Stuff...

Jul. 7th, 2011 09:31 am
amnesiack: (batllerina)
The weekend (plus a few days before and after) was awesome. It included Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, Shaun of the Dead, and Hot Fuzz on the big screen at Central Cinema, an awesome wedding at the Woodland Park Zoo, and amazing house show with 11 bands and tons of friends, and the annual "best 4th of July party ever (until the next one)" at the house of [livejournal.com profile] random_girl and [livejournal.com profile] grandmoffdavid.

I've been playing bass again. Three friends and I decided to put together a band and mess around and see what comes of it. We've had three practices in three weeks so far, and while we're still not good, we're definitely better than when we started. It's a very cool, low-pressure situation since we're all either (a) brand new to playing our instruments (which includes vocals) or (b) haven't played them in 7+ years. So we're just figuring things out together as we go.

On a less postivie note: )
amnesiack: (one eye)
Evil Bad Person is running from Thor.

"Stop!" yells the mighty Thor.

Evil Bad Person does not stop.

Thor's eyes narrow and a small smile touches his lips before he says softly, "Hammer time."
amnesiack: (stills)
Here's a quick rundown of what I saw at the Seattle International Film Festival. )
amnesiack: (american astronaut)
At his recent keynote speech at the New York Television Festival, former Star Trek writer and creator of the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica Ron Moore revealed the secret formula to writing for Trek.


He described how the writers would just insert "tech" into the scripts whenever they needed to resolve a story or plot line, then they'd have consultants fill in the appropriate words (aka technobabble) later.


"It became the solution to so many plot lines and so many stories," Moore said. "It was so mechanical that we had science consultants who would just come up with the words for us and we'd just write 'tech' in the script. You know, Picard would say 'Commander La Forge, tech the tech to the warp drive.' I'm serious. If you look at those scripts, you'll see that."




-- From scifiwire.com

Elder Sign

Jan. 30th, 2010 10:04 pm
amnesiack: (Default)
One of my favorite shorts from tonights SIFF Sci-Fi/Fantasy Short Film Festival:

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amnesiack: (LiMuBai)
Kung fu movie post!

I was finally able to pick up a copy of The Banquet as a domestic dvd release. Lesley and I loved it when we saw it at SIFF last year. For some reason, they changed the U.S. title to Legend of the Black Scorpion, which is extremely dumb, but it's still an awesome movie, so, yeah. Whatever.

I'm still waiting to be able to pick up A Battle of Wits as well.

Next Friday is the theatrical release of The Forbidden Kingdom with Jet Li, Jackie Chan, and some American kid. The Friday night movie group will be seeing it, and I truly hope it delivers. Anyone out there want to come with us?
amnesiack: (rar)
I saw The Host last night with a portion of the Friday night movie crew. It was fantastic, blending comedy, drama, and monster horror (as opposed to slasher horror, which I abhor) in a stupendous brew of fun. A lot of movies have trouble walking the line between being creepy and being gross for the sake of being gross, but The Host knew right where to go each time. The special effects were good, especially considering how tiny the budget is supposed to have been, but it was the top-notch cast that really sold it. I was told that the movie has already been licensed for a re-make in the U.S., but everyone should see the original now, while they still can. I've only seen a handful of Korean films at this point, but each one that I have seen has been quite good. I'll have to do some research and find more.

Note: Posted via email.
amnesiack: (mohawk1)
My copy of Primetime Adventures arrived yesterday. I've been hearing good things about this game for a while now, but it's never been available at any of the shops I buy my games at, and it's taken me up until now to actually get it into my head to sit down and order it online. I finished Covert Generation today at lunch, so I'm trying to decide whether PTA or Don't Rest Your Head will be next, after I finish Beast Hunters.

I also received my dvd of Afro-Punk, a documentary about race identity within the punk scene. It was directed/shot/edit by James Spooner, and I was never able to make it to one of the screenings that he held around the country, so I'm very excited to finally be able to watch it on dvd. I think it will be an extremely interesting counter-point to American Hardcore, which I watched just a couple of weeks ago.
amnesiack: (angelpuppet1)
Joss Whedon off Wonder Woman movie.
We just saw different movies, and at the price range this kind of movie hangs in, that's never gonna work. Non-sympatico. It happens all the time. I don't think any of us expected it to this time, but it did. Everybody knows how long I was taking, what a struggle that script was, and though I felt good about what I was coming up with, it was never gonna be a simple slam-dunk. I like to think it rolled around the rim a little bit, but others may have differing views.
amnesiack: (scottbass)
This weekend has been great so far.

Last night, [livejournal.com profile] lesleymac and I went over to [livejournal.com profile] hansandersen's place, and he ran a game of Dogs in the Vineyard for us (see my earlier review of the game here: http://amnesiack.livejournal.com/97780.html).

The game was fantastic. It really was everything I hoped it to be, and maybe even a bit more. The system is fun, with a neat strategic game-within-a-game setup, but at the same time, it completely gets out of your way and lets really neat roleplaying moments happen. Two highlights for me:

1) My insecure, non-confrontational character being the first to draw a gun, without even me expecting it to happen. It came completely out of nowhere, but it just felt like the right thing to do at the time, and that one action shaped a huge portion of the rest of game after that.

2) Being put in a situation where a man's life was literally in my character's hands, having to decide whether he would live or die, and having to take several minutes internally debating before I could actually come to a decision.

From what I hear, these sorts of situations are common in Dogs.

Tonight, [livejournal.com profile] darklingrose, [livejournal.com profile] covenantscave, [livejournal.com profile] lesleymac, and I went to the second annual Science Fiction Short Film Festival. It was a lot of fun again this year, with some really good films (particularly in the second half), though overall the quality of the movies was a bit lower than last year.

Also, I played a bunch of Final Fantasy XII today. Booyah.
amnesiack: (geek pride)
[livejournal.com profile] preciousjade's birthday party was a lot of fun. It's awesome to have awesome friends. I made Seitan & Mushroom Stroganoff (my favorite recipe out of the Vegan Vittles cookbook that Jesse bought at the Warped Tour back in 2003), and it was a big hit. Even the self-described carnivores at the party partook and enjoyed.

I got to hang out with [livejournal.com profile] jaberwockynmt for a few hours on Sunday. We had lunch at the Wayward, and talked for a while before I had to run to pick up the roommates, and he had to run to catch a flight. I don't interact with a lot of the Enforcer crowd outside of the actual PAX environment, but Jarrod's always a great person with whom to hang.

* * *

This Saturday will be the 2nd Annual Seattle Science Fiction Short Film Festival at the Cinerama. I went to this with [livejournal.com profile] covenantscave and [livejournal.com profile] darklingrose last year, and we had a great time. I'm hopeful that it will be just as fun this year.

On the roleplaying front, [livejournal.com profile] yurodivuie leaves us this weekend for a short while, so in place of Exalted, [livejournal.com profile] hansandersen will be running some Dogs in the Vineyard for [livejournal.com profile] lesleymac and me. Yay!
amnesiack: (Default)
I waited at the bus stop for 50 minutes this morning, and my bus didn't come, so I'm working from home today.

I gifted two friends with awesome movie viewings yesterday. Jason and I watched Shaun of the Dead, my dozenth time or so, his first. In the evening, Lesley stopped by for a bit, and since she hadn't yet watched the copy of Kamikaze Girls that she had borrowed from Jason, we ended up watching my copy instead.

Okay, back to work.
amnesiack: (Pan)
Pan's Labyrinth was everything I hoped it would be. It's a dark, grim, gory fairy tale, just like they're supposed to be. Great acting, effects, writing, everything. You have humans behaving like monsters, and monsters behaving humanely. I don't really want to go into a lot of details, since those of you who are interested will see it, and those of you who aren't don't care anyway. It ranks very highly on my list, though, for what that's worth.

* * * * *

For those of you who are still waiting for mixed cds, I haven't forgotten you. They're actually done, I just have to get to the post office when they're, you know, open. Those of you who have received the first wave, feel free to leave comments on what you thought, any bands or songs you particularly liked, disliked, etc. I'm interested.

Hoo-Ha!

Jan. 12th, 2007 10:05 am
amnesiack: (Pan)
I manipulated my contact lense-changing schedule so I could put in a fresh pair today, so that when I see Pan's Labyrinth tonight, I will see with eyes unclouded.

Also, I just realized that I don't have to work on Monday. ROCK!
amnesiack: (skull panda)
So, after geeking out about my new-found love of Bomb the Music Industry, I went out to lunch and read that Mon Frere broke up last week. I kept putting off going to see them live, and now I guess I'll never have the chance. Blech.

* * *

In completely unrelated news, I'm very, very, very excited about finally getting to see Pan's Labyrinth tomorrow night.

Very.
amnesiack: (Donnie Yen)
Jason and I saw Curse of the Golden Flower last night at the Neptune. I would put it among the "must see" movies for fans of Asian movies/cultures. The costumes and sets are elaborate and beautiful. Chow Yun Fat dominates every scene he is in, often through facial expressions alone. It's definitely not an action movie, but the action that's there is breathtaking. The movie largely revolves around the personal and political intrigues of the royal family (the Emperor, his consort, and his three sons). Of course, it being a Chinese historical drama, a good portion of the characters are dead by the end, and the resolution (while very final and full of closure) is not what western audiences would consider "happy." If you can deal with that, though, I highly recommend it.
amnesiack: (Leaf Shakes the Wind)
Weekend Report: DEPLOY!

Casino Royale was extremely good. It's one of the best Bond movies in years, easily the best since GoldenEye. In fact, it may be my favorite Bond movie ever, but it's been too long since I've seen some Bond movies that I can't say for sure. It's definitely one of very few Bond movies I can remember coming out of without thinking, "That was good, except for that one really hokey part where..."

Our sub-Exalted game Servants of the Mandate continued to rock the proverbial casbah, opening with a 2.5 hour social combat debate in which we managed to recruit two new Terrestrial Exalted to our crew. The interaction between my character (Bones Like Jade) and [livejournal.com profile] hansandersen's character in this game continues to crack me up and provide some of my favorite moments in this entire game (including the "main" game: Heaven's Mandate). It makes me a bit sad that I'm going to be switching up characters in order to more closely match the mechanical power level of the other players' characters. Hopefully Sha Yan Shi will prove to be equally entertaining.

TO BE CONTINUED....?
amnesiack: (Donnie Yen)
I got up an hour earlier than usual this morning so that I could go to the downtown Group Health (my HMO) facility to get a flu shot at 8 am. I told my manager I might be late getting into work this morning (I normally arrive at about 8:45) because I had no idea how long getting the flu shot would take. As it turns out, I got to Group Health at 7:50, and they were already open. The whole shebang (paperwork, the shot itself, etc.) took less than 5 minutes. I stopped and got a breakfast sandwich at Specialties Bakery (which was awesome), and I still got to work thirty minutes earlier than I usually do. The flu shot itself hurt a little more while being administered than I remember as being normal, but there has been absolutely no soreness since, so I'm okay with the trade-off.

The Macbook is working out really well. I've gotten the hang of most of the little OS X oddities that I wasn't used to before, and it's nice to be able to hang out in the living room with David and Dawn in the evening and actually still do things on the computer at the same time. I ended up ordering the Sumo Cases Macbook sleeve. I never really decided which one I liked best of the several different sleeves I was looking at, so the deciding factor ended up being that I could get the Sumo through Amazon, where I had a gift certificate from my birthday.

Of course, this means I won't be using the gift certificate to purchase the new ultra-remastered, bit-rate-so-high-we-broke-it-up-into-two-disks edition of Seven Samurai, but such is life, I suppose.
amnesiack: (Donnie Yen)
It's no secret that I've become increasingly enamored of (some might say "obsessed with", but they're wrong, and I will destroy them with my Wisdom of the Seven Gates kung fu) wuxia and other Chinese martial arts fantasy over the last couple of years, to the point where it equals my love of the dark and deadly shinobi. It has, in fact, reached the point where I am no longer content to sup upon the meager trickle of entertainment that comes my way through regional channels. Now, I drink directly from the source!

But above and beyond that, I have found a second wellspring from which I may draw. Arriving soon (I estimate today, but I cannot be entirely sure) from this font of delights, will be Shadowless Sword (technically, a Korean film, but it was filmed in China and is of the proper genre), Dragon Tiger Gate (a film set in the modern day but with many wuxia elements, made doubly awesome by the presence of the inestimable Donnie Yen), and Shinobi: Heart Under Blade (a live-action ninja movie based off the same novel that inspired the manga/anime series Basilisk: The Kouga Ninja Scrolls).

I'm not sure where this was leading to, or if there was ever really a point to this at all beyond a momentary internet-based explosion of glee, so I guess I'm done. Cheers.
amnesiack: (Leaf Shakes the Wind)
Life continues and things occur. Most of them are boring are to read about.

Saturday night I wrangled together a significant portion of my local friends for a three week late birthday celebration. We had dinner at the Capitol Hill Tea Pot Vegetarian House, a vegan Chinese food restaurant that specializes in Buddhist-style fake meat cooking. Though the restaurant didn't seem quite as prepared for us as it should have been (considering I had made a reservation for 22 people a week and a half in advance, and we only actually had 19 people come), the food and company were fantastic, and I was glad I had done it. Thanks to everyone who came!

Earlier on Saturday, Lesley joined as the new player in our bi-weekly Exalted game, re-completing our circle after the loss of Jesse, whose new responsibilities as full-time bus driver and human spawn generator have forced him to cut down on his gaming activities. This is Lesley's first tabletop rpg; she's doing really well with it so far, though we have to work at times not to overshadow her character, simply because the rest of us are used to diving in, taking charge, and expecting everyone else to do likewise.

Neil Gaiman's new short story collection Fragile Things hit last week. I picked it up along with my copy of the new Compass of Celestial Directions Volume 1: The Blessed Isle at The Dreaming on Friday. I started the first story on the bus this morning; it combines Sherlock Holmes and the Lovecraft Mythos and promises to be irrevocably awesome (in addition to reminding me a great deal of our bi-weekly Adventure! game).

Saturday night my Microsoft ergonomic keyboard (one of the really old-school off-white models with no padding or special features) stopped working properly. I attempted to take it apart and fix it, which I think only exacerbated the problem. Of course, I've been using the keyboard for 8 years, so it's not a terribly surprising occurence. So, on Sunday, I bought a new Microsoft ergonomic keyboard, only this one does have padding and weird extra buttons (which I thought would be worthless, but I'm actually enjoying them). Of course, since I entered Best Buy, I had to also look at other things, and I ended up buying volume two of Basilisk, Iron Monkey, and Kung Fu Hustle. I'm such a sucker.

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