tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-77812551268143465802024-03-05T19:26:04.374-08:00Beyond VoraciousBooks. Coffee. Geekery.Strummer Dundeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08341597832372419485noreply@blogger.comBlogger30125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7781255126814346580.post-32536866919475682052018-06-09T07:06:00.004-07:002018-07-31T18:38:41.425-07:00Top 5 E3 ExpectationsE3 season is creeping closer and along with the expectant thrill of what could be revealed mixes a certain nostalgic sureness of what viewers will probably see at the average E3 conference. Here is my list of the Top 5 things I fully expect to see bit of at E3:<br />
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<h3>
5. The Next Predictable Sports Title</h3>
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I'm obviously not a big fan of sports games (excluding the perfection that is Wii Sports), so the annual Trot-Out-New-Annual-Sports-Game presentations are usually pretty boring for me. It's a new year, they need a new game; it's expected. A few times there have been some interesting turns, such as a story mode with real fleshed-out characters in a FIFA game. Other times there are just strange presentations with announcers who seem to barely know anything about video games at all.<br />
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<h3>
4. Cute/Edgy Marketing Team Fail</h3>
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Remember Yarny? One memorable E3, a very shy game designer presented his physics-based game <i>Unravel</i> while clutching a strange little yarn doll he named Yarny. His delivery was shaky and real (surely feeling the world-wide attention directed at him), inspiring the internet to explode over love for him and his quirky, adorable doll. People made their own Yarny dolls, bought the game, and generally enjoyed being part of something.<br />
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Yeah, that doesn't always happen.<br />
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For all of the sweet/quirky moments E3 can bring, there are a dozen more missteps of people trying to capture that magic. I fully expect to see some really weird presentations, strange characters, buzzy announcers with fake accents, and whatever other attention-grabbing tactic thought up by a marketing team to enchant the internet.<br />
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<h3>
3. Fake Co-Op Dialogue</h3>
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Let's re-create the feel of playing a co-op game with friends! But with a script! And crisp voice-acting that never could have been transmitted with a fuzzy headset over Xbox Live!<br />
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Scripted fake co-op dialogue over gameplay results in a stilted, artificial feel. People don't speak in energetic, complete sentences when they are playing a fast-paced shooter. Real people mumble, cut themselves off, and interrupt each other. Hopefully one day these types of presentations will be retired. Or, maybe, they'll just let two real people do real co-op dialogue over the real game they are really playing together.<br />
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<h3>
2. Uneccessary Re-Boot with Higher Resolution</h3>
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Remember that game you loved when you were twelve? It's back, and in better definition! Please buy it again. Please. (Please, this was a really good IP once and we think it's a good nostalgia-grab).<br />
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<h3>
1. Ubisoft/Memery Cringe</h3>
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Oh, Ubisoft. The Ubisoft conference is a hallmark of the E3 season. Want to watch weird Mortal Kombat-looking characters dance on a neon stage to advertise the next <i>Just Dance</i> installment? Want to watch a presenter try to make a random person in cosplay into a meme? Want to just feel uncomfortable for up to ten minutes at a time? That's what I come to expect from Ubisoft's yearly presentations. Last year was a bit mellow for them, but I'll keep this at the top of my list for steady E3 expectations.Strummer Dundeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08341597832372419485noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7781255126814346580.post-35417492108062552162018-06-05T10:54:00.003-07:002018-06-05T10:54:31.887-07:00Top 5 Most-Anticipated News for E3 2018It's getting to be the most wonderful time of year... for people who love video games, that is. E3, the Electronic Entertainment Expo is coming up June 12th. Every year gaming companies dream up cool presentations to show off upcoming games, consoles, and various updates to its paying public. Here are five things I'm really hoping to see/hear about amid the tumult of live streams and news:<br />
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5. Uh...Bethesda?</h3>
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<a href="https://redirect.viglink.com/?format=go&jsonp=vglnk_152822039808713&key=b9014669b87be145294606ccea8870ce&libId=ji1yx71o01029lk1000DAbryocrv9&loc=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.gamespot.com%2Farticles%2Ffallout-76-vault-76-release-trailer-and-everything%2F1100-6459293%2F&v=1&out=https%3A%2F%2Fstatic.gamespot.com%2Fuploads%2Fscale_super%2F123%2F1239113%2F3392608-fallout76_teaser_pip-boy_1527685273.jpg&ref=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F&title=Fallout%2076%3A%20Vault%2076%2C%20Release%2C%20Trailer%2C%20And%20Everything%20We%20Know%20About%20Bethesda%27s%20New%20Game%20-%20GameSpot&txt=" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="800" height="180" src="https://redirect.viglink.com/?format=go&jsonp=vglnk_152822039808713&key=b9014669b87be145294606ccea8870ce&libId=ji1yx71o01029lk1000DAbryocrv9&loc=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.gamespot.com%2Farticles%2Ffallout-76-vault-76-release-trailer-and-everything%2F1100-6459293%2F&v=1&out=https%3A%2F%2Fstatic.gamespot.com%2Fuploads%2Fscale_super%2F123%2F1239113%2F3392608-fallout76_teaser_pip-boy_1527685273.jpg&ref=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F&title=Fallout%2076%3A%20Vault%2076%2C%20Release%2C%20Trailer%2C%20And%20Everything%20We%20Know%20About%20Bethesda%27s%20New%20Game%20-%20GameSpot&txt=" width="320" /></a></div>
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Bethesda is like...an older cousin who sometimes comes around the holidays to tell about the really cool stuff he's doing, and other times he's kind of having a mid-life crisis. The company is known for its robust single-player RPGs, like <i>Skyrim</i> and <i>Fallout</i>. Over the past couple of E3 seasons, they've definitely had their fair share of criticism for resting on these laurels and not innovating more. The Internet has seen a few glimpses of <i>Fallout 76</i>, so I'd like to hear more about it and see if Bethesda is ready to drop Skyrim's success from its cold, cold hands and let it rest.<br />
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4. Ooblets Updates!</h3>
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I first heard about <i>Ooblets</i> from the PC Gaming Show at E3 2017, and I was instantly hooked. This adorable crafting/farming/creature RPG combines the best parts of <i>Pokemon</i>, <i>Animal Crossing,</i> and <i>Stardew Valley</i>. It's still in development with no clear release date, so I'm dying for more news. I recommend following creator nonplayercat on <a href="https://nonplayercat.com/">Tumblr</a> and <a href="https://www.patreon.com/nonplayercat">Patreon</a> to be the most up-to-date.<br />
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3. More Switch Titles!</h3>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjI5P5q9IHggyV5e7TNGRD67zKDeiHNZgFSBk88t9DBL7_4da4Jmj4RE-9OFXSdj6m7DFHLlbRF09WLuGq79MuJ4iwgJwhn-9B34tSe43c9WFFt_C0ZYNRXD99MO910wFbAkJVojwnY4cw/s1600/Screen+Shot+2018-06-05+at+1.42.47+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="770" data-original-width="1380" height="178" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjI5P5q9IHggyV5e7TNGRD67zKDeiHNZgFSBk88t9DBL7_4da4Jmj4RE-9OFXSdj6m7DFHLlbRF09WLuGq79MuJ4iwgJwhn-9B34tSe43c9WFFt_C0ZYNRXD99MO910wFbAkJVojwnY4cw/s320/Screen+Shot+2018-06-05+at+1.42.47+PM.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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I was in line at midnight for the Nintendo Switch because I was sold on its unique controls, portability, and overall fun factor. Over a year later, and I still really like my Switch... I just wish it had more games! <i>Breath of the Wild</i> and <i>Super Mario Odyssey</i> were great starts for the system, but I haven't seen enough games really take advantage of the Switch's capabilities. <i>1, 2, Switch</i> looked cute, but a party game isn't enough to make a system really worth it for a variety of gamers. We need more titles ranging from single-player to party games to puzzles. Also, what is up with the Virtual Console? If Nintendo let people play GameCube games on their Switch?!? Some people would carry it everywhere.<br />
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2. Indie Games, Plz</h3>
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<a href="https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steam/apps/413150/header.jpg?t=1526407575" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="215" data-original-width="460" height="149" src="https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steam/apps/413150/header.jpg?t=1526407575" width="320" /></a></div>
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Along with more robust "Nindies" for the Switch, I would love to see more indie games in general. Big developers get somewhat stuck in a cycle. Indie developers have the room to take some risks. As a person who isn't fond of shooters, most multiplayer games, racing games, or sports games, I usually look to independent titles to find something I can really love.<br />
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1. Pokemon Stars on the Switch?</h3>
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The Pokemon presentation at last year's E3 was pretty funny. I waited ready for not much when, after introducing another Pokemon fighting game along with <i>Pokemon Sun and Moon Ultra</i>, a Pokemon developer looked up from his desk: "Oh, by the way, we're making a brand-new Pokemon game on the Switch and answering all of your hopes and dreams."<br />
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Okay, I might be paraphrasing.<br />
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Now since then we've heard about <i>Pokemon: Let's Go</i>, which appears to be good ol' <i>Pokemon Yellow</i> with the option of Eevee as a starter, 3D graphics, and compatibility with <i>Pokemon Go</i>, all on the Switch. Is that the "new Pokemon game" they teased last year? I'm thinking no, but that may just been some foolish hope.<br />
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<h4>
Honorable Mention</h4>
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Please, Nintendo, give us a real Animal Crossing game on the Switch that makes full use of its unique controls and capabilities. Please. I've been playing New Leaf for yeeeeeaaaarrrrssss.Strummer Dundeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08341597832372419485noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7781255126814346580.post-40927164565858486222018-02-12T15:12:00.000-08:002018-02-12T15:12:43.353-08:00Top 5: Games to Play with a Significant OtherValentine's Day is drawing near. Love is in the air, tinged with just a hint of desperation and too much focus on buying cheap gifts and chocolate at the grocery store to assuage a gnawing need for mindless calendar-based consumption... Or maybe it's just time to sit down for a good gaming session with a cute game and a cute person to play it with.<br />
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Here's my list for the Top 5 Games to Play with that Someone Special.<br />
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5. Guacamelee! </h3>
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Colorful, fun, adventurous, co-op, and scratching an itch to beat things up and make chicken jokes. That's what I call a good Valentine's Day game. My husband and I first played it when it was free for a while on the Playstation store, and we found we worked well together in co-op. Work in tandem to explore the cool level designs and melee your way to the top.<br />
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4. Diablo 3</h3>
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Diablo works well as a co-op RPG, especially if one person is a little bit better at not-dying than the other. Team up to fight evil and grind through levels and magical items. The story isn't too intense to follow, and I enjoy the many layers of difficulty to Diablo 3. A no-frills playthrough can evolve into a deeper exploration of the expansions or harder difficulty levels.<br />
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<h3>
3. Guitar Hero/Dance Dance Revolution/any singing or dancing or music game</h3>
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Games like this work on two levels. For a casual or new relationship, it's just kind of fun to play a somewhat silly motion- or rhythm-based game. For a longer and more committed relationship, it's a good opportunity to relax together for quick game sessions or compete to get the highest score.<br />
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<h3>
2. Super Mario Odyssey! </h3>
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Another co-op option, especially if one half of the couple is just a little bit better at platformers or just not dying. Mario is always a crowd pleaser for couples with wide gaps in video game interest. Multi-level difficulty is easy to manage as well. For example, one person might control the magic hat, the other controls the Mario, and we all get to have fun. This is another great game for exploration or just playing in small, manageable chunks.<br />
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<h3>
1. Katamari Forever! </h3>
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Really, this could be any Katamari game, but my husband and I especially love passing the controller back and forth to try to get the best time or the highest score on a level. Roll up a big, round katamari ball as the Prince of All Cosmos cleaning up after your somewhat distant and gigantic king dad. I especially love playing this with another person because one of you will get to see all the weird side characters and strange things picked up during the katamari process while the player is focusing on their task. As a bonus, the music is intensely groovy. Sometimes I replay the level just to hear the songs.<br />
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<h4>
Honorable Mentions</h4>
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<ul>
<li>Mario Kart (just don't get too competitive and ruin the evening)</li>
<li>Pokemon Go (for those romantic, Pokemon-hunting walks)</li>
<li>Animal Crossing: New Leaf (visit each other's towns!)</li>
<li>The Wolf Among Us (interactive storytelling and great art style - make decisions together!)</li>
<li>Stardew Valley (especially multiplayer when it's available, especially if you can get married in the game!)</li>
</ul>
Strummer Dundeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08341597832372419485noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7781255126814346580.post-89387901742357226872018-01-27T07:50:00.001-08:002018-01-27T07:50:23.545-08:00"Boy Beat" - Natural Makeup for 2018This is a bit of a departure from what I normally blog about, but the scarcity of information about this topic made me interested in exploring more. A casual look at the makeup/beauty scene for the past five years reveals a turn to the dramatic, fantastic, and (joyfully or critically) illusionary. Heavy foundation, contouring creams, and false lashes are no longer kept in the arsenal of makeup artists on set or drag queens preparing for a show. Middle- to high-schoolers experimenting with makeup now have thousands of hours of the highest quality instruction available for free online and millions of inspirational pictures to look up to. One's wildest beauty dreams, completely unchecked and celebrated.<br />
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And now it's a new year, and the pendulum is starting to swing. I've always been fascinated how trends or even larger, more nebulous patterns shift. I'll see a few people decide to do something different and watch the chain reaction start until the cool thing one person online did is now a clearance item at a department store. In this case, we're seeing a shift back to natural makeup.<br />
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This is nothing new. Natural makeup has popped up again and again, mixed with greasy grunge looks or sun-baked in the 1970s. But natural makeup doesn't show up out of nowhere, and the artistic and technological innovations of makeup in the 21st century surely won't let it be boring.<br />
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It kicked off with Beyonce...specifically her makeup artist Sir John. In an interview with Allure, he describes what he calls the "boy beat" he used for Beyonce's "Formation" music video. The video itself ties into the modernity of the look, signaling a shift in music and popular thought to the revolutionary and socially aware. The look is described in the last two minutes of the video. The "boy beat" is all about bringing shapes to the face, specifically the eyes and bone structure, and otherwise letting one's natural face show.<br />
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A few videos and people online have suggested the return of the natural look in makeup, but this is the most solid indication I've seen of what kind of natural look. Another video by Sarah Cheung provides a more specific tutorial. She emphasizes messy, full brows and colors on the face that mimic natural shadow, sunburn, and the kind of redness most would seek to conceal. The effect is an androgynous, stark, and modern makeup look that could easy go edgy or innocent with just a few additions.</div>
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When I tried to research more about this look, I expected to be inundated with trend reports, tutorials, and product lists. It turns out that either this look has a different name altogether or it is just on the verge of being discovered. I can easily see companies like Milk Makeup and Glossier channeling more energy in the direction of boyish, natural makeup. Milk already has a video out featuring a cleaner androgynous look called "Gender".</div>
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I'll keep an eye out to see if the "boy beat" becomes the new unicorn-holographic-cut crease-it makeup or whether it simmers below the surface for the cool kids.<br />
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Product Arsenal </h3>
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<ul>
<li>Brow products, mostly mascaras or pencils that can pull double-duty to make faux freckles</li>
<li>Creamy eyeshadows (or other products used as eyeshadow) in peaches, browns, and bruise-y colors to give eye definition</li>
<li>Mostly cream/stick highlighters to give a sheen (or a face gloss, as seen in the Milk video)</li>
<li>Blush and bronzer for definition</li>
<li>The barest of bare lip product</li>
</ul>
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<br />Strummer Dundeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08341597832372419485noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7781255126814346580.post-84040586688294358192017-11-20T09:36:00.000-08:002017-11-20T09:36:07.225-08:00The Life Cycle of an Artist/Content Creator - What to Expect When You're CreatingBased on what I've seen floating around Youtube and the internet in general over my long, long years of heavy internet research, I've concluded that there is a basic overall arc to the life cycle of an artist...or pretty much any kind of content creator in general. Of course, this is not universal and depends greatly on the person. If one is interested in being a professional on- or offline maker of things and purveyor of ideas, this is a simple breakdown of the stages that most seem to go through in that particular life path.<br />
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<br />Level One - The Student</h3>
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For a lot of people this stage takes place while they are still at school. Certainly most animators, comic book artists, and most artistic doodlin' types begin to find their artistic interests at this time. Scribbles in middle school start to fill sketchbooks with terrible anime drawings before someone throws an anatomy book at them. Maybe in high school they will start posting things online or getting more feedback on their work, but the drive and the interest is there. Not everyone starts so early. Each person may have their own path, but it's something that seems to be common in the stories of many an artist.<br />
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<h4>
Artist Spotlight: Arin Hanson, aka Egoraptor</h4>
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Arin Hanson started working on his art fairly young, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dp0q7f2uH-c">though he will be the first to adamantly correct people who suggest that artists are just born with talent</a>. He had an online presence while still in school that let him connect to other animators and essentially start his own brand of education/training to be the animator, voice actor, and video game funnyman he is today.<br />
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<h4>
Artist Spotlight: Jason Gastrow, aka VideoGameDunkey</h4>
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This is another example of starting an online presence very early on and experimenting with art. Jason Gastrow is know for his tightly-edited funny video game reviews and various riffing on pop culture these days, but his early animations and funny videos on Newgrounds <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCkPhYiKbJU">started with all the pre-teen humor and charm of someone doing what they loved.</a><br />
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Level Two - The Specific Spark</h3>
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This is the stage where people are really starting to figure out something they truly love or want to explore. Often this is accompanied by more attention to their work or sometimes just a distinct connection between the content creator and something they will end up being known for. It can be a genre, a style, a brand of humor, a medium, anything that really focuses their hard work and pays off. This is also a good time for the start of a long-term series or project that requires commitment and passion.<br />
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What often happens on the internet is a sense of intense feedback for a specific project; a simple experiment can draw a whole drove of new fans who want to see more, more, more. Yes, videos and projects can "go viral," but two billion views doesn't have to be the only starting point. I find that the more sustainable path stems from a project that people enjoy, but don't necessarily go rabid about or forget about in a month's time.<br />
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<h4>
Artist Spotlight: Cara McGee, aka ohcararara</h4>
Cara McGee worked in a number of different styles of art, currently culminating in comics and work with <i>Over the Garden Wall</i>. One project that seemed to propel her into the spotlight was quite a diversion from that path: tea blends. Originally just a fan project, she would eventually work with a company called Adagio creating tea blends based on popular fandoms. Paired with each custom tea blend (<a href="http://www.adagio.com/signature_blend/fandoms.html">which anyone could go on the Adagio Teas website right now and make their own</a>) was some of her cute art on the packaging, featuring tiny Sherlock Holmes, <i>Harry Potter </i>characters, the cast of <i>Doctor Who</i>, and more. The crossover of fan art and widespread recognition got her art out there even more.<br />
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<h4>
Arin Hanson Returns</h4>
Before the soaring success of his Youtube series <i>Game Grumps</i>, Arin Hanson was probably most known for his animation work. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FpigqfcvlM">His animated series Sequelitis exploded online.</a> It gave viewers a good look at his art style, humor, and video game theory that would translate and expand further into later projects. That format really worked for him and allowed him to express views on video games through an exciting and authentic medium for viewers looking for something new.<br />
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<h3>
<br />Level Three - Super Star</h3>
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This stage tends to be what a lot of people see or think of regarding an artist or content creator. I liken it to what a fifteen-year-old guitarist imagines when he's "famous" and touring in a band. At this stage an artist is working in their preferred medium. One usually sees a lot of growth, and they may be collaborating with other content creators. Financial security may stem from working for or with a company or even from banding together into a network with other like-minded people.<br />
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I like to compare this stage to the Super Star that grants invincibility to Mario. It's time to go real fast and smack into Goombas, sending them flying. The inspiration's there, and the work just seems to flow...to the outside viewer, anyway. At this point people are able to expand a bit with projects and reach out to fans or the media easily and often. A downside to this stage can be overwork; people often feel more pressured at this point to keep up or increase output in order to not fall off the radar (in case of a "viral" jumpstart to their career) or they are just trying to please too many people at once.<br />
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<h3>
Level Four - Those Golden Years</h3>
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This stage somehow sounds like a downturn of the arc, a settling of sorts, but it's probably the point in most art careers when people are happiest. The pressures of trying to juggle too many projects or carve new paths every year subside and mostly artists are able to relax with a clear idea of what they like and don't like. No longer caught up in survival mode, they're able to get out of their comfort zone. This stage may see changes in genre, format, or a completely different change from art to music to film making altogether. It's an opportunity to try new things and show other aspects of themselves.<br />
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An example of this would be the Game Grumps moving from just gameplay with commentary to podcasts like <i>The G Club</i>, now expanded into a D&D podcast called <i>Dragons in Places</i>. Other content creators may move platforms, such as from Youtube to Twitch, or switch from digital to traditional art.<br />
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<h4>
Artist Spotlight: Alton Brown</h4>
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Best known for his groundbreaking cooking show <i>Good Eats</i>, Alton Brown has since evolved into an ever-reaching presence in food science and food fun. Since the wrap-up of <i>Good Eats</i> he has toured with his rock and roll food science live show, turned sinister as the host of Cutthroat Kitchen, and led his Instagram followers around America in search of good food and fun times. Cookbook collaborations? Mini Youtube series? <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lW0qyUC9kVI">Personally torturing Bobby Flay? Alton Brown and cats do as they please.</a><br />
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Level Five - Becoming the Mentor</h3>
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It's at this stage that artists or content creator seek to give back to the community that supported them from the beginning. They may pursue smaller projects and less of a grand vision or major series like one would see in Levels 2-3. Many projects at this stage also center around spreading a wealth of knowledge and experiences to others to help inspire more people to go out and do what makes them happy.<br />
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Artist Spotlight: Adam Savage</h4>
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Well known for being half of the kooky pair hosting Mythbusters, Adam Savage continues to work to share his love of science with the masses. His expertise in cosplay and special effects makes him uniquely suited to work with Maker spaces and collaborate with other nerdy-minded individuals to build and create. At this point in his career, he has all this knowledge and freedom that he wants to share with people. His content online is now more educational and about uplifting the maker communities that can share resources and experiences to the next generation of mad scientists. He often tours to speak to crowds of people who hope to be as inventive as he has managed to be. Adam Savage has mastered the shift from producing to inspiring...<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnx1WiMETG0&t=310s">though that still won't stop him from learning how to forge his own replica swords and armor to go incognito at Comic Con every year</a>. That's just plain fun.<br />
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In the End...</h3>
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These stages of course are not absolute. Creators may flit back and forth among the stages, get stuck going from one to the other, or even fail to progress as an artist all together. Millions never make it past Level One, shafted by disapproving parents or the heinous mix of adolescent insecurity and caring too much about the opinion of others.<br />
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Think of them more as guidelines than rules, and just keep creating.Strummer Dundeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08341597832372419485noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7781255126814346580.post-13877452101247914772017-11-11T15:21:00.002-08:002017-11-11T15:21:33.413-08:00#Inktober Wrap Up - Art Challenge ReflectionsToday we're doing a quick wrap up of Inktober 2017.<br />
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This past October I participated in an art challenge called "Inktober", the goal of which is to produce a finished, inked drawing every day of that month. A full disclaimer before I begin: I am not experienced at all in art, even in a hobbyist capacity. No formal education whatsoever. Aside from the occasional doodling and art electives in middle school, I have never endeavored to create an art practice. This year I've been trying to expand my artistic horizons by simply filling sketchbooks with studies, cartooning, and even some hand-lettering. Having filled one sketchbook, I looked to the Inktober challenge as a way to get at least 31 pages of my new sketchbook filled.<br />
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<b><u>What I Learned</u></b><br />
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It turns out that it is really easy and helpful to get into a drawing routine. I eliminated a lot of decision-making stress by making each drawing as simple and routine as possible. Stress can come from deciding what to draw, how much time and effort to put into it, how much to shade/color, etc. I stuck to a general spooky/generic Halloween theme to keep the ideas flowing and used maybe 1-2 reference images for most drawings.<br />
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Starting with a reference image definitely eased me into drawing each day. I would sometimes just scroll Instagram or Tumblr or be on the lookout for a Halloween-related image that day to get started. As long as the image was fairly simple with clean lines and easy-to-see contours, it worked for me. I also learned how to use references effectively. If I was drawing something specific, I learned how to lay down guidelines, get the sizing down, and to break down even simple objects into simpler shapes and segments. I really can't draw from memory at all because I don't have that visual mental art dictionary that artists tend to build up over the years. References were key!<br />
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Another way I simplified the process was to not focus on color much. In general I stuck to black and white with the occasional accent of orange/green/purple (for Halloween of course) and a few instances of red. So each drawing was essentially a main object/figure or group of objects, using minimal reference images, with some hand-lettering practice to write the date on each page.<br />
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Because I didn't focus on full-color drawings, another thing I learned a lot about throughout this process was shading. I had never generally worked with ink or ink shading before, so this was all new to me. This month I experimented with inked cross hatching, squiggles and loops, diagonal and horizontal lines with varying spacing, dots, and mixing all of the above with different line thicknesses. I really liked the variety that the shading possibilities gave to the drawings. Just mixing a few shading techniques gave my simple drawings more texture than they usually would have.<br />
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Something I hadn't really considered before Inktober was eraser quality. My art supplies are pretty bottom of the barrel -- #2 pencils, the erasers on the end, some ballpoint pens, Sharpies, and a $5 hardcover sketchbook from the craft store. I quickly found myself going crazy when lines wouldn't erase or when I was left with shredded eraser bits everywhere. I've learned to covet kneaded erasers and art-quality erasers in general. A good eraser adds to that satisfaction of drafting a very rough sketch, inking it out, and erasing all of the dirty work that made the picture in the first place.<br />
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<b><u>The Take-Away</u></b><br />
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The last thing I learned from Inktober is that, provided one doesn't stress out too much, art can be very relaxing and fun! It got a lot easier to get sucked into a drawing when it became routine. I reach for my sketchbook a lot more often than I did before thanks to building my discipline with practice. Even if I'm just sketching, I also usually feel like properly finishing pieces with inked line work now as well. Finished drawings are just so satisfying. Before I would have a bunch of studies or doodles in my sketchbook, but to have a clean, inked drawing feels like I've really accomplished something at the end of the day.<br />
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In conclusion, I really enjoyed and recommend Inktober and art challenges like it. Any challenge that reinforces an artistic practice with a time limit is going to be useful. Following along with drawing tutorials on Youtube can be fun, but I learned the most just sitting down with a reference image and figuring it out for myself.<br />
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<br />Strummer Dundeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08341597832372419485noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7781255126814346580.post-82702141741284098682017-07-24T10:20:00.000-07:002017-07-24T10:20:05.672-07:00Top 5: Tips for Attending a Convention<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Given that it is currently sort of peak convention season time, I wanted to offer my top five tips for attending one. These can be for first-time convention-goers or even for people who maybe haven't been to a con in a while and need a few reminders.<br />
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This list is not specific to cosplaying at a convention. Instead it is aimed more at a casual attendee. I can't offer any advice at this time on wearing body paint for eight-plus hours or keeping a wig on. Maybe that will be in another post.<br />
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5.) Draft a Plan (and Be Okay If Things Don't Go Accordingly)</h3>
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My pre-convention routine regularly includes scouting out the website for a prospective schedule of events for about four weeks. No one has to be as silly as I am about schedules, but it does help to have a rough plan or at least a few key things to focus on seeing. For some people this will be autograph sessions or meet-and-greets with writers, actors, and artists. Some people might want to make sure they see a few specific people on Artist Alley or hit up a few of their favorite merchants who maybe only appear at conventions. I usually center my schedule around panels and longer events, such as the <i>Rocky Horror Picture Show</i> Shadowcast or a costume contest. Having a plan involving times, especially for panels and shows, also allows some wiggle room to plan for standing in line.<br />
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That being said, don't have a cow if things don't work out. At my first convention I missed both the showing of <i>Rocky Horror </i>(my Plan A for ending the night) and the big costume contest (my Plan B for ending the night) because we didn't get in line for either early enough. We stood there for nearly an hour before being told there was no more room. Don't get too terribly bummed out about things like that. Sometimes it's more fun to just do general sweeps of the convention floor or even get stuck around a slowly-growing group of related cosplayers who keep getting stopped for pictures.<br />
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4.) Scout Out Food Options (and Consider Bringing Your Own Rations)</h3>
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It can be an adventure just to get into a convention. The ones I've been to are inside huge convention centers with a labyrinth of parking, up escalators, on multiple levels. The last thing anyone wants to do after spending possible hours in a car or maybe just a good half hour to park is leave to get food. Sometimes there isn't an option of leaving for the day. Luckily conventions have a variety of foods to offer in a mall-like food court full of wafting smells and No Face from <i>Spirited Away </i>eating a burrito next to a Power Ranger. Unluckily, that food is ridiculously expensive. I once downright panicked when I ordered some pizza and drinks for three people and immediately started doing math to see if we could afford to eat something that night with my remaining money.<br />
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I heartily recommend eating before or after the convention and bringing snacks. My go-to snacks are beef jerky sticks, string cheese, and packs of nuts or trail mix. Anything portable, possibly one-handed-eating-friendly, and survivable in a small bag would be a good idea. I wouldn't even trust a drink from the vending machine to be a reasonable priced, so a water bottle and maybe some of those little drink powder packets might also be a good idea. <br />
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<br />3.) Budget Thyself (and Accept Treating Thyself Sometimes)</h3>
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So the ticket is expensive, parking can be expensive, and the food is expensive. Conventions are also a magical wonderland where I can go buy a sword that I've wanted since I was eight years old. And a copy of Leeloo's multipass from <i>The Fifth Element.</i> And the ancient key from The Mummy. And a new Renaissance Faire outfit. And tiny potion bottles. And art prints. And vintage comic books. And...you see what I mean.<br />
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My point is that it's very easy to walk into a convention with enough money for groceries for a week and walk out hoping there's enough soup in the cupboard to sustain basic caloric needs. I highly recommend researching everything down to parking and gas and possibly put everything on a pre-paid card with enough cash to buy the products and/or experiences you want at the convention itself. If you followed the previous tip, you'll be able to grocery-shop or set aside food money ahead of time to avoid the dilemma of "con treasures versus $15 in pizza" in the food court.<br />
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Work within a budget but, like the advice for making a plan, leave some wiggle room (or just forgiveness) if there's something incredible, life-changing, and must-have-able in a booth tucked into a corner. It will probably be worth it. Once.<br />
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<h3>
2.) Ask for Photos (and Say Those 3 Magic Words "Please" and "Thank You")</h3>
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Conventions have become especially well-known for elaborate and enthusiastic cosplay opportunities. This simple rule is all about pictures and interactions with people in costumes:<br />
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Don't touch people/props/costumes without permission.<br />
Don't take pictures without permission.<br />
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The severity of adhering to these rules depends on the demeanor of the person in costume, of course, but I try to be strict with these sort of things. To be fair, I've also been hit in the face with wings and tripped over a dude's dragging Pyramid Head sword as well. The pictures thing sometimes doesn't make sense to people. "They spent forever making/combining/sourcing/putting on a costume! Don't they want people to take pictures?" They probably do. However, they did put a lot of time, effort, and/or sheer bravery into said costumes and also deserve the opportunity to pose and actually show them off properly. A horrifically-zoomed shot of their back and half of their face from 60-feet away isn't the best way to capture that hard work.<br />
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What to do?<br />
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Ask. Nicely. I'm still working on it myself (which is why I have probably less than 20 pictures of cosplay from my con experiences), but it's that easy. "Hey, I love your costume! Can please I get a picture? Thank you!" That's the script. A few other observances would be to not bother people in the middle of something (like adjusting or fixing a costume, in mid-conversation with someone else, shepherding children about) or eating. Accept "no" as an answer, but also know that the answer will usually be positive.<br />
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1.) Wear Comfortable Shoes (and Be Prepared to Queue)</h3>
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This is the most vital tip and one I've constantly overlooked despite normally being a practical person. Wear comfortable, practical shoes with arch support. Please. All of the conventions I've gone to were held in places with concrete floors. Ask anyone who works in a warehouse what it's like waking around on concrete floors for ten hours. It sucks and it kills feet plus anything connected to the feet. Going to a convention wearing thin shoes with no arch support (such as my trusty Converse) results in slight stiffness, fatigue, and muscle pain at the end of the day. Amble tiredly back to a hotel room, eat some pizza, fall asleep, and wake up to a new day of sheer hell with extreme stiffness and a deep-seated muscle soreness that ages a person 20 years until it's worked out again.<br />
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Please. Comfy shoes. Arch support. Otherwise Day Two of a convention involves stopping by the first steampunk booth to get a spiffy walking stick and hoping for the best.<br />
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Bonus: Con Gear</h4>
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I like bringing my ThinkGeek Bag of Holding - Con Edition, a portable battery bank (Anker usually has good ones on Amazon), a FitBit to count the ridiculous number of steps, my 3DS XL for StreetPass opportunities (and for waiting in long lines), and a water bottle to refill.<br />
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Have fun out there!Strummer Dundeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08341597832372419485noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7781255126814346580.post-48130432248187597362017-07-16T19:10:00.000-07:002017-07-16T19:10:18.076-07:00Film Files: Jaws (1975)One of my firmest beliefs is that a summer without a viewing of <i>Jaws</i> is somehow a lesser summer, a summer of missteps that didn't get the full realization it deserves. Another of my firm beliefs is that any tv ad, poster, review, or person who says that a movie is "the next <i>Jaws</i>" is 1.) lying for the sake of pushing a mediocre monster movie into the public consciousness or 2.) has clearly never seen the sheer perfection that is Steven Spielberg's adaptation of Peter Benchley's best-seller.<br />
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Before we start, let's have a summary.<br />
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A police chief from the city moves to a island off the coast of New England and slowly acclimates his happy family to a life filled with boats and beaches. However, the peace doesn't quite last to their first summer, when swimmers start dying. The mayor and town elites are eager to say "boating accident" or "misadventure," anything but the word "shark" to keep the tourist dollars coming in. The new chief prefers safety to business and, prevented from outright closing the beaches, he deals with public pressure by going out himself to hunt the shark that he thinks is still roaming uncaught. With him is a grizzled shark hunter and a young, eccentric marine biologist. Together the three form an unlikely bond as they seek to protect the town of Amity from disaster.<br />
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<i>Jaws</i> represents so many iconic film elements rolled into a summer blockbuster of all things. That plot sounds like a classic monster movie plot. The Big Bad creature from the Unknown shows up and starts killing quietly. The townspeople panic, yet resist panic. The hero doesn't want to be a hero, but shows up to do what he must do. There's even a scientist, a classic monster movie staple, in Matt Hooper (played by Richard Dreyfuss) who at once understands and even empathizes with the hunted before realizing that it truly is a monster worthy of destruction.<br />
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Chief Brody is a sheriff on an island who's afraid of water! It's fantastic!<br />
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How about an Outsider plot? Brody (played by the wonderfully expressive Roy Schieder) is branded as this city boy who doesn't understand the community of Amity. He deals with this small-town stuff like bickering neighbors, nothing major until these bodies show up. And when presented with real danger, the mayor ends up stopping his every attempt to investigate. The opinion of the business leaders who rely on tourism and happy people splashing in the water is firm in the iconic line from Mayor Vaughn:<br />
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"You yell barracuda, everyone goes 'Huh? What?' You yell shark, we have a panic on our hands on the Fourth of July."<br />
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It isn't until the danger touches his own children that the mayor and community finally relent to hire Quint, the formidable boat captain who agrees to find the shark, and kill it, for the right price. His recklessness, determination, and hyper-focus on the rough manliness of shark hunting combat perfectly with the wealthy, sardonic marine biologist Matt Hooper.<br />
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What takes this from a cheesy B-movie about a "killer shark" leaving a string of bodies to an iconic piece of film is the writing, the acting, and the editing.<br />
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The screenplay was adapted by the original author, Peter Benchley. His dialogue is so pared down, realistic, and downright funny in just the right ways. For being such a classic movie full of danger and drama, <i>Jaws</i> is also intensely quotable. Hooper's self-righteous sarcasm gives him some of the best lines. In response to Mayor Vaughn's unwillingness to admit the killer shark is at large, he scoffs, "I'm not going to waste my time arguing with a man who's lining up to be a hot lunch!"<br />
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The audience first meets Hooper when he comes in to aid Brody in learning more about shark behavior. He steps into the scene amid a crowd of fishermen piling into boats, hoping to catch the shark for the promise of bounty money. When he sees too many men overcrowding a boat and tries to warn them, he gets rebuffed. Instead of anger, attempting to engage them again, or simply leaving, he laughs hollowing and idly muses, "Hahaha, they're all going to die."<br />
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Brody's lines are clear and to the point, representing a man who wants to get things done with the best understanding he has. When Hooper expresses concern about being allowed to dissect the caught shark to see if it's indeed the killer shark, Brody gives a simple yet amused reply: "I can do anything. I'm the chief of police."<br />
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The acting also lifts <i>Jaws</i> from the fodder of monster movie schlock. Great lines can be butchered, but the natural delivery from the actors makes the film seem authentic. Quint, played by veteran Robert Shaw, conveys his sheer determination with a simple look at times. His character often bursts into quiet sea shanties instead of lines, an amused smile tugging at his lips as though he's seen it all. Dreyfuss's portrayal of Hooper's exasperation and nervous energy clashes well with Quint's solid presence; it always seems like Hooper is moving or making faces or busy with equipment against Quint's sure and controlled movements. Roy Schieder offers a face elastic with expression. He often looks intensely deep in thought, but he'll snap to high-strung surprise bordering on panic. Brody's best line, and the one most synonymous with Jaws, is delivered with a panic so severe that Schieder goes around the bend and turns it bitterly monotone. He sees the huge jaws of the largest shark in living memory, backs deep into the cabin, and says calmly to Quint:<br />
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"You're going to need a bigger boat."<br />
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Another beautiful quality in <i>Jaws</i> are the moments of silence. There's a scene in which the conflicted Brody is brooding over how to proceed now that he is fairly sure the shark is still out there. On one hand, he's terrified of the water. The mayor doesn't want to hear this. On the other, he feels responsible for a little boy who has died and the safety of his own children. His youngest son sits next to him, quietly mirroring his father's concerned face, clamped hands. They mimic each other back and forth until they're pulling silly faces and laughing, breaking the tension. A silly B-movie would keep up contrived drama and skip such a scene altogether. Theres no shark, theres no screaming. But there is a moment in which the audience remembers that this man is a father. That he is a sheriff outside, but inside his house he's a loving man who drinks wine with his wife and plays with his sons.<br />
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This quiet tonal shift happens again on the boat when the men rest from shark hunting for a while. There's alcohol and food, rough talk and banter, and a contest of sorts where they show off their battle scars. The warm moment suddenly cools when Quint calmly corrects Hooper about his tattoo removal scar; it had been a tattoo from the USS Indianapolis. The atmosphere changes palpably as Hooper realizes the gravity of such a statement. Dreyfuss and Schieder visibly tuck-in for this gruesome story that at once interests and appalls the characters. Shaw tells of the sinking of the ship and the bloody, shark-filled waters he was in with just the barest dip into emotion. A lesser film would have emphasized the horror, drawn out the violence like a campfire ghost story. Instead it's solemn and finite, a survivor's tale.<br />
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Despite the writing and acting, <i>Jaws</i> still could have slipped into cheesy B-movie territory were it not for the careful editing of Verna Fields. The issues with the manipulation of "Bruce," the nickname given to the mechanical shark playing the killer Great White, were legendary. Whole scenes didn't work, the shark would break down, and worst of all it would sometimes look too fake. When interviewed, Spielberg often admitted that he wanted that expensive, scary mechanical shark in the scenes far more than it appeared in the final cut of the movie. The decision to leave the reveal of the shark until much later in the movie, and to cut short many of its appearances in the water, was what made the movie so effective. Quicker, shorter visuals of the creepy dead-eyed shark offered far more of a viscerally shocking effect. If the shark appeared on screen even a few seconds more per scene, there's a chance that the audience would feel that artifice of the shark's mechanical nature, ruining their suspension of disbelief and undercutting the effect that made Jaws the movie that made people afraid to go into the water for years to come.<br />
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<i>Jaws</i> is my official must-see movie every summer. No matter how many times I see it, I always keep coming back.<br />
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Chief Brody: [swimming back to shore] Hey, what day is this?<br />
Hooper: It's Wednesday...eh, is Tuesday, I think.<br />
Chief Brody: Think the tide is with us.<br />
Hooper: Keep kickin'.<br />
Chief Brody: I used to hate the water.<br />
Hooper: I can't imagine why.<br />
<br />Strummer Dundeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08341597832372419485noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7781255126814346580.post-64594419744139615112016-07-14T10:01:00.004-07:002016-07-14T10:01:53.922-07:00Golden AUs*<br />
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Some things are storytelling tools rather than stories themselves...<br />
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How can they make a Minecraft movie? The thought popped into my mind one afternoon as I scrolled through blog feeds from a few gaming news sources. The Minecraft movie is a definite, real project and is currently expected to come out in 2019. The whole idea of a Minecraft movie is as puzzling to me as the story mode that came out recently. I was entirely unused to the idea of having named characters with their own motives and personalities in the Minecraft world. Why the disconnect?<br />
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In short, Minecraft is not conducive to set storylines; it’s a storytelling tool. In a world where gamers have taken over the likes of Team Fortress 2, hacked Mario and Sonic games, and a multitude of skins and mods to make games their own, something like Minecraft clearly exists as a place to project stories onto rather than something to talk back. When I was younger, I had a fair number of dolls. Barbies, off-brand barbies, even Bratz dolls. They interacted with action figures, stuffed animals, and weird yarn-and-paper creations to have their own stories. Something like a Bratz movie or a Barbie movie seemed unthinkable to me; these dolls were mine, damn it, why would I want to listen to someone else’s story when I can craft one of my own?<br />
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That’s the puzzle of a Minecraft movie, an echo of the distaste I had with the Lego movie. The entire point of these environments is to be a sandbox. The person gets to take these blocks and stack them as they will, regardless of anyone else’s ideas about what makes a good story. The whole idea lead me to a further digression on stories and story-telling tools. I came upon two fandoms, if it were, usually similar in their Anglophilic devotion but diametrically different in their role in stories.<br />
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So...fanfiction, right? If the term is new to one’s perspective, that is easily remedied. <u>Fanficton exists to explain, fill holes in, extend, or entire diverge from a completed story.</u> It’s been around since stories have been around, especially since before copyright determined legal ramifications for taking characters from, let’s say, <i>Wuthering Heights </i>and putting them on a space station in the year 3714. While the most-written-on properties vary depending on popularity and access to internet environments these days, two have been fairly persistent: Harry Potter and Sherlock Holmes. Both are British male characters, both from very well-established times and places and situations. Both, however, offer different storytelling tools to fans.<br />
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Harry Potter offers a universe, a Wizarding World. Take any beloved characters or even entirely new characters in any situation, and they can be squarely put into the Wizarding world. There are particular rules to Harry-Potter-esque magic, there is a Wizading society, education and history is established. There are set ideas of morals, set illnesses and conditions and dangers, set creatures, set wars and timelines. It is comfortable yet inherently magical for anyone reading it. I could stop right now and ask the reader to look up a handful of well-known characters (Spock and Kirk, the Avengers, characters from Game of Thrones) and odds are someone has figured out their Hogwarts house, Patronus, animagus. While the characters, somewhat unfortunately, have very clear stories already done, the entire world is a playground. This aligns the universe closer to that of Minecraft. Sure, we could hear about Harry’s children or the past of the Marauders, but the true freedom just lies within the grounds of Hogwarts itself. The possibilities are near endless.<br />
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The second fandom, far older and more scholarly, is that of Sherlock Holmes. While their original setting, Victorian London, is oft-explored in fiction, the real beauty of Sherlockian possibilities lie in the characters. Take Dr. John Watson and detective Sherlock Holmes and plop them down anywhere, in any time or place or situation, and there bubbles a story in the making. Unlike the fairly set timeline of Harry Potter characters, Holmes and Watson are perpetually dancing around each other and their enemies and always a dynamic duo. Their shadows lie in stories already. Dr. House and Dr. Wilson. The analysts in Lie to Me. Spock, Kirk, and Bones to a degree. There is always a brooding and somewhat dangerous genius and a stable, war-worn doctor type. And it’s always 1895.<br />
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So to the original question, how can there be a Minecraft movie? There can be one because of money, exploitation, the ease of pumping out computer-animated movies. But don’t be annoyed if a beloved universe is tarnished with generic characters and weak plot filler; that’s what the fanfiction is for.<br />
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*AU: Alternate reality from the original story. For example, a James Bond story set in the Star Wars universe or a reality in which a character did not die.<br />
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Strummer Dundeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08341597832372419485noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7781255126814346580.post-57541228433351345032016-04-17T08:31:00.000-07:002016-04-17T08:31:12.575-07:00Beyond Bookshelves: Punk Stuff #3<h2>
How to Be Idle</h2>
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By Tom Hodgkinson</h3>
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Hodgkinson’s first book in this series of sorts, <i>How to Be Idle</i> follows the average day hour by hour through its chapters. It starts by discussing how people all around the world wake up on a daily basis, immediately bashing the ideas of alarm clocks and calling upon men of letter to expound the horrors of being forced to wake up early in the morning. The rest of the book follows suit.<br />
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<i>How to Be Idle: A Loafer’s Manifesto</i> is exactly what it says on the tin, and it’s brilliant. Hodgkinson uses classic British literary references, early modern history, and call-backs to pre-Industrial Britain to explain why idleness is actually ideal. This book and the others in the series follow along the central idea that being perky, wage-driven drones is playing into the hands of our capitalist overlords. The meshing of rising early and moral rectitude, the admonishing of employees who “have time to lean and time to clean” in minimum-wage jobs, and replacing religion with materialism and competition are all key themes.<br />
<br />
<b><u>Recommended for:</u></b><br />
People who idealize medieval peasants, people who can’t wake up before 10am for the life of them, people who are sick of capitalism, people who look at rush hour traffic and see a hoard of mindless drones, people who want a list of classic books to read after reading a book that references all of them<br />
<br />
<br />
<h2>
The Freedom Manifesto</h2>
<h3>
By Tom Hodgkinson</h3>
<br />
Despite acting as a sequel to <i>How to Be Idle</i>, <i>The Freedom Manifesto</i> (also known as <i>How to Be Free</i>) was the first Tom Hodgkinson book I came across.<br />
<br />
This book follows in a similar vein of <i>How to Be Idle</i>, organized around maxims about Housework, Fear, and Competition instead of around the hours of the day. Hodgkinson uses the initial argument against corporate strain to suggest a return to a simpler way of life in which people only use technology for communication and only work to better themselves. Much like the last book, this manifesto encapsulates the anarchist ideals of punk without suggesting a violent revolt or specifically aligning with the “big names” of anarchist philosophy. Because the book covers so much, it’s easiest to understand (as I originally did) from it’s list of mottos behind the first page:<br />
<br />
Death to the Supermarkets<br />
Bake Bread<br />
Play the Ukulele<br />
Open the Village Hall<br />
Action is Futile<br />
Quit Moaning<br />
Make Music<br />
Stop Consuming<br />
Start Producing<br />
Back to the Land<br />
Smash Usury<br />
Embrace Beauty<br />
Embrace Poverty<br />
<br />
And so on until we reach the last three, my favorite:<br />
<br />
Life is Absurd<br />
We are Free<br />
Be Merry<br />
<br />
<b><u>Recommended for:</u></b><br />
Wandering mistrels, back-to-the-land punks, anyone who needs a cheery productive mood boost that isn’t grating, hopeful anarchists<br />
<br />
<h2>
The Idler’s Companion: An Anthology of Lazy Literature</h2>
<h3>
Edited by Tom Hodgkinson and Matthew De Abaitua</h3>
<br />
Not merely content to refer to the great minds of several generations in his other books, Hodgkinson also offers an extensive anthology lovingly organized around the values of daydreaming, sloth, and idealistic lollygagging. This book is a chance to expand on the lovingly sprinkled quotations from the first two books. Even though it’s an anthology of collected materials, the organization and thought put into the collection are just as motivating as <i>How to Be Idle</i> and <i>How to Be Free</i>.<br />
<br />
I mean, who can feel bad about being lazy when it’s validated by famous authors, politicians, and artists?<br />
<br />
<b><u>Recommended for:</u></b><br />
Literary anthology lovers, people who love good quotations, anyone who wants solid proof that great writers are on their side<br />
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Strummer Dundeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08341597832372419485noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7781255126814346580.post-21084688883774588832016-03-26T12:38:00.000-07:002016-03-26T12:38:28.711-07:00Beyond Bookshelves: Punk Stuff #2<h2>
Punk: The Definitive Record of a Revolution</h2>
<h3>
By Stephen Colegrave and Chris Sullivan</h3>
<br />
Super quick story time: When I was fourteen, I took a trip to California with my high school chorus. Our travel package included breakfast at the hotel every morning and dinner at a different mid-grade restaurant every night. I brought along a pre-loaded debit card for drinks, snacks, lunch, and souvenirs. I should preface this by saying that I am/was very responsible with money and saved up thousands of dollars in high school from part-time waitressing.<br />
<br />
Anyway.<br />
<br />
The second day/first full day of the trip we were around Los Angeles and got dumped out of our bus at a pretty impressive mall to wander about before our next stop. My friends and I were immediately drawn to a three-story Borders bookstore, something we had never encountered in our small area of Florida. We all left with books, but I left with books and…no food money left for the rest of the trip. I bought a language book and two books on this list at their full MSRP and even got talked into a rewards cards despite the lack of Borders in central Florida. That's how important these two books are to me.<br />
<br />
First, <i>Punk: The Definitive Record of a Revolution</i>. In my defense, this book had been on my nascent Amazon wish list for at least a year before I set eyes on it for the first time in real life in that California Borders. It’s a fantastic coffee table book of original photos and writings of the heyday of '70s punk, primarily focused on the London/King’s Road scene that led to Sex Pistols and The Clash. It talks fashion, politics, scenes, court decisions, record labels, and the strange changemaster who is Pistols’ former manager Malcolm McLauren.<br />
<br />
Highlights include proto-punk backstory of the Stooges and MC5, a full story on the fashion side of UK punk featuring Vivienne Westwood, and so so many interviews from just about everyone who was around at the time.<br />
<br />
I adore this book. It’s one of those books that has somehow become a part of my personal psyche, like the movie <i>Clue</i> or Beatles music. Even after losing my first copy (which is ridiculous because it’s a pretty big book), I just had to rebuy it on Amazon to experience it all over again.<br />
<br />
<b><u>Recommended for:</u></b><br />
Fans of British punk music, people who say punk began in the UK, history fans, photography people, people who really like Sid Vicious, artsy and fashion people, people who do not mind having a book that includes graphic imagery on their coffee table<br />
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<h2>
<br />Turning Points in Rock and Roll</h2>
<h3>
By Hank Bordowitz</h3>
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This was the second book for which I willingly spent five days’ worth of lunch money while visiting the price-inflated land of Los Angeles. I read the entire thing on the two plane rides home and have never once regretted the decision.<br />
<br />
While this book isn’t specifically about punk, it is another key book in understanding the history and evolution of music from the rhythm and blues that predated rock all the way to the grunge movement. Each chapter marks a specific “turning point.” For example, the movie <i>Blackboard Jungle </i>coming out in 1954, Beatlemania, or MTV’s original launch. Each point in time does something to change and propel the popularity of rock music.<br />
<br />
Punk gets its own chapter mostly centered on the US tour of Sex Pistols in 1977. This “turning point” after the metaphorical death of the 1960’s ideal at Altamont transitions rock from the twenty-minute keyboard solos of arena and prog rock back to the basics of the three-piece band and three-minute song. For the book, it also straddles the line from live music to the MTV era of music videos and graphics competing for attention. Despite only committing ten pages specifically to punk music, <i>Turning Points in Rock and Roll </i>helps to put the explosion of ’76-’77 punk into a larger musical and cultural context. After reading from cover to cover, one can really pinpoint the influence of Robert Johnson’s blues, Les Paul’s solid-body guitar, the death of Buddy Holly, and even the influx of rock journalism in punk culture as a whole.<br />
<br />
<b><u>Recommended for</u></b>:<br />
Music history buffs, people who may not understand how punk is/was important to the story of music, people who want to read random chapters of a book without committing to the entire read, people who would gladly put aside a few hours to read a great book cover to cover<br />
<br />
<br />
Stay tuned for more book reviews concerning the philosophy and politics of punk culture.<br />
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Strummer Dundeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08341597832372419485noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7781255126814346580.post-27662622380556886512016-03-25T14:02:00.000-07:002016-03-25T14:02:27.117-07:00Beyond Bookshelves: Punk Stuff #1<br />
Today at Beyond Voracious, let’s take a peek at some solid reads for persons interested in punk music, style, philosophy, history, and overall culture.<br />
<br />
I’ve been researching various aspects of punk rock since middle school, and over time I’ve accumulated some books that seems to survive every bookshelf purge I go through. They capture some key tenants of DIY ethos and the core of what I feel is the punk attitude. Check out the mini-reviews starting below for some highly recommended reading.<br />
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<br />
<h2>
<b>Punk Rock Aerobics: 50 Punk Classics and 25 Reasons to Get Off Your Ass and Exercise</b></h2>
<h3>
<b>By Maura Jasper and Hilken Mancini</b></h3>
<br />
The first book in this series is, funnily enough, the most commercial. An unorthodox health and exercise book, <i>Punk Rock Aerobics</i> starts off with the story of its co-writers peeling themselves off of the couch one day to stumble over empty beer cans and decide that they needed to get into shape in order to keep enjoying themselves at basement punk shows. After going through the approved venues to get certified as aerobic instructors, Maura Jasper and Hilken Mancini opened up a class to people of all abilities. Using bricks as weights and pogo dancing to the Ramones, it’s a pretty fun and irreverent read.<br />
<br />
The book’s design purposely calls to mind a cut-and-paste zine of black-and-white pictures with pops of red. Look for interviews about fitness and punk music from the likes of Thurston Moore (Sonic Youth), Hugo Burnham (Gang of Four), and Peter Prescott (Mission of Burma) in between the pages of distinctly un-model-y fitness models grimacing through exercises.<br />
<br />
So yes, Jasper and Mancini own a legit aerobics business and published a book and are certified by The System to teach fitness classes. Don’t let the establishment-led path of this book hamper its fun and friendly tone. After all, what’s more punk than increasing cardio levels to play longer sets with the band?<br />
<br />
<b><u>Recommended for:</u></b><br />
People who want a good inspiration story, older punks who need some health inspiration, anyone who wants to get fit but is revolted by the idea of a shiny gym full of shiny people<br />
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<br />
<h2>
Making Stuff and Doing Things: A Collection of DIY Guides to Doing Just About Everything</h2>
<h3>
By Kyle Bravo</h3>
<br />
DIY, at least for me, is the unreachable molten core of punk rock. If punk is about authenticity and anti-consumerism, locality and earnestness, then knowing how to make and do yourself is essential. This collection of guides from Microcosm Publishing (whose zine department has since broken off into Pioneers Press) has it all. Want to know how to make a quill pen? Compost a garden? Bind a book? Make a spray paint stencil or wheat paste? Identify wild food for foraging? It’s all here.<br />
<br />
This book hearkens from my early teenage days when I was convinced that I would run off to join an anarchist commune on the West Coast somewhere. The hand-drawn illustrations and varied writing styles show that a number of skilled writers went in to creating this book, lending it an air of integrity that a lot of general how-to books severely lack. This book is real about taking care of yourself from your head to your toes, from clothes to furniture to house to garden, from friends to pets to farm animals. All essential anarchist day-dreaming or practical homesteading advice. Bonus: there’s a section about surviving going on tour as a band on a shoestring budget.<br />
<br />
<b><u>Recommended for:</u></b><br />
Pretty much anyone who doesn’t have a lot of money, people who have recently left the family home willing or unwilling and have little to their name, new DIY-enthusiasts, environmentalists, people who want to live off the grid, appreciators of zines<br />
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<br />
<h2>
Stolen Sharpie Revolution: A DIY ZINE RESOURCE 3rd Ed.</h2>
<h3>
By Alex Wrekk</h3>
<br />
<b>Zine</b>: a small, often handmade magazine or other publication distributed locally or regionally and showcasing an individual’s or group’s passions.<br />
<br />
<i>Sniffin’ Glue</i> stands out as the first well-known punk zine. As a fan zine, it called out names of upcoming '70s punk bands to as many readers as possible that could get their hands on the photocopied and stapled pages.<br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>Stolen Sharpie Revolution</i> is a palm-sized handbook of everything that everyone needs to start their own zine. It’s another gem from Microcosm Publishing, its third edition showing the tiny book's popularity as a serious resource. The whole idea of the stolen sharpie comes from the notion that sharpie markers should be an organic part of the human environment. When one needs a marker, a sharpie will inevitably appear through search or friends or luck. A solid black marker and some paper is all one needs to make a zine.<br />
<br />
Some of the most valuable advice concerns zine formatting, backgrounds, and distribution. For someone making a handmade zine with no computer to collate pages, the diagram of page numbers is invaluable. Every page offers some inspiration in the form of drawings and repeated background designs, some even coming from the patterns on security envelopes. Zine distribution changes depending on the changing times and different regions, but <i>Stolen Sharpie Revolution</i> still offers some timeless tips for getting a zine spread to more than, say, five people. Bonus: see the back pages for a healthy list of zine distros, libraries, and stores in North America.<br />
<br />
<u><b>Recommended for:</b></u><br />
Writers, independent publishers, kids interested in publishing, artists, comic/graphic novelists, DIY enthusiasts, graphic designers<br />
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<br />
Stay tuned for even more punk book reviews and a full video tour of the "punk stuff" section of my shelves.<br />
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Strummer Dundeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08341597832372419485noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7781255126814346580.post-34168111681033523842016-01-24T10:25:00.001-08:002016-01-24T10:25:30.445-08:00Surviving Winter: Staying Warm in Places That Rarely Get ColdThis winter season couldn't make up its mind; Christmas was unseasonably warm, New York was warmer than LA at the end of December, and now there's a blizzard causing Snowpocalypse 2016. I'm in Florida, where we are getting down to just above freezing every night. For a lot of people, this is not unmanageable. For Floridians, this is a small crisis.<br />
<br />
Keep a few things in mind for the average person who has lived in Florida their entire life:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>Standard footwear year-round involves sandals </li>
<li>Stores start putting out athletic gear this time of year and start putting away the sweaters and coats and heavy layers</li>
<li>Dressing for extreme humidity, heat-stroke prevention, and intense heat is the norm</li>
<li>Weather under fifty degrees only comes around for 1-2 months out of the year, leading to...</li>
<ul>
<li>Most people own maybe one decent "coat" that isn't a hoodie, sweatshirt, or cardigan</li>
<li>Some people live in SHORTS year-round (especially masculine-type people) and own about 2 pairs of jeans, max</li>
<li>An abundance of sandals, sneakers, and slip-on shoes means people don't have to think about keeping their feet warm on a normal basis</li>
<li>Many people, including me, have gone over a year before turning on central heating in their homes</li>
</ul>
</ul>
<div>
So what's a surprised temperate-to-tropical-dweller to do? Inspired by my own tendency to be cold all of the time, I've compiled a few tips to make the most of a non-cold-friendly wardrobe and housing situation. </div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Tip 1. Get Smart with Layers</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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As previously mentioned, most people in this situation own maybe one decent coat. I own exactly one leather jacket that works as a solid outer layer. I've also owned it since middle school. Since parkas aren't a feasible option, the next best thing will be thin, breathable layers. A lot of them. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div>
Here are a few examples:</div>
<div>
<ul>
<li>Tank tops or camisoles under shirts</li>
<li>Wear shirts and other layers both under and over dresses (ex. camisole, long-sleeve shirt, tank-top sundress, sweater, jacket, coat)</li>
<li>Thin long-sleeve shirts* (especially UnderArmor-style shirts, even thin pyjama shirts) under short-sleeve or sleeveless shirts</li>
<li>Arm gauntlets* (fingerless gloves that reach to the elbows, for those who DIDN'T dress pop-punk/scene/emo in high school) worn under a longer sleeve to avoid wrist drafts</li>
<li>Layer scarves, especially with open-front sweaters. Combine fuzzy scarves with silky scarves and fleecy scarves to essentially make a festive chest blanket. Stuff some scarf tails under a jacket and let the rest hang out of the front</li>
<li>Wear leggings under pants, jeans, dresses, anything</li>
</ul>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Tip 2. Don't Forget the Tops and Toes!</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
Hats are a very easy, quick, and messy-hair-covering way to gain a good ten degrees of body warmth. I've got a faux-furry trapper hat with ear flaps from several years ago that is guaranteed to warm me up no matter how cold it is. Even beanies, baseball caps, and scarves pinned or tied about the head can help with warmth.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Socks and footwear are also something that go by the wayside in places like Florida. Layering socks with leggings, doubling up thin socks, and generally remembering to wear socks or slippers at home instead of going barefoot helps trap more heat.</div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Tip 3. Cozi-fy the House</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
Story time: When I first moved to Tampa to attend USF, I lived in an apartment complex from the 1970s that...wasn't the greatest at upgrading appliances. It finally got cold there late in winter and I, having only lived in a nice house before that time, turned on the heater. The intense burnin smell and inconsistent heating over the next few days scared me into turning it right back off. I had to make a plan B for not freezing inside of my house.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div>
<a href="http://www.buzzfeed.com/nataliebrown/free-and-cozy#.eq7vn2q6">Here</a> is an article from Buzzfeed all about taking a blank, cold apartment and making it more cozy. I especially like the suggestion of gathering a collection of candles in one place and lighting them all, which is definitely something I've done before in my search for winter warmth</div>
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<div>
I also like to <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgL8V0qLnVXAI8aKzNihprd3ecIvPED0sIzMBqJktSfRoSORzbTMtztsizqZ8XNTeI3ZJuGAerLELAz8N9ZuVDuxMBSDMSP9F_XZ_N5DQ5__aC1ZKAq4VVom2Rukymx4EwqHmBxwg48y_3o/s1600/Blankets+&+Throw,%2Bgray%2Band%2Bwhites.jpg">layer blankets on my bed</a> because I can't fall asleep if I'm still cold. Fleece blanket can go for $5-$7 at many stores. The size doesn't matter, but the coverage and layering do. I'd do a bed-sized blanket or quilt with a smaller blanket toward the feet and and another small blanket I can pull up over my face and shoulders. This is on top of a standard top sheet (or two) and comforter.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div>
I also highly recommend making the bed every day when it's cold; the cold air settles into exposed sheets pretty seriously.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div>
*BONUS DIYS</div>
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<br /></div>
<div>
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCt9oTuf8dc">Crop top tutorials like this</a> are great for a summer (or spring or fall, in Florida) when one is fine with exposing some skin. It can also work in advantage for extreme winter. Recycle old leggings (or buy an extra pair of cheap ones when layering anyway) and cut out a hole between the legs to create a collar. Insert head, pull arms thtough the leg holes, pull the waist down over the chest and - BAM - an UnderArmor style layering tool to wear over or under a tank top or under a shirt with not-so-great sleeve coverage. The long sleeves are also great for cutting thumbholes to make built-in arm gauntlets! </div>
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<br /></div>
<div>
I like doing it in a basic black and using it with pyjamas for extra warmth as well. In the summer it just goes back into crop top mode. </div>
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_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _</div>
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I'm not sure how long the current weather will last. Hopefully, with just a few tips and tricks, even cold-weather-newbs like me can survive it.</div>
Strummer Dundeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08341597832372419485noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7781255126814346580.post-16689762702246441142016-01-17T17:59:00.001-08:002016-01-17T17:59:18.646-08:00Life Cleanse: Unfollowing Toxicity in 2016We're a month into 2016 and the bombardment of "new year, new you" targeted advertising. From Buzzfeed to tv to the "seasonal" section of stores focusing entirely on athletic apparel and storage bins, the pressure is on to completely transform oneself in the middle of winter. I tend to succumb to the fashion of the times only to wake up miserable sometime in February to see myself on the same track as last year. So, to liven things up, I'm recommending a different strategy: the Life Cleanse.<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
"What's a Life Cleanse? It sounds intimidating! I don't have to drink a bunch of kale juice, do I?"</div>
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<br /></div>
<div>
Fear not, Anonymous mid-post commenter. The Life Cleanse is about scrubbing those corners of life that often go unnoticed with typical New Year's resolutions. The ideas can help one think a little more positively for the new year without getting caught up in a hate spiral of deprivation and self-hatred.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div>
Ways to Cleanse:</div>
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<br /></div>
<div>
<ul>
<li>Unfollow (but maybe don't Unfriend) all of those estranged people you only friended out of a sense of duty to past high school relationships, former work associations, or distant familial connections. You know, the ones you either cringe at or hate-follow to make fun of their political views and sad attempts at Minion memes</li>
<li>Unsubscribe to about 95% of the stuff in your email inbox. All of the grocery stores, pizza, places, web stores, etc. Missing news of a sale just means missing a fake opportunity to spend money that probably shouldn't be spent in the first place</li>
<li>Stop ordering delivery. This is a very optional tip, but also a very easy step to kill a pizza-and-Chinese takeout habit. If you can't be bothered to go and pick up the food from the place, maybe you just don't really need it? Keep frozen pizzas for emergencies; they're cheaper anyway.</li>
<li>Use things up. This one dawned on me when I got even more lotion and body wash stuff for Christmas when I already have a ton; I realized that I rarely even used lotion. Now I'm determined to moisturize every day to use things up. This also goes for random canned food, makeup that never gets worn, stickers that seem too precious for commitment, "pretty" notebooks that defy disfigurement with bad handwriting, half-used planners, anything. Just use it! Using up things that aren't super-great is taking up the same amount of life space as storing and grousing over having stuff that never gets used. Just. Use. It. Clean our your life, your choices.</li>
<li>Get rid of things that will <b><u>never </u></b>get used. It is 100% A-OK to toss, donate, and re-gift things that you've bought or received if you know you will never use them. I promise. Your aunt isn't going to walk into the same thrift store where you donated the hideous-but-well-meant sweater she gave you. If it will never be worn or used at all, toss it.</li>
</ul>
<div>
Those were just a few tips to get 2016 going right. We're already at the point when people start to fall off track for the sudden lifestyle changes that most resolutions call for. Why not go for a gentler method?</div>
</div>
Strummer Dundeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08341597832372419485noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7781255126814346580.post-30465431809775103772015-09-01T13:05:00.000-07:002015-09-01T13:05:00.522-07:00Gotta Get Back to Hogwarts: Celebrating September 1stWhether you're starting a semester of college, slogging through high school, or (gulp) teaching, the back-to-school season will be shoved handily into the faces of summer-loving individuals each year. Some people may have back-to-school parties or prepare to "buckle down" for the next 10 months, but pretending you're going back to the best Wizarding school in the world* is clearly the best option.<br />
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<br /></div>
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So, how to do it?</div>
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<br /></div>
<div>
<ul>
<li>Marathon the movies</li>
</ul>
If you're lucky enough to own the <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Harry-Potter-Hogwarts-Collection-Blu-ray/dp/B00HETD0KC">Hogwarts collection</a>, go ahead and dive into the deliciously remastered extended editions on Blu-Ray with included behind-the-scenes documentaries. If not, there's always ABC Family (minus Goblet of Fire thanks to HBO right now) or digital rentals.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div>
<ul>
<li>Work on your own House (or Faculty) scarf</li>
</ul>
<div>
Start knitting now and you might have it done by the time it gets cold out. Or go the easy route with striped fleece/sewn versions. Find tutorials <a href="http://www.the-leaky-cauldron.org/features/crafts/knitting/houseunityscarf2/">here</a> and <a href="http://www.instructables.com/id/Sew-a-Gryffindor-scarf/">here</a>.</div>
</div>
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<br /></div>
<div>
<ul>
<li>Start up a series re-read</li>
</ul>
<div>
Well...maybe just <i>Sorcerer's Stone</i>. Or maybe just read through the brief but full Hogwarts library set. After all, <i>Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them </i>is a year or so away!</div>
</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<ul>
<li>Reset your school year (or just your week) with Wizardly supplies</li>
</ul>
<div>
Perhaps a Divination planner to see into your future? A quill just to sit on your desk? A darling owl phone case? A sick Gryffindor backpack? Who wouldn't rather pack a steamer trunk for the Hogwarts Express instead of a messy messenger bag for a three-hour seminar course?<br />
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<br />
<ul>
<li>Get on that <i><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmwM_AKeMCk">A Very Potter Musical </a></i>re-watch</li>
</ul>
</div>
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*Okay, so the Defense Against the Dark Arts position might be cursed and exams are cancelled too much, but Hogwarts is the only school we have seven books about. I'll be in the corner waiting for Rowling to start on <i>Emile Aubertin and the Lost Passage of Beauxbatons</i>. </div>
</div>
Strummer Dundeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08341597832372419485noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7781255126814346580.post-46506329799018335612015-03-17T10:35:00.000-07:002015-03-17T10:35:00.215-07:00Top 5 Ways to Stay-cation on Spring BreakNorth America is trying to thaw and students everywhere are bursting to reach summer vacation. But what's your average broke and/or landlocked student to do? Whether you've already hit your spring break highs or it's coming up next week, take a look at the official <i>Beyond Voracious </i>recommendations for enjoying your week at home this year.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<b>5. Celebrate St. Patrick's Day, Easter, early May Day - all in one week.</b><br />
<br />
I don't know about you, but all of those spring-y holidays tend to get ran over with work, conflicting family schedules, inclement weather, and a variety of other obstacles. Why not celebrate them all on spring break instead? Declare a holiday a day, spaced out as desired, and spend spring break making D.I.Y decorations, cooking up spring-themed feasts, and infusing some holiday cheer.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<b>4. Spring clean.</b><br />
<br />
Yeah, yeah, I know. It's not the most relaxing way to spend a week off, but it can be cathartic and overall beneficial. Go though closets, drawers, and bookshelves. Empty the fridge, put down some press-and-seal or wax paper (after you wipe it down, of course), and refresh your ice box. Take loads of clothes (if you haven't worn it in a year, toss it) to the local donation center. Open the windows and doors and vacuum every corner. Then strip your bed, remake with clean (maybe even new, if you can) sheets, take a shower, and take a nap.<br />
<br />
<i>Bonus</i>: Scented candles, citrus-y cleaning products, air out the mattress on the back porch/balcony, switch to a spring-y detergent/fabric softener.</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
<b>3. Hobby it up.</b><br />
<br />
Spring break often is just enough time off to feel like a real human again but not enough to do anything about it. Take this time to rediscover what you would do with your life if not dedicated to your work or studies... provided that answer is not glue yourself to a glowing screen for fourteen hours a day. Here, I'll get you started:<br />
<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>Gardening (start with some herbs on a windowsill or just a houseplant)</li>
<li>Watercolors (inexpensive, lots of tutorials)</li>
<li>Needlework (knitting, crochet, circular looms, embroidery...)</li>
<li>Papercraft (decoupage, eco-friendly recycling options, origami)</li>
<li>Baking (flour and mixes aren't expensive - have lots of friends taste-test)</li>
</ul>
</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<b>2. Go on a hometown safari.</b><br />
<br />
This depends on your definition of "hometown", but the idea is to stay local. Go out each day to a new location, take pictures and notes. Make a new Instagram to track your progress. Take selfies at the local pool or lake than at the beach. If you're extra crafty, and have the means, turn your adventures into a photo album on the last day.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<b>1. Load up Netflix, but make sure to leave the bedroom.</b><br />
<br />
The urge to wrap yourself in a blanket cocoon and park in front of a season of <i>House of Cards</i> likely manifests itself somewhere around the first four hours of any free day. Go on and indulge, but don't stay a warm pupae for the whole week. At least do some <a href="http://www.buzzfeed.com/peggy/workouts-that-allow-you-to-watch-an-ungodly-amount-of-tel">tv marathon workouts</a> or invent a <a href="http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/JustForFun/DrinkingGame">hydration drinking game </a>out of it. Review the show, start a fan blog, create. Don't stay passive.<br />
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<i><u>Honorable mention - Florida Edition</u></i><br />
If you happen to live in a place most people fly to visit during spring break, try to find a nice out-of-the-way beach to visit for a day. Look for state parks and trails by the Gulf of Mexico. Go early or late to avoid crowds. Don't forget sunscreen.<br />
<br />
<i>Bonus</i>: Coast-to-coast beach road trip (provided you have gas money and sunscreen)</div>
Strummer Dundeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08341597832372419485noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7781255126814346580.post-72008401224614245262014-11-06T15:41:00.000-08:002016-01-04T19:20:38.207-08:00Thinky Thoughts: Can One Become Immune to Advertising?One day I was struggling with my once average-to-sub-par internet connection to watch a video series on Youtube. Every video in the series took a while to load up, and that was after inching through an irritating non-skippable 20-odd-second ad. After the fourth video, I had enough - I also finally realized what the ad was actually for. Despite sitting through the ad stuttering and replaying who knows how many times, I had no idea what it was even advertising because I just don't pay attention to ads. Even now, I struggle to remember. Something about a high school Youtube original? About video games? I don't know; I only remember the rage of trying to get through the stuttering ad to watch a Let's Play Series.<br>
<br>
As a denizen of the internet, I've seen online ads go through several stages. I remember horrifying pop ups, banner and sidebar ads that tried to get you to play a game before clicking through, auto-play music ads, etc. But some time over the past five years or so, I've just stopped paying attention. Ads? What ads? Oh, this clip I have to wait through before a video plays? Oh, this blind spot on the side of a web page? This commercial I rarely see because I hardly watch regular TV? They started disappearing from my consciousness.<br>
<br>
A little over a year ago, Tumblr was bought out by Yahoo. I've been on Tumblr since 2010 or so, so I know the uproar it caused at the time. Much later, I saw people complaining about the ads that Yahoo started popping up on Tumblr. As I read through the rants, I had to stop and think: what ads? Where were they? I had to go and search to see the ads that I completely ignored, as if by instinct. I had no idea what they were selling because my eyes just glossed over it.<br>
<br>
This is probably the most evident with clickbait titles. You've seen them often enough: "10 Vacations Spots That Will Blow Your Mind" or "You Won't Believe What One Chicago Mother Did to Her Car" or "What One Man Did for His Uncle Will Warm Your Heart." Clickbait is full of promises of fulfillment and human joy that cynics like me obviously aren't exposed to enough on a daily basis. But, I've seen the formula so much, it's turned into a meme. Does anyone really believe that this "One Weird Trick" will help them lose weight or improve their skin? Who actually clicks on such ads?<br>
<br>
What do you think? Can people who use the internet enough eventually learn to ignore advertising? What does this say for those who earn money based on advertising clicks or views? Is company-wide social media, which is what I tend to use to choose products more than advertising, the better way to reach people? Let me know in the comments below.<br>
<br>
Until next time, stay gold.Strummer Dundeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08341597832372419485noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7781255126814346580.post-7318952517325989822014-11-02T13:48:00.000-08:002014-11-02T13:48:25.089-08:00Happy Halloweekend!How are you spending your Halloweekend, aka Post-Halloween Coping Period, aka Halloween Hangover Day(s)? This year we got the benefit of a Friday Halloween, leaving a clear night and two days of Halloween goodness (plus the end of Daylight Savings) to try and forget that most department stores have already started playing Christmas music.<br />
<br />
Not sure how to spend your last hours of Halloween happiness? Thinking of extending Halloween a week to numb the pain of the upcoming late autumn/early winter holidays? Try the following:<br />
<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>Marathon the Halloween movies you didn't get to during the month of October. I managed to save a compilation DVD of old-school Casper the Friendly Ghost cartoons and the like.</li>
<li>Go buy and horde the half-priced candy. Proceed to make it into delicious baked goods, ice cream sundaes, or a day of Bad Decisions as you eat it straight from a plastic novelty cauldron. Don't forget to hit up the drugstores in addition to regular grocery chains.</li>
<li>Put up the tree, but make it an autumn/Halloween tree until at least mid-November.</li>
<li>Declare a second Halloween by having a really late costumed Halloween party sometime in the first few weeks of November. Act like it is completely normal.</li>
</ul>
<div>
Even if you don't have time to do the above, at least make sure you insulate yourself from the Christmas music for another week. Take up knitting. Barricade yourself indoors. Don't let Christmas take over your November.</div>
Strummer Dundeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08341597832372419485noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7781255126814346580.post-88877100231931999332014-10-21T08:30:00.000-07:002014-10-21T08:30:02.443-07:00Halloween Must-Watch List<div class="MsoNormal">
What do you mean we’re approaching the last few weeks of October and you still do not have a movie marathon list on constant rotation?
Someone needs to sort out some priorities before the month’s long gone.
Thankfully, I can help.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Documentaries<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>Machete Maidens
Unleashed*<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This fast-paced doc follows the surprisingly American film
history of the Philippines. It may not capture the spirit of Halloween, but the
flicks covered in this documentary represent the seediest of monster movies. Be
prepared for rubber monsters, tales from the Wild East of the Philippines circa
1970, and machete-wielding maidens trying to survive jungles on set and off.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>American Scary*<o:p></o:p></i><br />
Here's a look at classic American horror from the ground up. It's a good primer to understand how the gore-fests of the present got their start. It works as a good starting point and an interesting watch, but you'll have to look elsewhere for Hammer films, German expressionism, and non-US-centric pieces.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>Monster Movie Makeup*<o:p></o:p></i><br />
Another Netflix-available documentary, this goes back to the start of horror makeup and leads viewers through the evolution of monster creation. It's a great supplement to one's history of horror education, since it connects the literal building of monsters and zombies on-screen to the figurative creation of monsters int the minds of writers and directors.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Comedy and Family
Films<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>Elvira: Mistress of
the Dark*<o:p></o:p></i><br />
An excellent comedy to replay at any time of year, this movie starts horror host Elvira in her own big-hair-meets-small town adventure. It's ridiculous and full of insane tropes, but so are many of the movies that she hosts on her own show.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>Hocus Pocus<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>Unwrapped<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>Halloweentown<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>The Halloween Tree<o:p></o:p></i><br />
<i><br /></i>
See my "Top 5 Halloween Movies for the '90s Kid in You" post for more information.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Horror Films<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>The Exorcist<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>Halloween<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>Friday the 13<sup>th</sup><o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>At least one Hitchcock
film </i>(I tend to favor <i>Vertigo </i>or <i>The Birds</i>)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Television<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>Food Network Challenge<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>Heroes of Cosplay<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>Face-Off<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>History Channel
mini-documentaries<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>The Series of Tubes</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>Cinemassacre's Monster Madness </i><br />
There are eight years' worth to go through, so get going!<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>Rob Agar's Series on Hidden Meanings in Horror Films</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
*Available on Netflix, or were as of posting</div>
Strummer Dundeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08341597832372419485noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7781255126814346580.post-24158657007049594932014-10-07T15:24:00.000-07:002014-10-07T15:24:00.036-07:00Top 5 Halloween Movies for the '90s Kid in YouIt's October. A cold front recently sent pleasant gusts of dry and chilly air to my corner of the world. Autumn is upon us, but, more importantly, what can you watch to start celebrating Halloween? My list grows every year, but I always try to return to my tried-and-true store of childhood nostalgia when planning my Halloween movie marathons.<br />
<br />
5.) <i>The Addams Family/Addams Family Values </i>(1991 and 1993)<br />
I'm referring to the adapted films and not the syndicated television show in this case. Both films appeal so well to the offbeat, creepy-cute nature of kids' shows at the time. I somehow grew more attached to the sequel, even though it takes place primarily over summer vacation and not Halloween. The entire aesthetic of both films helps get you in the mood for morbid jokes and the oddities and curiosities that come with Halloween.<br />
<br />
4.) <i>Under Wraps </i>(1997)<br />
I wish you luck finding this made-for-TV movie on DVD or VHS; at last check it was going for over $150. All the same, the charming kid-centric movie follows a horror-movie-obsessed preteen who finds a real-life mummy with his friends while exploring in a for-sale house. The quest begins to reunite the former palace guard with the mummy of his royal lover, locked away in a museum. It's got adventure, in-references to horror greats, and a ridiculously well-played mummy who keeps getting mistaken for a burn victim or someone's costumed father.<br />
<br />
3.) <i>The Halloween Tree </i>(1993)<br />
Another made-for-TV film, this animated Ray Bradbury adaptation follows a group of kids on Halloween night as they fight to save the life of a sick friend by exploring the histories behind their own Halloween costumes. They see a coven of witches, fight through catacombs of skeletons, build a magnificent Gothic cathedral to form gargoyles, and meet real mummies, all to catch the escaping soul of their friend to ensure he wakes up once Halloween ends. It seems harrowing, but the adventure makes it all worth it.<br />
<br />
2.) <i>Hocus Pocus </i>(1993)<br />
I'm fairly sure that most people have heard of <i>Hocus Pocus </i>in some degree. A full, released-to-theaters movie with Bette Midler is hard to miss. This classic gets kids up to speed on some Salem witch folklore with a heavy sprinkling of comic relief and teenage angst throw in. Talking cats! Zombies that don't want to listen to their masters! Sarah Jessica Parker eating spiders! What's not to love?<br />
<br />
1.) <i>Halloweentown </i>(1998)<br />
And so it comes to this. I've watched <i>Halloweentown </i>more times that I care to count; I even gave the sequels a fair attempt. This film just captures what it feels like, specifically, to be a near-preteen girl with a predilection for the peculiar. It's so satisfying to see someone who always wanted something more find out that they are special and have the power within them to do what is right. The fantasy world of Halloweentown itself is beautifully immersive, like a tiny Terry Practchett <i>Discworld</i> novel with its own lore and rules. The costuming works well, the characters are considerably developed for a made-for-TV movie, and the whole thing just fills me with the whimsy usually achieved by Alfonso Cuaron or Guillermo del Toro or Hayao Miyazaki or Terry Gilliam.<br />
<br />
Also, if you find a special edition DVD of it, I will offer you goods and services in exchange for the transportation of said DVD to my possession.<br />
<br />Strummer Dundeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08341597832372419485noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7781255126814346580.post-2820413884020457232014-09-16T16:27:00.000-07:002014-09-16T16:27:00.767-07:00Top 5: Ways to Let the Internet Steal Your Life<b style="font-weight: normal;">Now I'm a big fan of the internet. Internetting has been a major </b>pastime<b style="font-weight: normal;"> of mine for the last six years or so. If I'd had decent internet not of the "you better have a book to read while this page is loading" variety, I likely would have been on even sooner. Despite my appreciation, there is a line to draw when it comes to mindless surfing. There's a serious glut of information on the internet and at some point even the most voracious of users have to admit that <i>you cannot consume this much content in several lifetimes</i>. Here are the Top 5 ways to get to the point of serious uselessness on the internet. I post these not to encourage the 18-hour-a-day screen-gazing habit, but as a niggling suggestion for frequenters of these sites to maybe, perhaps, check up on themselves after the fourth hour straight of non-productivity. Just because you ditched cable for Netflix doesn't mean that the computer can be any less of a time-waster than TV.</b><br />
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<b style="font-weight: normal;">5.) Cracked.com</b><br />
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<b style="font-weight: normal;">Oh sweet, sweet information. The glory of numbered lists! Pop culture <i>and</i> history <i>and</i> science? Be still my heart. Cracked might be named for its ability to crack people up laughing, but I consider it named for its addicting nature. The lists and articles trail back for years and each is worth a read, appealing especially to my occasionally bitter, usually idiotic sense of humor. There's even a handy "random" button, but we'll get to those depressors of Satan later.</b><br />
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<b style="font-weight: normal;">4.) TV Tropes</b><br />
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<b style="font-weight: normal;">If you haven't heard of tvtropes.com, I'm glad. No, don't highlight, right-click, and click "Go to tvtropes.com". I'm just kidding. Go ahead. Open it in a new tab, though! You </b><i style="font-weight: bold;">are</i><b style="font-weight: normal;"> reading my blog right now after all. TV Tropes is a special mix of literary and pop culture </b>decadence that offers the satisfying feeling of recognizing cliches in the films you watch and the books you read while simultaneously introducing you to way too many other tv shows, books, comic books, webcomics, and video games that use the same devices. You may get on there looking for a name for a particular trope and an hour later you resurface after clicking through to related character tropes or plot tropes. Sometime after that, you realize there is a goddamn "random" button and you promptly lose your day to becoming a slightly snarkier and better-read individual with worsening eyesight.<b style="font-weight: normal;"> </b><br />
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<b style="font-weight: normal;">3.) The "Random" Button on Any Decent Website</b><br />
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<b style="font-weight: normal;">Hoo boy. Remember when I said I'd get back to the "random" button? Yeah. It's that extra dose of addiction on an already decent website. You may visit a blog, webcomic, or any other website you find appealing and spend a decent amount of time there. You get updated, poke around the news section, and get off like a normal internet-enabled human being. </b><i style="font-weight: bold;">Why would I wade around the archives?</i><b style="font-weight: normal;">, you ask yourself reasonably. </b><i style="font-weight: bold;">I go on here pretty often. If I miss something, then oh well.</i><b style="font-weight: normal;"> But then your myopic eyes fall upon a handy-dandy random button. One day, during a bought of boredom, you press it. You read and enjoy something from two years ago. </b><i style="font-weight: bold;">Hey that's cool. I barely remember that article. </i><b style="font-weight: normal;">You press again. And again. And again. You wake up with your face smushed against the shallow keys of your laptop to find it's 2pm. Boom. You've traded your temporal sanity for </b>convenient<b style="font-weight: normal;"> info-gorging. It's not about the site itself; it's the sheer novelty and ease-of-use that button brings. You can go to Wikipedia and smash the "random" button to find out anything and everything without ever having an end to your means. It's madness.</b><br />
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<b style="font-weight: normal;">2.) Tumblr</b><br />
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<b style="font-weight: normal;">By the time I'm writing this, most people have heard about Tumblr even if they're not on it. Most people form one of two opinions: 1.) I've got to get my ass on that. or 2.) Holy shit these people are nuts. Tumblr is a sort of microblogging platform that seems to mix the increasingly niche bloggers of LiveJournal with the community feeling of an actual social network. You can read posts by the people you follow by scrolling along a dashboard. People can post incredibly long text blogs, a single picture, a </b>cacophony<b style="font-weight: normal;"> of .gifs, a piece of music, a video, or they can do this magical thing called "reblog" wherein they post something someone else has posted with the option to add to the flow of commentary from the others who have reblogged the same post. There are also tags by which a blog post can be identified by its subject...if one decides to use tags properly. Otherwise people use them as a sort of mumbling under your breath or subheader beneath the actual post. You can follow tags and see what people from all over post relating to that tag.</b><br />
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<b style="font-weight: normal;">By the way, are you a fan of a particular tv show? Band? Movie? Brand of coffee shop? Tumblr has a way of generating fandoms. A lot of people can find a lot of other people interested in the same teeny-tiny thing they happen to enjoy. Before you know it, there are 40,000 American mostly-female mostly-teenagers posting about BBC's miniseries <i>Sherlock</i>. I know of a few students who spin stories about the misadventures of foreign politicians based off of candid pictures of them looking foolish. The can be described as "loliticians", a play on "lol" and "politicians". It's crazy, it's bloody hilarious, and (help me) I spend a good three hours a day on Tumblr sifting though all of this stuff.</b><br />
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<b style="font-weight: normal;">1.) The Stumblebutton</b><br />
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<b style="font-weight: normal;">Don't do it. Don't. Do not. I was joking with tvtropes, but I'm serious here. The Stumble Button is an invitation to internet wormhole perdition.</b><br />
<b id="internal-source-marker_0.541572614107281" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span></b>Strummer Dundeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08341597832372419485noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7781255126814346580.post-60443833071279823392014-09-09T16:03:00.000-07:002014-09-09T16:03:00.079-07:00Top 5: Movies I Could Watch Over and Over and Over Again (Netflix Edition)There are some movies that function for entertainment in the same way that pasta or a quick sandwich function for hunger; they're there, they're good, and they're familiar. This Top 5 Tuesday list focuses on just a few of the movies I've had on constant rotation ever since I discovered Netflix all the way back in 2010. Sometimes you just need background noise, sleep noise, or something guaranteed to cheer you up.<br />
<br />
5.) <i>Machete Maidens Unleashed! </i>(2010)<br />
Even though it doesn't sound like that peaceful or nostalgic a movie, it's one of my favorite documentaries to stream when I need to get some work done or I just need to feel inspired. <i>Machete Maidens</i> follows the short but zany boom in American-made B-movies filmed in the Philippines. Directors, editors, and actors recall the Wild West of rubber monster films as they waded into jungles and dealt with the increasingly restrictive Philippines government to make their movies. It's a tidy, authentic documentary filled with '70s graphics and music to accompany stories of exploitation flicks.<br />
<br />
4.) <i>This Filthy World</i> (2006)<br />
Another subculture non-fiction piece, <i>This Filthy World </i>is part lecture and part stand-up from John Waters, the Pope of Trash himself. His tales of childhood obsession, teenage debauchery, and middle-age discoveries are another good source of inspiration, particularly if one is interested in vaudeville or B-movie directors of the 1950s. I've watched it many times, but I always seem to catch something I missed with an additional viewing.<br />
<br />
3.) <i>The Story of Film: An Odyssey </i>(2011-)<br />
Though I suppose this is more of a feature-length miniseries, I'm counting it anyway for the sheer length and the number of time I've at least started watching it. I was thrilled to find this on Netflix after devouring Mark Cousins's book of the same name during my junior year of high school. I'm still not sure how we got such a new book in my high school library, but I'm grateful none the less. Cousins's faithful and extensive visualization of his work with film history is so satisfying to watch; it's just voice, essential clips and contexts, and a few clarifying visuals. Be warned: Cousins's soft, lilting voice can have soporific properties.<br />
<br />
2.) <i>The Bad News Bears </i>(I'm not even putting a date, because you know I don't mean the remake)<br />
Yes, I have it on DVD. Yes, it comes on TV quite a bit. Yes, it has a number of ridiculous sequels. I don't care. I'm just happy to have the loping, haphazard soundtrack on in the background of most situations. It's a classic summer kid-centric movie, provided that the kids themselves are swearing, fighting misfits with social issues watched by an alcoholic pool cleaner.<br />
<br />
1.) <i>Clue </i>(1985)<br />
This may be considered cheating since I've been watching this movie on television and DVD since the age of twelve or so, but it's even more convenient now that it's on Netflix. <i>Clue </i>may be, at least for me, an example of textbook excellent comedy writing. The timing is so tight, the cast is so together, and everything happens inside one big location to contain it all. Murder mystery! Period piece! The soundtrack! Tim Curry! It's so difficult to beat.<br />
<br />
<u>Honorable Mentions</u><br />
<br />
<ul>
<li><i>American Scary, Nightmare in Red White & Blue</i>, or any number of movies about horror movies/horror movie makeup/Ray Harryhausen </li>
<li>Anything Monty Python, though all of <i>Flying Circus </i>is gone from Netflix now</li>
<li><i>Fat Head</i> and food-themed documentaries</li>
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<br />Strummer Dundeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08341597832372419485noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7781255126814346580.post-90175260827120198332014-09-02T15:35:00.000-07:002014-09-02T15:35:00.056-07:00Top 5 Tuesdays: Bands Formed in Film5.) The Wonders<br />
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Ah, <i>That Thing You Do</i>. It was filmed in the grand nostalgic tradition of the '90s, coming out as Britpop bands languished in '60s moddish fashions, the '70s was old enough to be thought on fondly, and nobody knew what sort of catastrophe the new millennium would bring. <i>That Thing You Do </i>embraced the early '60s dream of new rock and roll, creating The Wonders as one of the (badum tsh) forgotten one-hit-wonders of the early Beatles era. The songs will likely worm their way into your head long after the movie is over.<br />
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4.) The Pussycats<br />
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No, not the cartoon. I'm going with the absurd, live-action film remake of <i>Josie and the Pussycats</i>. The movie retains very little pretense of a fourth wall, allowing a ridiculously self-aware plot to plow though early millennium commercialism and self-satire. The band itself shines with the sort of bubblegum, girl-power pop punk that people tend to list as a "guilty pleasure" as they belt the lyrics in the shower.<br />
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3.) The Commitments<br />
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Not content to be a mere movie, <i>The Commitments </i>is also a stage show still playing. The rough-and-tumble Dubliners make you want them to succeed all while sucking you in with some excellent funk. Even if it doesn't work out in the end, the music has impressive staying power as more than just an earworm.<br />
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2.) Spinal Tap<br />
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Not content to be a mere movie, the titular band from <i>This Is Spinal Tap</i> became a real band! With tours and reunion tours popping up through the year, it's difficult to not accept the silly power metal band as an actual musical force.<br />
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1.) Blues Brothers<br />
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Formed from two ace comedians and on a mission from God, the Blues Brothers were only barely contained by their self-titled movie in the '80s. Dan Akroyd and John Belushi made the band official; their "backup" in the film consisted of real musicians and not actors. Hitting up standards and writing their own music, the band continued to put out material even through the loss of Bushemi later on.<br />
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Honorable Mention:<br />
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The Soggy-Bottom Boys - That outlaw one-hit-wonder from <i>Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?</i><br />
The School of Rock - The band made up of classically-trained kids and Jack Black<br />
The Lone Rangers - The hot-sauce-gun-wielding band from <i>Airheads </i>Strummer Dundeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08341597832372419485noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7781255126814346580.post-37898187046592567492014-02-25T02:22:00.003-08:002014-02-25T02:23:33.513-08:00Productivity Binging: The Trap of Just Reading One More LifehackAllow me to be honest with you: I’ve been hoarding productivity advice for the last four years of my life.<br />
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I'm the person with the blog feed who snacks on <a href="http://lifehacker.com/">Lifehacker</a> and <a href="http://www.dumblittleman.com/">Dumb Little Man</a> posts throughout the day. I'm the person who has gone through four different bookmarking systems in an attempt to corral all my saved internet knowledge. I'm the person who found <a href="https://www.stumbleupon.com/">Stumbleupon</a> at age 18 or so, falling head-first into the void of just how much how-to advice the World Wide Web can offer. I know about standing desks, the Pomorodo Method, 20/10s, the 80/20 ratio, timers, apps, dual-booting, dedicated workspaces, "Save Time with This One Weird Old Trick", and if I'm speaking Greek to you, I am quite glad you haven't fallen into the same rabbit hole.<br />
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I'm done with it.<br />
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For the past month, I've been reading more than anything. A side-effect of being too busy and away from the internet too often to be sucked into its Advice Alleys for another lifehack, I've been more attached to an ereader and paperbacks than my laptop. And you know what? I feel better. I've started deleting bookmarks full of ways to wake up earlier or download audiobooks into one's brain while lifehacking a kitchen with Command hooks and twine.<br />
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Do I still itch to see how other people appear, unruffled and awake, at the "I'm a Real Adult" train every morning? Of course. But now I go for the more positive experience of reading about the schedules of writers and artists who lived outside of the protective walls of a family manor and all the security that one entails. Isn't it better to read about how William James never formed regular habits, working on his book while using himself as an example of a "miserable human" whose only habit is "indecision"? Or of Kafka going nuts as he tries to write in the wee hours to avoid the family that fills his small house? I can get behind Samuel Johnson, the man with the most iconic biographer to date, who said, "I myself have never persisted in any plan for two days together."*<br />
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Like those who succeeded by burning midnight oil or by chastising themselves over their own lack of productive willpower, I'm going to find my own way. I've got to carve out my time in the pre-work hours or when I'd rather be watching fistfuls of <i>MST3K </i>to unwind after said work.<br />
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Maybe, if I keep it up, I'll get back those hours I spent preparing for a productive routine that never fit me in the first place.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 20px; text-indent: -48px;">*Currey, Mason. </span><i style="background-color: white; line-height: 20px; text-indent: -48px;">Daily Rituals: How Artists Work</i><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 20px; text-indent: -48px;">. Knopf, 2013. eBook.</span></span><br />
<br />Strummer Dundeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08341597832372419485noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7781255126814346580.post-89387622244875685242013-10-03T20:01:00.001-07:002013-10-03T20:02:16.478-07:00Nanowrimo 2013: Prep and Pep TalksIt is nigh October and National Novel Writing Month will soon be at our heels! What is that? You’ve not heard of National Novel Writing Month, the thirty-day extravaganza in which cripplingly busy people attempt to write a novel in just thirty days? I’m afraid you need to click the link below. Now. I’ll wait.<br />
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<a href="http://www.nanowrimo.org/">www.nanowrimo.org</a><br />
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Did you go? Did you see? Do you know? Good.<br />
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People who decide to do Nanowrimo generally fall into two rough categories: planners and pantsers. Planners come armed with historical research, character biographies, voice journals, elaborate timelines, maps of fictional countries, or just a decently developed idea as to what they plan on writing for the next thirty days. Pantsers, so called because they fly by the seat of said pants, come armed with…a plot? Maybe? Or, you know, just this kind of idea with some characters who might be really similar to some other characters, but there is definitely a coffee shop and zombies…or aliens?<br />
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You get the picture.<br />
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The only time I won Nanowrimo (way back in 2009 during my first semester of college), I went the pantser route. I had no idea what I wanted to write about, so I just stuck myself back in high school on the wooden risers in my chorus room and wrote what I saw. It turned out pretty horrible and unreadable to anyone who would recognize themselves or others in the characters, but I did finish a novel containing fifty thousand words.<br />
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This year I started out with a Big Plot, one I’ve been whittling at during various failed Nanowrimos and Camp Nanowrimos* since my streak of newbie luck in 2009. It has since changed to a quick and absurd crime plot inspired by a friend’s unusual circumstances. Will I be a planner or a pantser this time around?<br />
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Throughout the rest of October we will take a look at various ways to plan and…er…pants a novel for November. Stay tuned for prompt generators, word-count tips, and horrible little apps that actually force you to write instead of browsing miles of blog feed.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">*Like regular Nanowrimo, only during the quieter month of July</span><br />
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Strummer Dundeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08341597832372419485noreply@blogger.com0