I do all my own stunts
What is it with me and deadlines? Specifically, essay due dates. Somehow, I never seem to manage to get anything worthwhile written until just before it's due, whereupon I do the whole thing in one mad rush of energy. This is not the best way to work, but there have only been a few occasions when I've managed to write essays in a more normal manner. Of course, at the moment, it's not so much a mad rush of energy as a very slow, painful process of forcing sentences onto the page. Which means, yes, I'm procrastinating right now. Here are a few things that have come up while writing all these essays:
-I am not British, and neither is my spellcheck. I am American, and learned how to spell in American schools, and therefore I should not start automatically using British spelling when I'm tired. Although actually, I suppose I really learned how to spell by reading a lot--books like Alice in Wonderland, The Chronicles of Narnia, Lord of the Rings...not to mention my habit of hanging out on the BBC website...maybe this does make sense after all.
-One of the more bizarre issues I've had with essays is trying to decide what pronoun to use when talking about a re-animated corpse. (I ended up using "it" pre-re-animation, and "he" while it was animated.)
-I managed to resist putting Good Omens quotes in any of my essays. It wouldn't be very scholarly, no matter how well they would have fit. I even resisted adding the adjective "ineffable" while talking about God's plan.
-I think my CD player is dying. (Insert appropriate sounds of woe and mourning.) I've been blaming all the skipping on the CDs, but it's happened enough now that it's more likely to be the CD player. Which means I have to replace it. A basic CD player probably isn't too expensive, and this one has lasted eight years and survived being shipped interstate several times, but even so...woe.
However, the main reason I'm posting is to share this with you: Four sound effects that made TV history from, surprise, the BBC. This is an absolutely fantastic article about how they created cool sound effects, particularly sci-fi type effects, before everything got done on computers. I think most of you have heard my opinions on special effects, so I'll just say that these effects are the kind I like. These people recorded the noises they made with things like metal lampshades and broken guitars and messed around with the results until they got something bizarre and amazing. This is what is missing from computer-generated special effects: all that creativity and insight on how to make something brilliant out of old junk. I realize that not everyone derives as much glee from this sort of thing as I do, but seriously, you should check out the article. Also, it includes a wonderfully fun video of a couple guys wandering through the old sound studio and playing with Dalek voices.
I was going to restrict myself to just one link, but I couldn't resist this one: Colossal squid! Not just giant, but colossal! Warning: does include photos of squid dissection, if that sort of thing bothers you. What I like is the chart showing exactly how big this squid is.
-I am not British, and neither is my spellcheck. I am American, and learned how to spell in American schools, and therefore I should not start automatically using British spelling when I'm tired. Although actually, I suppose I really learned how to spell by reading a lot--books like Alice in Wonderland, The Chronicles of Narnia, Lord of the Rings...not to mention my habit of hanging out on the BBC website...maybe this does make sense after all.
-One of the more bizarre issues I've had with essays is trying to decide what pronoun to use when talking about a re-animated corpse. (I ended up using "it" pre-re-animation, and "he" while it was animated.)
-I managed to resist putting Good Omens quotes in any of my essays. It wouldn't be very scholarly, no matter how well they would have fit. I even resisted adding the adjective "ineffable" while talking about God's plan.
-I think my CD player is dying. (Insert appropriate sounds of woe and mourning.) I've been blaming all the skipping on the CDs, but it's happened enough now that it's more likely to be the CD player. Which means I have to replace it. A basic CD player probably isn't too expensive, and this one has lasted eight years and survived being shipped interstate several times, but even so...woe.
However, the main reason I'm posting is to share this with you: Four sound effects that made TV history from, surprise, the BBC. This is an absolutely fantastic article about how they created cool sound effects, particularly sci-fi type effects, before everything got done on computers. I think most of you have heard my opinions on special effects, so I'll just say that these effects are the kind I like. These people recorded the noises they made with things like metal lampshades and broken guitars and messed around with the results until they got something bizarre and amazing. This is what is missing from computer-generated special effects: all that creativity and insight on how to make something brilliant out of old junk. I realize that not everyone derives as much glee from this sort of thing as I do, but seriously, you should check out the article. Also, it includes a wonderfully fun video of a couple guys wandering through the old sound studio and playing with Dalek voices.
I was going to restrict myself to just one link, but I couldn't resist this one: Colossal squid! Not just giant, but colossal! Warning: does include photos of squid dissection, if that sort of thing bothers you. What I like is the chart showing exactly how big this squid is.