Temple Talysman

You remember the film trick they did in The Matrix and in that TV commercial for khaki pants? Where the action stops and the camera rotates around the person?

Remember how afterwards, everyone wanted to use that effect, and you probably thought, "yeah, whatever, you haven't added anything new to that effect. It's just the effect for effect's sake"?

Well, someone's actually taken that effect beyond that level, finally.



Oh, and I should add: technically, this is an ad for some new ultrawidescreen TV, but the film itself is far more interesting.

Was Phil Spector the first celebrity convicted of murder? Or is the linked article playing tricks with definitions? He's excluding socialites and people who became famous *because* they killed or committed other crimes; that seems reasonable, so let's restrict it to people who became famous for actually doing something creative or, at the very least, publicity-seeking without being reprehensible. But the writer also mentions someone convicted of misdemeanor negligent homicide, which apparently doesn't count. I'm not sure why.

This question is going to nag me for a while.

I remembered who the other loser was. Leonardo da Vinci.

There was a da Vinci exhibit at OMSI last month. I went twice. Aside from replicas of various devices he'd either built or sketched in his notebooks, they had a couple videos about specific da Vinci works and plaques/displays describing moments in his life. One of the things I noticed was how often da Vinci just said "screw it" and gave up some project; I don't mean just the inventions, which he sometimes realized wouldn't work and wisely decided to cut his losses. I mean, for example, several times he was commissioned to do some project, then he got a better offer and gave up, or something went wrong and he gave up. The Last Supper, for example, was supposed to use a new technique he'd invented so that he could do the fresco on dry plaster. Except it didn't work and started to peel before he was finished, so he gave up. Or when he was commissioned to do a mural of the Battle of Anghiari and Michelangelo was commissioned to do The Battle of Cascina opposite it... but they both ran into troubles, so they said "screw it" and left town.

The guy did some amazing things, but he certainly has a sort of rootless quality, moving from city to city, only really finishing a couple projects.

... is people who became famous after being failures, in one way or another.

It kind of started with Amelia Earhart. For some reason, I became temporarily obsessed with finding out if there was a recording of her voice on the internet. While researching this, I was reading up on her history. She had a strong desire ever since childhood to do big things and didn't seem to have any desire to do the kinds of things women were expected to want to do in those days, but at first flying wasn't one of them. She seems to have tried several things, at first focusing on science, but she kept dropping out of various college programs and taking on various odd jobs. In a way, her early life seems kind of rootless. Around her mid-20s, she finally rides in a plane, then decides that's what she wants to do, so she meets up with an experienced woman pilot and asks her for lessons.

I was also reading about L. Frank Baum. He ran through a series of odd, disconnected jobs, like fancy chicken breeder, which he sometimes became mildly successful at. He was mostly interested in working for newspapers, either as an editor or journalist, and did that off and on; he was also obsessed with the theater, but apparently was ridiculously unsuccessful at that. He published a couple books and stories, hit it semi-big with a prose version of Mother Goose, and decided to concentrate on children's books, which is how he wound up writing The Wizard of Oz. Despite the success of some of the Oz books, he still managed to screw up quite a bit, going back a couple times to his theater obsession and later starting a film company that tanked.

It seems to me I've read another "famous loser" bio recently, although who it was escapes me. What fascinates me, I guess, was that these are people who have a clear talent or skill, but their life story turns out to be a lot rougher than you'd expect. People seem to prefer stories about either hard workers who make it big through perseverance or hugely talented artists who rise rapidly and then crash. They don't seem to talk as much about dabblers, drifters, or losers.

So, did I mention that I didn't think the Life On Mars remake was quite in the same league as the BBC version?

Well, now I'm convinced. That SUCKED.

You may recall my mentioning "Beowulf: Prince of the Geats". Here's their website, which includes a YouTube trailer, which I will also embed below. Apparently, the film is making its way around the country in small fundraisers, perhaps mostly at colleges. I have no idea where Troy University is, but I noticed on the Unlocked Wordhoard blog that they are having a showing there.

After seeing the clip, I think the acting and cinematography don't seem that bad. It's the CGI and special effects that made me laugh. Check it out!

I just found out about a movie made two years ago called "Beowulf: Prince of the Geats". It was made for pretty much no budget (all-volunteer cast and crew) as a cancer charity fundraiser.

( Guess what? )

Folks on RPGNet ran a "design an RPG in one week" challenge last week. Looking over the ingredients for inspiration, I decided I wanted to twist the superhero genre a bit. I came up with Resist the Atom!, set in an alternate history '50s where the world is being taken over by superhumans who think they can solve all the world's problems. Basically, I crossed supers with the dystopic future and (French) resistance genres.

One of the evil things I've done is made sure players can't play superhumans, at least not at first. Everyone's fairly ordinary. Many RPG gamers have a serious obsession with "being awesome" and I decided to put a stop to that. It wouldn't have fit in with the tone. Besides, if they don't like it, the "awesome" RPGers can play my other game where everyone gets to be a badass dragon, instead.

I'm pretty pleased with the setting concept and the rules, but making the PDF was much more fulfilling, because I couldn't get various things to work at first and, as a consequence, learned a little bit more about InDesign and Inkscape. The barbed wire model I whipped up in Bryce to create a page border turned out kind of sloppy, though.

I'm planning on re-editing the PDF and expanding/clarifying the rules a bit. When I'm done, I'll post a link.

It's Standard Operating Procedure to make fun of "Scooby Doo" and its odd approach to stories. Even when I was a kid, I knew there was something wrong with it, and I preferred other shows, but I still watched a lot of "Scooby Doo" in the early years and the "celebrity guest star" period (which I actually liked better, because I liked seeing Don Knotts, Tim Conway, and the Addams Family on the show more than I liked the show itself.)

However, after watching several episodes today with a four-year old and occasionally a toddler, I've come to understand more of what "Scooby Doo" does right, at least for certain age groups. For toddlers, it's easy: they like the dog. They don't care about anything on the cartoon at all, but when they see the dog, they go "WUH! WUH!" For four-year olds, the simple humor is easy to get and extremely funny (Shaggy and Scooby LOVE TO EAT! Ooops, Fred, Daphne and Velma accidentally scared them!) But also, there's lots of RUNNING. Running is exciting!

And really, it's educational. Our culture uses a lot o terms and analogies based on famous horror concepts -- ghosts, zombies, werewolves, vampires. "Scooby Doo" is a very non-threatening way to learn what those are, especially since it's NEVER a real monster. The four-year-old wasn't scared once; it was all just great fun.

Two things found on the internets, through various avenues:

First, Badass of the week Vassilis Paleokostas. I'm not going to spoil the surprise by summarizing why he's a badass.

Second, what about those other badasses that everyone is talking about lately, the Watchmen? Apparently, no one has mentioned the '80s Saturday morning cartoon about them:

Wow. Richard Nixon just did not like All in the Family.



(Spotted via Mark Evanier's blog. And mainly posted because I haven't posted anything in so long.)

Tonight I saw two TV shows: Lost, which I've only recently gotten into, and the American version of Life on Mars, which I hadn't seen until tonight.

I did not like the American version of Life on Mars.

I haven't completely placed why, other than it doesn't seem to have the strength of the British version; it's like they're going through the motions, but don't really mean it. Harvey Keitel does a pretty good acting job, but he's just not the same Gene Hunt, and he doesn't really feel like one of the two people who should be the focus of the show. And his relationship with Sam Tyler doesn't seem to have the same feel as in the original; the only tension between them seems to be artificial.

But maybe it's because the actor playing Tyler isn't doing a good job at all. Not as Tyler, but not as *anyone*, either. He lacks conviction, completely.

Now, as for Lost: episode was good, but vampyrecat guessed something about one of the "secrets", which I don't agree with, but I wanted to say something about. ( But I'll put it behind a cut, because it might be a spoiler. )

Last night's dream was about Mauritania.

The first part of the dream was actually an episode of Supernatural. I had been reading some things people wrote about that show and it infected my subconscious, so I dreamed that I was watching an episode on DVD about the Winchesters being trapped in Mauritania.

( This version of Mauritania was pretty sketchy. )

Inspired by the first part of my dream, I decided to explore the "real" Mauritania. Fortunately, in my dream, ( Mauritania was an island off the west coast of North America somewhere north of California. )

Of course, when I woke up, I checked up on Mauritania and found out my sleep-brain had made up pretty much all the details. I guess I won't be heading north to visit the island of Mauritania anytime soon.

Last night's dream was mainly about a movie. ( I think the movie's name was Cyclone Trooper... )

At first, the dream dealt with how all my friends were watching or trying to watch this movie, ( but they gave up because it was such a boring movie... )

As it turns out, the film is set in a parallel universe where "17th century witches in the American colonies were really a breakaway Christian sect that believed God granted powers like healing to believers, and after the Revolution, the witches and the U. S. fought a war... and the witches won." I put that in quotes, because although this information was revealed to me in the dream, ( the movie didn't seem to follow all those points... )

I didn't finish watching the movie in my dream, either. Instead, I get side-tracked when a friend asks about a pile of self-help/motivational books with me listed as the author. ( They were sort of like 'How to Win Friends and Influence People'... )

About eight years ago, a friend and I were trying to remember an obscure cartoon from 1939. He just sent me an email saying he found it on the YouTubes. Since it's holiday-related, I thought I'd share:

Recently I watched "Hogfather", which is a Discworld movie (I never knew such things existed.) I've only read a couple Discworld books, this one not included, but I was able to mostly enjoy the movie. I think it might be slightly inaccessible to Pratchett fans, though.

This post is not about that movie.

One minor scene involved a discussion of "The Little Match Girl", by Hans Christian Andersen. I had completely forgotten about this fairy-tale, and in fact hadn't thought about it in probably thirty years; nevertheless, the mere mention of the name brought back vivid recollections of reading a book with Rankin-Bass puppet-style photos illustrating the story. Since the story seems to be rarely mentioned in the popular media, those of you who are unfamiliar with it might want to read it before I express my opinion. It's short.

Are you ready, now?

( Discussion of Pan's Labyrinth, Edward Scissorhands, and Brazil behind the cut. )

I keep dreaming alternate histories.

Several weeks ago, I dreamed a professor was lecturing on Frederick Barbarosa and told an interesting story about his background: he was originally a bandit who, after an exciting jailbreak, pretended to be a knight and was able to eventually win the crown of the Holy Roman Empire. Of course, after I woke up, I looked him up and discovered he wasn't really a bandit pretending to be noble. I did correctly remember in my dream that he was 12th century, though... and in my dream, I told the professor that Frederick II was far more interesting, and it looks like he still is.

Last night, I dreamed someone asked me who wrote the song "Won't You Come Home, Bill Bailey?" I said, "Let's look it up," and we found out that no one knew who wrote it, but it was written in a day of political corruption, when workers were expected to vote for the candidate their boss told them to; Bill Bailey, in the song, quits his job so that he doesn't have to vote for his boss's preference.

Yeah, the truth turn out to be less interesting again.

I'm currently playing phone tag with a supervisor at Comcast. Haven't spoken to anyone yet, but the message had a clue that they really liked my resumé.

Even though I grew up in Wisconsin and Illinois, I haven't lived there for 32 years, and I haven't re-adjusted to cold weather here yet. Portland is not as cold as Wisconsin (my Dad told me a couple days ago that they have an inch of snow there already; it's too warm for snow here still.) And I never liked the heat in Sacramento. But I adjusted to it enough that 55 degrees feels really cold.

I'm trying to use my big coat less, though, and stick to pullovers and jackets for a while.

I've been playing Dungeon Keeper 2 lately (got to stop crashing this time!) So, of course, I have "Disco Inferno" in my head. Burn the mutha down!

... determine Audio Gee!

I suppose I should make my first official post in OR. So, naturally, I decided to open with something so obscure, absolutely no one will get it.

What I've done so far: mostly, slept, went to various chain stores, or hung out with little kids. Nothing very exciting. I did go to OMSI, which I suppose needs a special museum post all its own, but I count that as part of the hanging out with kids part. It has far fewer broken exhibits than the Boston Science Museum of Science.

Tonight, on our way back from a frou-frou store, we drove past tragerstreit's house, or rather through a vague area that may or may not be where she lives, based on people's dim recollections. Congrats on living some place! It may or may not be nice!

I plan on packing my computer this evening, so I will be offline at least a week, maybe more. It's possible I'll visit a library and use a computer there, but I'm going to be awfully busy this next week. Even if I do make a library trip, it will be to check for critical email.

See you folks on the Other Side.