I got a book in the mail from Germany. It is all in German, and it’s all about Star Wars. It has Chris Woods’ painting of the band in the Millennium Falcon and a little card in it that says “thanks.” It was totally unexpected, but very interesting to flip through and try to decipher. There’s a two-page spread of fangirls dressed in the Leia slave girl outfit.
What I Did on my Weekend Vacation
– got a haircut from Marlo
– watched Clone Wars with Stewie, Mike, Marlo & Taylor
– played D&D with Paul, Kelly, Michelle and Marlo
– drew monsters and modern day wizards
– went for a ride on my newly fixed up bike that Janine gave me!
– bought some new little lights for the next miniature painting party at a garage sale
– went for lunch at Sapodilla with Marlo
– watched the last Batman Animated DVD that Mike lent me
– watched Enterprise (better than the last 2 episodes which isn’t saying much) and Justice League (boring)
Happy Mothra's Day
My email program crashed and won’t stop crashing, so I’ll just have to wish my mother a happy Mother’s Day on my blog for everyone to see.
Clown Wars
I watched all of the episodes of the Clone Wars cartoons recently. I had the first ten on tape for a while, but Teletoon has been airing the last 15 lately. It’s actually getting me pretty fired up for the movie. I went to starwars.com and looked at all the little commercials for ep iii as well. I sure hope it’s good. Or at least as good as Attack of the Clones, I don’t think that’s too much to ask. I heard Kevin Smith gave it a good review, but considering I hated Dogma, I’m not taking that too much to heart. Anyway – Clone Wars. Pretty good. The animation is good all around. It’s pretty clear that they used computers to animate the ships, but it’s clear because they move so fluidly, not because the style is different. Like in Futurama, the computer animated object style matches perfectly with the traditional animation. I wish they’d do that on Justice League.
The one thing that bugs me the most in the cartoons is that the jedis seem overpowered, and their abilities are a little inconsistent with the films. Yoda, for example, uses the force to smash a big droid battle cruiser (the things that landed on Naboo and carried the droid army) into another one. Mace Windu piloted a droid ship by punching his hand into it and using the wires as reins. Stuff like that.
One thing that cartoons often fail at is interesting fight scenes – like sword fights. You just don’t get the ballet-like …what’s the word I’m looking for? Not orchestration. Anyway, that’s one thing that Genndy Tartakovsky seems to be pretty good at (see Samurai Jack). Sometimes (and not just in cartoons) you can clearly see what’s going on in the fight, but it’s too static. Other times the fight is dynamic, but you can’t tell what’s happening (like in movies where the actors actually have no fighting skills so they just use quick edits and CG). Tartakovsky uses interesting angles and interesting environments and interesting moves, all mixed up, and it’s good. It suffers a little bit from G.I. Joe syndrome, in which droids get mowed down but clones rarely get hit, but it’s not too bad. You do get the sense that living things are killed, which is what war is all about.
Another thing that impressed me is the voice acting. Not that the dialogue was particularly amazing (it was good), or that the delivery was bone-chilling, but that considering that Anthony Daniels was the only original voice from the films the voices were well cast. Yoda sounded like Oz, Windu sounded like Jackson, and Anakin sounded like Christensen – only better! They also introduced General Grievous, who [SPOILER SPOILER] will be in the movie and who is a jedi-whoppin’ cyborg sith.
I
Marlo was already here when I got home from work today, and she bought me a burrito from Budgie’s. Budgie’s is a new place on Kingsway just north of Broadway, and they sell super fat burritos full of healthy fixings for $6 including tax. YUM! I don’t know why they’re called Budgie’s though. For some reason that name bugs me. Maybe it’s because it reminds me of budgies. Be that as it may, try it out if you’re in the area.
Harry Potter Six – Not For My Eyes
At work, all of us had to sign a non-disclosure agreement about the new Harry Potter book. We’re not allowed to open the boxes or look at the insides until the release date, which is a little silly. I guess if anyone asks me to pick 10,800,000 copies of Blood Prince I can say “screw you, I signed a piece of paper promising I wouldn’t. I’m going home”
Things that happened in April 2005 (but not to me)
Five American soldiers were arrested for trying to use military aircraft to smuggle cocaine from Colombia into the US. A Russian court found a museum director and an artist guilty of creating blasphemous art and fined them $3,600 each. a Saudi Arabian princess was arrested for keeping slaves in Winchester, Massachusetts. Terri Schiavo’s parents authorized a direct-marketing firm to sell a list of those who contributed to Terri’s cause. The United States announced that it will establish nine new military bases in Afghanistan, bringing the total to twelve; An investigation determined that the rate of malnutrition in Iraqi children under five has nearly doubled since the U.S. invaded, and the U.S. Army’s Psychological Operations group was developing propaganda science fiction comic books for distribution in the Middle East. In Mecca, a man stabbed his father to death after the father threatened to tattle on the man for not praying, and after four years of hard work, 1,300 researchers in ninety-five countries concluded that humans are destroying the world.
Tens of thousands of Iraqis held a nonviolent march in Baghdad to protest the American occupation. Transcripts of legal proceedings at Guantanamo Bay were released. I don’t care about international law, said the president of a military tribunal in one transcript. I don’t want to hear the words ‘international law’ again. We are not concerned with international law.”[AP] Scottish soccer fans booed during a moment of silence to honor the pope [I like their style]. Geneticists bred blue roses. It was revealed that Interior Department scientists studying the environmental effects of a proposed nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, had made things up and deleted findings they did not understand so that the development of the dump could go forward. a nine-foot-long eel with a head as big as a soccer ball was swimming loose in Australia. It was announced that Cookie Monster would cut back on cookies. A study found that store clerks are more respectful to slender shoppers than to obese ones, a Virginia judge sentenced a spammer to nine years in jail, a Georgia man died after police shot him with nonlethal beanbags. Many conservative American pharmacists were refusing to dispense birth control.
A study found that executions by lethal injection carried out in the United States did not meet veterinary standards. Researchers found that parents tend to take better care of their better-looking children. Britain stopped importing United States corn after discovering that the United States had been sending banned, genetically modified corn to the U.K. for the past four years. A scientist cataloged 395 different species of bacteria in the lower intestines of three healthy humans, and entomologists named three newly discovered species of slime-mold beetle after George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and Donald Rumsfeld. In Wales, a drunken man stood before an open window, dropped his trousers, and cried out, who wants some of this? before he fell from the window, impaled himself on a railing, and died, and a Vermont teenager was accused of breaking into a tomb and beheading a corpse. He apparently wanted to use the skull as a bong.
"If Only I Had My Golden Hammer!"
The Cloud City gaming convention is at the end of the month. I know you want to go…and you can! So buy a ticket. I’ll be running 2 games of Spaceship Zero. www.vancouvergamingguild.com
Tonight we played part 2 of the 2nd episode of the D&D cartoon campaign. Billy the barbarian came sort of close to dying, as the two-headed lava dragon and the collapsing castle threatened them all. Afterwards we watched the “Servant of Evil” episode that it was based on and compared the two experiences. I know exactly what episode I’m going to run next, and it should be even better, but I won’t get to it until after Cloud City.
I seem to be having this tremendous difficulty with my lifestyle
Marlo, Stewie, Taylor and I went to see Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy at the new Paramount Theater downtown. The theater is so-so. They have a Taco Bell and a KFC and all manner of unpleasant fast food options, with the added attraction of the employees still trying to get the hang of their new jobs. I bought a bubble tea, which was about 50 cents too expensive (for the size) and harbored too much ice for this sailor. The theater seats were good. All in all – it’s no Tinseltown.
The movie was great. Lots of fun. Sam Rockwell’s performance made me realize how much of a one-dimensional character Zaphod Beeblebrox is. That’s not to say that Rockwell’s performance was bad. It was good. He did as much as he could with the role, I thought. Ford Prefect kind of took a back seat to the Arthur/Trillian angle. That’s not really a complaint, just a surprise. Like Marlo, I wasn’t thrilled with the design of Marvin. I thought it was almost anime in design, and out of place, but I tolerated it well enough. I really liked the design of the Vogons, the graphics on the guide itself, and all the stuff with Magrathea was highly enjoyable. The falling whale voiced by Bill Bailey is a modern classic. I was also greatly gratified that the used the original music for the opening credits. Now every time I see one of the HHGTTG books at work, I start whistling it. 7/10. Wished it was longer.
Oh yes, and Marlo and I both brought our towels to the theater.
Poo Smells
It crept up slowly but it came to stay. It couldn’t be covered up with any amount of air freshening.
Anyone who has visited my apartment (or lived here) in the past few months knows about the smell coming from the first floor. Some people say it smells like something died – but in fact it is sewage. Charming! Finally something is being done about it – this Friday, the note on the door tells me, someone is coming in to replace plumbing type things, and the water will be shut off in our apartment from 9 to 5. I figure I’ll go in to work on Friday instead of Wednesday this week – it makes sense.