The Fortnight in Brief Review
So it's Australia Day again, which must mean it's little Ethen's birthday--happy birthday little dude!
Of course, it nearly wasn't as good a day to celebrate over here, because my sister and I had just gone out to walk the dog this afternoon, when I discovered that my phone had fallen out of my pocket somewhere along the way. :-S Fortunately for me, it had fallen out in the driveway and the folks had rescued it, otherwise it would have been quite a disastrous start to the Straddie intensive tomorrow. No phone would have meant no way to contact Rob, losing my entire contact list, and seriously impeding my ability to do publicity for Metamorphoses... Plus, I'm still paying it off. Thank goodness I didn't lose it!!!
Meanwhile, for those not already in the know, I'm off for a training intensive week with QSE to North Stradbroke Island on Sunday, and, well--I'm hoping it's less scary than it sounds. lol. *fingers crossed* I'm still chaotically trying to organise packing for it, including finally getting around to cleaning the shoes I wore in The Beggar's Opera. Y'know, just in case I need a dodgy pair of shoes I can get dirty (it's not like it'll be the most glamourous week away, anyhow). My sister found a cleaning spray, which has done wonders for all the paint that had been caked on for the production; the shoes are currently soaking in an evil concoction just in case it can remove the remaining traces of crap that has been caked on for the past year or so. I'm wondering what I need to prepare and/or bring besides having learnt a new verse monologue for the week; perhaps I should invest in a small fan or something? Maybe a crash course in cooking, for the two occasions I'm rostered on (albeit as helper). lol. But yeah--I'll be away until Saturday week, so my intermittent LJing has been preparing you all for that eventuality (if you remember me saying so last year). :-P
Oh! And in comic news, this is too good to sit on (and yet, I managed to neglect LJing for almost a week since I got the issue...). [SPOILER WARNING, BUT IT'S PRETTY AWESOME] Joss Whedon has finally made good on his promise to make Cyclops "the best he's ever been" in Astonishing X-Men! Cyke has been all sorts of out of character in the latter part of Whedon's run, getting the short end of the stick when Emma's psychoanalytic session left him comatose and unable to access his powers. He was starting to look fairly useless (after a brief period of paradoxically deranged sanity involving shooting Cassandra Nova's fake Hellfire Club, spawned by Emma's powers, with a gun), and slightly (read: very) dead following a space dogfight against the Breakworlder brute ships. But Powerlord Kruun brings Cyke back to interrogate him about a Breakworld prophecy involving Colossus allegedly destroying their world, and the mysterious "Leviathan", the X-Men's secret ace-in-the-hole. Surprise--there's no Leviathan, and the whole mad scheme that almost got Cyke killed was actually a brilliant plan designed to feed the bad guys disinformation while Cyke telepathically (through Emma) relayed his REAL plan (cleverly displayed with telepathic speech bubbles overlayed in a scene from the previous issue). It was pretty ballsy, getting killed, brought back, and tortured to buy the X-Men time to get into position: Emma and Danger ready to storm Kruun's stronghold, Wolverine and Armor forcefully abducted to have troops on the inside, and Colossus and Shadowcat looking for Aghane, an exiled pacifist in a society based on war. And just as Kruun is flipping his lid and questioning the lies he's been fed, Cyke grins an evil little smile, and in complete control, unleashes THE MOTHER OF ALL OPTIC BLASTS across 2 double-page spreads that KOs Kruun, blowsthrough several floors, frags Wolvie's shackles, and liquefies a hole in the roof to signal for a counterattack by the X-Men ("To me, my X-Men!"). Hot. DAMN. ! ^_^
Back on the QSE front, I've been asked to do publicity for Metamorphoses solo, which is kind of intimidating. I've replied to Jo's offer to find someone to give me a hand, but I'm bracing to do the job on my own if she can't find me a publicity monkey. lol. I SHOULD be okay regardless, but it'd be nice to have someone to share the workload; regardless, having Andrea as a mentor should go a long way.
In other news, Joanne emailed about honours studies, and made an offer to document something about one of the old cinemas in the city. Technically it's NOT drama-related (and is "historiography", apparently), but somehow seems to be something I could do. I actually hadn't given it any further thought, but it's something I should decide upon ASAP. *deliberating*
Elswhere: still need to find a job and tidy my room, slightly back on normal sleep/wake hours, absolutely loving the packs of bandung (a Malaysian rose syrup and milk drink I used to drink like crazy in Singapore) we found at a Sunnybank mini-mart one day, and I discovered that my favourite cartoon as a kid, The Mysterious Cities of Gold, will finally be getting a remastered DVD relase this year after its licencing issues were cleared up; AND a movie in 2009! :-) And that'll do for now, I think. I'll report back again after the Straddie week is over; hope you're all well in the meantime!
Of course, it nearly wasn't as good a day to celebrate over here, because my sister and I had just gone out to walk the dog this afternoon, when I discovered that my phone had fallen out of my pocket somewhere along the way. :-S Fortunately for me, it had fallen out in the driveway and the folks had rescued it, otherwise it would have been quite a disastrous start to the Straddie intensive tomorrow. No phone would have meant no way to contact Rob, losing my entire contact list, and seriously impeding my ability to do publicity for Metamorphoses... Plus, I'm still paying it off. Thank goodness I didn't lose it!!!
Meanwhile, for those not already in the know, I'm off for a training intensive week with QSE to North Stradbroke Island on Sunday, and, well--I'm hoping it's less scary than it sounds. lol. *fingers crossed* I'm still chaotically trying to organise packing for it, including finally getting around to cleaning the shoes I wore in The Beggar's Opera. Y'know, just in case I need a dodgy pair of shoes I can get dirty (it's not like it'll be the most glamourous week away, anyhow). My sister found a cleaning spray, which has done wonders for all the paint that had been caked on for the production; the shoes are currently soaking in an evil concoction just in case it can remove the remaining traces of crap that has been caked on for the past year or so. I'm wondering what I need to prepare and/or bring besides having learnt a new verse monologue for the week; perhaps I should invest in a small fan or something? Maybe a crash course in cooking, for the two occasions I'm rostered on (albeit as helper). lol. But yeah--I'll be away until Saturday week, so my intermittent LJing has been preparing you all for that eventuality (if you remember me saying so last year). :-P
Oh! And in comic news, this is too good to sit on (and yet, I managed to neglect LJing for almost a week since I got the issue...). [SPOILER WARNING, BUT IT'S PRETTY AWESOME] Joss Whedon has finally made good on his promise to make Cyclops "the best he's ever been" in Astonishing X-Men! Cyke has been all sorts of out of character in the latter part of Whedon's run, getting the short end of the stick when Emma's psychoanalytic session left him comatose and unable to access his powers. He was starting to look fairly useless (after a brief period of paradoxically deranged sanity involving shooting Cassandra Nova's fake Hellfire Club, spawned by Emma's powers, with a gun), and slightly (read: very) dead following a space dogfight against the Breakworlder brute ships. But Powerlord Kruun brings Cyke back to interrogate him about a Breakworld prophecy involving Colossus allegedly destroying their world, and the mysterious "Leviathan", the X-Men's secret ace-in-the-hole. Surprise--there's no Leviathan, and the whole mad scheme that almost got Cyke killed was actually a brilliant plan designed to feed the bad guys disinformation while Cyke telepathically (through Emma) relayed his REAL plan (cleverly displayed with telepathic speech bubbles overlayed in a scene from the previous issue). It was pretty ballsy, getting killed, brought back, and tortured to buy the X-Men time to get into position: Emma and Danger ready to storm Kruun's stronghold, Wolverine and Armor forcefully abducted to have troops on the inside, and Colossus and Shadowcat looking for Aghane, an exiled pacifist in a society based on war. And just as Kruun is flipping his lid and questioning the lies he's been fed, Cyke grins an evil little smile, and in complete control, unleashes THE MOTHER OF ALL OPTIC BLASTS across 2 double-page spreads that KOs Kruun, blowsthrough several floors, frags Wolvie's shackles, and liquefies a hole in the roof to signal for a counterattack by the X-Men ("To me, my X-Men!"). Hot. DAMN. ! ^_^
Back on the QSE front, I've been asked to do publicity for Metamorphoses solo, which is kind of intimidating. I've replied to Jo's offer to find someone to give me a hand, but I'm bracing to do the job on my own if she can't find me a publicity monkey. lol. I SHOULD be okay regardless, but it'd be nice to have someone to share the workload; regardless, having Andrea as a mentor should go a long way.
In other news, Joanne emailed about honours studies, and made an offer to document something about one of the old cinemas in the city. Technically it's NOT drama-related (and is "historiography", apparently), but somehow seems to be something I could do. I actually hadn't given it any further thought, but it's something I should decide upon ASAP. *deliberating*
Elswhere: still need to find a job and tidy my room, slightly back on normal sleep/wake hours, absolutely loving the packs of bandung (a Malaysian rose syrup and milk drink I used to drink like crazy in Singapore) we found at a Sunnybank mini-mart one day, and I discovered that my favourite cartoon as a kid, The Mysterious Cities of Gold, will finally be getting a remastered DVD relase this year after its licencing issues were cleared up; AND a movie in 2009! :-) And that'll do for now, I think. I'll report back again after the Straddie week is over; hope you're all well in the meantime!