pann_cake

Rhett Reese & Paul Wernick, writers of Zombieland, have been selected to write the Deadpool movie screenplay.

I haven`t seen Zombieland myself, but I did hear good things about it. So...this could be awesome? A Deadpool movie with solid dark humor writers and the best actor ever for Deadpool (who`s a fanboy too!) is a pretty hopeful combination. What do you all think?

Thanks to rivian for the heads-up.

Something my mum pointed out that might be food for thought for you (very few) Doctor Who fans on the f-list:

The Master's four-beat drum rhythm is basically the same as the beat that the bass line has in the title theme song, amirite?

What she was specifically referring to though was the original theme song (as of ten seconds in), where the beat is much more distinct.

Nic says it's too simple and common of a pattern to really matter, and I guess he's right. Apparently Russel T. Davies says it was based on the sound of his alarm clock, LOL (WARNING: article contains SPOILERS for End of Time Part 2 and prior). Nevertheless, it's still kind of an amazing coincidence.

Note: I tried to find a clip from The Sound of Drums/Last of the Timelords that succinctly explains the drum-beat so that those of you who are not Who fans could see what the hell I'm talking about, but all I can find are fanvids. YouTube is made of fail.

Other stuff:
( slow but steady evolution of my tree model )

While attempting to read up on Google's Nexus One, I unearthed a ton of smartphone hate comments stuck into just about every article on the subject.

It's okay if smartphones aren't your thing, but do you really have to turn a discussion forum into a warzone?
Flashy new technologies don't interest you? That's fine. There's no reason to berate the rest of us.

I met so many people in college who were constantly asserting that "too many people walk around on their cellphones all day, never making eye contact".
I assure you, even if I didn't have an iPhone to distract me, I wouldn't have made eye contact with you anyway. I was introverted long before I had a cellphone.
In fact, I keep in contact with a larger amount of people thanks to cellphones and computers.

Plus, I've been lost in cities, or harassed by creepy drunk men in the street, and being able to find the nearest subway station or bus stop or even crowded plaza on my phone in those situations can't possibly have been a bad thing.

I am just so very sick of all this self-righteous "we don't need technology! let's return to nature" bullshit.
Without modern medical equipment, many women would die in childbirth. Without computer databases and radios, police would be able to prevent and/or solve only a handful of crimes.

If technology as commodity fetishism is the price we have to pay for a better, safer world, I personally think it's one worth paying.

I don't often make New Year's resolutions, but when I have in the past, the results have had a positive impact on my life.

i.e. - when I was ten, I resolved to stop biting my nails. I never bit them again. Ever since, my nails have been strong and healthy. I even used them to stop a kid at high school from stealing my wallet and cell phone once. His hand was bleeding. Good times! >:D

Anyway, my areas to work on this year are:

• Finish enough 3D art assets to create several fully-playable levels of the game Nic and I are making. Including my nemesis of the 3D art world, animation. I will make real animations this year!
  
• Save money, so that I can move out of my parents' house.
  
• I want to make a novel-length comic out of one of my original stories. I am a very anal perfectionist, though, so I will need to draw the entire thing out in rough before even contemplating drawing a final version. I already have a plot outline, so I estimate that amongst my other projects, the finished script and rough drawings combined will take approximately one year. Or more, but a year is what I'm hoping for.
  
• Even when I don't hear back from job positions I've applied for, I have to keep actively applying elsewhere. Rejection I can handle, but not hearing back from people really gets me down. I lose a lot of drive when this happens, but I need to stay more positive if I'm going to pull through.
  

( current 3D model work )

Also, guys, some advice: if you make 3D models in your spare time, TAKE FREQUENT BREAKS. Yesterday I modeled for several hours straight and my wrist was DEAD. Today, I took breaks every hour-and-a-half, and my wrist feels just fine. Learn from my mistakes!

I had a dream today that I was in the show Bones. I think. There was some sort of ancient Asian archaeological dig, and Booth and Bones were there, but it was all very sci-fi compared to the actual scienc-yness of the show. We discovered a substance that the ancient culture (whatever it was) had used to shape clay, that was like a conductor that let the person communicate with the clay; i.e. they spread this transparent oily stuff on the clay, and then they could shape it with their minds as well as their hands. But only certain people could do it. Booth could. I tried but I couldn't make it work.

But it was also a very 'ghosts in the walls' sort of place, the dig (which was in a large amphitheater/arena) and the lights didn't all go on where they were supposed to, and people kept appearing unexpectedly but saying they had just walked in (even in a locked room). Bones and I went up on some balcony-thing on a tower in the middle of the arena, and then I sensed danger and ended up saving Bones but three people still fell as the balcony broke off. Dr. Sweets was one of them. In a rare fourth-wall-breaking moment, in the dream I said something like, "Well he didn't last as long as I expected," and I was referring to him being off the show. (Which he is not in real life, thank goodness. I love Sweets.) But all the rest of it seemed very "real" i.e. I wasn't dreaming I was on a TV show. And everyone was trying to figure out what was going on, from Bones and I sitting in a little cafe reviewing events to some guy on the stairs of the dig who I now can't remember but I think is someone I know from real life. They were talking about visiting New Jersey.

WEIRD. Although I'd sure like some of that conductor stuff.

I blame at least some of this dream on having watched The Lake House before bed last night. (For instance, the director of the dig in my dream was the actress who played an archaeologist in Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants II, and was also the lead doctor at the hospital Kate works at in The Lake House.) The movie's a little bit 'ghosts in the walls' too, given the communications across time and the voiceover letters and the both-being-in-the-same-place-at-different-times-but-communicating thing.

Speaking of The Lake House, it was better than I expected. I think I was iffy on watching it because Keanu Reeves tends to be spotty sometimes in the more serious acting roles, but I really liked the story, which is sweet but pretty eerie, and both of the leads did a good job (especially with the voiceovers, which could be jarring since they are so frequent here). I liked the twist even though it was telegraphed and I expected it, because it was handled well and it (and the time/communication thing) still made me think. One thing I wasn't quite a big fan of was that because it's more romance than sci-fi, some of the 'how is this happening' parts aren't that clear. But, hey - that's part of the reason I was still thinking about it afterward, so I guess that's not all bad.

And now, I will stop discussing random dreams and movies and say, HAPPY NEW YEAR, all. My resolution this year is to write more on LJ, seeing as I have been sort of MIA lately. Heh. (I mean, I have a lot of other Serious Resolutions, like get a full-time job with health benefits, but, you know.) Also to throw a dinner party this month. I was planning on one for New Year's, but so many people were out of town that I did a little girls' night instead with 3 of my friends (hello, nixve!). It was really fun. :) But now I have all this food in my freezer and need people to come over and eat it. So: dinner party it is!

Speaking of dinner: time for food!

Peach is not playable in the new Super Mario Bros. Wii game because Nintendo claims it is "too difficult" to animate her skirt.

Oh my FUCKING GOD, Nintendo. I get that 3D animation is hard, really, I do; I'm trying to learn it properly myself. But even though I have only ever made THREE completely rigged character models IN MY LIFE, the most polished-looking and functional one WAS WEARING A SKIRT.

AND I AM A TOTAL NOVICE WHO ONLY LEARNED THE BASICS OF MAYA SIX MONTHS AGO. YOU ARE FUCKING NINTENDO. OH. MY. GOD.

ETA: I sort of understand what their problem is a little more now (proper cloth simulation is very "difficult", whereby difficult means that it takes a lot of processing power to generate), but there are still ways around it, so Nintendo still fails.

A real entry later. Just had to say... A Fright Night icon, I finally have one! XD Evil Ed may be my favorite vampire ever! Okay, I dunno. I've liked vampires since I was a little kid (one fucked up little kid), so there's quite a long list. Okay, Evil Ed is my favorite vampire from the 1980s.



Sadly, there's no Evil Ed in that clip. Buuut...H E R E are a couple of scenes with him. The clip I posted, well, I find it kind of hot. WTF, self?

Heeeee. Rachel sent this to me and I felt it needed to be shared.
ETA: Don't discount this just because it sounds like the "Told By A Six-Year-Old" or whatever video. It is so much better.

Star Wars: Retold (by someone who hasn't seen it) from Joe Nicolosi on Vimeo.

End-of-year meme I took from pann_cake.

( Forty Questions About My Year )

I saw A Single Man yesterday with my mum (such a beautiful film), and today mum and dad and I saw Sherlock Holmes. Avatar definitely kicks both of their asses as a well-balanced and polished film, though.

Oh my god, guys. Before the movie got started today, they played a sample track from the godawful-looking chipmunks "squeakquel", which just happened to be the chipmunks singing a cover of "All The Single Ladies". I buried my face in my hands and chanted "no no no" until it went away. Dx
Listen to me, chipmunks, the Single Ladies parody is only funny when the cast of Glee, Andy Samberg, and/or John Barrowman do it. Nobody else should be allowed to reproduce this song ever ever EVER.

While lurking the IMDB forum entries for the Clash of the Titans remake, I felt the need to consolidate this thread:

"TITANS WILL CLASH"?! What kind of a tagline is THAT?
Lord of the Rings: RINGS WILL LORD.

(and the subsequent responses)

JEDI WILL RETURN!
THE KNIGHT WILL BE DARK!
BATMAN WILL BEGIN!
CLONES WILL ATTACK!
WORLDS WILL WAR!
TRIFFIDS WILL DAY!
PRIVATE RYAN WILL BE SAVED!

Indeed. PENGUINS WILL MARCH! LAMBS WILL BE SILENCED! NARNIA WILL BE CHRONICLED! THE LOST ARK WILL BE RAIDED! THE DEAD WILL SHAUN! >:P

I had a nice quiet Christmas with the family this year, as per usual. Mum made roast duck, plus pork and fried rice and other tasty things and it was delicious. ♥

My parents got me some DVDs I'd been after and a Dr. Horrible calendar. I now have the entire series of Avatar: The Last Airbender on DVD which I am very happy about.

On boxing day Nic basically decided I was going over to his place for a few days and came to pick me up. :P
We played a lot of Super Smash Bros. Apparently I've won him over to the greatness that is Peach bitch-slapping and a-cha!-ing everyone else in the face, so I guess that's something to be proud of.

His sister is home for the holidays, and the three of us went shopping in Berkeley. There is a really cool little hat shop in Berkeley, guys! I can't believe I didn't know about it!
I bought Nic a white fedora that he's been wanting for some time, and he bought me A REAL INDIANA JONES HAT, BITCHES. I've been lusting after this exact hat for so long. ♥ I am going to wear it ALL THE TIME.
Nic also bought this black top hat that looks amazing on him.

We both went to see Avatar (not to be confused with The Last Airbender :P). Guhhhhhhhh this movie is spectacular. The visuals are absolutely stunning. There were a ton of things initially that I thought I wasn't going to like about the film (the premise, the way-too-blatant anti-imperialist message, even the designs for the wildlife that I'd glimpsed in the trailer I didn't like very much) but absolutely none of those things mattered because as a whole the movie comes together so perfectly in a way that makes you believe the entirety of cinema has been leading up to its release.
During a film, I am usually a total fangirl for actors I liked in other things, but this movie completely distracted me from that. I didn't even recognize Zoe Saldana until her name showed up on the credits, haha.

It's like everyone says: if you like film, if you like art, hell, if you like looking at pretty shiny things, you owe it to yourself to see this movie. In a theater. Preferably in 3D. You will regret it so much if you don't. :0

I have a bit of Christmas/birthday money left after all these excursions. Rather than buy video games (as I am sorely tempted to do), I'm going to save it all up until I at least have a stable job. Responsible Jo is responsible!

That's right, you guys - I'm out of computer exile! My Dell Studio XPS 16 arrived a few days ago, and it is AWESOME (so far). So shiny and sleek and fast and not from 2003. Hee. I'm uploading programs and figuring out its features as fast as I can. Oh, and did I mention, it is awesome? It even came with FACIAL RECOGNITION SOFTWARE. It signs me on by looking at my face with its little camera. I don't even know if I can grok this advanced technology! But it's so, so cool. Merry Christmas to me!

One tiny complaint I have about it is that there are apparently NO wallpapers out there for this size and resolution (1920x1080) screen. Bah to the Dell guy who was all, "Oh yeah, they are ALL this proportion now." Which I don't believe, and this screen is probably going to hinder my website designing a little bit as I figure out the proper proportions to make everything look good on all screens, but hey - progress is progress. I guess soon we all will have computers with resolutions so high that we have to rummage around and find the bit on the help menu that tells us how to make our text bigger than the head of a pin. Heh.

Anyway, I solved my desktop problem by throwing together a bunch of Matthew Good desktops in bigger sizes (because, as it turns out, with this computer, you can actually do a theme where your desktop automatically changes at a set time. GROOVY.) My sister saw this in progress.

Sister: "Are you a crazy Matthew Good fan? You're a crazy Matthew Good fan."

Me: "What? NO! I'm not crazy. I just really like his music!"

Sister: "Riiiight."

Well it's true. I think I'm just super-hyped about MG at the moment because he's coming to the US on tour again in a few months, and the last concert was so goshdarned fun. Yay! And I always get super-excited about stuff like that a little bit before it happens. Not to mention I'm still loving the new album.

Anyway. Desktop problem solved!

I'll be adding other, non-MG desktops to that set eventually when I have a bit more time. I think Deadpool needs some love and giant desktops, not to mention Dylan Moran. ;P

In other things, Merry Christmas to EVERYONE and many happy wishes for the new year. We are still celebrating at my house, since an unexpected death in my BiL's family means he and my other sister are in Scotland until tomorrow. We will be doing most of our present-opening and the like on the 28th. So I'm still anticipating all those presents under the tree! :)

For now, I will leave you all with a little present. The cover art for some recent Zorro comics and the brand-new A-Team prequel series (just announced Dec. 21) that is coming out before the A-Team movie (Now! With More Liam Neeson!)

Cover art courtesy of the talented John K. Snyder, III, comic book and cover artist and all-around awesome guy.

( Oooh, I LOVE that third Zorro cover! )

And now? I need to hie me over to the MALL.

So I am back on Malcolm a little bit. I can't really sit with my laptop, so I have to lie on my stomach. It bugs my arms, but I'll take it dammit. :P

Susan was nice enough to come over last night and keep me company. She also made delicious tortellini, and brought over some black forest gateau (even though she hadn't misplaced her helmet, LOL). We watched an episode of The Simpsons and the Rifftrx of Star Trek. "The hull! Magnify! See if we can spy on anyone in the shower!"

Had Christmas Eve dinner at my uncle Harry's. My aunt Suzie made this delicious lamb stew. I'd never had lamb before, but I approved. Soooo good. Suzie always makes awesome food. My cousin Krystal brought her boyfriend Gavin, whom I had never met before. He seems to be a bit of a film nerd, so I approve. And very polite, but also fit in really well with all us smart asses. XP I hate my pain pills. I miss booze so much, and my uncle has a great bar. Want a whiskey sour soooo bad. They gave me Angel seasons 1 and 2 on DVD. :)

Stolen from mythologiced:

Your result for The Greek Mythology Personality Test...

The Oracle

33% Extroversion, 80% Intuition, 0% Emotiveness, 90% Perceptiveness

Take The Greek Mythology Personality Test at OkCupid