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Yeah, I'll still do a meme every now and then. :) I couldn't help asking for 'em, and ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=92.1) toob responded:
Size! -- ( It's long! Click if you wanna know. )
Digimon -- Digimon actually tie in errily well with the size stuff I put up above, in the cut. :) Think about it. Small creatures that take in energy and grow and change up to bigger, better versions of themselves? Yes, please! They represent much of what I love about size and growth, rendered in a more exotic form. Their evolutions are also unpredicable, and that kind of growth is even more intruiging to me, since it sticks so close to the theme of promise that was mentioned in the cut above. :D Digimon caters to this, as well, since you never know what the evolution will be. If I could have had a protector of sorts back in childhood, you can bet it would've been a digimon.
Anywhere in the world -- True to my Gemini nature, I like harboring the contradiction of being a homebody, yet loving to travel. :3 I do both in spurts, where I stay close to home for a good, long while, then travel when I feel ready to bust. I also believe that our own character infects the areas we stay in. It's fascinating visiting others, because aside from how good it is to see them, it's also good to see their own homes, to see all the things their walls say about themselves. Going to your old favortie haunts and theaters and stores and restaraunts becomes new again with company, and I think that, much like movies, we use them to further express ourselves, in lieu of words. That's one of the greatest appeals of traveling, no matter where in the world it is you're going. Hell, even hotel rooms become something to take in and remember, visual tokens of what you felt while you were out and about. Half the time when I think of travels, I actually dwell on the nuances of the airports I'm rushing through, or the way the air conditioner smells in one motel, etc. <3 People like to sight-see in specific realms of the world, and that's awesome, but it's these goofy lesser places and small spaces that I love seeing the most. :D I'll go pretty much anywhere, but it is, ironically, the small things that stick with me.
Artistic aspirations -- Storytelling's the name of the game. Drawing, reading, writing, whatever. I love to draw, but it's only a part of the primary passion. My Dad was a scoutmaster for a few years when I was a kid, and he did his damnedest around every campfire to tell the best story he could. He doesn't say it aloud, but I can't help feeling that he found the best years of his childhood in telling the stories, in the way he told them. After time, he put me in charge of it, and I was freaking hooked on it in seconds. <X3 I found movies, like size and growth-related stuff, to be a great way to get away, and later on I found it was a great way to express myself. After all, no one just up and says "I appreciate a well-balanced conflict between one type of character, and a deep, complex foil". We just go "hey, this movie's great". :3 But by showing it to others and sharing it, we're basically doing the same thing. It's for fun, and to pass time, but we'd never suggest anything beyond a brainless action flick to anyone if there wasn't some truth to the idea.
I'm alright with words, but I always feel in my gut that working up a story is the best way to kind of indrectly say "here you go, this conveys how I feel and what I think in the best way". So my aspirations? I'd like to be a writer, possibly a director, given enough time. Whatever lets me tell my story in the capacity I feel works best. Drawing just happens to fit well in that niche. :)
<3 -- Hee! It wasn't until Toob pointed it out, that my dumb ass finally got that these emoticons were supposed to be hearts. Funny thing about it, I've always meant them to be something else, even after the explanation. You know in anime, and the like, where these "<XD" symbols appear on characters' faces? That's my "<3". It's actually a sideways version of a cat-like, giddy grin, with the brow/eyes arched way, way up in embarrassed glee. Hearts are great, but my "<3" is more about punctuating things I write with an impression or marker of how happy I am the moment I'm saying it. :D I love you guys, and I love being here, so it pops up a bunch as a consequence. *tries to wipe the syrup off of his statement, lest it get too mushy*
So, blargh. Way too long, sorry. <:) Thanks for letting me clumsily exposed too much information, as always!
--Dh
Current Mood:  happy Current Music: Yoko Kanno -- The Egg and You |
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Whew! :D
Transformers 2 didn't beat out the 5-day record gross that The Dark Knight set last year. Talk about close, though! I haven't seen Transformers 2, so I'll withhold judgment on it...and yet...I can't help but feel relieved, anyway. Some of you might disagree.
Strange, the way we forgive some potentially stupid things, even love them, and hate other aspects to things that might seem great to others, whom we think we know so well. <X3 Going to enough movies with someone, you can find out a LOT about their perspective, tastes, and even hints of their core values. Don't believe me? I spent three hours debating the ending to Gone Baby Gone with a roommate who thought Casey Affleck's character had made the wrong decision. From there we debated (not argued, it was never ugly) about marriage, abortion, etc. It was awesome. :3 And it was revealing. It was also a slow night.
Now, you don't always come away from this sort of talk--and WE ALL HAVE THEM--with a big revelation. Sometimes you just leave, and feel baffled by the responses you get. For instance, let's take Transformers--the first one, as it's the one I've seen. Did nothing at all for me, was all sight and sound, but nothing got me into it, and the jokes got on my nerves. Others seemed to love it, so hey, at least some people enjoyed it. <:) I come out of the theater, and the first other person I talk to said they loved the movie. Why?
Because it's fun. Oh, did I disagree.
Now, anyone can use this, and its beauty lies in the fact that you/they still fall within the bounds of opinion. :) With Gone Baby Gone, the end argument revolved around the moral/message of the film. With fun/enjoyment, it's just a slight variant. Say I finish watching Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story with a friend, and this goes on:
ME: "Heh, that was pretty good."
FRIEND: "I thought it was kinda juvenile."
ME: "But didn't you say Transformers was good?"
FRIEND: "Yeah, it was fun!"
ME: ..."But it was juvenile, too."
FRIEND: "It wasn't juvenile, just because it had a sense of humor."
ME: "We just watched a comedy!!"
This didn't really happen, I'm cobbling it together from several past experiences with other movies. Say I watched The Nines with someone, and this happened:
FRIEND: "I didn't really like it."
ME: "Really? Oh, well."
FRIEND: "Yeah, they lost me when they started getting all pretentious near the end."
ME: "Granted, they have some 'too clever by half' moments, but 'pretentious'?"
FRIEND: "Yeah, the characters were too smug."
ME: "But you liked Juno!"
FRIEND: "They weren't smug in Juno. They were just slice-of-life."
ME: "They were smug. Juno had good scenes here and there, but nobody really talks like they did in the film. And the script tried to have it both ways, where they played Juno as sincere in the beginning, then they acted like she was just putting up a facade near the end, when they reveal that she CAN have her feelings hurt. It seems contradictory. And Liberty Bell!? What kind of name is that?"
And so on. Apologies if you liked Juno. <:D
I thought a death scene in The Lives of Others was just about right, because of its abruptness, and someone I was watching it with thought the scene was unrealistic, because it "was rushed". My English teacher in high school practically ordered me to watch Being John Malkovich, and was stunned, STUNNED, when I told her it was overrated when I saw it--yet she blew off my recommendation of The Godfather, because she didn't like the violence. I thought the last 30 minutes of Watchmen started to lag a bit, but still liked the movie overall, while another guy kept giggling in the theater because of Manhattan's colossal blue dong.
It goes on and on. :3 You like one thing because it's funny, another person says that very same thing is "dumb". You dislike a moment of overt violence, someone else says they like its "visceral" quality. An anti-hero in one action movie is a gloomy douche to you, but your friend or even relative or significant other can't defend the same character enough. One guy in the movies gets picked on, you feel bad for him, but someone else feels only contempt--i.e., "he didn't stand up for himself, so he deserves it". Maybe we happen to all excuse what appeals to our image of ourselves, while shunning or fighting the parts that appeal to aspects of us we'd really rather not touch on. Or sometimes maybe something really does just suck. ;)
Friends who just shrugged and went "meh" to a Ghost Story knock-off didn't like 1408, because it underwhelmed them--which baffled me, because while 1408 wasn't perfect, it certainly put in way more effort than the same kind of material they let off the hook moments ago. <XD A few people said that The Blair Witch Project made them dizzy, and the same with Cloverfield, but they had no problem with the bajillion quick-cuts and smash-cuts that were all over Transformers, making the action just as hard to follow, but without the excuse of the cameraman having to run for his life while filming. :P
This goes for art and books and music, too, surely: Jazz to one guy is genius, to someone else it's unfocused and dull. I even had an art professor come into a class one day at college...she showed us all a picture of a simple wooden frame, with shattered fragments of glass inside. She called it "masturbatory". I called it a broken window. If it were in a house I grew up in, emotion would THEN be attached to it, but otherwise, no sale.
I guess if you pull at that one little linchpin with one person, everything falls with it, while others wouldn't give a damn, or would even think it was a good thing. Think about it, the next time you absolutely love a movie, and the one you went to see it with doesn't like it. Even more so, think about it when the previews come on, and half the theater laughs at an incredibly 'bleh' preview, but when something you or another person thinks is funny comes on, no one so much as coughs. ;)
If nothing else, at the very least, it makes all the stuff we do agree on all the more awesome. <3 Unless you're in the mood for a good verbal throwdown. In that rare case, pop in a bad flick, and let it all fly! :D
...Unless, of course, you disagree. :3
--Dh
Current Mood: OPTIMUUUUUUUS! Current Music: Dave Matthews Band -- I Did It |
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Hi-hiya!
You know, I'd heard all this stuff intermittently about Team Ico's Trico project, now called The Third Guardian, as probably everyone but me knew already. My younger sister showed it to me while I was at the folks' house (did the b-day thing early there), and within about one minute of the E3 video, I was sold. <X3
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4E0e-ZCn14
...The visuals were as gorgeous as they were with Shadow of the Colossus, and I was spurred to look up the lovely music track that played during the footage--big surprise, it's done by the 101% awesome Carter Burwell (think every Coen Bros. movie, plus Sidney Lumet, in Before the Devil Knows You're Dead).
The track, some probably already know, is from the opening of Miller's Crossing, one of the few Coen films I actually have not seen. I'm to understand it's very good, though! :D
This brings me to the real point:
Seriously, I'm asking anyone that can think on it--haven't you ever had a piece of music come along that makes you stop everything, and won't leave you alone afterward?
Hearing this little bit of music, I now know what to do with several scenes to one story, and the tone they ought to have. It's great getting these unannounced pushes into what feels right. <3
Nearly every story I've come up with has started with me hearing something I can't resist, then am unable to help but wrap a scene around. From there, aggravatingly, another scene unfolds, and yadda yadda. I'm sure other people do it, too, soundtracking their way through ideas.
But again, who here has ever been to a movie, read that one awesome line in a book, or heard that one piece of music that made you go "damn, this would go well in X or Y !"?
I got that right now, and BAD...but it'll have to wait. Right now, drawing's gotta get done! Hardly a real complaint, though. Some nights you don't want to do anything, others you can't wait to do everything you want, all at once.
Probably not all that hard to peg which kind of night it is tonight. :) Few things beat the sheer uplift of inspiration.
--Dh
Current Mood:  excited Current Music: Carter Burwell -- Opening Titles |
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Whoo! It's that time of year again--no, not the time with salesmen, we already did that--it's the time when Summer movies pour into the theaters, in a conga-line of occasional entertainment. :D
I've seen Drag Me to Hell, which was way more entertaining than I thought it was going to be. It had the painful morality-sledgehammer impact of Raimi's A Simple Plan, mixed with a little Army of Darkness, all hammed up to hell. :3
They had me at the moment with the dentures in the car. You'll see what I mean.
Up was also very good, with the first 10 minutes building a surprisingly huge emotional core to the film. Loads of fun, and Alpha's voice was friggin' awesome. <3 The second half almost screamed by too quick!
Terminator Salvation was supposed to be "eh", and I haven't seen it yet. Haven't seen Star Trek, either, though that one I understand is a blast. :D
As for what's coming up:
MOON:
http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1810031757/trailer
Sam Rockwell's always awesome, plus a neat Alien-style throwback is plenty enticing. A well-done mind-f**k is always aces with me!
DEAD SNOW:
http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1810047130/video
I don't need to say anything. Just watch it. <X3
THE HURT LOCKER:
http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1809914561/trailer
Strange to think this is from the lady who directed Near Dark back in the eighties. Fun flick, as I remember it. :3
PUBLIC ENEMIES:
http://movies.yahoo.com/summer-movi.....3/trailers/201
Mann is usually good with gangster themes. Maybe this can make up for Miami Vice. :) Wasn't an awful film, but it was far from good.
INGLORIOUS BASTERDS:
http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1808404206/trailer
Half of cine-mites laud Tarantino, half see him as a chatty man-child. I'll see this movie, regardless of the validity of both ideas. ;) It'll be over-the-top in probably all imaginable aspects, so I'll be all over it. :3
When a slew of (hopefully) good movies hits like this, I get all squiggly. This, as with other Summers, should be good. <3 And that's not even including Half-Blood Prince.
--Dh
Current Mood: excited Current Music: Adventure -- Loredo |
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Ah, Summer approaches! :3 That glorious time of the year when the sky seems its bluest, the lawnmowers start up at 8 a.m., sharp, and doorbells start ringing at 8:01.
I live in one of those small but comfortable, moderately clean little complexes of duplexes and townhouses, a little bit off of I-35. It's a prime location, putting those here about 3-15 minutes from EVERYTHING. The prices for rent are insanely reasonable, the families are happy, lots of kids play around, and you can't drive anywhere without seeing at least one cookout on your way out of the neighborhood.
Only one or two balancing factors come into play, and they come at exactly this time of the year. Guess which one I'm bringing up? :D
Salesmen. Loads of them. Every year they arrive, every one of them "just 1-3 sales away from a trip to Hawaii, or Dublin, or Bangkok, or Mars" (okay, maybe not Dublin); last year most of them were traveling steak salesmen. I know how that sounds. :) Last year I play-haggled relentlessly with one steak salesman, just to make him feel like some challenges were left to him in the world--because, you know, they always have sold a billion steaks/knives/mint-scented snot pots just before they got to you. Okay, maybe not knives.
Most recently, I was woken up in the dead of morning by a guy my age, who wanted to sell me a year of everything related to auto-repair. It went something a lot like this:
GUY: Hey, bro! What's up? I'm good, good. Hey, you know that place, it's right down by Luby's off 35? Yeah, what we got, man, we got is a year-round deal. Gonna get you oil change, transmission, tire, A/C, brakes--everything, at this crazy-low reduction. Won't find these discounts anywhere. Just trying to get you into the store, man, good deal.
ME: (not awake) Hi.
GUY: (not noticing my eyes are still shut) Hah-hah, yeah, me too. Anyway, Just getting you into the store, good deal. You look this over, and tell me you can find a better deal.
He hands me this flier with a million coupons all over it. The savings are falling off of it, its so full. Of course, I can't unglue my eyes to read it, so...
GUY: Telling you, man, good deal. You get all this for a year. A year, man.
ME: Yeah, that's cool. So...what about the year after?
GUY: ....
....
....Oh, well. I'm just trying to get you into the store, man. Good deal.
I wanna see the sales script this guy went off of. :3
ME: These sound good, but I think I'll pass.
GUY: Oh, man. Tell you what I'll do...
He looks over his shoulder, like his manager is hiding in the trashcan across the street with a sniper rifle trained on his back. I love it when they talk like they're offering you (and only you) the only SECRET deal of the day:
GUY: ...how about I mark off $25, man? How about that? Everyone else? Full-price. Not you, though, because you're just that great. I love you.
Just making those last two sentences up. It'd just be nice to hear, once in a while. ;) *sniff*
ME: (waking up some) You know what? I think I'm still good, thanks. Appreciate it. Besides, I don't have that much extra money right now. Economy, and all that.
GUY: You can't just pay when you get your next paycheck? Oh, well. Too bad, because I'm in this race to win out the new manager position with this other guy, and I only need five more sales.
Anyone of you that have ever dealt with a salesmen know this part. The bizarre sob-story, where only you hold the key to their happiness. <X3 What's even stranger with this one is that, instead of some trip to Cancun, he'll get to be the store's manager. Really. I've never heard of any business that promotes you to the upper-eschelons just because you sold the most box-tops in a competition. Usually they go for these funny things called credentials and experience. :D
What's most fun is to sell them right back:
ME: Wow, sounds close! Now I feel bad, for taking up all of your time here, making you stand here and haggle, when you could be out there, already, getting what you need. I'm sorry, man.
GUY: (sputtering) No, it's cool.
ME: Yeah, I know you could have several more sales already, with a deal that good. I better let you do your thing, instead of tying you up here.
And the guy, he isn't stupid--he knows I'm blowing him off, he just can't combat it as easily.
GUY: Alright. Well, take care, man, think about it.
ME: (nothing, because I've already closed the door)
I recently noticed the "NO SOLICITORS" sign on my neighbor's door. Why can't a salesman show up with an offer for one of those? Seriously, they'd be the only success stories in the entire community. :3 Sure, you'd only be able to do it for one real year. But what a year it would be!
--Dh
Current Mood: Snot pots!!! Current Music: U2 -- I Will Follow |
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Hey, guessed it. :) Others probably did, too.
Only 17 left. Having taken the ups with the downs, I'm still looking forward to January. :D
And now, working out.
--Dh
May. 13th, 2009 @ 10:19 pm
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| » His real name is Arty-Morty |
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I just got back home, and somehow, about half the rain gutter leading towards the door had come partly-loose. It's not too obvious from afar, but up close, it's really warped and jutting out. O__O Looks fixable, though, so that's not a problem. I'm more stuck in a nice, sleuthy sort of detective mode, at the moment, and as far as how it happened...well, I've got it down to two terrifying possibilities:
1). the neighborhood kids just got the most awesome moon shoes ever, and wound up hanging on to our gutter from a high-jump
2). the chickadees are gaining weight.
Oh yeah, chickadees. The Crime Doctor is watching you!
--Dh
Apr. 29th, 2009 @ 03:13 pm
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| » Carpal-Tunnel...of Love :D |
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No sign of the bat at the gym. More to come as the story develops. :)
In the meantime, I decided to give myself some wrist pain by working a good 10-11 hours on shading and drawing, just to keep the bat off my mind. ;) That's what I get for not going out and buying one of those mouse pads with the wrist-bump things! But I feel good, too, getting this huge block of stuff done--er, sort of. I'm on break for an hour more, then either I'll crash, or finish up a comic, and then crash.
So it's a good kind of sore. Maybe it'll even go away after sleep. :D Either way, productivity--if only the energy existed to be this way every day. <:)
Learning digital shading is a real step-by-step process, so far--or maybe that's because I have a knack for unknowingly doing everything the hard way. Don't believe me? I have the lights off in my room, right now, so it can cool down (and it isn't even Summer yet down here), meaning I'm typing in the dark. Spooookyyyy! :3
Right. Back to work! Hope everyone's week is going quite well. :)
--Dh
P.S. And Happy Earth Day! Hug the planet, or I'll do it for you! :D The poor globe puts up with regular folks enough, and macros only compound the insanity, so give it some love. :3
Apr. 22nd, 2009 @ 10:28 am
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| » Bats, man |
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Trying to post more often-ish...
If you head down about 5 minutes towards I-35, at any overpass along the way, North or South, you'll likely smell something funny. It'd be guano, and lots of it! :D I only mention it, in case anyone visiting doesn't already hear teeny little bat screeches, ones all indeed belonging to bats.
They mind their own business, and frankly most all of them are super-cute, if you actually sneak any peeks at them. :3 However, one wound up inside of the Gym, at about 1:00 in the morning, or so. I may have stated before, but it's an all-night Gym, thankfully. <X3
A roomie and I were just doing some incline bench presses, when I saw this funny little black ball whoosh by in the mirror's reflection. It was up near the rafters, and birds generally don't make that funny squeaking noise...
I tell him I saw a bat, and he looks up, in classic fashion, to see nothing but rafters. <:) And, I'm sure this happens to everyone, he looked again, as though I had just told him that it was a sentient candy bar, or a teeny UFO, or something more amazing. It's that look someone uses when you tell him/her something that's *fairly* different, but nothing incredible, either, but they HAVE to see it, just the same. Before he can say anything, the intercom goes off, and a voice hurriedly scrambles out something about
EVERYUNPLSCOTOTHEFRONT
So I go up there and ask "is this about a bat?", and the desk guy nods, and says "we need you to get out", like he's about to pull out a hunting knife and fend off the Predator while we "get to da choppa". :D
And it's cool, we'd done our workout, mostly. And I thought the little dude was awesome! He just kept darting out at random, never really going back outside. I asked if he had a knife in his mouth, but the clerk just cut me this "I already had to call my manager, gimme a break" look, and I clammed up. ^___^
Hope it's okay. There was this big weightlifter there too, and even with the announcement, he just shrugged and kept lifting. If he cruises up to work out later tonight/this morning in a coffin, I'll know who the bat bit. He'll probably proceed to suck all the tomato-flavored protein drinks dry, then hang upside-down from the pull-up bars. :3 And yes, I can make ANY story longer than it needs to be!
...Bleh. Tomato protein drinks. <X3
--Dh
Apr. 17th, 2009 @ 01:31 am
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| » The Parent Crap |
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Good gravy-Marie! <X3 These past two weeks or so, about 7 out of 10 times that I've sat down to continue drawing, something has stopped it within anywhere from a few minutes to a half-hour. The big one was from the Thursday before last, when I sat down with a whole day's drawing (minus workout time to come) ahead of me.
Then the neighbors get home, and the mom starts chewing out her 5-6-year-old kid for doing dumb kid stuff. I just ignore it, until she starts swearing like she's in a Tarantino film, for several minutes, on and on. :O
She makes a few borderline threats, a la "[you're] lucky to be alive". Yes, it's all loud enough to hear from their open doorway.
So I check with my roommates, and it's agreed that we should call CPS. Of course, "we" becomes me, and the phone's busy for about 30 minutes, so then I go online, wherein their site erases over an hour's worth of writing and membership sign-in, so I have to do it again. :P Nearly four hours have passed when I'm done.
Not that I'm the big victim, though. Poor kid. The strange thing is, the mom and dad are nice and chummy and jokey around neighbors, but they're harsh as hell on their kid. No bruises though, thank goodness. <:)
Since then it's been a parade of phone tag with a CPS agent, who finally talked to me days later. She listened to me re-report everything. I ended it in saying that I hoped this wasn't really worth their time, and that it's just me, but she was maddeningly vague and evasive. She didn't dismiss it, and told me there'd be an investigation.
The dad next door's a bit of an asshole, but he's not a monster, either, and we all leave each other alone, so hopefully this isn't going to get him banging down our door with a sledgehammer. <X3 More importantly, the kid seems okay when he's out playing, so that's good.
Now we can look forward to tossing their thrown shoes off of our roof back to them, and picking out broken glass from under our bushes, so they don't get hurt messing around--plus I'll get to keep seeing what wonderful finger-oil-traced drawings they've left on the hood of my car. The guys at Jiffy Lube loved the cute anime cat, last time I went. <:D
Not that whoever does it is THE same kid. But if it is, he's got talent! :3
--Dh
Apr. 16th, 2009 @ 12:13 am
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