTAIN, in the way that they had zeppelins docking at the top of the Empire State building and watching THE WIZARD OF OZ new in theaters at the same time. Like steam punk, but for the war era. Digging up that steam punk link linked me to retro-futurism, which is pretty much exactly what I'm thinking about. Way to pioneer a trend, Steph.
Oh, and the other thing I will attempt is a noir space western. Yes. I can do it. In fact, I just may be able to dove-tail it into my WWII moon base universe. It's gonna be awesome. It will be noir because it will be a detective story. It will be a western because the detective will be in some outpost's one-room jailhouse. It will be in space because a straight noir western would be ridiculous.
Now I just have to invent stories to fit into my settings, and I'll be good to go. Wish me luck.
-Steph
Jacqi's home for a bit, so me and her and Carolyn have been hanging out and doing ridiculous stuff all week. Pan after pan of Rice Crispy treats (if I ever made a fake brand for a show, it would be called Ricey Crispoes), movie after movie, etc. We rented all sorts of things but so far we've only made it through TRANSFORMERS. And we also saw 17 AGAIN, which was good.
Speaking of TRANSFORMERS, I invented a new game. It's the connect X Hollywood person to Joss Whedon game. Like Tom Cruise. He's in TROPIC THUNDER with RDJ, who's in KISS KISS BANG BANG with Megan whoever, who's in EAGLE EYE with Shia, who's in TRANSFORMERS which was written by Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci, who wrote STAR TREK which had John Cho, who is in HAROLD AND KUMAR with Neil Patrick Harris, who's in DR. HORRIBLE, written and directed by Joss Whedon.
I think there might be a quicker one, but that was just the first route I thought up the other day.
Between hanging out with my buddies and sifting through film star trivia, I started reading WATCHMEN. I don't know if I should recommend it, because parts are a little rough for a conservative reader, but it really is all it's cracked up to be. Definitely finishing it tonight.
My favorite part is between the chapters (which were separate issues when it was first published) are various texts from within their world. At first I thought they were cute and colorful, but it's getting to the point where I'm realizing that they're actually part of the story in the sense that they contain hidden pockets of information that are key to the development of the plot overall. I mean, I thought the chapters taken from one vigilante's memoirs were just for flavor, but these last few pages from another's scrapbook put a whole new spin on an old assumption.
It's pretty fine writing.
Something I've been tossing around for a while is the idea of a sci-fi story framed by 1940s sensibilities. Not just any sci-fi will do; no, I must have a moon base AND fighting Nazis. Have you ever been to Legends? It's this sweet vintage style diner and ice cream bar, and when I'm in there all I can think about is if the memorabilia covering the walls were still current icons, and if one of WWII's battlefronts were on the moon.
One of these days, I'm gonna write it. Just you watch.
Reminds me a bit of SKY CAPTAIN, in the way that they had zeppelins docking at the top of the Empire State building and watching THE WIZARD OF OZ new in theaters at the same time. Like steam punk, but for the war era. Digging up that steam punk link linked me to retro-futurism, which is pretty much exactly what I'm thinking about. Way to pioneer a trend, Steph.
Oh, and the other thing I will attempt is a noir space western. Yes. I can do it. In fact, I just may be able to dove-tail it into my WWII moon base universe. It's gonna be awesome. It will be noir because it will be a detective story. It will be a western because the detective will be in some outpost's one-room jailhouse. It will be in space because a straight noir western would be ridiculous.
Now I just have to invent stories to fit into my settings, and I'll be good to go. Wish me luck.
-Steph
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Milestone
Happy Thursday! Want to see something ridiculous and ancient? Here:
-----Original Message-----
From: Stephanie Anderson [mailto:stepherson@apu.edu]
Sent: Thursday, June 09, 2005 3:00 PM
Subject: Happy Thursday!
Importance: High
Just starting things off right. It's really weird not seeing groups of
people to say Happy Thursday to! Well, I hope that you all had a great
last day of school, minus those in this eclectic list who have already
finished. Speaking of, if you know anybody who wanted to be in this
list but isn't, have 'em drop me a line. Y'all know my addy now. And,
of course, if you absolutely hate Thursdays, write me and I'll take you
off.
But yeah, I hope you all HAVE A GREAT SUMMER!
-The Graduate
Steph
Guess what that is? I'll tell you. It's the very first Thursday e-mail I sent out, the afternoon I graduated from high school. Not quite for years ago "today," but since the high schools just let out today, I'm counting it as the four-year anniversary.
Four years worth of Thursdays (minus this last Thanks--Thursgiving Day) I've touched a computer. Ohh the modern world, how I love you.
Also did you know that before I even left high school I'd said enough "Happy Thursdays" on Thursdays to count for every Thursday I'd ever lived? It's probably a multiple of that by now.
So anyway, congrats to all my friends who graduated today! Like Steven! (Who also sang the graduation song with his little band--great job, guys!) And Daniel, whose house has parties; and Ben, who has a Batman sticker on his car; and Austin, who has a shirt very similar to Carolyn's; and Heidi, who writes cool poetry; and Staci and Diana and Karen and John and Tommy and Maddie and Nash and everyone else who's going to the AX with us this summer.
And congrats to Brianna and Jason, who got married over the weekend! I hope that where ever you are now, it's awesome. I also hope that the video turned out okay and I'm sorry for missing the middle of the Best Man's toast. -_-
Yep, I drove all the way to a little town in the mountains called Angels Camp, about an hour due east of Stockton. AND I made it back, alive. That's the first time I've driven so far/on freeways for so long/alone/to a place I've never been to. Getting gas twice in a day sucks a lot. But it was a lot of fun, and a beautiful wedding and hahaha Brianna just signed onto AIM.
I don't think I'll bug her just yet. ^^
And my sister went home to Seattle. Or Oregon, I'm not sure.
I've only done two other things this week: Sam sent me this link which is a collection of all the "literal" music videos, like the one for a-ha's Take On Me I must have advertised some time ago. This video put me on to Billy Idol and since then I've downloaded every one of his songs and listened to them.
The other thing was catch up in this manga Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle. We cosplayed from that a couple years ago, the one when we also did Bleach, I imagine. (Because Evan was Sakura and Isane, so yes) It comes out in 15 page chapters every...so often, but I'd bought the American translated and licenced books when they came out, which have like probably 20 chapters in them. And then I'd stopped, and hadn't read any for like maybe a year and a half. But now I'm caught up, and I'm reading the other one from the same creators which sorta overlaps sometimes. So I'm all comicced out.
ESPECIALLY BECAUSE the library told me Watchmen was finally in, so I have that waiting downstairs with a Superman collection "Emperor Joker." (I also tried playing the Iron Man game this week and we watched SUPERMAN DOOMSDAY at Carolyn's, so it was also a fairly superheroy week)
Oh yeah, we also watched BOLT today. Cute. Hilarious in a Disney way (ie, suitable for all ages, unlike the comedy in a Dreamworks animated feature). John Travolta didn't irk me the way I expected him to, but Miley Cyrus sure did! Good thing she wasn't in it very much.
Yokay, back to reading, I suppose! Happy Thursday!
-Steph
-----Original Message-----
From: Stephanie Anderson [mailto:stepherson@apu.edu]
Sent: Thursday, June 09, 2005 3:00 PM
Subject: Happy Thursday!
Importance: High
Just starting things off right. It's really weird not seeing groups of
people to say Happy Thursday to! Well, I hope that you all had a great
last day of school, minus those in this eclectic list who have already
finished. Speaking of, if you know anybody who wanted to be in this
list but isn't, have 'em drop me a line. Y'all know my addy now. And,
of course, if you absolutely hate Thursdays, write me and I'll take you
off.
But yeah, I hope you all HAVE A GREAT SUMMER!
-The Graduate
Steph
Guess what that is? I'll tell you. It's the very first Thursday e-mail I sent out, the afternoon I graduated from high school. Not quite for years ago "today," but since the high schools just let out today, I'm counting it as the four-year anniversary.
Four years worth of Thursdays (minus this last Thanks--Thursgiving Day) I've touched a computer. Ohh the modern world, how I love you.
Also did you know that before I even left high school I'd said enough "Happy Thursdays" on Thursdays to count for every Thursday I'd ever lived? It's probably a multiple of that by now.
So anyway, congrats to all my friends who graduated today! Like Steven! (Who also sang the graduation song with his little band--great job, guys!) And Daniel, whose house has parties; and Ben, who has a Batman sticker on his car; and Austin, who has a shirt very similar to Carolyn's; and Heidi, who writes cool poetry; and Staci and Diana and Karen and John and Tommy and Maddie and Nash and everyone else who's going to the AX with us this summer.
And congrats to Brianna and Jason, who got married over the weekend! I hope that where ever you are now, it's awesome. I also hope that the video turned out okay and I'm sorry for missing the middle of the Best Man's toast. -_-
Yep, I drove all the way to a little town in the mountains called Angels Camp, about an hour due east of Stockton. AND I made it back, alive. That's the first time I've driven so far/on freeways for so long/alone/to a place I've never been to. Getting gas twice in a day sucks a lot. But it was a lot of fun, and a beautiful wedding and hahaha Brianna just signed onto AIM.
I don't think I'll bug her just yet. ^^
And my sister went home to Seattle. Or Oregon, I'm not sure.
I've only done two other things this week: Sam sent me this link which is a collection of all the "literal" music videos, like the one for a-ha's Take On Me I must have advertised some time ago. This video put me on to Billy Idol and since then I've downloaded every one of his songs and listened to them.
The other thing was catch up in this manga Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle. We cosplayed from that a couple years ago, the one when we also did Bleach, I imagine. (Because Evan was Sakura and Isane, so yes) It comes out in 15 page chapters every...so often, but I'd bought the American translated and licenced books when they came out, which have like probably 20 chapters in them. And then I'd stopped, and hadn't read any for like maybe a year and a half. But now I'm caught up, and I'm reading the other one from the same creators which sorta overlaps sometimes. So I'm all comicced out.
ESPECIALLY BECAUSE the library told me Watchmen was finally in, so I have that waiting downstairs with a Superman collection "Emperor Joker." (I also tried playing the Iron Man game this week and we watched SUPERMAN DOOMSDAY at Carolyn's, so it was also a fairly superheroy week)
Oh yeah, we also watched BOLT today. Cute. Hilarious in a Disney way (ie, suitable for all ages, unlike the comedy in a Dreamworks animated feature). John Travolta didn't irk me the way I expected him to, but Miley Cyrus sure did! Good thing she wasn't in it very much.
Yokay, back to reading, I suppose! Happy Thursday!
-Steph
Thursday, June 04, 2009
Thursday, Briefly
Happy Thursday! Today it was actually warm for a period, despite every day previous opening in cold cold wintertimes. Yesterday, for instance, it could have rained. Do not want. Maybe things will be nicer when I get back.
Saturday Brianna's getting marrrrrried! So tomorrow I'm driving up to Murphys, CA which is sorta around where the wedding will be. The roadtrip of the summer. I hope I don't die, and, if I don't, I hope the wedding will be fantastic (but I know it will be). I'm sorta the videographer, too, so we'll see how that goes.
Congrats, BranBran!
The other day (maybe Friday?) we went to my mom's school for lunch and then crashed her class after so the kids could ask hilarous questions. Our favorite was Drew, who was wearing a sweater vest and also red Converse with black laces.
So today we drove out to Santa Paula to have lunch with our dad. We went to an Irish pub a couple doors down that his office had redesigned. I had corned beef! And an eighth of a boiled cabbage. It was quite good.
Then I ended up at Carolyn's, renting them so many games. We played "Speed Racer: The Videogame" until my thumb bones hurt. It's just a psychedelic as the movie, and maybe half as fun. You get to drive the cars and flip them into other cars, so that's GREAT.
I cannot remember a single other detail from this week. Super tired. Gotta get up early, tomorrow, too. =[ Still have to finish packing. Grar.
I guess what I did this week that's different from most weeks was that I did a lot of reading. Remember how we went to the library? Turns out two of the books I got were not very good or informative, so I finished with them very quickly. Then Nero Wolfe! And when that was done, I felt that I missed having something to read. Luckily, my mom had gone to the library the day after and picked up "Batman & Me," Bob Kane's autobiography. Bob Kane being the guy who invented Batman.
His book is kinda like listening to your favorite grandpa tell stories about his childhood. Like, he was in a street gang in the 30s and rumbled with other gangs and got his arm broken. It's very interesting to see all the experiences of his life melting together as inspirations for his comics. I hope one day my story will be half as interesting.
Also, his old Batman comics? RIDICULOUS. Old timey things are just so bizarre. Audiences now are just too sophisticated. No more "he hid the pay inside the snowmen--INGENIOUS" type of stuff.
I guess I also hung out with my family and went to work and stuff. Seems that's all, then.
I'll let you know how the wedding was~
-Steph
Saturday Brianna's getting marrrrrried! So tomorrow I'm driving up to Murphys, CA which is sorta around where the wedding will be. The roadtrip of the summer. I hope I don't die, and, if I don't, I hope the wedding will be fantastic (but I know it will be). I'm sorta the videographer, too, so we'll see how that goes.
Congrats, BranBran!
The other day (maybe Friday?) we went to my mom's school for lunch and then crashed her class after so the kids could ask hilarous questions. Our favorite was Drew, who was wearing a sweater vest and also red Converse with black laces.
So today we drove out to Santa Paula to have lunch with our dad. We went to an Irish pub a couple doors down that his office had redesigned. I had corned beef! And an eighth of a boiled cabbage. It was quite good.
Then I ended up at Carolyn's, renting them so many games. We played "Speed Racer: The Videogame" until my thumb bones hurt. It's just a psychedelic as the movie, and maybe half as fun. You get to drive the cars and flip them into other cars, so that's GREAT.
I cannot remember a single other detail from this week. Super tired. Gotta get up early, tomorrow, too. =[ Still have to finish packing. Grar.
I guess what I did this week that's different from most weeks was that I did a lot of reading. Remember how we went to the library? Turns out two of the books I got were not very good or informative, so I finished with them very quickly. Then Nero Wolfe! And when that was done, I felt that I missed having something to read. Luckily, my mom had gone to the library the day after and picked up "Batman & Me," Bob Kane's autobiography. Bob Kane being the guy who invented Batman.
His book is kinda like listening to your favorite grandpa tell stories about his childhood. Like, he was in a street gang in the 30s and rumbled with other gangs and got his arm broken. It's very interesting to see all the experiences of his life melting together as inspirations for his comics. I hope one day my story will be half as interesting.
Also, his old Batman comics? RIDICULOUS. Old timey things are just so bizarre. Audiences now are just too sophisticated. No more "he hid the pay inside the snowmen--INGENIOUS" type of stuff.
I guess I also hung out with my family and went to work and stuff. Seems that's all, then.
I'll let you know how the wedding was~
-Steph
Thursday, May 28, 2009
We Used To Be Friends
Happy Thursday, gumshoes! Yes, it's that time of year again: time to break out the VERONICA MARS season boxset of your choice and chug it like it's dad's good brandy and he ain't comin' home til late.
Let me chronicle for you my history with the show. Picture this scene: it's the start of sophomore year, you're living in a wacky trailer park called "the Mods." You've just caught the season premiere of GILMORE GIRLS, and directly following it is the new season of this show you vaguely remember as something more than one person has tried to get you to watch.
It's a mystery show, which you hadn't expected. How many mystery shows are on then? Other than the 6-episode RAINS, none. The flair and the humor immediately catch your attention, such as the realism captured when the two new roommates meet; or when the title character rips a necklace from the neck of a little girl, rolls up the window, and drives away. Within the first fifteen minutes, you know it: you're hooked.
Then, like RAINS, your other new favorite detective show, it gets canceled. But there's hope, season one and two. You spend a good few weeks of that summer searching for and devouring all the streaming sites that offer season one, and pick up some Chinese from the subtitles. By the time junior year starts, you're about halfway through season two, and the one conversation you ever had with the random third roommate was about how cool VM was.
You acquire the boxsets of season one and two, and watch them all with not only your roommates, but your mom as well. Season one over winter break, and season two crammed into spring break. You've seen the first two seasons three times over before your roommate gets season three for her birthday and brings it to school with her.
You never find the time to watch more than the first episode before you graduate. Five months later, when your mom finds out she forgot there was a third season she's never seen, that elusive boxset finds its way into your home no more than two days later. Now, you're two discs down, four to go, and then it'll be the end all over again.
=[
It is, to this day, a show you count among your top three faves. It's one of those you've got the companion books for listed on your Amazon wishlist (Neptune Noir: Unauthorized Investigations into Veronica Mars - Priority: Highest). You've listened to the Dandy Wharhols' song "We Used To Be Friends" more than a hundred times, and included "a long time ago, we used to be friends" as a line in your latest movie. You sit through things like FORGETTING SARAH MARSHALL or FANBOYS just because Kristen Bell is in them (but you couldn't stick MOONLIGHT out, sorry Jason). Your computer's name is Keith and the next external harddrive you get will be named Veronica.
In conclusion, VERONICA MARS is the sort of show that stays in your system like acid; the flashbacks are just as good as the original hit. Enough is never enough.
In other news, my sister's home from Paris. So I've had to hang out and do buddy stuff. Except today she ditched me for her real friends so I sat around and wrote a short. But actually, we've gone thrifting a couple times, and drove around and did whatever. We went to Blockbuster to pick out something fun to watch and everything she wanted to see I already owned, so that worked out well. I'm showing her CONSTANTINE later.
I guess other than hanging out with family and watching VM, I haven't really done much. Played with the cat. He's crazy. Those flowers I planted haven't become flowers yet, but the guy we transplanted/killed is growing new leaves, so yay. And there's mushrooms growing in the thing where he used to be, so that's randomly awesome.
It's been way cold, which I do not appreciate one bit. I'm wearing a long sleeved shirt and a jacket right now. WHAT. We've been over this. It. Is. Time. For. SUMMER.
I also got a Batman manga and Superman comic from the library. The first was weird and got better, and the second was pretty solid (Leob/Sale teamup, names you probably don't recognize from HEROES). I read the screenplay for THE BOONDOCK SAINTS, which goes along pretty like the movie. Then I started back at the original screenplay that won the Academy Award in 1933, ONE WAY PASSAGE. The next oldest they have is CITIZEN KANE, so I'm procrastinating on that one.
I am about to start a Rex Stout "Nero Wolfe" novel, because one can't have too much mystery in a single day.
Also, I'd like to make a correction from last week's note. I said I got 20k in Bejeweled Blitz, which is actually a pretty lame score. I can't cope with numbers, so I screwed that one up. I meant 200k.
I will leave you with this video of a cat jumping into a box.
Stay cool tuna fish.
-Steph
Let me chronicle for you my history with the show. Picture this scene: it's the start of sophomore year, you're living in a wacky trailer park called "the Mods." You've just caught the season premiere of GILMORE GIRLS, and directly following it is the new season of this show you vaguely remember as something more than one person has tried to get you to watch.
It's a mystery show, which you hadn't expected. How many mystery shows are on then? Other than the 6-episode RAINS, none. The flair and the humor immediately catch your attention, such as the realism captured when the two new roommates meet; or when the title character rips a necklace from the neck of a little girl, rolls up the window, and drives away. Within the first fifteen minutes, you know it: you're hooked.
Then, like RAINS, your other new favorite detective show, it gets canceled. But there's hope, season one and two. You spend a good few weeks of that summer searching for and devouring all the streaming sites that offer season one, and pick up some Chinese from the subtitles. By the time junior year starts, you're about halfway through season two, and the one conversation you ever had with the random third roommate was about how cool VM was.
You acquire the boxsets of season one and two, and watch them all with not only your roommates, but your mom as well. Season one over winter break, and season two crammed into spring break. You've seen the first two seasons three times over before your roommate gets season three for her birthday and brings it to school with her.
You never find the time to watch more than the first episode before you graduate. Five months later, when your mom finds out she forgot there was a third season she's never seen, that elusive boxset finds its way into your home no more than two days later. Now, you're two discs down, four to go, and then it'll be the end all over again.
=[
It is, to this day, a show you count among your top three faves. It's one of those you've got the companion books for listed on your Amazon wishlist (Neptune Noir: Unauthorized Investigations into Veronica Mars - Priority: Highest). You've listened to the Dandy Wharhols' song "We Used To Be Friends" more than a hundred times, and included "a long time ago, we used to be friends" as a line in your latest movie. You sit through things like FORGETTING SARAH MARSHALL or FANBOYS just because Kristen Bell is in them (but you couldn't stick MOONLIGHT out, sorry Jason). Your computer's name is Keith and the next external harddrive you get will be named Veronica.
In conclusion, VERONICA MARS is the sort of show that stays in your system like acid; the flashbacks are just as good as the original hit. Enough is never enough.
In other news, my sister's home from Paris. So I've had to hang out and do buddy stuff. Except today she ditched me for her real friends so I sat around and wrote a short. But actually, we've gone thrifting a couple times, and drove around and did whatever. We went to Blockbuster to pick out something fun to watch and everything she wanted to see I already owned, so that worked out well. I'm showing her CONSTANTINE later.
I guess other than hanging out with family and watching VM, I haven't really done much. Played with the cat. He's crazy. Those flowers I planted haven't become flowers yet, but the guy we transplanted/killed is growing new leaves, so yay. And there's mushrooms growing in the thing where he used to be, so that's randomly awesome.
It's been way cold, which I do not appreciate one bit. I'm wearing a long sleeved shirt and a jacket right now. WHAT. We've been over this. It. Is. Time. For. SUMMER.
I also got a Batman manga and Superman comic from the library. The first was weird and got better, and the second was pretty solid (Leob/Sale teamup, names you probably don't recognize from HEROES). I read the screenplay for THE BOONDOCK SAINTS, which goes along pretty like the movie. Then I started back at the original screenplay that won the Academy Award in 1933, ONE WAY PASSAGE. The next oldest they have is CITIZEN KANE, so I'm procrastinating on that one.
I am about to start a Rex Stout "Nero Wolfe" novel, because one can't have too much mystery in a single day.
Also, I'd like to make a correction from last week's note. I said I got 20k in Bejeweled Blitz, which is actually a pretty lame score. I can't cope with numbers, so I screwed that one up. I meant 200k.
I will leave you with this video of a cat jumping into a box.
Stay cool tuna fish.
-Steph
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Every Movie
Happy Thursday! It's supposed to be getting warmer, but it's doing it in a very roundabout way. Summer here is usually overcast in the morning and sorta kinda burns off the rest of the day, but so far it's like that but also a bit chilly if you're not right in the sun. I can has sun, plz?
OH Happy Blackjack Thursday! One of two this year, remember. I inadvertently celebrated it by watching OCEAN'S 13, which of course involves casinos=cards=blackjack. It was also the first blu-ray I bought and I never watched it until now. Such pretty colors in that movie.
Since I also started re-looking at my heist movie this week, I noticed that there were not a few similarities. I'm sure this was on purpose, since mine's a heist spoof-tribute, and I'd seen 13 sometime before beginning to write it. I just gotta hone down the exact allusion and how I want to use it so that it alludes but is also unique to my story. BUT if I write five pages a day (in "vomit draft" style -- just get it done), then I can be done in two weeks!
So far since figuring that equation, there's been one day were I wrote five pages, and another where I took out two. So. Progress.
I also watched HOT FUZZ today, oddly enough--if I had to tag my script, I would probably start by saying it's OCEAN'S 11 meets HOT FUZZ. That is, a heist movie that is to heist movies the way HOT FUZZ is to action/cop movies. I didn't exactly watch it, though, I listened to Pegg and Wright's commentary since I have the 3-disc collector's edition and I haven't gotten past disc one yet.
I was sorting, cataloging, and cutting what fabric I have for pillows. The Fuzz was on for environment/latent education. Before that, I watched THE LAST WORD, which I picked up solely on the basis of Wes Bentley's face on the cover. In case you haven't had the chance to see thewinners trashes GHOST RIDER and/or P2 (or the win AMERICAN BEAUTY), Wes Bentley is a better-that-average actor who tends to choose the worst movies ever. BUT this one? Better-than-average. At times it was academic and the dialogue was simply uninspired, but it hit its stride and ended up meaningful and heartfelt.
Humm before that I went on a walk. So it was a good day. I ended up sewing the five pillows I cut out, but two of them are hack jobs (even though they match). Two shirt pillows and three skirt pillows. Want one?
Went thrifting with Carolyn a couple times already this week. Yesterday we really hit a jackpot for everyone else's costumes.We She's pretty much making the entire crew's costumes, but I'm trying to make mine on my own. Should be pretty easy, I've got most of what I need to get started. On Monday we thrifted in Oxnard, which included much map-interpretation and finding out that Google sometimes lies about the existence of some establishments.
We've also been going to BK regularly, and our crew now consists of Spock, Uhura, McCoy, Sulu, Sulu, the Enterprise, the Enterprise, the Jellyfish, a communicator and a Romulan Warbird. Now think back everybody, and tell me when you saw a Warbird in the movie. That's right! You didn't.
There's also a hilarious semi-review/comedy sketch by this guy I'm subscribed to on youtube. He also did the David After Dentist remix. Don't watch this if you haven't seen the movie yet, even though there is a spoiler alort.
ALSO the last few days have been my video lucks days, since I actually beat the Mewtwo stage in Pokemon Pinball (I've only had the game for what, ten years now?), got two high scores, and I got 20k points in Bejewled Blitz, which is a game that only lasts a minute. It was like I was cheating. I'll never be that awesome again. Shoot. I shoulda tried at Tetris. Or DDR.
Oh, looking back through my Facebook profile, I see that my second viewing of STAR TREK was last weekend. I took my folks! They had a lot of fun, because that movie is a lot of fun. I decided that the reboot of Star Trek felt like an odd thing to me because it's something that's never had an out-of-canon storyline before. It's always been continued, never restarted. Even though this is a common practice in other nerdery staples, comic books for one, Trek has never been touched by retooling. Realizing that, I think I like this reboot idea even less.
Actually, seeing the movie again, I realized how much I hate the plot, and the bad guy. The initial conflict is sooooo idiotic, so contrived, so unscientific, so inexplicable, so inconsistent.....and don't get me started on Eric Bana's performance. I don't know what part of me allows me to simultaneously hate a portion of a movie yet love the whole. Makes me think that the movie must be pretty good, if I love it in spite of the things I hate about it.
Like HSM.
So all my shows have officially entered their summer hiatuses, and I don't know what to do with myself evenings anymore. =[
-Steph
OH Happy Blackjack Thursday! One of two this year, remember. I inadvertently celebrated it by watching OCEAN'S 13, which of course involves casinos=cards=blackjack. It was also the first blu-ray I bought and I never watched it until now. Such pretty colors in that movie.
Since I also started re-looking at my heist movie this week, I noticed that there were not a few similarities. I'm sure this was on purpose, since mine's a heist spoof-tribute, and I'd seen 13 sometime before beginning to write it. I just gotta hone down the exact allusion and how I want to use it so that it alludes but is also unique to my story. BUT if I write five pages a day (in "vomit draft" style -- just get it done), then I can be done in two weeks!
So far since figuring that equation, there's been one day were I wrote five pages, and another where I took out two. So. Progress.
I also watched HOT FUZZ today, oddly enough--if I had to tag my script, I would probably start by saying it's OCEAN'S 11 meets HOT FUZZ. That is, a heist movie that is to heist movies the way HOT FUZZ is to action/cop movies. I didn't exactly watch it, though, I listened to Pegg and Wright's commentary since I have the 3-disc collector's edition and I haven't gotten past disc one yet.
I was sorting, cataloging, and cutting what fabric I have for pillows. The Fuzz was on for environment/latent education. Before that, I watched THE LAST WORD, which I picked up solely on the basis of Wes Bentley's face on the cover. In case you haven't had the chance to see the
Humm before that I went on a walk. So it was a good day. I ended up sewing the five pillows I cut out, but two of them are hack jobs (even though they match). Two shirt pillows and three skirt pillows. Want one?
Went thrifting with Carolyn a couple times already this week. Yesterday we really hit a jackpot for everyone else's costumes.
We've also been going to BK regularly, and our crew now consists of Spock, Uhura, McCoy, Sulu, Sulu, the Enterprise, the Enterprise, the Jellyfish, a communicator and a Romulan Warbird. Now think back everybody, and tell me when you saw a Warbird in the movie. That's right! You didn't.
There's also a hilarious semi-review/comedy sketch by this guy I'm subscribed to on youtube. He also did the David After Dentist remix. Don't watch this if you haven't seen the movie yet, even though there is a spoiler alort.
ALSO the last few days have been my video lucks days, since I actually beat the Mewtwo stage in Pokemon Pinball (I've only had the game for what, ten years now?), got two high scores, and I got 20k points in Bejewled Blitz, which is a game that only lasts a minute. It was like I was cheating. I'll never be that awesome again. Shoot. I shoulda tried at Tetris. Or DDR.
Oh, looking back through my Facebook profile, I see that my second viewing of STAR TREK was last weekend. I took my folks! They had a lot of fun, because that movie is a lot of fun. I decided that the reboot of Star Trek felt like an odd thing to me because it's something that's never had an out-of-canon storyline before. It's always been continued, never restarted. Even though this is a common practice in other nerdery staples, comic books for one, Trek has never been touched by retooling. Realizing that, I think I like this reboot idea even less.
Actually, seeing the movie again, I realized how much I hate the plot, and the bad guy. The initial conflict is sooooo idiotic, so contrived, so unscientific, so inexplicable, so inconsistent.....and don't get me started on Eric Bana's performance. I don't know what part of me allows me to simultaneously hate a portion of a movie yet love the whole. Makes me think that the movie must be pretty good, if I love it in spite of the things I hate about it.
Like HSM.
So all my shows have officially entered their summer hiatuses, and I don't know what to do with myself evenings anymore. =[
-Steph
Thursday, May 14, 2009
To Boldly Go
Happy Thursday! It's summertime again, which is always great. Driving home at night with the windows down, seeing all my favorite trees in bloom, thrifting for the rapidly-approaching AX.
So STAR TREK. I hope you've all seen it. Actually, I know some of you haven't, but I'll take you to see it real soon.
Honestly, I'm conflicted about it, but not greatly so. Okay, it's kinda like this: remember how I said that THE DARK KNIGHT ended up being a kind of movie that if it didn't have Batman in it, I wouldnta seen it? Meaning, TDK was a dark action crime thriller that happened to feature the Batman. And I like Batman. STAR TREK is a light sci-fi comedy action blockbuster that is sorta set in a Star Trek world, and I like Star Trek.
It's not a bad movie. It really isn't. It's not as solid as I would prefer in any movie, but they get away with thinish plot and character depth--well, for a lot of reasons. First off, if you're just going to see a fun start-of-summer movie, chances are you're neither looking for nor expecting a really honed and introspective "film." It's a "popcorn movie," and there's nothing wrong with taking that approach. And on the other side, they're appealing somewhat to the Star Trek fans, who already know these people and world, so they passed on detailed character backgrounds.
Actually, I would say the biggest problem is the line they attempted to strike between bowing to the current fans and reaching out to everyone else. I personally enjoyed most of the throw-back lines and allusions, which certainly would go over the heads of the layman viewer. I know, however, that there are a few out there who complain about this movie "stealing" from the other movies and the show. On the other hand, the Federation they portrayed wasn't quite the one I'm familiar with...no problem to someone who's being introduced for the first time, but kind of unsettling for the seasoned viewer.
Actually, I lied. The single biggest thing that took me out of the movie was the odd slapstick nature of the comedy. I read that they took care to bring back the comedy of the original show (which I don't quite remember existing? sure it had it's comedic moments, but wasn't that just the 60s being ridiculous?), and evidently the manner in which they brought it back falls somewhere between confusing and campy. I mean, you've got someone with allergically enlarged hands, snow monsters tumbling down hills, and people being sucked through death tubes a la Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Hilarious, certainly. Tonally consistent? You decide.
All that being said, yes, I enjoyed the movie and look forward to seeing it again in the near future. Was it a great movie? Nah. Is it much more commercially successful than any other Trek movie? Absolutely. Are they going to make a sequel? Looks like, and I can't wait to buy my tickets for it.
Last note: my hands-down favorite thing of the movie is the casting. This was not unforeseen. Zachary Quinto, John Cho, Simon Pegg, these are people I'd watch in anything. Chris Pine and Karl Urban I don't obsess over, but I've been consistently impressed with their work. That Zoe Saldana I don't know at all, but I have no complaints. And little Anton Yelchin? His Chekov was literally my favorite part of the movie.
Okay, what else happened this week?! We've been to Burger King no less than three times, gathering the toys. We now have in our arsenal a Spock, Uhura, Bones, Sulu, and two Enterprises. Carolyn and I also have a collectors Spock glass apiece and she also obtained a Kirk. We're going to make-a the movie with our toys, once we have a fully formed bridge crew.
We also saw S. DARKO and FANBOYS, which came out this week on DVD. Do not bother with the former. It's like the FMA movie, or the Dead Like Me movie (and, to a much lesser extent, Serenity). You were better off imagining what happened after, instead of having all your hopes crushed with horrible writing. FANBOYS wasn't horrible, but wasn't a shining star, either. Oh well, Kristen Bell is cute in anything.
Mother's Day was pretty chill. We did some gardening and barbecuing. Those secretive flowers I planted have still yet to bloom. I transplanted this giant white plant out of the barrel it was consuming and into the backyard, where it's probably dying. Oh well. I should take an updated picture of my cactuar family. You'd be impressed.
Monday was opposite day. I went to Carolyn's house where I sat quietly and drew, while she was busy writing. It's finals week for some! I drew a dog which really did come to me in my dreams, as he is also a magician, and his name is Showtime. You can see him on Facebook.
Today we embarked on our continuing mission to seek out new thrift stores and new good bargains; to boldly thrift where no one has thrifted before. We made it all the way to Newbury Park! But we did find the best things there: I got a perfect shirt to edit into the top tank for the BSG outfit (which will sadly have to wait until next year's Comic-Con), a Shannara book, a video on old-time Batman, and a mug from Canada. I also bought the Mach 5 companion to my Mach 6 at the 99 cent store.
Then we watched an episode of DUE SOUTH (this season is slow going =[ ), played some wacky rounds of Halo, and watched a bunch of those Jeopardy sketches from SNL. Then I went home! Caught the last half of the OFFICE--wow. That was a beautiful bit of acting by the Krasinski at the the end, and Carell was doing fantastically throughout. 30 ROCK was highly entertaining, too.
HIMYM has one more next week, and I haven't gotten around to last night's LOST yet. I will remedy that soon. And when all the seasons are up, I'll rent the second season of UGLY BETTY, which I've been missing sorely.
That reminds me that I watched the entirety of SO noTORIous (8 episodes) and that was not really worth my time. The things I do to stoke my Quinto cravings.
Alright, yo. Time to find out what happened on the Island.
-Steph
So STAR TREK. I hope you've all seen it. Actually, I know some of you haven't, but I'll take you to see it real soon.
Honestly, I'm conflicted about it, but not greatly so. Okay, it's kinda like this: remember how I said that THE DARK KNIGHT ended up being a kind of movie that if it didn't have Batman in it, I wouldnta seen it? Meaning, TDK was a dark action crime thriller that happened to feature the Batman. And I like Batman. STAR TREK is a light sci-fi comedy action blockbuster that is sorta set in a Star Trek world, and I like Star Trek.
It's not a bad movie. It really isn't. It's not as solid as I would prefer in any movie, but they get away with thinish plot and character depth--well, for a lot of reasons. First off, if you're just going to see a fun start-of-summer movie, chances are you're neither looking for nor expecting a really honed and introspective "film." It's a "popcorn movie," and there's nothing wrong with taking that approach. And on the other side, they're appealing somewhat to the Star Trek fans, who already know these people and world, so they passed on detailed character backgrounds.
Actually, I would say the biggest problem is the line they attempted to strike between bowing to the current fans and reaching out to everyone else. I personally enjoyed most of the throw-back lines and allusions, which certainly would go over the heads of the layman viewer. I know, however, that there are a few out there who complain about this movie "stealing" from the other movies and the show. On the other hand, the Federation they portrayed wasn't quite the one I'm familiar with...no problem to someone who's being introduced for the first time, but kind of unsettling for the seasoned viewer.
Actually, I lied. The single biggest thing that took me out of the movie was the odd slapstick nature of the comedy. I read that they took care to bring back the comedy of the original show (which I don't quite remember existing? sure it had it's comedic moments, but wasn't that just the 60s being ridiculous?), and evidently the manner in which they brought it back falls somewhere between confusing and campy. I mean, you've got someone with allergically enlarged hands, snow monsters tumbling down hills, and people being sucked through death tubes a la Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Hilarious, certainly. Tonally consistent? You decide.
All that being said, yes, I enjoyed the movie and look forward to seeing it again in the near future. Was it a great movie? Nah. Is it much more commercially successful than any other Trek movie? Absolutely. Are they going to make a sequel? Looks like, and I can't wait to buy my tickets for it.
Last note: my hands-down favorite thing of the movie is the casting. This was not unforeseen. Zachary Quinto, John Cho, Simon Pegg, these are people I'd watch in anything. Chris Pine and Karl Urban I don't obsess over, but I've been consistently impressed with their work. That Zoe Saldana I don't know at all, but I have no complaints. And little Anton Yelchin? His Chekov was literally my favorite part of the movie.
Okay, what else happened this week?! We've been to Burger King no less than three times, gathering the toys. We now have in our arsenal a Spock, Uhura, Bones, Sulu, and two Enterprises. Carolyn and I also have a collectors Spock glass apiece and she also obtained a Kirk. We're going to make-a the movie with our toys, once we have a fully formed bridge crew.
We also saw S. DARKO and FANBOYS, which came out this week on DVD. Do not bother with the former. It's like the FMA movie, or the Dead Like Me movie (and, to a much lesser extent, Serenity). You were better off imagining what happened after, instead of having all your hopes crushed with horrible writing. FANBOYS wasn't horrible, but wasn't a shining star, either. Oh well, Kristen Bell is cute in anything.
Mother's Day was pretty chill. We did some gardening and barbecuing. Those secretive flowers I planted have still yet to bloom. I transplanted this giant white plant out of the barrel it was consuming and into the backyard, where it's probably dying. Oh well. I should take an updated picture of my cactuar family. You'd be impressed.
Monday was opposite day. I went to Carolyn's house where I sat quietly and drew, while she was busy writing. It's finals week for some! I drew a dog which really did come to me in my dreams, as he is also a magician, and his name is Showtime. You can see him on Facebook.
Today we embarked on our continuing mission to seek out new thrift stores and new good bargains; to boldly thrift where no one has thrifted before. We made it all the way to Newbury Park! But we did find the best things there: I got a perfect shirt to edit into the top tank for the BSG outfit (which will sadly have to wait until next year's Comic-Con), a Shannara book, a video on old-time Batman, and a mug from Canada. I also bought the Mach 5 companion to my Mach 6 at the 99 cent store.
Then we watched an episode of DUE SOUTH (this season is slow going =[ ), played some wacky rounds of Halo, and watched a bunch of those Jeopardy sketches from SNL. Then I went home! Caught the last half of the OFFICE--wow. That was a beautiful bit of acting by the Krasinski at the the end, and Carell was doing fantastically throughout. 30 ROCK was highly entertaining, too.
HIMYM has one more next week, and I haven't gotten around to last night's LOST yet. I will remedy that soon. And when all the seasons are up, I'll rent the second season of UGLY BETTY, which I've been missing sorely.
That reminds me that I watched the entirety of SO noTORIous (8 episodes) and that was not really worth my time. The things I do to stoke my Quinto cravings.
Alright, yo. Time to find out what happened on the Island.
-Steph
Thursday, May 07, 2009
COFFEE
HAPPY THURSDAY. I THOUGHT I'D SCARE YOU OFF WITH A MISUSE OF CAPITAL LETTERS. But I'm not actually tweaking out on what amounts to my fourth cup of coffee (I used the big mug). I'm just going to be awake for a loooong time. Hooray.
So I totally drink coffee now. A year and a half ago I woulda laughed in your face. But now I like it a lot. But I can't put sugar in it, or else it takes on his horrific spoiled flavor that makes me die a little inside. Very strange. I also eat nori, when in about the same period of time ago, it woulda made me sick. I wonder if I got abducted or experimented on a year and a half ago?
So the premiere was last Friday! (right, Friday?) And that was so much fun. INK-MAN 2 screened in a real-live theater to a real-live audience who had authentic reactions. They laughed! Some cackled. And it played extra-cheesey which totally worked for it even though at times it was accidental. shhhhh I did everything on purpose.
It was cool to see everyone and see their productions. Everything was of a quality of a higher level than I expected. Even the ones from the class the original INK-MAN came from were very good. I liked this whole batch much better than last year's. No offense to last year's, but in that case I thought there were some that people liked just because they were supposed to. You know how it is, Hollywood politics and that.
We got home at like two (sorry, mom&dad) and I was sleepy the whole next day. Went thrifting with Carolyn and bought no less than three pairs of pants: blue navy pants, blue grandpa pants, and white pants for AXing. I also bought a book about Christian Mounties, another about the Yakuza and Soviets, and a record of historical radio broadcasts. Then we stopped at Starbucks before work and I got a cafe americano. I was literally buzzing for the next two hours, which did not beneficially effect my work performance.
Sunday I worked but got out early. Just in time for a concert at the college! Chris Botti and his little band. He's very good, but some of his songs were a tad too abstract for me. We sat in the sun and I ruined my effort to even out my farmers tan. Then we went to dinner with my aunt and uncle at the harbor. We went to this Italian place that we'd never been to, and I had an excellent sandwich.
Monday and Tuesday I didn't work, so I don't know what I did. Probably started working out again since I've been slacking. I think I spent Tuesday at the library. I read about angels, crop circles, conspiracy theories, how to influence your dreams, etc. Two out of the four are screenplay research, haha. After narrowing down my field, I brought home a Batman graphic novel, a book on the invention of the laser, a book on California's water history, and a slightly more academic book on crop circles. To be honest, I've only read through the Batman book so far, but I've got another two weeks.
Yesterday I went in to work super early, increasing my week's work hours by fifty percent. It was a long day. Today I watched the LOST that I missed, and it did not disappoint! Season finale next week, and I hope they treat it as seriously as they've treated the rest of this season. I don't want to say too much in case there's somebody out there who hasn't seen it yet, but I especially liked all the craziness that happened between a certain group of three people who are particularly important. They are a trio who have pretty complex inter-relationships between themselves, and I look forward to seeing how that plays out.
What's hilarious is that I could be referring to two, maybe even three different groups of people. While the other is interesting enough, I think it's starting to get old. I mean, it's been THREE years. Moving on.
I meant to go on a walk today, like to train for maybe walking to the harbor again soon, but it was a little too warm. So I just went around the park, which is like a one-fourth of the harbor journey. But hey, I like the warm. It's my fave.
But mostly I stayed in and watched some anime. Went to BK with Carolyn and picked up some Star Trek toys. I got Zachary-style Spock, and she got Uhura which she traded for the Enterprise. We also both bought Spock cups, those collector glasses which they're selling. Pretty cool. I just bought us tickets to go see it tomorrow at 3:35, and no power in the 'verse can stop me.
Speaking of, how CRAZY was Alan Tudyk in DOLLHOUSE last week? Pretty dang crazy. I admire the skillz of that man.
Also! Sci-fi's having a Trek marathon (meaning ENTERPRISE and TNG and some TNG movies...I suppose that's all they have syndication rights for...because that's a pretty lame "Trek" marathon) so we watched a crazy TNG ep that had... wait for it... Mama Petrelli as a Klingon! She is literally EVERYONE'S Mama. And she was in the episode with Michael Dorn, who plays the President in HEROES, who had a scene with Sylar, played by Zachary Quinto who plays Spock in the new movie... and that's just the beginning of the crossovers.
Also this week I rediscovered Chicken Boo from Animaniacs. I drew him, which you can see on Facebook. I think that's the funniest premise ever. If you never saw Animaniacs, let me share it with you: people are talking about so-and-so, who is amazingly good at whatever he does. They all swap stories of his brilliance, after which one person says, "I heard he was a giant chicken." At this, this person is thrown out for being ridiculous. Then Chicken Boo comes in. And he is a giant chicken, in some meager disguise that prevents everyone from seeing that it's a chicken behind the mustache. He does whatever he does, and he IS great at it, but invariably he loses his disguise in the process. Horrified that he ACTUALLY IS a giant chicken, the people throw him out.
I LOVE IT. It's also very sad. These people are very racist towards chickens.
Worf is also racist towards Romulans.
Okay, okay, I think I'm going to try some writing now, since I'm typing like a fiend. It's gonna be great. I'll tell you all how STAR TREK is.
-Steph
ps
It's gonna be GREAT.
So I totally drink coffee now. A year and a half ago I woulda laughed in your face. But now I like it a lot. But I can't put sugar in it, or else it takes on his horrific spoiled flavor that makes me die a little inside. Very strange. I also eat nori, when in about the same period of time ago, it woulda made me sick. I wonder if I got abducted or experimented on a year and a half ago?
So the premiere was last Friday! (right, Friday?) And that was so much fun. INK-MAN 2 screened in a real-live theater to a real-live audience who had authentic reactions. They laughed! Some cackled. And it played extra-cheesey which totally worked for it even though at times it was accidental. shhhhh I did everything on purpose.
It was cool to see everyone and see their productions. Everything was of a quality of a higher level than I expected. Even the ones from the class the original INK-MAN came from were very good. I liked this whole batch much better than last year's. No offense to last year's, but in that case I thought there were some that people liked just because they were supposed to. You know how it is, Hollywood politics and that.
We got home at like two (sorry, mom&dad) and I was sleepy the whole next day. Went thrifting with Carolyn and bought no less than three pairs of pants: blue navy pants, blue grandpa pants, and white pants for AXing. I also bought a book about Christian Mounties, another about the Yakuza and Soviets, and a record of historical radio broadcasts. Then we stopped at Starbucks before work and I got a cafe americano. I was literally buzzing for the next two hours, which did not beneficially effect my work performance.
Sunday I worked but got out early. Just in time for a concert at the college! Chris Botti and his little band. He's very good, but some of his songs were a tad too abstract for me. We sat in the sun and I ruined my effort to even out my farmers tan. Then we went to dinner with my aunt and uncle at the harbor. We went to this Italian place that we'd never been to, and I had an excellent sandwich.
Monday and Tuesday I didn't work, so I don't know what I did. Probably started working out again since I've been slacking. I think I spent Tuesday at the library. I read about angels, crop circles, conspiracy theories, how to influence your dreams, etc. Two out of the four are screenplay research, haha. After narrowing down my field, I brought home a Batman graphic novel, a book on the invention of the laser, a book on California's water history, and a slightly more academic book on crop circles. To be honest, I've only read through the Batman book so far, but I've got another two weeks.
Yesterday I went in to work super early, increasing my week's work hours by fifty percent. It was a long day. Today I watched the LOST that I missed, and it did not disappoint! Season finale next week, and I hope they treat it as seriously as they've treated the rest of this season. I don't want to say too much in case there's somebody out there who hasn't seen it yet, but I especially liked all the craziness that happened between a certain group of three people who are particularly important. They are a trio who have pretty complex inter-relationships between themselves, and I look forward to seeing how that plays out.
What's hilarious is that I could be referring to two, maybe even three different groups of people. While the other is interesting enough, I think it's starting to get old. I mean, it's been THREE years. Moving on.
I meant to go on a walk today, like to train for maybe walking to the harbor again soon, but it was a little too warm. So I just went around the park, which is like a one-fourth of the harbor journey. But hey, I like the warm. It's my fave.
But mostly I stayed in and watched some anime. Went to BK with Carolyn and picked up some Star Trek toys. I got Zachary-style Spock, and she got Uhura which she traded for the Enterprise. We also both bought Spock cups, those collector glasses which they're selling. Pretty cool. I just bought us tickets to go see it tomorrow at 3:35, and no power in the 'verse can stop me.
Speaking of, how CRAZY was Alan Tudyk in DOLLHOUSE last week? Pretty dang crazy. I admire the skillz of that man.
Also! Sci-fi's having a Trek marathon (meaning ENTERPRISE and TNG and some TNG movies...I suppose that's all they have syndication rights for...because that's a pretty lame "Trek" marathon) so we watched a crazy TNG ep that had... wait for it... Mama Petrelli as a Klingon! She is literally EVERYONE'S Mama. And she was in the episode with Michael Dorn, who plays the President in HEROES, who had a scene with Sylar, played by Zachary Quinto who plays Spock in the new movie... and that's just the beginning of the crossovers.
Also this week I rediscovered Chicken Boo from Animaniacs. I drew him, which you can see on Facebook. I think that's the funniest premise ever. If you never saw Animaniacs, let me share it with you: people are talking about so-and-so, who is amazingly good at whatever he does. They all swap stories of his brilliance, after which one person says, "I heard he was a giant chicken." At this, this person is thrown out for being ridiculous. Then Chicken Boo comes in. And he is a giant chicken, in some meager disguise that prevents everyone from seeing that it's a chicken behind the mustache. He does whatever he does, and he IS great at it, but invariably he loses his disguise in the process. Horrified that he ACTUALLY IS a giant chicken, the people throw him out.
I LOVE IT. It's also very sad. These people are very racist towards chickens.
Worf is also racist towards Romulans.
Okay, okay, I think I'm going to try some writing now, since I'm typing like a fiend. It's gonna be great. I'll tell you all how STAR TREK is.
-Steph
ps
It's gonna be GREAT.
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Sleepytime Thursday
Happy Thursday! The schedule got all switched up so I had to work tonight when it woulda been a day off. My feet hurt. >=[ And I have to work in the morning, again, too. AND we have to sell rewards again, so that's fantastic.
And after work tomorrow we're jetting off to fancy Azusa for the fancy film premiere. INK-MAN 2 will be seen and judged by the world. Eep. But it should be fun. And the reception's at the newish Mediterranean place that I went to once while Beth and Megan were frightened and waited in the car.
Last year this event was in Pasadena, but tomorrow it'll be at the cheap theater across the street. Which they remodeled so it'll at least seem fancy. SAM! Get ready for your face on the big screen!!
My mom's birthday was on Tuesday, so I bought some balloons and stuff and we made a cake. I got her a DVD collection of Picard episodes, and made two flowery pillowcases. I made those in secret bwahaha. The flowers I planted have rainchecked to Mother's Day, since they're only like two inches tall now. But one day soon they'll bloom, and they're for my mom!
And here's the story of how I figured out what I did last weekend:
Ayan: Halfway Jumpers says:
did we do anything last weekend?
Souji says:
ujmmmmmmmmmmm
Ayan: Halfway Jumpers says:
we watched a Due South, or no?
Souji says:
i did not go to the island
i don't think you came over
you worked then were going to watch the movie with your parents?
Ayan: Halfway Jumpers says:
you had to draw
Souji says:
since i think i drew that day
Ayan: Halfway Jumpers says:
we played Rock Band.....when on earth was that
Souji says:
yeah, that was the day i watched two movies in a row
oh
um
friday?
no
the day dollhouse is on?
Ayan: Halfway Jumpers says:
oh, maybe!
friday
Souji says:
since you had to leave before nine
Ayan: Halfway Jumpers says:
right
Souji says:
so you can watch the show
ah
yup, played some rock band and watched some due south
Ayan: Halfway Jumpers says:
was that just the first episode of season 4?
Souji says:
i think that was it over here
um
maybe 2 eps?
Ayan: Halfway Jumpers says:
really?
Souji says:
since we are on like 4 or something
right?
there were two different girls
in two different eps
Ayan: Halfway Jumpers says:
the canadian baseball game
Souji says:
we did not watch that in the same sitting?
oh, we only watched just that one, that time
?
Ayan: Halfway Jumpers says:
I think ... so
because of all the rock band
Souji says:
then when did we watch the others?
Ayan: Halfway Jumpers says:
did we even see more?
Souji says:
there was only 30 minutes of rock band
oh i thought we did
like the girl and the old lady
the con
then later the card game
Ayan: Halfway Jumpers says:
oh yeah!!
Souji says:
that is 3 eps
i thought we watched them all in one sitting
since i want to say rock band ended at 5
right?
Ayan: Halfway Jumpers says:
sure
Souji says:
three eps is till 8
little over into 8 o clock
um
Ayan: Halfway Jumpers says:
and then I guess it was Saturday that I didn't come over
Souji says:
yup
and i have no clue what you did on those other days of the week
Ayan: Halfway Jumpers says:
me either
The end.
I guess DUE SOUTH really isn't that memorable of a show? XD Season four seems sillier than the previous one, and not necessarily in a good way. But I shall have to see more. MOAR.
On Monday CHUCK and HEROES had their season finales (although no one's sure if CHUCK is coming back, yet). CHUCK was pretty solid and HEROES was pretty ridiculous. I don't want to talk about it.
Caught HIMYM online the next day, it was funny but I'll have to think a moment longer to remember what it was about. Three Days Rule. Yeah, it wasn't bad.
I saw yesterday's LOST today and ever since I've had this backburner urge to watch more. But I can't, because I'm caught up. Farraday was in it, and had some cool backstory and some widely varied acting moments. Also, it's strange to think that some characters are newer than others, like Farraday and Miles, and Juliet and Ben before them. Minus Juliet, I like this new batch more than any of the originals. And where's Sayid at these days? I know he had a backstory/catch-up story just recently, but I've already forgotten everything we covered there.
To sum up, there's not much wrong LOST is doing these days. They had some rough patches in seasons past, but so far, this one is just as top-notch as the first. I hope it lasts until the end. (Actually, their focus and drive is probably now due to the fact that they know how the heck this thing is going to end. ...at least, I hope they do.)
I also cleaned my room today. w00t. And I came across the FFXII manga I bought at last year's AX, and I think I'm going to try to read it again. Every year I end up picking up a book in Japanese, just to get my language lessons by reading. Putting the book in the middle of the dictionary, I end up reading a page every like fifteen minutes. It's pretty intense reading. But I haven't done it in a while--I haven't done anything Japanese related in a while--so I'll try to start up again.
Final thought: I've decided I'm super excited for STAR TREK. Sidenote: we got some Trek dolls in a the store (I know, right?) and the old school Kirk is decidedly black. The Spock, on the other hand, looks just like Nimoy. The Quinto one, not so much.
-Steph
And after work tomorrow we're jetting off to fancy Azusa for the fancy film premiere. INK-MAN 2 will be seen and judged by the world. Eep. But it should be fun. And the reception's at the newish Mediterranean place that I went to once while Beth and Megan were frightened and waited in the car.
Last year this event was in Pasadena, but tomorrow it'll be at the cheap theater across the street. Which they remodeled so it'll at least seem fancy. SAM! Get ready for your face on the big screen!!
My mom's birthday was on Tuesday, so I bought some balloons and stuff and we made a cake. I got her a DVD collection of Picard episodes, and made two flowery pillowcases. I made those in secret bwahaha. The flowers I planted have rainchecked to Mother's Day, since they're only like two inches tall now. But one day soon they'll bloom, and they're for my mom!
And here's the story of how I figured out what I did last weekend:
Ayan: Halfway Jumpers says:
did we do anything last weekend?
Souji says:
ujmmmmmmmmmmm
Ayan: Halfway Jumpers says:
we watched a Due South, or no?
Souji says:
i did not go to the island
i don't think you came over
you worked then were going to watch the movie with your parents?
Ayan: Halfway Jumpers says:
you had to draw
Souji says:
since i think i drew that day
Ayan: Halfway Jumpers says:
we played Rock Band.....when on earth was that
Souji says:
yeah, that was the day i watched two movies in a row
oh
um
friday?
no
the day dollhouse is on?
Ayan: Halfway Jumpers says:
oh, maybe!
friday
Souji says:
since you had to leave before nine
Ayan: Halfway Jumpers says:
right
Souji says:
so you can watch the show
ah
yup, played some rock band and watched some due south
Ayan: Halfway Jumpers says:
was that just the first episode of season 4?
Souji says:
i think that was it over here
um
maybe 2 eps?
Ayan: Halfway Jumpers says:
really?
Souji says:
since we are on like 4 or something
right?
there were two different girls
in two different eps
Ayan: Halfway Jumpers says:
the canadian baseball game
Souji says:
we did not watch that in the same sitting?
oh, we only watched just that one, that time
?
Ayan: Halfway Jumpers says:
I think ... so
because of all the rock band
Souji says:
then when did we watch the others?
Ayan: Halfway Jumpers says:
did we even see more?
Souji says:
there was only 30 minutes of rock band
oh i thought we did
like the girl and the old lady
the con
then later the card game
Ayan: Halfway Jumpers says:
oh yeah!!
Souji says:
that is 3 eps
i thought we watched them all in one sitting
since i want to say rock band ended at 5
right?
Ayan: Halfway Jumpers says:
sure
Souji says:
three eps is till 8
little over into 8 o clock
um
Ayan: Halfway Jumpers says:
and then I guess it was Saturday that I didn't come over
Souji says:
yup
and i have no clue what you did on those other days of the week
Ayan: Halfway Jumpers says:
me either
The end.
I guess DUE SOUTH really isn't that memorable of a show? XD Season four seems sillier than the previous one, and not necessarily in a good way. But I shall have to see more. MOAR.
On Monday CHUCK and HEROES had their season finales (although no one's sure if CHUCK is coming back, yet). CHUCK was pretty solid and HEROES was pretty ridiculous. I don't want to talk about it.
Caught HIMYM online the next day, it was funny but I'll have to think a moment longer to remember what it was about. Three Days Rule. Yeah, it wasn't bad.
I saw yesterday's LOST today and ever since I've had this backburner urge to watch more. But I can't, because I'm caught up. Farraday was in it, and had some cool backstory and some widely varied acting moments. Also, it's strange to think that some characters are newer than others, like Farraday and Miles, and Juliet and Ben before them. Minus Juliet, I like this new batch more than any of the originals. And where's Sayid at these days? I know he had a backstory/catch-up story just recently, but I've already forgotten everything we covered there.
To sum up, there's not much wrong LOST is doing these days. They had some rough patches in seasons past, but so far, this one is just as top-notch as the first. I hope it lasts until the end. (Actually, their focus and drive is probably now due to the fact that they know how the heck this thing is going to end. ...at least, I hope they do.)
I also cleaned my room today. w00t. And I came across the FFXII manga I bought at last year's AX, and I think I'm going to try to read it again. Every year I end up picking up a book in Japanese, just to get my language lessons by reading. Putting the book in the middle of the dictionary, I end up reading a page every like fifteen minutes. It's pretty intense reading. But I haven't done it in a while--I haven't done anything Japanese related in a while--so I'll try to start up again.
Final thought: I've decided I'm super excited for STAR TREK. Sidenote: we got some Trek dolls in a the store (I know, right?) and the old school Kirk is decidedly black. The Spock, on the other hand, looks just like Nimoy. The Quinto one, not so much.
-Steph
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Unicorns and Speed Racer
Happy Thursday! I had a pretty cool week, over all. There was a lot of hanging out and for a while it was actually summer. Now it's like fake fall time. Not really what I had in mind.
Eventually on Friday Beth came over! We had so many plans but we didn't really do much. I took her on a countryside tour out to Santa Paula and back. Oh before that we went to the mall, today! But pretty much any store I'm interested in shopping at is closed now. All there is is punk shoes and tween girl clothes. And jewelry shops.
And then we picked up some potato salads and headed to Carolyn's house. There was a kid named John there, and he was pretty cool. Steven grilled, and we ate so much. Beth finally saw the first episode of DUE SOUTH and I'm sure she liked it. SURE. Eventually we played Rock Band and then everyone went home.
I have no memory of the weekend. Somewhere in there I watched the highly disappointing BUTTERFLY EFFECT.
I think I really need to start keeping a calendar again. I used to write down the interesting things I did, like what movie I saw or where I went with who. Now I just can't keep track of anything!
Monday, it must have been, I trucked out to Azusa to finish INK-MAN 2. Yeah. It's done. What I really did was spend the day eating with the old roomies, and then exported the movie super late at night. Just like old times! And, on the way there, I actually saw a truck that was on fire.
Tuesday Wednesday was bite-sized works. Business was real slow. But yesterday after TWILIGHT played out, my manager put in SPEED RACER. You know, that little movie that makes blu-ray worth your while? So I caught bits of it for the rest of the day, and by the time I left I had already decided to watch it when I got home. But since no one had bought anything all day, I caved and grabbed the used blu-ray copy we had for sale and brought that along home with me. $13.50 with the discount! And since it got put out for sale pretty soon after we started stocking blu-rays, it's a perfect disc. A grand deal, I think.
So I watched that with my mom and a box of curry. It was a comfort movie/food sort of day. My mom had actually already seen it, when I got the DVD, but she forgot. Speaking of, this is the first thing I've owned in both formats, so of course I popped them both in and cued them up to the same frame. Flipping back and forth I noticed that the blu-ray had about a 3% increase in sharpness. My conclusion: we need an HDTV.
Now I'm sure you guys have noticed by now that my cinematic tastes fall all across the board. SPEED RACER, as it turns out, is definitely one of my favorite movies of all time. There's nothing wrong with it. I say that, but you know I wish there wasn't a monkey in it. But even with a monkey, the rest of it is so...fitting with my sensabilities that I can easily overlook the monkey.
It makes me think again about the way people rate, recommend, or talk about movies. This particularl movie was a box office failure, which usually is a sign that the audience didn't find it appealing. A lot of people hate this movie. A lot of people think it's a bad movie. Cale, for one. But I think that the way we judge movies should be a lot more complicated than that. I love this movie, and I think it's a good movie, and for the same reasons that others reject it. I think that when people judge a movie, I think the most important thing to figure out is whether or not the movie was for you. Or, if you are included in the intended audience.
It's like saying that all kids movies are dumb. Well, maybe to adults a kid's movie is dumb. But an adult isn't that movie's audience. Ask a kid. The kid thinks it's great. So to me, that means that movie is a success. Or a horror movie. A lot of people don't think horror movies are any good, and wonder why people go to see them at all. But there is an audience for those films, and if a horror movie is judged by a horror fan to be good, to be everything that person is looking for in that horror movie, then that's a success. To be a cheesy teen romancedrama, if a thousand teen girls all go see TWILIGHT and love it for its cheesy teen romance, then it's a success.
And clearly it is.
So. I think it's okay to not like a movie, or to find a movie to be bad. But I think you need to realize that maybe that movie wasn't for you. Maybe that genre isn't for you. If you know you don't like raunchy humor, don't go see a Judd Apatow movie. But don't immediately assume it's going to be a bad movie. Someone out there finds meaning in it (the creators, for example), and they don't need you skewing the test results.
In conclusion, feel free to think that SPEED RACER is a stupid, drug-induced, childish movie. It's a perfect movie for me.
It's also like how there may be someone in the world that you can't stand, but somehow that person is married. Clearly, you're not that person's audience, but that doesn't mean no one is!
Oh gosh, what am I talking about anymore? Unicorns.
Last night I said to Beth, "I want to write something that someone wants to read. What do you want to read?"
[A good key to success is to find the audience first.]
And she said, "You should write about unicorns."
I said, "I already have."
She lol'd and then told me to write a story about a unicorn who goes on crazy adventures and then you find out it never was a unicorn but a guy on an acid trip. I said I would call it "My Name is GloBrite," and then I wrote it.
Another unicorn named Pancakes is mentioned in that story, and when I was done, I exclaimed, "I want to write a story about Pancakes!" So I did. I'm about halfway done, and it's like five pages. It's called "Pancakes and the Three Wishes." I don't want to give too much away, but right now they're meeting the Chupacabra.
It's going to be an awesome kid's book. Should test it out on my nieces. Watch out, kids!
In other news, I'm going to miss Michael Scott Paper Company. These most recent episodes have felt really fresh and fun, and that's exactly what that show needed. Can't wait to see where they go next.
HEROES! Finally some real action. This last episode was full of excitement and wtfery. Sylar's sort of crazy now. I don't imagine Nathan is going to survive the season finale next week. For real this time.
CHUCK, on the whole, may not be surviving? They seemed to wrap up everything very nicely this week, and with one more episode in the season, it sort of feels like that's going to be it. But I have no real news either way. I hope it goes on. Maybe they'll do something fresh and fun, too.
I hadn't seen the last two episodes of LOST, so I caught those back to back on Tuesday or so. It was like a phenomenal LOST banquet. No two episodes in a row have been so good as those two. So many surprises and answers and more questions!! One of them being a Ben episode and the other being Miles...that may have factored into my overall liking, but still. And then yesterday rolls around and I hoped that that episode would maintain the high caliber I'd come to expect from it......and it's just this lame recap episode. Waste of my time, so I went away in disgust.
Well, I guess I had better get back to my Pancakes. I'll let you know how it turns out.
-Stephanie
Eventually on Friday Beth came over! We had so many plans but we didn't really do much. I took her on a countryside tour out to Santa Paula and back. Oh before that we went to the mall, today! But pretty much any store I'm interested in shopping at is closed now. All there is is punk shoes and tween girl clothes. And jewelry shops.
And then we picked up some potato salads and headed to Carolyn's house. There was a kid named John there, and he was pretty cool. Steven grilled, and we ate so much. Beth finally saw the first episode of DUE SOUTH and I'm sure she liked it. SURE. Eventually we played Rock Band and then everyone went home.
I have no memory of the weekend. Somewhere in there I watched the highly disappointing BUTTERFLY EFFECT.
I think I really need to start keeping a calendar again. I used to write down the interesting things I did, like what movie I saw or where I went with who. Now I just can't keep track of anything!
Monday, it must have been, I trucked out to Azusa to finish INK-MAN 2. Yeah. It's done. What I really did was spend the day eating with the old roomies, and then exported the movie super late at night. Just like old times! And, on the way there, I actually saw a truck that was on fire.
Tuesday Wednesday was bite-sized works. Business was real slow. But yesterday after TWILIGHT played out, my manager put in SPEED RACER. You know, that little movie that makes blu-ray worth your while? So I caught bits of it for the rest of the day, and by the time I left I had already decided to watch it when I got home. But since no one had bought anything all day, I caved and grabbed the used blu-ray copy we had for sale and brought that along home with me. $13.50 with the discount! And since it got put out for sale pretty soon after we started stocking blu-rays, it's a perfect disc. A grand deal, I think.
So I watched that with my mom and a box of curry. It was a comfort movie/food sort of day. My mom had actually already seen it, when I got the DVD, but she forgot. Speaking of, this is the first thing I've owned in both formats, so of course I popped them both in and cued them up to the same frame. Flipping back and forth I noticed that the blu-ray had about a 3% increase in sharpness. My conclusion: we need an HDTV.
Now I'm sure you guys have noticed by now that my cinematic tastes fall all across the board. SPEED RACER, as it turns out, is definitely one of my favorite movies of all time. There's nothing wrong with it. I say that, but you know I wish there wasn't a monkey in it. But even with a monkey, the rest of it is so...fitting with my sensabilities that I can easily overlook the monkey.
It makes me think again about the way people rate, recommend, or talk about movies. This particularl movie was a box office failure, which usually is a sign that the audience didn't find it appealing. A lot of people hate this movie. A lot of people think it's a bad movie. Cale, for one. But I think that the way we judge movies should be a lot more complicated than that. I love this movie, and I think it's a good movie, and for the same reasons that others reject it. I think that when people judge a movie, I think the most important thing to figure out is whether or not the movie was for you. Or, if you are included in the intended audience.
It's like saying that all kids movies are dumb. Well, maybe to adults a kid's movie is dumb. But an adult isn't that movie's audience. Ask a kid. The kid thinks it's great. So to me, that means that movie is a success. Or a horror movie. A lot of people don't think horror movies are any good, and wonder why people go to see them at all. But there is an audience for those films, and if a horror movie is judged by a horror fan to be good, to be everything that person is looking for in that horror movie, then that's a success. To be a cheesy teen romancedrama, if a thousand teen girls all go see TWILIGHT and love it for its cheesy teen romance, then it's a success.
And clearly it is.
So. I think it's okay to not like a movie, or to find a movie to be bad. But I think you need to realize that maybe that movie wasn't for you. Maybe that genre isn't for you. If you know you don't like raunchy humor, don't go see a Judd Apatow movie. But don't immediately assume it's going to be a bad movie. Someone out there finds meaning in it (the creators, for example), and they don't need you skewing the test results.
In conclusion, feel free to think that SPEED RACER is a stupid, drug-induced, childish movie. It's a perfect movie for me.
It's also like how there may be someone in the world that you can't stand, but somehow that person is married. Clearly, you're not that person's audience, but that doesn't mean no one is!
Oh gosh, what am I talking about anymore? Unicorns.
Last night I said to Beth, "I want to write something that someone wants to read. What do you want to read?"
[A good key to success is to find the audience first.]
And she said, "You should write about unicorns."
I said, "I already have."
She lol'd and then told me to write a story about a unicorn who goes on crazy adventures and then you find out it never was a unicorn but a guy on an acid trip. I said I would call it "My Name is GloBrite," and then I wrote it.
Another unicorn named Pancakes is mentioned in that story, and when I was done, I exclaimed, "I want to write a story about Pancakes!" So I did. I'm about halfway done, and it's like five pages. It's called "Pancakes and the Three Wishes." I don't want to give too much away, but right now they're meeting the Chupacabra.
It's going to be an awesome kid's book. Should test it out on my nieces. Watch out, kids!
In other news, I'm going to miss Michael Scott Paper Company. These most recent episodes have felt really fresh and fun, and that's exactly what that show needed. Can't wait to see where they go next.
HEROES! Finally some real action. This last episode was full of excitement and wtfery. Sylar's sort of crazy now. I don't imagine Nathan is going to survive the season finale next week. For real this time.
CHUCK, on the whole, may not be surviving? They seemed to wrap up everything very nicely this week, and with one more episode in the season, it sort of feels like that's going to be it. But I have no real news either way. I hope it goes on. Maybe they'll do something fresh and fun, too.
I hadn't seen the last two episodes of LOST, so I caught those back to back on Tuesday or so. It was like a phenomenal LOST banquet. No two episodes in a row have been so good as those two. So many surprises and answers and more questions!! One of them being a Ben episode and the other being Miles...that may have factored into my overall liking, but still. And then yesterday rolls around and I hoped that that episode would maintain the high caliber I'd come to expect from it......and it's just this lame recap episode. Waste of my time, so I went away in disgust.
Well, I guess I had better get back to my Pancakes. I'll let you know how it turns out.
-Stephanie
Thursday, April 16, 2009
It's Captain Anderson to you
Happy Thursday! I also recorded a video blog to share, but it seems our connection won't let it upload for some reason. I'll maybe try again later. But it won't be Thursday special anymore. =[
Today was a special day because I woke up at 9 of my own free will and got ready for work...and went to Carolyn's house. We fit in the last two episodes of DUE SOUTH season 3 before I had to leave for work and she had to go to school. Kinda like last Thursday. So this season finale was a 2-parter, written by the Mountie, Paul Gross (not show creator Paul Haggis, who is, incidentally, a member of the writing team responsible for the Daniel Craig style Bond movies), and it was twice as dramatic as usual, and also twice as ridiculous. Next up, season 4.
Yesterday I had my first 8-hour shift at the store, due to everyone else being employed for inventory that night. Waaaaa, it was a long day.
Me and Carolyn had to hash out what else we did this week because we both have the memory capacity of the senile. It turns out that on Friday or Saturday I visited and we may or may not have played Starcraft. But for sure on Saturday we watched the second half of DUE SOUTH up till what we watched today, also went duck shopping, and watched some animated Hulk movies, where he "fought" Thor and/or Wolverine. Hulk vs. Thor wasn't bad at all, but vs. Wolverine was probably worse than event the Avengers movies.
I don't believe I did anything else super exciting this week. But my flowers that I planted have sprouted, and they're doing very well. It's like Harvest Moon but real. There was also an awful awful wind the last two days or so, which made me antsy and nervous and grouchy and bored and agitated. I couldn't go outside. Maybe I have a wind phobia. So I was watching all the anime I have to catch up on, but I'd sit there for three minutes before starting to skip through it to get done faster....but then I'd be done with nothing else to do and nothing would keep my attention for long enough for me to not be bored. It was bad. And then yesterday at work the doors were just continuously open thanks to the wind, and everything inside got super dusty and it was really cold.
:<
I can has summer nao?
Beth is coming to visit tomorrow! WE ARE GOING TO GO TO THE MALL, TODAY!
Okay, I wrote all that a long time ago, waiting for the video to upload. Since then, I caught up on two episodes of the OFFICE I somehow missed, and watched the new one and 30 ROCK. This whole Michael Scott Paper Company thing I'm liking a lot. Way to shake things up. Shaking things up like video blogs, but I guess Thursday does not want to be shook just yet.
See y'all later!
-Steph
Today was a special day because I woke up at 9 of my own free will and got ready for work...and went to Carolyn's house. We fit in the last two episodes of DUE SOUTH season 3 before I had to leave for work and she had to go to school. Kinda like last Thursday. So this season finale was a 2-parter, written by the Mountie, Paul Gross (not show creator Paul Haggis, who is, incidentally, a member of the writing team responsible for the Daniel Craig style Bond movies), and it was twice as dramatic as usual, and also twice as ridiculous. Next up, season 4.
Yesterday I had my first 8-hour shift at the store, due to everyone else being employed for inventory that night. Waaaaa, it was a long day.
Me and Carolyn had to hash out what else we did this week because we both have the memory capacity of the senile. It turns out that on Friday or Saturday I visited and we may or may not have played Starcraft. But for sure on Saturday we watched the second half of DUE SOUTH up till what we watched today, also went duck shopping, and watched some animated Hulk movies, where he "fought" Thor and/or Wolverine. Hulk vs. Thor wasn't bad at all, but vs. Wolverine was probably worse than event the Avengers movies.
I don't believe I did anything else super exciting this week. But my flowers that I planted have sprouted, and they're doing very well. It's like Harvest Moon but real. There was also an awful awful wind the last two days or so, which made me antsy and nervous and grouchy and bored and agitated. I couldn't go outside. Maybe I have a wind phobia. So I was watching all the anime I have to catch up on, but I'd sit there for three minutes before starting to skip through it to get done faster....but then I'd be done with nothing else to do and nothing would keep my attention for long enough for me to not be bored. It was bad. And then yesterday at work the doors were just continuously open thanks to the wind, and everything inside got super dusty and it was really cold.
:<
I can has summer nao?
Beth is coming to visit tomorrow! WE ARE GOING TO GO TO THE MALL, TODAY!
Okay, I wrote all that a long time ago, waiting for the video to upload. Since then, I caught up on two episodes of the OFFICE I somehow missed, and watched the new one and 30 ROCK. This whole Michael Scott Paper Company thing I'm liking a lot. Way to shake things up. Shaking things up like video blogs, but I guess Thursday does not want to be shook just yet.
See y'all later!
-Steph
Thursday, April 09, 2009
Thank You Kindly
Happy Thursday! I think it was a little better of a Thursday than we've been having lately, or was it just me? My day, at least, was thoroughly enjoyable. My day, let me show you it.
My folks are back, so that's yay. But I ditched them and went over to Carolyn's in the morning to start DUE SOUTH (season 3), which is a Canadian show from the 90s I may or may not have told you about. I don't think I have? Anyway, it stars some guy as a Mountie working with these cops in Chicago, and his partner is played by Callum Keith Rennie, which some of you may know as Leoben. Rennie is only in season three, if that answers any unasked questions.
Oh guys, it's even better than I imagined. We watched like, what, eight episodes? I don't think Carolyn loves it as much as I do, but I certainly think I discovered something amazing. It's half sitcom, half cop drama, and 100% ridiculous. I'm in love.
And while I came back home for lunch (some people still have classes to go to), I ended up back over there until like nowish, DUE SOUTHing and then a little Starcrafting. It was a good day.
So this week I worked a little, sewed a little, hung out at Carolyn's but I don't remember what we did. Played some video games or watched some stuff.....I don't remember which. There was a day I hung out with Steven because I tried to pick him up from school but then we cleaned my house some.
I watched TIN MAN, which is the most oddly named miniseries I've ever seen. It's not even about the tin man. It's that Wizard of Oz reimagining? The concept was actually pretty good, but the execution--nearly every aspect of it, from direction and acting down to special effects--was poor. I honestly would have stopped watching (or at least fast forwarded through more) but surprise of surprises! Callum Keith Rennie had a henchman part that I had to stick around for. Was he worth it? .....Almost.
And for reasons too numerous to go into at this particular juncture, it was this Tin Man appearance that eventually led me to DUE SOUTH, so I guess it had it's purpose.
Canadians (and I suppose especially Mounties) are very polite. "Polite cop, bad cop," is one of their tactics.
Seriously, so what else happened between this week and last? Between last week and this? Nothing important, I suppose. I bought some BSG stuff on ebay. We discovered that the Joann's in Oxnard still exists, but I don't know if that was this week exactly. I planted mystery birthday flowers in the backyard for my mom. I finished Beth's story about if Sylar went to APU. OH, there's something:
Me and Carolyn started writing a story about vampire hunters. Some of them are called Halfway Jumpers, because they are the only ones who can go to the Halfway Station which is halfway between earth and the sun. Why do they go there? Because when they stake a vampire, they fill up this capsule thing on the end of it with the energy from the vampire's soul, and when that's all filled up, they take 'em all up to space and beam the energy at the sun to keep it going. OR SO THEY THINK. It's going to be epic.
So I guess we also went thrifting because we were downtown when this started--no, in Lowes, looking at something almost, but not quite, entirely unlike this. Then we went thrifting and then we went to Korean food.
Yep, I guess that's about it. Since it's late and I have to work in the morning, I'm gonna sign of here. And I'll try to keep my fake accidental Canadian accent in check. Or maybe I won't.
-Steph
My folks are back, so that's yay. But I ditched them and went over to Carolyn's in the morning to start DUE SOUTH (season 3), which is a Canadian show from the 90s I may or may not have told you about. I don't think I have? Anyway, it stars some guy as a Mountie working with these cops in Chicago, and his partner is played by Callum Keith Rennie, which some of you may know as Leoben. Rennie is only in season three, if that answers any unasked questions.
Oh guys, it's even better than I imagined. We watched like, what, eight episodes? I don't think Carolyn loves it as much as I do, but I certainly think I discovered something amazing. It's half sitcom, half cop drama, and 100% ridiculous. I'm in love.
And while I came back home for lunch (some people still have classes to go to), I ended up back over there until like nowish, DUE SOUTHing and then a little Starcrafting. It was a good day.
So this week I worked a little, sewed a little, hung out at Carolyn's but I don't remember what we did. Played some video games or watched some stuff.....I don't remember which. There was a day I hung out with Steven because I tried to pick him up from school but then we cleaned my house some.
I watched TIN MAN, which is the most oddly named miniseries I've ever seen. It's not even about the tin man. It's that Wizard of Oz reimagining? The concept was actually pretty good, but the execution--nearly every aspect of it, from direction and acting down to special effects--was poor. I honestly would have stopped watching (or at least fast forwarded through more) but surprise of surprises! Callum Keith Rennie had a henchman part that I had to stick around for. Was he worth it? .....Almost.
And for reasons too numerous to go into at this particular juncture, it was this Tin Man appearance that eventually led me to DUE SOUTH, so I guess it had it's purpose.
Canadians (and I suppose especially Mounties) are very polite. "Polite cop, bad cop," is one of their tactics.
Seriously, so what else happened between this week and last? Between last week and this? Nothing important, I suppose. I bought some BSG stuff on ebay. We discovered that the Joann's in Oxnard still exists, but I don't know if that was this week exactly. I planted mystery birthday flowers in the backyard for my mom. I finished Beth's story about if Sylar went to APU. OH, there's something:
Me and Carolyn started writing a story about vampire hunters. Some of them are called Halfway Jumpers, because they are the only ones who can go to the Halfway Station which is halfway between earth and the sun. Why do they go there? Because when they stake a vampire, they fill up this capsule thing on the end of it with the energy from the vampire's soul, and when that's all filled up, they take 'em all up to space and beam the energy at the sun to keep it going. OR SO THEY THINK. It's going to be epic.
So I guess we also went thrifting because we were downtown when this started--no, in Lowes, looking at something almost, but not quite, entirely unlike this. Then we went thrifting and then we went to Korean food.
Yep, I guess that's about it. Since it's late and I have to work in the morning, I'm gonna sign of here. And I'll try to keep my fake accidental Canadian accent in check. Or maybe I won't.
-Steph
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