Here's my list:

#1. My drink of choice is COLD Pepsi - No ice.

#2. I love children's art.

#3. I display my children's artwork on a wall in my office.

#4. I volunteer two mornings a month in the Art room at my kid's school.

#5. The Art teacher wishes I had my teaching degree because I would have been a better sub then some of the subs she had last year!

#6. The Art teacher is one of my best friends!

#7. The Art teacher's dd is the youngest person I know that is fighting Breast Cancer at the age of 22.  She was diagnosed two years ago, was in remission but the cancer came back last October.

#8. I volunteer at least 15 hours a week during the school year, between my kids' school and the community work I do.

#9. I LOVE kindergarten.  I volunteered in kindergarten at least 2 hours a week last year and will again this year and I don't even have a kindergartener anymore!

#10. My eldest is 14 years old and a freshmen this fall.

#11. He has a girlfriend named Danika.

#12. He volunteers at the zoo every summer.  He just finished a two week stint on the Z-team for a total of 40 hours.

#13. He is happy to be home after spending two weeks at a friend's house that was closer to the zoo and was a great help as I didn't have to drive him there and pick him up every day.

#14. My eldest daughter is a photography diva and a jr, girl scout.

#15. She is also an amazing baker! You have got to try her peanut butter chocolate chip cookies!

#16. She also reads incessentaly.

#17. She is 10 and a half (that half is IMPORTANT) and entering the 5th grade.

#18. My third child, my 9 year old son, is my favorite 9 year old in the world!

#19. He is my athlete.  He plays soccer, golf, and basketball.

#20. He is also a Cub Scout.

#21. He will be entering 4th grade in 3 1/2 weeks.

#22. He plays a MEAN guitar on Guitar Hero!

#23. He has beautiful blue eyes and gorgeous blond hair!

#24. My baby is 7 1/2 years old and in 2nd grade.

#25. She is a bundle of uncontrollable energy and sometimes can be VERY bossy.

#26. and that bossiness does not endear her to her siblings some days!

#27. But she is a little cutie and a brownie girl scout.

#28. We are all avid readers!

#29. We have have so many books in this house that we've been accused of owning a small library!

#30. My library card is the most used card in my wallet.

#31. I've had a library card since I was 6 years old.

#32. My children get their first library cards on their 5th birthdays.

#34. I hate folding laundry.

#35. I love to try new recipes!

#36. unfortunately my children are not all that keen on trying new foods and meals.

#37. I LOVE cheesecake - any kind.  My favorite tho is Carmel Apple Cheescake.

#38. I fell in love with the property we built our home on because of the mature trees, lilac bushes and apple trees.  It helped a lot that it was a real steal financially too!

#39. I love dogs - we have a pug named Shadow who is approaching her 10th birthday.

#40. Shadow is my hero and my youngest daughter's best friend.

#41. Ask me someday about WHY Shadow is my hero.

#42. I don't like cats - we have an American short hair named Meepo who is roughly 3 years old.

#43. He is my husband's cat.

#44. But WHO cleans the litter box when it's needed?

#45. My favorite flowers are lilies of any sort.  Thus the header on this blog.  Those are my tiger lilies.

#46. I love the theatre and acting.  I don't do much of it anymore but I do love helping out with the productions at my kids' schools.

#47. I LOVE Grey's Anatomy.

#48. I watch religiously even in the off season!

#49. I'm the eldest of 6 children.

#50. I have 2 sisters

#51. and 3 brothers.

#52. I also have 5 foster siblings.  2 boys and 3 girls.  All of these foster siblings are also my cousins.

#53. I haven't worked outside my home in 13+ years.

#54. I'm applying for jobs at the elementary school my children attend.

#55. I've been scrapbooking for over 15 years.

#56. I talk to my eldest sister almost everyday.

#57. She is a "gypsy" so to speak.  She works for a company that travels around the country fixing storm damage to cars, vans, trucks and such.

#58. I talk to my baby brother at least once a week.

#59. He is 13 years younger then me.

#60.  I talk to my mom and dad almost everyday.

#61. I LOVE chocolate.

#62. Especially DeBrand's Chocolate.

#63. I graduated college 17 years ago with a degree in Communications and a minor in English.

#64.  I SHOULD have gotten my teaching degree.

#65.  I know quite a bit of Sign language. I taught myself.

#66.  I don't know ANY other foreign language.  It wasn't required when I was in highschool.

#67. However, from growing up in the midst of a big Finnish community I can cuss in Finn if I wanted too.

#68. I homeschooled my eldest child from preschool through 2nd grade.

#69. None of my children had any preschool before kindergarten, beyond what I did at home with them.

#70. I'm extremely thrifty.  Okay I'm cheap.  I revel in the challenge to find the best deals!

#71. Oh more pets - We also have two gerbils named Judy and Annie after two of my eldest daughters favorite book characters, Judy Moody and Annie in the Magic Treehouse Series.

#72. I've picked 15 zucchini of my 6 plants so far this summer!

#73. My tomatoes have not produced anything ripe yet.

#74. My husband brought me home roses last night.  For no reason whatsoever.

#75. My hubby won't believe this but he truly is the best thing that's ever happened to me.

#76. I have trouble sleeping alone.

#77. On those nights I tend to sit up either on the computer or scrapbooking.

#78. I think my dog has fleas.  ---YUCK!!!

#79. I've only been consistently blogging for about a week.

#80. I LOVE making the gifts we give.  I feel it's so much more personal.

#81. My grandmother, rest her soul, picked out my wedding dress.

#82. I was devastated when she died, knowing that my children would not get to meet their great grandmother.

#83. I don't like cleaning.  I do it but I don't like it.  Ah to hire a housekeeper!

#84. I love working outside tho.  I love mowing the lawn and taking care of the gardens and trees.

#85. I love birds - especially birds of prey like hawks, eagles, and owls.

#86. I would rather wear mittens then gloves.

#87. The only jewelry I wear all the time are my wedding and engagement rings.

#88.  I have a 3 ring zippered binder that my kids call "Mom's Brain."

#89. It has a calendar, and a separate section for each of my children as well as sections for the kindergarten literacy program that I'm in charge of at school.  If it doesn't get put on the calendar in my "brain" it doesn't happen.

#90. I love playing games with my family.

#91.  I hate visiting the doctor.

#92. I hate going to the dentist

#93. I love genealogy and that's what excited me about scrapbooking to begin with.

#94. My aunt has traced my mom's side of the family back to President Nixon, and back to Europe.

#95. I love listening to church congregations sing from hymnals - especially the old hymns.

#96. My computer desk top is a disaster zone.

#97. My scrapping corner however is quite neat and tidy.

#98. I love fresh veggies right out of the garden - especially sweet corn and zucchini.

#99. I love strawberries and apples picked fresh.

#100. I believe the true hero of The Lord of the Rings is Sam - Not Frodo.

#101. Right now I have 112 items checked out from the public library!

Okay I should stop now - I could go on, but I did say just 101 random things, not 201.

Blessings,

Garsy

"Minlû pedich nin i aur hen telitha."

Ever since I was twelve years old, I've been a fan of everything Tolkien. I blame it on my dad who introduced me to the whole world of Middle Earth. I'm probably one of the freakish few who have read each and every book written by JRR Tolkien and even took a stab at learning the Sindarin language.

When the Lord of the Rings trilogy came out, I was beyond stoked and thanked the Tolkien gods for putting Peter Jackson into this world. The movie series was a success and after buying and watching the extended versions of the trilogy (over and over again!), I suffered from major Tolkien diarrhea.

After waiting for so long, the gods decided that it was time to bring Smeagol and the gang back. Yes. You got that right. They're finally going to film The Hobbit with Guillermo del Toro at the helm--and being a huge Hellboy fan, I have high hopes for this movie's success.

Though unlike the trilogy, The Hobbit is set to be shown in two parts due to some cobbling of supplemental material that bridges The Hobbit with the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Which is why Aragorn will be in the movie even if he was never mentioned in the actual book.

To add to all this deliciousness, Howard Shore has signed up to create the musical score for The Hobbit! After grabbing a copy of the Complete Recordings of the Lord Of The Rings soundtrack to adjunct my existing library of Tolkien music, I was practically on my knees, overwhelmed by the strength of the original scores. Shore has managed to take people straight into the heart of Middle Earth with his music. I can't wait to grab a copy of the The Hobbit OST when it finally comes out.

Froggy, Janz, MelRo and Michelle are going to flip when they find out about this...

And now that I've exposed myself as the geekiest girl on this side of the planet, I can now go back to writing my book and hope to the Tolkien gods for my own successful publishing run in the future filled with movie premiers, book tours, and the occasional Conan O'Brien interview.

Karl reads his first viewer e-mail and discusses Project Runway 5, The Dark Knight, and Serbian war criminial Radovan Karadzic.

Further Reading
Project Runway Lets Its Red White and Blayne Freak Flag Fly
From Gawker.com
War crimes fugitive Radovan Karadzic arrested
From The Guardian
Pondering the Semiotics of Hipster Beards
From The San Franciscoist

Taki v Mitsurugi gameplay

Gollum in SC4

Vader (PS3) and Yoda (Xbox 360) gameplay

Soul Calibur IV Hilde And Sophitia Gameplay

Soul Calibur IV versus gameplay montage

So, let's discuss how NOT to write an Original Character. You should avoid Mary Sue and her equally repugnant brother Gary Stu at all costs. There are various definitions for a Mary Sue, here's mine: a perfect female character who most likely has a tragic background of some sort, is introduced into the story and immediately takes it over. She may or may not be one of the following: an excellent warrior, royalty, magical, be the lone surviving member of a race or nation, etc. A Mary Sue is usually overly described which is sometimes the only description in the story. (More on good description vs. bad description will follow later). Let's use the Lord of the Rings most infamous Sue as an example. She is a girl from "our world" who lost her twin brother and was raped who falls into "Middle-earth," becomes a member of the Fellowship because she is a prophesized heroine, is falling in love with Legolas and vice versa while Boromir stands by and lusts after her. It is later revealed that she is the sole survivor of a lost country, royalty, magical and if she doesn't fall in love with Legolas Middle-earth is doomed. Here that? That's the sound of Tolkien spinning in his grave. Now this Sue also has no redeeming features: she is arrogant, rude and patronizing--all which the author mistakes as "wit" so she is often smiled at rather than chided. She is right now so powerful, the quest is virtually a moot point and she cannot feel the call of the Ring.

If writing in the Lord of the Rings section, DO NOT make your character immune to the call of the Ring. It is like Pandora's Box or the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. It is temptation and we all are tempted. Also, do not be afraid to let your character give into the Ring, like Boromir. However, like Boromir, don't forget to plan a good redemption arc. Everyone loves a good redemption arc.

More on these Sues will follow in the section entitled "Thou Shalt Respect Canon At All Times" since these girls often break many rules laid down in a certain fandom.

Tenth Walker

Hmm, this post seems to mostly be about Lord of the Rings. That's okay, I call it "Mary Sue Central" anyway. The "Tenth Walker" is a subset under the Mary Sues because more often than not, they end up being one--like our example Sue. For those who don't know, there were NINE members of the Fellowship of the Ring: Frodo (the Ring-bearer), Sam, Merry, Pippin, Gandalf, Aragorn, Legolas, Gimli and Boromir. That's it! Nine was the number chosen because there were NINE Nazgul or Ringwraiths. Symbolism and it comes in handy in case of a one-on-one fight with them. A good friend of mine over at Fanfiction.net has posted her own article regarding these characters and has let me post it here.

http://telcontar-rulz.livejournal.com/2392.html
Please do read this. She herself as written an excellent Tenth Walker fic that respects canon and brings a new twist to the story.

THE HOBBIT by J.R.R. Tolkein.

I thought it'd be incredibly difficult to narrow it down to one favorite book and, don't get me wrong, I love love love about a zillion books. But The Hobbit started it all. My dad first gave me The Hobbit to listen to as a book-on-tape during a drive from Dallas to Colorado. Though I'd only been on the planet six short years, I could definitely say that that novel was the coolest thing...ever...to have existed. And it was.

After that, I listened to the book every night before bed. Following my discovery of The Hobbit, I suppose my parents got off easy on the whole bedtime story thing.

I promptly acquired the book--an old paperback edition with a map I loved drawn in the front. I tried to move onto the trilogy, but the later books were a bit hard for me at the time. So, I read The Hobbit 12 times. Count 'em. Twelve. Until I was able to read the rest of the books in the trilogy and just about every other book that had anything to do with Lord of the Rings--including the very dry and slow-moving Silmarillion.

Anyway, The Hobbit showed me what reading should be. Becoming engrossed in another world is what we readers live for and I've never gotten over my love affair with the experience. We can only hope, as writers, to someday give others the feeling of total immersion and complete entrancement by words typed on a page.

These days, I'm still a huge SciFi/Fantasy geek. I'll never give that up. I've read the classics of both genres such as LOTR and Dune and moved past those into the Harry Potters and Enders Games of the world.

What is your favorite genre and why??

For more  posts on the writing process, check out these posts: 10 Things to Look for in a Small Press and 7 Ways to Beat the Block

Status: I'm back from Ohio and am spending one more day in DC to get a few things done before I head back to Philly and pack up for good. Last night I finished Marked by P.C. and Kristin Cast. I've already moved onto the second book of the House of Night series, Betrayed. I'll review Marked this Saturday because I think for those that aren't loving the Twilight saga, the House of Night series might do just the trick. (There's a less angsty teenage lead who is a kickass heroine in her own right and a heck of a lot more action.)

I just got another agent request for WEIRD TATTOOS. It feels strange for those requests to come in when I'm so engrossed in my next project, but I guess that's how it's supposed to be. No complaints here!

Today is another day to buckle down on SCOUT. I have an outline as to how many pages should be devoted to which scene, etc. So we will see how that goes. I have a detailed synopsis as well, so that will help. I'll also be doing some work on the blog today. I'm going to add some descriptions to the books listed on the "Books I Recommend" page and do a few administrative tasks.

Tras escapar de los Espectros, los hobbits y Aragorn tratan de poner a salvo al malherido Frodo llegando a Rivendel cuanto antes.

En la versión original, la novelada, el grupo recibe la ayuda de Glorfindel, venido directamente de Rivendel y que lleva días buscando a los viajeros. Sin embargo en la versión cinematográfica la figura del elfo fue sustituida por la de Arwen, la hija de Elrond. Es curioso, pero en la versión animada de Ralph Bakshi tampoco aparecía Glorfindel, sino Legolas.

En Mesa291 se jugó finalmente la versión cinematográfica, de ahí la presencia de la miniatura de Arwen en las imágenes.

Creo que en esta sesión Baldurian se superó con algunas instantáneas, como la del Rey Brujo con la montura sobre sus cuartos traseros, reflejándose ambos en el agua.

[slideshare id=510589&doc=vado-1215879466551999-8&w=425]

I have made a fairly big decision this week, and it involves a lot of things, including my ongoing battle with negative waves, Toads, tiredness and Plan Woolly. Please watch this space.

My project did acheive a significant goal this week: The final piece of the conveyor gallery was lifted into place which means that a $76million project is over the most significant hump. Also means I can walk from ground level to 11 stories up to take my sunrise photos.

Because I am one of the only women on site who wears Safety Orange, the office girls wear chambray corporate shirts (I do too, if I'm feeling lazy about the washing) and the office girls are always curious about what I've been doing when I come in, covered in coal sludge; I took them out for a walk on Thursday morning.

thats : Me, Heidi, Mandy, Lisa (who is very newly pregnant) and Mel. All remarkably happy to be wearing Orange and a long way up.

But this was my weekend off, and in order to live up to the "crochet" part of our name, I decided to dedicate myself to finishing a few pieces. I'm not sure if its a good sign that both my wrists hurt.

Anyhoo...

Firstly, I finished the Round Ripple:

I have definitely learnt a lot about the RR pattern doing this one. Including the necessity to count the number of points you start with. This RR was supposed to be 12 - 24. If you count... it's 13-26.

Yah... I should have made the centre bigger too.

And I have learnt better techniques for expanding the points and then there's that rolled chain border.

It's... the first row was easy.. working out how to do the second and third repeats was .. I'm surprised I have any hair left.

Anyway - we survived, I like that border and love the colours in that RR.

Then I turned my attention to Avatar Afghan in Mohair, Version 3. I have to say, that it's possibly one of the drabbest looking afghans I've ever made:

But it actually has it's own charm. The greens and the browns are somewhere between the colour pallette for Woodland Elves "This year's Spring Fashions" and Defence Camouflage choices. For those who like to know - this is 10 balls of Panda's Lily in the Green blend. Lily is a longstranded Alpaca blend (118m per 50g)  sold through Big W (the only place available to buy yarn here in Mackay) for $3.29 a ball, so the afghan works out pretty cheaply!

Something I found quite remarkable was that the varigations actually fluked in at almost exactly row length. Don't know how I managed that one! the trick was to match one end of a ball with the next one to use. It's one of those things that makes me adore using varigated yarns rather than force the issue by using different colours.

(Oh yeah.. and important safety tip : DONT USE A PORE REFINING PEEL OFF STICKY MASK WHEN CROCHETING FLUFFY WOOL. This is IMPORTANT.)

Having finished dreaming in shades of grass, new leaves, eucalytpus and bark (and peeling off a fuzzy face mask), I wanted to use up some yarn and chenille (which didn't work the way I had hoped) and I started one of those "have always wanted to try projects" - the Half Moon Shawl.

A project I thought I could get my teeth into.

Boom Boom.

And - i played with the pattern a tiny bit and hey, presto!! I ran out of yarn.

Going back to get more from Yarn Bee this week. (Bamboo/acrylic blend)

And so, my attention has turned to the oldest of the UFOS - the fabled Laceweight Merino Christening Gown.

Yes, it's nearly a year old, and I have not finished it.

but I have put another repeat on tonight. And it's one of two projects I have packed to go to another hotel for the week (due to a double booking here at my little beachside house), the rest of the Travelling Stash is sitting in the Manager's flat. So I will be forced to work on it, and the Feathersoft squares.

 And Sheeshk, it's hard to go back to working with a 1mm hook after using a 6.5mm to do the Elvish Green Afghan, doing the tiny 5chains and SC made me wish for magnifying glasses. Hopefully I'll have more to show you this week.

To sign off for the weekend, I have finally got photographic evidence of the existence of a long suspected monster believed to have been lurking in our backyard in TB C. This fabled beast, as mystical as the Loch Ness Monster, has left tantalising signs (mostly chomped rosebuds and ... poo) in the grass and terrifies the bejeepers out of the mogs.

Our guest photographer (codename Father_figure) managed, using the hightech medium of his mobile phone, to capture a photograph of the elusive creature:

Yep - proof that we have kangaroos in our backyard.

Suburban Canberra.

For my next trick - being home with Jorge and getting a DECENT shot.

that's it - promise to try and be more frequent with the updates this week!

Love and hugs to you all!

It's a list of four things, it's definitely in my illegible hand writing, and I have no memory of it at all. So if anyone could help me make sense of this list, I would be truly grateful.

• The eye
• Uruk-hai head onna stick
• Ring fondling
• Oliphant

Now, it's obviously Lord of the Rings related, but beyond that? Not a clue.

I already said most of what I wanted to say about the North Island, so I'll just put some of the best pics up for your enjoyment. First: shadows of Hobbiton.

Doesn't this look like a human-sized and modernized hobbiton? Unfortunately the little round hills don't translate too well in this picture - I took a few, and this is the one that turned out the best, sadly. Though this next one has a hint of it, as well, maybe a bit more dramatically:

This next one has some roundy Hobbitness too, though it was taken a bit further south, in Rotorua.

The whisps you can see aren't clouds, they're steam which rises from the earth (and various bodies of water - hence a number of warm natural baths in the area). My friend Laura, of 24-hour theatre fame and such, spent more time there and talks about it a bit in her blog.

Here's another one that shows the steam:

The next stop we made was at Lake Taupo, where we could see the mountains in the distance.

We proceeded to drive around the lake, which was a lot of fun because the road was CLINGING to the side of the hill:

See that little line that runs like a rim around that mountain? That's the road.

We spent a long time winding through mountain roads, but once we got out of that and onto open ground again we had an AMAZING view.

The view from the other side of the bus was really interesting as well - talk about TOTAL contrast to what it was like up north (and what it soon returned to, once we got out of the mountainous area).

(Not bad for pictures taken out of the window of a bus, eh? Also: Sheep!)

For the last few hours of the trip, we were in total darkness. It was almost alarming when I looked out my window at about 8 o'clock and saw waves coming up the beach. I didn't get a view of Wellington until the next morning, when I opened the drapes in my room on the 6th floor of the hostel.

Not bad for a room that was costing me all of 25$ a night!

I was really drained that first morning so I slept in fairly late and didn't get to explore all that much. I did wander around the harbour (which is beautiful) and take a bunch of photos to try to get a feeling for the city.

These must have been some DANGEROUS trees, because they were totally fenced in on all sides!

Okay, so see the picture above? That's an empty pool-like area, or water-designed area, as far as I can tell. And there are steps that... descend right down into it? I don't get it.

The one above and the one below are of the Civic centre, which is basically town hall and the site of the city library.

The pigeons! They're WINNING!

Um. I can't decide if somebody actually died at this intersection and they decided to use it as a warning for people to look before they cross, or if somebody just has a really weird sense of humour.

The next day I wanted to do more wandering and picture-taking, but of course it was raining. Not that this stopped me entirely, of course. It just limited my scope a little. My first order of business for the day was to take the cable car up to the botannical gardens. Because... well, duh. Cable car.

The hill is REALLY steep. This cable line has been in operation for over a hundred years, though they revamped it in the 1970's so this isn't the original car. The view from the top was pretty cool.

At the top, in the original winding house for the cable car, there's a museum that talks about the history of the line. And the original cable car was there, which was kind of neat.

Sitting on the OUTSIDE like that would have been pretty fun.

The view from the bottanical gardens was great, but it was starting to rain in earnest so I didn't stay up there too long.

While I was up there, though, I saw a sign for the "Sundial of Human Involvement." And with a name like that, I HAD to check it out.

So I did - it's literally a sundial in which YOU, THE VIEWER become the, um, pointer. Or whatever it's called. There's a figure-eight with the months of the year, and certain days within that month. You stand on the correct month and day with your arms stretched up above your head and with your palms pressed together, and it tells the time (apparently it's accurate to within a few minutes.)

Of course, it being a cloudy day I didn't get to try it out.

I tried to walk down through the gardens, but it was rainy and wet and I was getting lost frequently, so I gave up and took the cable car back down. (Apparently they used to charge two pence to go up, but just a penny to go down, way back in the day - lots of folks seemed to enjoy the walk back down into town.) I swung by the parliament building, which is called the "Beehive" because... well:

After this I went to the train station, because I thought I'd have to go there in a couple of days and I like to case joints out so that I know how to get there and that kind of thing. And this amused me, but I imagine it will amuse many of you even more:

That night I spent some time at the Te Papa museum, which was really great - lots of different areas that would take hours and hours to fully explore. I also stumbled upon a small gallery that was showing some portrait work earlier in the day, which was really interesting; I'm glad I happened upon it.

I had gotten wind that there were a couple of productions on in town, so I checked them out. They were playing at the theatre across from Te Papa, so I was able to pop right over there (and all of this is less than a five minute walk from my hostel, which is also nice.) I wound up going to see Rome: The Musical, which was great! Written and directed by a local fellow, but I didn't realize that until I looked him up later. It was singing straight through, and the singing was GREAT (the songs also stuck with me for the next couple of days, so they obviously had something going for them.) Like I was saying to Laura, the show allowed itself to have a couple of quite sombre moments - like laying someone into a grave... and then doing a samba on it. Very fun.

And then, the next morning, was the LORD OF THE RINGS TOUR!

Welcome to Name That Scene!

I'm running out of internet time, so I'll be brief. Here are some pictures of film locations. See if you can tell what they are. (Feel free to be as specific as possible! If you can name the exact MOMENT, then you rock. But if you just have a sense that a general scene happened somewhere, go for it!) A couple of them are pretty tough, so I may give a hint or two.

LOCATION 1

(Hint: A very general location - many scenes were shot here. Can you guess which ones?)

---

LOCATION 2

(Hint: Extended edition only.)

---

LOCATION 3:

---

LOCATION 4:

---

LOCATION 5:

---

LOCATION 6:

---

LOCATION 7:

---

LOCATION 8:

Anyway, I read the relevant bits, did a lot of discussion, and that was just for the back story. It really goes to show how hard writing is when you want to do it well, and fanfiction, just because it can't be published, isn't what douchebags write. You need to do a lot of research or else they'll flame you to kingdom come.

Speaking of flames, many people can't tell constructive criticism from a flame, which is sad, because while flames are sometimes just copy-and-pasted messages, constructive criticism is designed to help the writer. Sure, it doesn't feel great when you first read it, but after you've absorbed it, you realize that you were doing something wrong, and you learn from that other person's experience.

So, if you ever get a flame (generally goes along the line of 'your writing sucks big time, and you're so bad that you should jump off a cliff', or something like that), you should just reflect a bit before replying. Is your writing really bad? Have you checked your spelling and grammar? Have you totally warped the fandom you're writing in? If you answered yes to the first, no to the second, and yes to the third, then maybe you should change the story, or go to someone else for advice. If you get a flame, you're probably going to get concrit as well, if your story needs changing. If you only get that one flame, you might also have to check whether the flamer hates you. There is a lot of faction struggle going on in the fanfiction world, and some people flame each other because they hate each other. You might be the friend of someone who has an enemy, and the enemy will see fit to flame you because you are their enemy by association. Also, don't reply to the flamer. It just makes them happy.

So, yeah. That's my advice for the day.

And now, I should be writing some concrit for someone, and then go off to eat breakfast/brunch, and write in my journal. I finished my first Moleskine notebook yesterday, and now I'm going back to the cheap stuff for a while before I continue with the rest of my Moleskines.

Apparently, the genealogy in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle year 855, versions B and C, explains that Sceaf (Old English for sheaf) was born in Noah's ark, interpreting him as a non-Biblical son of Noah: continuing with the ancestry of Noah up to Adam as found in Genesis (more on this later).

I'm trying not to let the truth get in the way of a good story, seeing that Sceaf or Scef appears as an ancient legendary king who appeared mysteriously as a child, coming out of the sea in an empty boat in Æthelweard's Chronica :

"This Scef came in a light boat to an island of the ocean which is called Scani, arms around about him, and he was a very young boy, unknown to the dwellers in the land. But he was accepted by them and cared for like one of their own kind, and afterwards they chose him as king, from whose family descended King Æthelwulf."

This probably explains why many of many family spend so much of their time in boats, and why it looks like I'm now going to be moving to the coast. Anyway, I've included a table below that shows the descent from Sceaf to Cerdic, with list of names that all sound like they are characters from Lord of The Rings. Well, turns out that Tolkien was a fan and even wrote a poem about him.

                              Sceaf
                          (fl. c.100 BC)
                                |
                                |
                             Bedwig
                                |
                                |
                               Hwala
                                |
                                |
                              Hathra
                                |
                                |
                              Itermon
                                |
                                |
                             Heremod
                                |
                                |
                             Sceldwea
                             (Skjold)
                                |
                                |
                               Beaw
                              (Bjaf)
                                |
                                |
                              Taetwa
                                |
                                |
                               Geat
                                |
                                |
                             Godwulf
                                |
                                |
                               Finn
                                |
                                |
                            Frithuwulf
                                |
                                |
                             Frealaf
                                |
                                |
                             Freawine
                                |
                                |
                             Frithuwald
                                |
                                |
                              Woden
                   (or Odin or Bodo or Wotan)
                          King of Saxons
                          (215-300)
                                |
                                |
                             Bealdeag
                        (or Bealdeagus b 243)
        ancestor of Kings of Wessex, Bernicia and Northumbria
                                |
                                |
                              Brona
                                |
                                |
                             Frithugar
                                |
                                |
                             Freawine
                                |
                                |
                               Wig
                                |
                                |
                              Gewis
                                |
                                |
                               Elsa
                                |
                                |
                                Elesa
                                |
                                |
                             Cerdic
                           (c470-534)
                        Saxon Ealdorman,
                     arrived in England c495
                        1st King of Wessex

                                |

                                |

                     several generations

                                |

                                |

                           ME MYSELF I

Ethan is a creative kid when he wants to be.  There was a week not to long ago that he was on restrictions which basically means in our home NO computer, NO TV and NO video games.  The reason for these restrictions is unimportant right now, because Ethan learned something!  He learned that he DOES have a creative side.  He learned that he can create something out of a bunch of sticks, a lump of clay, and a variety of junk drug out of Dad's garage.  He learned that he didn't need an adult to come up with an idea for him!  For this boy to figure this out - well it's nothing short of a miracle!

This week all of Ethan's siblings have been gone for the vast majority of every day.  Ty's been working at our local Fort Wayne Children's Zoo and staying with a friend in Fort Wayne and the Girls have been away at Girl Scout day camp. Ethan's had run of everything.  While he's enjoyed his week, I think he's very ready for his siblings to be home more.  Ya see- he's not used to being an only child.  My poor middle child is getting lonely and bored.  Right now he is out in the living room watching his BROTHER'S favorite movie, The Lord of the Rings.  I think someone is going to be happy when we go to retrive sisters and brother later this afternoon!

Later everyone!

In a quasi-historical manner quite similar to what he used when the Hobbits were crossing into Buckland, Tolkien gives us a brief description of Bree and its origins, and then (widening his scope) a brief account of its socially mediatory status between the Shire and the rest of the world. The most important difference between the history of Buckland and the history of Bree is that Bree goes back quite a bit further—the Breelanders consider themselves “descendants of the first Men that ever wandered into the West of the middle-world.” In homely Bree, home of the Prancing Pony, we already encounter the flavor of something mythic.

As befits this stage of the journey, however, Tolkien paints Bree in a curious blend of the mythic, the homely, the familiar, and the strange. He does this by adopting for a moment the different perspectives of the Hobbits themselves. To Samwise son of Hamfast (Anglo-Saxon for “Home-bound” or “Home-body”), the houses of Men and the Inn at Bree appear unwelcoming, the likely hide-outs of Black Riders, and generally much too tall. Frodo, however, shares none of Sam’s perceptions and expects the Inn to be “homelike enough inside.” And, indeed, the inside is very Shire-like, complete with round windows and the hallmark of a Hobbit’s being at home—a good supper.

As a first encounter with the world of Men, therefore, Bree is just unfamiliar enough to put the Hobbits well on their guard, and familiar enough to gradually lull them off it.

At the peak of my television obsession (high school when I would record and keep episodes of various shows on VHS), I remember when I would wake up at 5 in the morning to watch the live feed on E! of the announcement of the Emmy nominations. Sadly, time passed and since premium cable never existed in my life and the popularity of TV shows on DVD was still something of the future, watching nominee after nominee from The Sopranos or Six Feet Under didn't mean anything to me.

However, in most recent years, proven with today's nomination list for the 60th Primetime Emmy Awards, major network and basic cable television shows are making their marks as places to find good television. HBO-style gratuitous sex, bloody murder, and f-bombs are out, cute piemakers are in. Well, perhaps the sex and murder aren't completely out (re: Cagney of Cagney and Lacey's guest starring role as the obsessed agent/teddy bear maker on Nip/Tuck).

Highlights of This Year's Nominations

Complete List of This Year's Nominations

Since all the nominations for Mad Men and 30 Rock are a given, I'd like to congratulate and highlight some of the surprises:

Lee Pace, Kristen Chenoweth, and Costume Designers Mary Vogt and Stephanie Fox-Kramer for Pushing Daisies - Ms. Vogt and Fox-Kramer, you two deserve that Emmy. I have never wanted a television character's wardrobe more than Anna Friel's.

Amy Poehler for Saturday Night Live - I don't even remember when someone was ever nominated for an emmy for their cast role on the sketch show

Sharon Gless on Nip/Tuck - You scared the beejeezus out of me.

Christina Applegate for Samantha Who? - Yay for first season nominees. You made me actually not hate the guy from 7th Heaven and Jennifer Esposito.

The nominees for lead actress in a miniseries or movie - the lineup looks better than the best actress nominees for the Oscars

And the nominees for Outstanding Original Music and Lyrics - Flight of the Conchords' "The Most Beautiful Girl (in the Room)" and "Inner City Pressure" plus Jimmy Kimmel Live's "I'm Fucking Matt Damon"

Flight of the Conchords - Inner City Pressure

[audio http://www.fileden.com/files/2008/6/20/1967807/02-flight_of_the_conchords-inner_city_pressure.mp3]

Flight of the Conchords - The Most Beautiful Girl (in the room)

[audio http://www.fileden.com/files/2008/6/20/1967807/12-flight_of_the_conchords-the_most_beautiful_girl_%28in_the_room%29.mp3]

Sarah Silverman - I'm Fucking Matt Damon

]]> http://ohmybooks.wordpress.com/?p=75 Thu, 17 Jul 2008 12:52:47 +0000 mistermorg http://ohmybooks.wordpress.com/?p=75

I escaped the crowded streets of the french capital city last week-end for the green fields of Normandy.
I went more precisely to Rouen, a beautiful medieval town aka the hundred steeples city. It was a particular week-end as The Armada, a gathering of tall ships every 4 or 5 years, was held. Free concerts (Iggy Pop and the Stooges), sun and ships, I had a great time. Enough with my life !
I was browsing the ships descriptions until I fell on the names of two of them which sounded like gold to my ears : JR Tolkien and Loth Lörien. I didn't checked if the skippers where fans of the Lord of The Rings, Tolkien being the author and Loth Lörien, the wood of the elves, but it added a hint of happiness on that already happy week-end.
Where is my first edition of The Hobbit ?

-----

Le week-end dernier, j'ai fui les rues surpeuplées de Paris, pour les vallées verdoyantes de la Normandie.
Je suis allé plus précisément à Rouen, une superbe ville médiévale connue pour ses cent clochers et pour le bucher de Jeanne d'Arc. Ce week-end était très particulier car l'Armada s'y tenait. Concerts gratuits (Cali, Iggy Pop & the Stooges), soleil, bateaux étaient au programme. Un super moment. Mais revenons à ce qui nous intéresse, les livres !
Je feuilletais le programme et la liste des bateaux quand le nom de deux d'entre eux eut un écho particulier : JR Tolkien et Loth Lörien. Impossible de savoir si les skippers de ces bateaux néerlandais étaient fans du Seigneur des Anneaux, Tolkien étant l'auteur et Loth Lörien, la forêt des Elfes. Toujours est-il que cette découverte fut la cerise sur le gâteau d'un week-end déjà très agréable.
Où est ma première édition de Bilbo le Hobbit au fait ?

The smartest LOTR fan film I've seen is the simple How The Lord of the Rings Should Have Ended by the wacky kids over at howitshouldhaveended.com, who I've written about before. If you've read the books or sat through all 20,000 hours of the Super Extended Special Edition Platinum Director's Cut of the movies, you'll love their 'let's get to the point' take on it.

Almost There And Back Again is about fans hiking all of New Zealand in costume (and in character); it aims for Spinal Tap-like humor and misses (plus it has never played right on my computer).

The Dork of the Rings turns the epic saga into a cautionary tale of credit abuse (well, sorta). Watch as "Frudo Buggins" possesses the One Ring of Circular Credit and has to close down Lord Mauron's bank account.

The Lord of the Rings: The Sons of Elrond is a real rarity for LOTR fan flicks, in that it's a serious, respectful, dramatic short by two brothers who want to become film composers; there's no comedy here at all. It's a pretty cool-looking, completely computer graphic-based flick that I reviewed ages ago, back when I wrote insanely long blog entries like this one.

Finally, one of the sickest, albeit funniest ideas to come out of the early Millennium years' LOTR hype tidalwave was the Hobbit gangsta rap group, Lords of the Rhymes, which is completely NSFW. They recorded a few songs and made an OK DVD, but their masterpiece remains the low-rent video for their self-titled single. The cardboard props are a riot and Gollum beatboxing is breathtaking for all the wrong reasons, but I think it's the rappers' performances that sell me on this stuff.

Seriously---I mean, close your eyes and listen to them screaming, "Well, my name is Gimili, I'm a f-----' dwarf! / I been slayin' mother----ers from the South to the North / That ain’t Mirkwood I’m choppin with my battleaxe / I’m on an orc stampede like Shadowfax!" There's a real sound of joy going on there, precisely because it's so stupid. Be warned: This stuff is catchy; more than once, I've found myself with the chorus, "Elf booty got soul / Elf girls like to rock n' roll," stuck in my head. Pity me.

Know a sweet LOTR flick that I missed? Tell me about it in the comments below!

Though bearing the same distinct visual style and flair for production design that made 2006's Pan's Labyrinth a critical darling and already something of a cult favorite, director Guillermo Del Toro's sequel to his own Hellboy wears the deep and severe problems with its story and script like a crown of horns. Though at times the talented cast rises above the flat dialogue and plodding, tangent-ridden screenplay, their efforts can't raise the film above routine or inject life into what is at its weird heart simply an exercise in costuming. Blame Del Toro, whose screenplay shows his limitations as a storyteller even while borrowing liberally and obviously from a constellation of influences.  

Beginning with a prologue sequence that's nakedly derivative of the opening to the first Lord of The Rings, the film's tale of a broken truce between humans and the mythical creatures of antiquity quickly becomes a game of spot-the-influences, ranging from H.P. Lovecraft to the aforementioned Tolkien to a succession of sci-fi fantasy flicks of recent years, including Cloverfield, Underworld and of course the Matrix trilogy. That's not in itself a bad thing - science fiction and horror alike are both genres that to a degree thrive on homage and derivation. Except in this case the influence feels disingenuous, even cynical. In creating a world of his own imagination, Del Toro seems to have forgotten how to create vivid characters, and a tin ear for dialogue (along with jokes that would seem flaccid in a Ben Stiller comedy) only makes things worse.

This is partly exacerbated by, ironically, the surprise success of the first Hellboy film, based as it was on a semi-obscure Dark Horse comic by former Batman artist Mike Mignola and starring a cluster of respected (if not exactly popular) character actors. A straightforward, pulpish yarn about demons discovered during World War II and a shadowy government agency that patrols the darker corners of the world, the film banked on audience novelty and delivered. Flash forward four years and a critical - if overrated - success in Pan's Labyrinth, and the novelty is gone even as the expectations are raised for the modest Hellboy franchise. That the film resembles a Del Toro vehicle more than Mignola's comic perhaps suggests the writer-director's priorities in crafting the film.

This creative control even extends so far as to shuffle the cast. The admittedly bland agent John Myers is gone, replaced by Dr. Johann Krauss, a German scientist turned sentient cloud of gas that walks through scenes clad in a kind of Victorian diving suit. Voiced by The Family Guy's Seth McFarlane in a peppy Colonel Klink impression, the professor has some interesting skills in his retinue (like reanimating the dead) but the praise incessantly lavished upon him by other characters makes his presence grating for much of his first half hour. Rather than characterize by action, Del Toro takes the far clumsier approach of audience-approval-by-telegraph, which practically never works. David Hyde Pierce is also gone as the voice of Hellboy's chum Abe Sapien. Fortunately Selma Blair and Jeffrey Tambor return, as does (most importantly) Ron Perlman as Hellboy.

The story is nothing if not void of surprises. The goth-esque, sword-wielding villain Prince Nuada is ruthless and treacherous, prone to decapitating adversaries in flying head and Matrix-style wirework splendor. He's even got a henchman that's suspiciously similar to the cave troll of Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. His plan for control of the Golden Army, a legion of steampunk robots themselves evokative of The Fifth Element's Mondoshawan aliens, centers around possession of a golden crown (one crown to rule them all!) that's split into three fragments. As you can imagine, the search for the third piece takes up much of the middle act. Eventually, order is restored and the quartet of heroes are free to resume their lives - albeit with big changes in store, in a denouement that's almost sitcomish.

Ultimately, the film suffers from a fractured set of ambitions that does neither of its sides justice. Too much a conventional action flick to rival Pan's Labrynth in ambition or scope and too much a trendy art piece to succeed as genre entertainment, Hellboy 2 will likely be remembered as a minor film in Del Toro's celebrated career. At least his next project, adapting Tolkien's The Hobbit, will allow him to bring much of his inspiration back to its rightful source.

- Michael Kabel

:: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: ::

The filmmakers are aiming to finish the 30-minute film by December, 2008, and have already completed scenes featuring an Orc army, while segments featuring the immortal Elves of Middle Earth were recently shot in Hampstead Heath Pergola in London.

The brainchild of writer/director Chris Bouchard, the script is adapted from the Appendices of The Lord of the Rings. The prequel will follow events leading up to The Fellowship of the Ring, focusing in on the Heir of Isildur---the "greatest huntsman and traveller in Middle Earth"---as he sets out to find Gollum in order to learn the truth about the Ring.

In this episode Larry and I talk about Wall-E, Journey to the Center of the Earth, iPhone/iPod applications, and tons of stuff from E3!

.MP3 Link

RSS Feed