I'm back!
So... I haven't posted in ten months!
I think I had some kind of mini break-down last year, what with burn-out from university and the stress of not knowing what the hell I'm going to do with the rest of my life, and I just stopped communicating with a lot of people. I haven't checked my email in all this time, I've barely posted on facebook, I totally fell out of contact with my Writer's Club. But now I'm slowly getting back on track. Here's what up with me:
I was promoted at my job nine months ago. I'm a monitor at a survey and market research call centre. It's not my dream job, but it's more than minimum wage (by about $2.25 *sighs*) and the people I work with are great.
I've decided to try for the career path I was contemplating before university: animation! I applied for Sheridan's computer animation program in February, and was rejected (not surprisingly, I put my portfolio together at the last minute), but I'm trying again in September, for computer and classical animation (Sheridan is one of the best schools in the world for animation, btw). To help me get back into the artistic groove, I'm taking drawing lessons at the art gallery.
I've still got writerly ambitions too. I actually wrote a comic book script for the Buffy series last year, before I actually looked at the Dark Horse website and found out that they won't even read unsolicited scripts for existing series. It's a copyright thing, apparently. That got me down because I loved the story (it was about entirely original characters) and it was honestly the best thing I have ever written. Anyways, I really liked writing it, and so I started developing an idea for a comic book series, and I'm working on an idea for a graphic novel.
This weekend John and I are celebrating the one year anniversary of our first date.
This time last year I would have been desperate for a date even if I wasn't rebounding, which was my main motivation for going out with him in the first place. I never would have guessed I would end up falling for him. I wasn't at all attracted to him when we started going out, and now I think he's so cute. We really took our relationship slow and became friends before we started getting romantic, which I guess made a big difference.
Anyways, he's really nice, and funny, and he's one of my twin's beau's best friends (which is a plus), and his family is quite well off, and he's trying to get into the movie industry. He graduated from the New York Film Academy.
He's taking me to the 360 Restaurant in the CN Tower on Sunday. *Hee*
In fandom news...
I went to the 1:00 am screening of The Dark Knight on Thursday night/Friday morning, and WOW!
First of all, I just have to say that opening night audiences are the best. It's so much more fun to see a movie when the theatre is packed with people who are all revved up and enthusiastic. I'd say the scenes that got the most reaction from the audience were the pencil scene ("It's gone!" *hee*) and when the batcycle does that flip thing off the wall after Batman flips the Joker's 16-wheeler (or however many wheels those things have).
I was not keen on Batman Begins at all, but Dark Knight enthralled me, and inspired me on a creative level. It transcended the super-hero genre.
As everyone is saying, Heath Ledger's performance is just brilliant. I didn't even think of him as being behind that makeup, he just was the Joker. And these guys got the Joker so much better than Tim Burton and Jack Nicholson did. Now, Jack Nicholson's Joker terrified me when I was a kid, but he really didn't stand the test of time. Ledger's Joker is such the archetypal Shadow, he's eternal. I loved the theme of chaos, and the line the Joker says to Batman, "You complete me." I loved that he didn't have a backstory, that he kept changing the story of how he got his scars. I loved how he wanted Batman to run him down. I loved his speech while he was hanging upside down from the building at the end.
Aaron Eckhart's performance as Harvey Dent was really good too. The chase when he was being transported in the armored SWAT truck was the most nerve-wracking scene in the movie for me. His story broke my heart. And when he shot the driver, my reaction was totally, "Holy f*ck, he's crazy!" It was kinda wicked totally scary at the same time. Gary Oldman as Jim Gordon was an equally sympathetic character. When he was freaking out on top of the building near the end ("We need to save Dent! I need to save Dent!") it really got to me.
Idealism and heroism as theme really appeal to me, and I think that's what made me love this movie so much. "We were trying to be decent men in an indecent world," Two-Face says near the end, and that's the story I love: people struggling with their ideals, the battle between darkness and the hero.
I really, truly love WALL-E. He captured my heart and then broke it so many times before finally putting it back together for good, and leaving it all warm. The character design people at Pixar are geniuses for making a rust-bucket that is so damn appealing. I read that they watched every Charlie Chaplin flm, and all the other silent comedy greats, when developing the movie, and it shows. It almost seemed weaker once they introduced dialogue. The first half of the movie was also especially touching. I was tearing up most of the time, everything was so poignant. For days afterwards I was humming that song from Hello Dolly! to myself. I can't wait to get this movie on DVD
I really am. The thing with the Hagen shafts was a bit confusing, but the plotting overall is really strong and is keeping me engrossed, even with a month between each issue. I love the telepathic fish, and I love Vamp!Gunn. He's so damn interesting. Gwen's short story made me like her more. Is Conner really dating her though? Anyways, with the main story resuming, it's just too bad they decided to replace the artist with someone who sucks. I could do better action scenes and panel layouts than this guy. The likenesses would suck, but at least they wouldn't be so static and boring. Also, the inking is ugly. I really hope they get the other guy back soon.
This is the best Buffy comic yet! It's action-packed! I'm actually starting to like Kennedy! The art is great! The characters may look more characture-ish than before, but at least they don't have that tendency to look absolutely fugly anymore. Oh! And there's the Spidermonkey!
Goddamn, Joss just has a taste for killing now, doesn't he?
My mom is a wee bit obsessed with Barack Obama right now. I'm not, but I do love the guy. He's awesome. The argument that he's all words and no substance has absolutely no effect on me. IMO, words ARE substance. Look at Bush: the worst public speaker probably of all American presidents, and the worst actual president. I love that there's a candidate who is actually intelligent enough to use rhetorical devices, and use them effectively, and even artfully. I like how thoughtful Obama is, and I like his reasoning, and the way he thinks. I just wish I could vote. And/or that we had a candidate that awesome in Canada. *crosses fingers that Justin Trudeau will step up to the plate*
In closing, anyone else see Nas on the Colbert Report tonight? "Makes a brother want to invest in PBS" may be one of the most awesome rap lyrics ever.
I think I had some kind of mini break-down last year, what with burn-out from university and the stress of not knowing what the hell I'm going to do with the rest of my life, and I just stopped communicating with a lot of people. I haven't checked my email in all this time, I've barely posted on facebook, I totally fell out of contact with my Writer's Club. But now I'm slowly getting back on track. Here's what up with me:
I was promoted at my job nine months ago. I'm a monitor at a survey and market research call centre. It's not my dream job, but it's more than minimum wage (by about $2.25 *sighs*) and the people I work with are great.
I've decided to try for the career path I was contemplating before university: animation! I applied for Sheridan's computer animation program in February, and was rejected (not surprisingly, I put my portfolio together at the last minute), but I'm trying again in September, for computer and classical animation (Sheridan is one of the best schools in the world for animation, btw). To help me get back into the artistic groove, I'm taking drawing lessons at the art gallery.
I've still got writerly ambitions too. I actually wrote a comic book script for the Buffy series last year, before I actually looked at the Dark Horse website and found out that they won't even read unsolicited scripts for existing series. It's a copyright thing, apparently. That got me down because I loved the story (it was about entirely original characters) and it was honestly the best thing I have ever written. Anyways, I really liked writing it, and so I started developing an idea for a comic book series, and I'm working on an idea for a graphic novel.
This weekend John and I are celebrating the one year anniversary of our first date.
This time last year I would have been desperate for a date even if I wasn't rebounding, which was my main motivation for going out with him in the first place. I never would have guessed I would end up falling for him. I wasn't at all attracted to him when we started going out, and now I think he's so cute. We really took our relationship slow and became friends before we started getting romantic, which I guess made a big difference.
Anyways, he's really nice, and funny, and he's one of my twin's beau's best friends (which is a plus), and his family is quite well off, and he's trying to get into the movie industry. He graduated from the New York Film Academy.
He's taking me to the 360 Restaurant in the CN Tower on Sunday. *Hee*
In fandom news...
I went to the 1:00 am screening of The Dark Knight on Thursday night/Friday morning, and WOW!
First of all, I just have to say that opening night audiences are the best. It's so much more fun to see a movie when the theatre is packed with people who are all revved up and enthusiastic. I'd say the scenes that got the most reaction from the audience were the pencil scene ("It's gone!" *hee*) and when the batcycle does that flip thing off the wall after Batman flips the Joker's 16-wheeler (or however many wheels those things have).
I was not keen on Batman Begins at all, but Dark Knight enthralled me, and inspired me on a creative level. It transcended the super-hero genre.
As everyone is saying, Heath Ledger's performance is just brilliant. I didn't even think of him as being behind that makeup, he just was the Joker. And these guys got the Joker so much better than Tim Burton and Jack Nicholson did. Now, Jack Nicholson's Joker terrified me when I was a kid, but he really didn't stand the test of time. Ledger's Joker is such the archetypal Shadow, he's eternal. I loved the theme of chaos, and the line the Joker says to Batman, "You complete me." I loved that he didn't have a backstory, that he kept changing the story of how he got his scars. I loved how he wanted Batman to run him down. I loved his speech while he was hanging upside down from the building at the end.
Aaron Eckhart's performance as Harvey Dent was really good too. The chase when he was being transported in the armored SWAT truck was the most nerve-wracking scene in the movie for me. His story broke my heart. And when he shot the driver, my reaction was totally, "Holy f*ck, he's crazy!" It was kinda wicked totally scary at the same time. Gary Oldman as Jim Gordon was an equally sympathetic character. When he was freaking out on top of the building near the end ("We need to save Dent! I need to save Dent!") it really got to me.
Idealism and heroism as theme really appeal to me, and I think that's what made me love this movie so much. "We were trying to be decent men in an indecent world," Two-Face says near the end, and that's the story I love: people struggling with their ideals, the battle between darkness and the hero.
I really, truly love WALL-E. He captured my heart and then broke it so many times before finally putting it back together for good, and leaving it all warm. The character design people at Pixar are geniuses for making a rust-bucket that is so damn appealing. I read that they watched every Charlie Chaplin flm, and all the other silent comedy greats, when developing the movie, and it shows. It almost seemed weaker once they introduced dialogue. The first half of the movie was also especially touching. I was tearing up most of the time, everything was so poignant. For days afterwards I was humming that song from Hello Dolly! to myself. I can't wait to get this movie on DVD
I really am. The thing with the Hagen shafts was a bit confusing, but the plotting overall is really strong and is keeping me engrossed, even with a month between each issue. I love the telepathic fish, and I love Vamp!Gunn. He's so damn interesting. Gwen's short story made me like her more. Is Conner really dating her though? Anyways, with the main story resuming, it's just too bad they decided to replace the artist with someone who sucks. I could do better action scenes and panel layouts than this guy. The likenesses would suck, but at least they wouldn't be so static and boring. Also, the inking is ugly. I really hope they get the other guy back soon.
This is the best Buffy comic yet! It's action-packed! I'm actually starting to like Kennedy! The art is great! The characters may look more characture-ish than before, but at least they don't have that tendency to look absolutely fugly anymore. Oh! And there's the Spidermonkey!
Goddamn, Joss just has a taste for killing now, doesn't he?
My mom is a wee bit obsessed with Barack Obama right now. I'm not, but I do love the guy. He's awesome. The argument that he's all words and no substance has absolutely no effect on me. IMO, words ARE substance. Look at Bush: the worst public speaker probably of all American presidents, and the worst actual president. I love that there's a candidate who is actually intelligent enough to use rhetorical devices, and use them effectively, and even artfully. I like how thoughtful Obama is, and I like his reasoning, and the way he thinks. I just wish I could vote. And/or that we had a candidate that awesome in Canada. *crosses fingers that Justin Trudeau will step up to the plate*
In closing, anyone else see Nas on the Colbert Report tonight? "Makes a brother want to invest in PBS" may be one of the most awesome rap lyrics ever.