Do you know what today is?

see more Lolcats and funny pictures, and check out our Socially Awkward Penguin lolz!


Sorry. I couldn't resist. You can go back to your day now.

Loki'd!

The Avengers-itis continues: 

 Tom Hiddleston possibly takes his role as Loki a little too seriously...

Movie Trailers - Movies Blog

via MTV

And after watching that, I just love this:

via julinspiredgirl

Some random thoughts on The Avengers

I'm going to do one long post of some of my random thoughts about The Avengers, and then I'll try not to let this slide into becoming an Avengers blog the way my Tumblr did (but I feel like my Tumblr is just for me, so I don't really care over there.)

This isn't a review - I don't have much to say in that vein that hasn't already been said by a million others. This is more of a gathering of my random thoughts:

• I want to watch this movie over and over and tear it apart layer by layer, doing GMC, looking at the Hero's Journey or the 8-sequence structure, studying the dialogue, etc. I feel like there's a lot to mine here. Can't wait for the DVD so I can. (Who am I kidding? I'm getting the DVD/Blu-Ray/Digital Copy package)
• I've got a mega-crush forming for Tom Hiddleston - I love him as bad-boy Loki (that grin! that hair! the hug-needing!) but then I find he's doing not one, not two, but THREE Shakespeare plays this year (which will show on BBC and I’m hoping will come to PBS), he studied classics at Cambridge and he knows it's pique, not peek or peak - be still my Shakespeare-fangirl, grammar-nerd heart!
• OMG the Joss Whedon dialogue! Anyone else would let the villain finish his speeches before the good guys retaliate, but every time Loki is just hitting his crescendo he's cut off mid-sentence in some demoralizing way. Love it.
• I think I enjoyed the Hulk in this movie more than I did in any other story. I didn't care for either of the recent Hulk movies, but not because they weren't decent movies. I just find the Hulk too much of a tragic figure to enjoy a story hung entirely on his character. He seems completely bereft of joy and hope. I come away from Hulk movies feeling weighed down, not lifted up, and that's not what I want from entertainment. In The Avengers, he seems somewhat less tragic, and I think that has a lot to do with Mark Ruffalo's acting (and Joss Whedon's directing, I'm sure) - the way he carries himself, the way he almost-grins through half of the movie. He's not as worn down as the other Bruce Banners, I think (or maybe he's hit bottom and is on the way back up?).
• If I bought the soundtrack on cassette (remember those?), it would be worn out already. Thank goodness for digital music. Good thing I have headphones or everyone around me would have hurt me by now.
• At our second viewing, my daughter pointed out that most of the people on the bridge of the Helicarrier are women. It's awesome that they're there, and awesome to me that she noticed.
• More on this later, but I found myself rooting for Loki - not to get what he wants but to get what he needs.
• Speaking of Loki, I do have a question for anyone who didn't see Thor before they saw The Avengers: What did you understand Loki's motivation to be? I'm curious whether seeing Thor gives you a different impression of Loki's character. I want to explore this later, so let me know.

How Avengers characters see common items

This cracks me up:

via Twitter / @Esperacchius

I've conquered the basement, now back to the blog!

I haven't posted here in over a month. What have I been doing instead? Reclaiming my basement!

For years, the basement has been the catch-all for anything not wanted in other parts of the house. I've occasionally tried to clean it up from time to time, with varying degrees of success, but I finally reached the end of my patience with the mess about a month-and-a-half ago and started in earnest to clean it out. After many trips to Goodwill and filling the trash & recycling bins to the brim every week, I've finally got the room to where it's use-able and presentable. It's not done, but what's left is more fine-tooth comb type stuff as opposed to the bulldozing I've been doing (for instance, the boxes to the right of the desk in the pictures now are all items to be sorted and ultimately discarded, probably, with just a few things needing to be scanned, filed away or shredded).

Last year, I apparently already had it in my head that I was going to do this major work, even though at that point I wasn't ready to discard with the vehemence that I mustered up recently, but I was thinking ahead enough to take "before" pictures. I finally got to the point that I could do "after" pictures yesterday. Looking at them on my computer last night, I realized I took the "before" pictures exactly a year before the "after" pictures. The before pictures really are the basement at its worst. It got better, but then bad again, before I finally reached the end of my rope and started in on it last month. These pictures should give you an idea of the extent of the transformation:

The basement is now going to function as my office and craft room, freeing up the spare bedroom to actually be a spare bedroom (imagine!). I've got so much more room to work down here than I had upstairs, with my two folding tables in the middle functioning as one big table. I'm excited to be creative in my "new" space!

Now that this is (mostly) done, I feel like I can bring my brain back around to writing, and that includes this blog. I have to warn you, though: In the time since I last posted, I've seen The Avengers twice (and LilGirl and I have plans to see it a third time this weekend). I'm a leeeetle obsessed. I promise not to be nearly as fangirly here as I have been on my Tumblr. There's just so much I want to explore and dissect about the movie and this is probably the best place to get it out. I hope you'll bear with me and that I'll get over Avengers-itis soon. :)

Drop Everything and Read!

Via D.E.A.R

It's D.E.A.R. day in honor of Beverly Cleary's birthday! I remember the Ramona books fondly, and I'm a little sad that I never could get LilGirl interested in them, but she was much more into the Magic Tree House books and books about dragons.  Maybe I should have convinced her Picky-picky was really a tiny dragon?

What were your favorite books as a kid?

Happy Library Week!

Source: atyourlibrary.org via Mary on Pinterest

Check out more quotes about libraries at atyourlibrary.org's board on Pinterest.

How to find your writing voice [Recently Read]

How to find your writing voice. | Jon Acuff's Blog:

"The only way to find your writing voice is to write. Fear will tell you that you must have your writing voice figured out before you write...Fear is a liar."

Happy Pi Day!

Via www.piday.org

Did you notice the video is 3:14 long? I love it when there's such attention to detail.

Via www.piday.org

Happy Buffyversary!

Fifteen years ago today, "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" premiered on TV. 

And I don't think I watched it. 

Even though "Buffy" eventually became my favorite show, when it first aired I was just appalled that anyone would take one of my favorite funny movies and try to turn it into a teen drama. The horror! But, as it turns out, it was awesome. I have since learned to trust in the wisdom of Joss Whedon and he's never steered me wrong.

Here's a fan-made "trailer" of season one:

Thanks to the Buffy Facebook page for the heads up!

Still itching for winter to end...

Just a couple more weeks...

Cut! Costume Exhibit, or Encountering Fantasy in Reality

My daughter and I visited the Cut! Costume and the Cinema exhibit at the Durham Museum during her Christmas break. It broke my heart that we weren't allowed to take photos, but I came across this video last night which lets you get an idea of how amazing some of the costumes are:

 


I have to admit the costume that took my breath away wasn't the most spectacular or elaborate. I've always loved the movie Howard's End - E.M. Forster is one of my favorite authors, I've had a long-standing obsession with Merchant Ivory films and I just lurve Emma Thompson - so encountering a dress Emma Thompson wore in that film (below) made me tear up just a little bit. That emotional response was surprising. I think it was a result of encountering such a familiar item from fantasy unexpectedly in reality. I even considered snapping a clandestine picture of the dress, but didn't feel confident in my sneakiness, so I didn't. Maybe I'll have to go back before the exhibit leaves, just to visit Margaret's dress one more time (and to check out Captain Jack Sparrow's outfit, as well. You know, as long as I'm there).

via  Enchanted Serenity of Period Films: Howard's End (1992)

If you can't get to the exhibit, but would like to see some of the costumes in more detail than what is in the video, I just found a Flickr set by annesstuff  which shows many of them when the exhibit was in another venue.

Dreaming of spring, remembering summer

We get to the beginning of March and I start really itching for spring, so I thought I'd share a picture with a bit of green today. I took this last summer in Custer State Park.

As I was looking through my photos recently and came across this one, my first thought was "I don't remember getting down in the grass near the buffalo..." and wondered how I'd had such an adventure without remembering it (after all, being out of your vehicle this close to these animals could be really dangerous). Then I realized I shot this from the car window in an area where the road was down an embankment from the area where the buffalo were grazing. Sometimes great shots come from working with what feels like a less-than-ideal situation at the time.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic License (which means you can repost the photo where you want, as long as you give me credit - and it'd be nice if you include a link back here or to the Flickr page)

Only create things you can’t not create [Quote]

By Me

"Fear of protecting your platform can’t be what drives your creative process. Only create things you can’t not create. Even if that means losing some of your audience."

from Dear musicians, authors, bloggers & me. | Jon Acuff's Blog

As always, some great points from Jon Acuff (make sure you click through and read the whole post).

Oh how true [Information Overload]

Boy is this true:

by Jessica Hagy at Indexed

I hate to miss any of the interesting stuff floating out there in the world, so I find my list of "to read" stuff is impossibly long. Not just books, but blog posts, articles, product descriptions, street signs, etc.

Between my email, Google Reader, Read It Later, paper books, ebooks, and on and on, it's a little overwhelming whenever I sit down "to read" unless I have a specific item in mind before I begin.

Once upon a time, I only got that feeling of being overwhelmed when I stepped into a large library. Now it's almost constant. Years ago, who knew we would ever have to plan and structure our reading time (leisure reading or otherwise) in order not to drown?

Happy Leap Day!

By stuant63

Cool student-produced steampunk short

This is a fun short film created by students at Media Design School in New Zealand.

(via Set Phasers to LOL)

And some of the students talk about making the film:

Doesn't Miley Cyrus look like...?

Via CocoPerez

This morning, when I saw a clip of Miley Cyrus at one of the Oscar parties, I didn't even recognize her at first. In fact, I wondered if Madonna had found a time machine in the 80's and jumped forward.

Via Wikipedia

I guess Madonna went through her Marilyn Monroe phase, Miley can go through her Madonna phase...

via CocoPerez

And I just have to add my opinion on Miley's dress. Although I give her points for not going with something revealing, the dress looks far too old for her. It looks like something made for Joan Collins (and Joan would probably rock this dress. But for a barely-twenty pop starlet, it's just not the thing.)

Use caution...on Google Maps

I love it when Google Maps puts little Easter eggs into search results:

via Nerd Approved

Han shot.

Saw this last night. Funny after yesterday's post:

 
see more Set Phasers To Lol

Mal vs. Hammer, Indy vs. Han...

By Gina Biggs

A friend shared this cartoon on Facebook, and I love it. I have to say, that IS what would happen should Captain Mal meet Captain Hammer. (Just in case you're not familiar with Firefly or Dr. Horrible, I'll let you in on the joke: Nathan Fillion played both characters).

So, that got me thinking, and reminded me of this picture I saw on Flickr awhile ago as part of JD Hancock's "Duel 365" series:

By JD Hancock

What would happen if Indiana Jones met Han Solo? I mean there is this scene:

but, as we all know, Han shot first:

So, how do you think it would go down?

Dreams vs. Excuses [Quote]

By nicole.pierce.photography ♥

"If you really want something you’ll find a way to do it. If you don’t want it that bad, you’ll come up with excuses for why it can’t be done." Brittany Castanos

 via Quit Your Day Job: Daughters of Simone | The Etsy Blog

This is clever:

see more Set Phasers To Lol

Downton Abbey Paper Dolls - Adorable & Funny!

I found these paper dolls by Kyle Hilton via Jane Austen's World. I just love the "assortment of emotions" for the Dowager Countess:

Jane Austen's World has gathered links to the paper dolls of other characters (Mary & Matthew, Lady Sybil, and Thomas & O'Brien) here: Downton Abbey Season 2 Finale: Tonight You’re Mine Completely. I think I'll be printing all of these out & having a good ol' time playing paper dolls (no, I have not outgrown that. I don't think I ever will.)

Just an hour and a bit until the season finale!

The Dog Outwits the Kidnapper

Here's an adorable film from 1908, courtesy of the British Film Institute. I wonder if I could teach my dog this trick...

Happy Valentine's Day...from Valentine!

I found a special treat in the mail yesterday: My parents sent us all valentines postmarked in Valentine, NE!

There's even a special image stamped on the back of the envelope:

This is so cool! Thanks, Mom & Dad!

(If you want to do this for your valentine next year, here's how.)

Life moves pretty fast...

Ferris Bueller's Day Off  is one of my favorite movies, so I was super excited to see this commercial. Part of me wishes it was a whole movie, but in a way, this is enough and having more might ruin it.

I would ABSOLUTELY watch this show

DORK TOWER, Tuesday, January 24, 2012 
(Click through to see the full-size cartoon)

True, I'm waaaay behind on Dr. Who and I haven't even started Sherlock yet (I hear it's great and I intend to start on season one soon)...but a show like this would be just mind-blowingly awesome (England, will you still let me in?)

Flickr Favorite: Paris

Just like birds on a wire, I'm a sucker for pictures of the Eiffel Tower against a sunset. This one is by Flickr user  [phil h].

No need to panic, the mystery's been solved:

see more Set Phasers To Lol

Some days the dragon wins

When I read this post last night just before bed, I immediately emailed myself the link with the note "OMG YES!"

The whole thing is short and worth reading in its entirety for the full message, but this is the part that really hit me:

"Your manuscript was not written. Your miles were not run. Your dream was not dreamed. But, and this is an awful big but, that was just today. Tomorrow is a new day."

I have a tendency to fall into the trap of "I didn't achieve my goal today, so I'm never going to." I'm slowly learning to climb out of that hole and keep moving forward, brushing off the dirt of self-doubt and negative self-talk that clings to me afterward.


The dragon definitely won most of the last week. And I think the last couple days, I barely stood up to fight it. I'm back to fighting today, sword and shield in hand, partially thanks to this post.

photo via Library of Congress

I think I'm going to create a prominent "Having a bad day?" bookmark on my computer which links to that post so I can read it whenever I need to.

There Be Dragons by Jon Acuff

Does the movie of your life need a new writer?

Photo By Hal Dick

An interesting read:

"If they made a movie about your life, would it be titled, It’s a Won­der­ful Life? Or would Speed, You've Got Mail, or Nightmare on Elm Street be more fitting? Unfor­tu­nately, too many peo­ple are liv­ing lives like those movies that come out every sum­mer. You know, the over­hyped ones with big bud­gets, lots of action — and tired sto­ries with thin plots. Just because a movie costs a lot of money and has a lot of things going on doesn’t mean it’s a very good story. The same is true of your life...If you’re less than thrilled with the direction of your story, it is time to hire a new writer: YOU."

Check out the whole post here: How To Live A Better Story | Jungle of Life

Making yourself miserable?

Here's an interesting list by Keri Smith. I've seen it floating around a bit lately and find it eye-opening every time I come across it. I do several things on this list on a regular basis. I won't say which I do, but I know all creative people probably do at least a couple at any given time - we're all human. We all fall into these traps. But being aware of them helps us climb out of the holes we dig for ourselves and hopefully avoid falling back into them in the future.

 via Rachelle Gardner

The chair of my dreams

I don't pay much attention to the TV show Revenge, which is probably why I never noticed this chair until last night (according to my husband, it shows up quite often), but now that I've seen it...WANT!!!

So, now I just need to come up with $1,859 so I can buy it....um, yeah....

Revenge Home Décor: Where to Find Victoria Grayson’s French Script Armchair - Revenge

Come to the bark side...we have biscuits.

After last year's Super Bowl commercial, Volkswagen apparently thought they'd keep going with the Star Wars theme. I'm not complaining.

(Best commercial that had nothing to do with the product ever)

The peril of naming characters [Cartoon]

Pearls Before Swine Comic Strip, October 02, 2011

I've definitely had that problem before...maybe not quite so bad as "Bean Dip"....

I do tend to end up with a lot of people with the name Something or Somethingelse.

How about you?

Lady Grantham's Greatest Hits + White Feathers

A friend posted this on Facebook earlier today. If you like Downton Abbey, you'll get a kick out of this. I just love the Dowager Countess of Grantham, and I don't think anyone but Maggie Smith could have played her.



I watched the first episode of Season Two last night and loved it! If you'd like to read more about the symbolism of the white feathers involved in one scene, check out this post at Jane Austen's World. I was kind of glad I'd read it ahead of time.

This made me giggle...

Potential: 

via XKCD

2012 - Week 1

I'm trying to check in and keep track of what I did over the last week, so I have something to look at when I start to beat myself up for not being Superwoman. So many times I get to the end of Sunday and I feel like I didn't accomplish anything through the week, when really I did. So, these are the things I DID ACCOMPLISH last week, to counter the hundreds of things the unhealthy voices keep telling me I didn't do:

• Did at least 30 minutes on the Wii Fit every day, including Saturday and Sunday (bonus points there - I usually slack off on the weekend). I did 1 hour one day, but I hurt A LOT afterward, so that's definitely something I need to work up to as I go.
• I did all my scheduled breaks for stairs at work (I noticed they were a bit easier this morning - I think doing the Wii over the weekend helped with that). 
• I went to church - I think I've figured out my key to getting there regularly: I prefer to go on Saturday evening and if I tell hubby on Saturday morning that I am going, it not only solidifies it in my head that I'm going, he'll give me a nudge out the door as well (even though he rarely goes along). Really, for me, the hardest part about getting to church is getting out the door; the rest is gravy.
• I finished reading one book: The Book of Ancient Bastards: 101 of the Worst Miscreants and Misdeeds from Ancient Sumer to the Enlightenment.
• LilGirl and I caught up on the dishes (you'd be shocked at how often this doesn't happen).
• I saw a movie and didn't get a soda (it helps that this theater had self-serve fountain drinks, which include water, so you're not paying $6 for a small bottle - definitely a reason to continue going there).
• No new pages written, but I did make a bunch of notes for my WIP.
• Took a load of stuff to Goodwill (and threw away several things not worth taking there).

I used to do this...

Unfortunately, "Staring out the window" seems to have been replaced by a circle marked "Staring at a screen" and the intersection does not often result in inspiration. I need to remember to start staring out the window (or just into space) again.

From Indexed

Happy New Year!

"It is reasonable that a man should be something worthier 

at the end of the year than he was at the beginning."

— Henry David Thoreau

May we all be successful as we strive towards "worthiness" this year, 

though that means something different for each of us.
Have a happy & prosperous 2012!

Fairy Tales and Dragons

I hadn't thought about this quote in a long time, but it's one of my favorites. I came across the quote again the other day on a Tumblr blog:

Not a dragon, but the closest thing I have in my Flickr account :)

“Fairy Tales are more than true; not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.” - G. K. Chesterton

via mbthecool

Merry Christmas!

We're having a nice quiet Christmas at home today. 

I hope your holiday is special and blessed.

 

 Missing a white Christmas this year? Google has a little present for you. 

Go to google.com, type in let it snow and wait a little...

Christmas Countdown: Am I a hundred years too late for this toy?

I was looking at some photos in the Library of Congress' Flickr photostream and noticed the Eiffel Tower in this window full of toys. Was this a model for a child to build, do you suppose? Some quick Googling didn't come up with anything, but I may take some time to search deeper later. Whatever it was, I think I would have wanted one!

Hobbit Countdown: 360-ish days and counting...

I've been waiting patiently for the first installment of The Hobbit to come out. Of course, the realization of the movie mostly seemed like vague reports and imagination to me, and I could handle that. And for some reason, I thought it was coming out this summer. No problem. I could wait perfectly well for that.

Then hubby sent me this trailer this morning, which both took away any patience I had and informed me that I have to wait until NEXT DECEMBER 14th to see it!


On the bright side, this gives me plenty of time to re-read the book, which I haven't read since high school.

And this just showed up in my RSS feed: Waiting for Bilbo: Comic: The Hobbit Trailer (just so you know, I wasn't one of those people. Really. I'm serious. Why don't you believe me?)

Christmas Countdown: If you don't have it, fake it...

No fireplace? 

Fake tree? 

No Christmas CD's? 

No problem!

A pine-scented candle, over on the left

(I'm always on the hunt for the most realistic Christmas tree scent since we can't have a real tree), 

+

Pandora Radio on the computer, 

+

a Fireplace video streaming through Netflix on the TV

(we do have a fireplace, but it's gas, so it doesn't have the nice pop & crackle of wood like the video), 

=

A nice holiday mood while I worked in my home office the other day.

Update 12/22/11: A Facebook friend posted a link to this fireplace video on YouTube, so you don't even have to have Netflix - although the YouTube video is shorter, so you have to press play more often ;)

Christmas Countdown: Packages, Packages, Everywhere!

The postal service says today is the biggest delivery day of the year, while tomorrow is the biggest mailing day of the year. I found this picture from World War II in The Smithsonian Institution's photostream on Flickr. Click through to see some humorous notes users have applied to parts of the photo (just mouse over the photo once you've clicked through). Unfortunately, more keep being added, so I think some of the funnier ones are getting buried - kind of like some of the boxes in the photo. :)

Click through!

 

Happy Birthday, Jane Austen!

I visited Jane Austen's house in Chawton in 1996. The pictures I took there have turned out to be some of the most-viewed in my Flickr stream despite being faded-looking scans. In honor of Jane's birthday, I thought I'd share a slideshow of those photos. Enjoy!

 

Here's a video of the house (including some improvements done a couple years ago). It all makes me want to go back again.

Christmas Countdown: Winter Wonderland [Photos]

Saturday morning everything was covered with frost, so I ventured out to take a few photos.


Berries on the burning bush. View on black.

 
I love how wooden fences seem to grow whiskers in the frost. View on black.


I played around with this one in Picnik and added their fake HDR effect, which turned out really interesting, I thought. View on black

Christmas Countdown: O Dragon Tree, O Dragon Tree...

My coworker Steve makes Study Dragons for students each year about this time.
It appears a few of the dragons took over the Christmas tree.

I really like this one :)