Posted on

"As human beings, we have a natural compulsion to fill empty spaces." – Will Shortz

One submission was made last week of a previously rejected story and I finished the sketch stage of creating my niece’s wall art, which you can see below.

Wall Art – Part I
Wall art for my niece

Wall Art – Part II
Wall art for my niece

In between these will be a wood cutout of a teapot with the word “in” on it (which my other sister will be creating), so it will read “Sienna in Wonderland” once it is all completed. The next step with these pieces will be to add paint in yellow, teal, purple, and/or blue. I will probably do some test patches before deciding.

I have been out of the groove with writing lately and I’m having a hard time getting back into it. I need some deadlines I think, or at least a schedule to kick me back into gear.

To be accomplished in the coming week:
– Finish second half of Chapter Six of Under the Midday Moon
– Submit something (poem, story, whatever)
– Workout at least three days with two workouts being running training (0/3)
– Do three morning yoga workouts (0/3)
– Practice my Spanish
– Do color testing and final paintwork on niece’s wall art

– Make Progress on Organization (do one or more of the following):
• Buy shower curtain hooks for organizing scarves
• Find a way to better organize shoes with double shelf or slots
• Buy a tie hangar for necklaces and create rack for earrings
• Shred papers and dispose of them
• Measure pictures and buy frames

Posted on

Books Completed in August

1. The Little Red Guard: A Family Memoir by Wenguang Huang
2. Horns, by Joe Hill
3. Paper Valentine, by Brenna Yovanoff
4. Beauty Queens, by Libba Bray
5. Snow Flower and the Secret Fan (audio book), by Lisa See
6. A Blackbird Sings: a book of short poems, edited Fiona Robyn and Kaspalita Thompson
7. No Roses for Harry! by Gene Zion
8. Unnatural Creatures, edited by Neil Gaiman
9. Emiko Superstar, written by Mariko Tamaki, illustrated by Steve Rolston
10. Wave (audio book), by Sonali Deraniyagala

Read reviews on my livejournal.

A list of new-to-me movies watched in July and August can be found here.

Posted on

Things I Own and I Don't Know Why

I don’t have much time to write a new post today (as I ought to), so I’m going to do a throwback with my “Three Things I Own and Don’t Know Why’ video, which you can watch below or by following this link.

For non-video watchers, these three things are:

1. A Multitude of Computer Cords (and I don’t know what they go to)

2. Clothes That No Longer Fit Me

3. A Whatchamacallit

Technical this is supposed to be a Five Things Friday post, so I guess I’ll add:

4. This video was uploaded in August 2009 (so long ago!), so I don’t actually own all these things anymore. The cords have been dispersed to family members and some (not all) of the clothes have finally been donated. The whatchamacallit was finally given away just last week, so I am free of that strangeness, too.

5. I still own a ton of things I don’t know what to do with from craft supplies I have a feeling I’ll never get around to using to old cell phones (like the flip variety) that I’m sure I should be tossed. I think there will always be something or another that I own for strange and unclear reasons.

What about you? What do you own that you don’t know why?

In other news…, have a happy Labor Day weekend! I hope you get to relax and eat good food and do fun things!

Posted on

Holy Exploding Internet, Batman!

Ever since I’ve heard a new Superman vs Batman movie would be coming out in 2015, I’ve been pretty much indifferent. I loved all the Batman movies (from Tim Burton to Christopher Nolan, with the one exception of the crappy Batman & Robin in 1997), but while I’ve enjoyed several Superman movies, I’ve never been a huge fan. Superman is not a comic character I get excited over.

The Avengers franchise has managed to do something incredible in the way it has created a series of loosely interconnected solo movies, which then came together in the amazing team movie. I just don’t see that level of dedication with the Justice League team or with this new Superman vs Batman movie.

So, with this level of indifference, I can’t get too upset about the fact that Ben Affleck has been cast as the new Batman. It doesn’t affect my level of indifference one bit.

I do recognize, however, that it is a bad decision on the part of the filmmakers.

This is not because Ben Affleck is a bad actor. In general, I think he’s a decent actor. He’s been in several movies I loved (Argo, Good Will Hunting, Shakespeare in Love), lots of movies that were just okay, and many movies that were bad. I’d say that’s about average for a lot of actors out there.

And, while, yes, Daredevil was a terrible, terrible movie, that fact can’t be entirely blamed on Ben Affleck. Moviemaking is a collaborative form and how good or bad a movie turns out is dependent on not just the actors, but also (and perhaps even more so) on the producer, writers, and director, as well as all the other crew members that make a movie possible.

So, it’s entirely possible that with the right writers, director, producers, cast, crew, and Ben Affleck as Batman, the new Superman vs. Batman movie could be great. (Though I doubt it.)

No, what makes this casting choice a bad decision is that it clearly shows that the moviemakers have no sense of the geek world and who the fan base is — mostly comic geeks, who are very passionate about their superheroes. If a producer came up to me and suggested Ben Affleck as Batman, I would have responded, “You’ve seen Daredevil, right? So, you know the internet is going to explode, right?”

And indeed, the internet has exploded (check out iO9’s 50 Greatest Tweets about Ben Affleck Casting as Batman, for rather humorous examples).

To me this decision represents the first poor decision (that we know of), which will likely preempt more such decisions. This doesn’t bode well for the final outcome of the movie.

Let me know you’re thoughts in the comments, and I’ll just settle back comfortably into my indifference, while I watch another episode of Fringe.*

*Author may not be actually watching said episodes, as author does actually have to work today.

Posted on

An Assortment of Five Things

1. I picked up my sister from the airport on Tuesday. She had just got back from visiting my grandmother in Anchorage, Alaska. She’s 90 years old and my sister and I started talking about how important it is to record her life in some way. I told her that I have photo copies of her homesteading journal (which I’ve been meaning to do something with for a long time) and we both agreed that it would be great to put together a kind of memoir. Likely we wouldn’t try to publish this, though we might put it as an ebook and make some print copies for family through LuLu or something. We just need to make sure we make steady progress on this and not let it be just one of those things we talk about.

2. Speaking of writing, while I was digging through my filing cabinet looking for the copies my grandmother found me, I noticed a stack of paper about an inch thick in one of the files. I couldn’t help but take it out and read it — turned out to be movie script. I started reading some of the pages.

My thought: What is this? Did I write this? I didn’t write this. There’s no way I wrote this. *keeps reading* Oh, my god. I DID write this. I can’t believe I wrote this.

Turns out that stack of paper was the crappy martial arts script I tried to write about a guy and a girl who train and go take part in a tournament in China. It is so, so bad and I’m sure chock full of cultural inaccuracies. This will never ever see the light of day.

3. I saw Pacific Rim and loved it. It was in truth long sequences of robots smashing kaju, which was stunning in its realization, as in jaw-dropped, me-sitting-up-straight-in-my-seat in awe stunning. Beautifully wrought action sequences. It also had characters I like and story that dealt with countries and cultures working together for a common goal (that, importantly, did not revolve around good ol’ US of A saving the day). Rinko Kikuchi is wonderful and I will now be looking to watch every movie she has ever been or will be in. So, yay! I’m so glad I saw this one in theaters.

4. Also, in movies, I recently purchased Night of the Living Dead: Reanimated, a fascinating art project, in which curator Mike Schneider asked artists from around the world to animate sections of George A. Romero’s 1968 classic, Night of the Living Dead. All of the sound for the original movie is the same, the only difference is that the visual element has been changed (which can be done because the original movie is in public domain). Every minute or so, a new animation style flashes on the screen. It’s a little confusing at first, but quickly becomes hypnotizing to watch. A very cool art collaboration (with zombies!).

5. I went to a Curvy Girls Fashion Show (Curvy Girls is the name of a store in Santa Clara). It was just so cool to see a dozen women of varying shapes and sizes, bravely sporting lingerie walk down this make shift runway, while everyone in the audience cheered them on. Good feelings. Also some really cute stuff, costumes and some day ware too, so I may have some shopping to do soon.