Inside of a Dog, It's Too Dark to Read

I meant to post here two days ago, and it slipped my mind - hah. Just a decade-mark, after all, although it was quieter than that suggests. My friend Debbie treated me to ParaNorman, which is both hand-animated (such a rarity nowadays) and very good. Trope inversions can be rather striking when done well. Howard Tayler's seen the movie, but hasn't had time for a review - I'm curious about his take.

My quasi-sister Maizie Jean sent a very nice card (her mother had earlier in the month as well); Debbie also supplied Skor bars with other movie snacks (ply me with toffee, will you? Hee.), a wool throw in hopes that we have winter this year, a copy of the Depp Sweeney Todd and the promise of disc versionS of The Avengers. I have to work on getting a Blu-Ray drive installed to see how their extras work.

Of course, there were also many random and delightful well-wishes in Plurk and e-mail, since I neglected to have those brave few still hanging on here an outlet.

Thank you, everyone. Look, made it another year!

Originally posted by badgermirlacca at Repost: Help Us Support Planned Parenthood

Originally posted by badgermirlacca at The shaming room

Preparation time: 35 minutes
Cooking time: 30 minutes
Ingredients:

80g (3/8c) sugar
80g (2/3c) unbleached flour
4 eggs
500ml (1 pint/2c) fresh whole milk, brought to a boil and allowed to cool
Zest of half a lemon, in strips
15 mL (1 Tbp) mild fruit liqueur
Salt
Unsalted butter for frying
A piece of stick cinnamon
Breadcrumbs

Preparation: In a bowl, beat 2 whole eggs and 2 yolks (reserve the whites) with 4 tablespoons of cold milk, the sugar and the flour.

In the meantime, put the remaining milk in a pot with the lemon zest, cinnamon and a pinch of salt, then bring to a boil. Remove it from the fire and slowly add it, in a thin stream, to the flour mixture, beating the mixture steadily with a small whisk to keep lumps from forming.

When you have finished adding the milk, pour everything back into the pot in which you boiled the milk, return the pot to the fire, and cook over a gentle flame, stirring constantly and gently, until the cream thickens. Though an occasional bubble is all right, you do not want it to boil hard or it will curdle. Continue cooking and stirring for 5 minutes, then remove the pot from the fire. Remove and discard the zest and the cinnamon, and stir in the liqueur.

Turn the cream out into an ample, fairly deep dish, spread to a thickness of about 2 cm (3/4 inch) and let it cool completely.

Cut the set-up cream into diamonds. Lightly beat the remaining egg whites, dredge the rhombs of cream in them, then in the breadcrumbs, and fry them in butter until golden. Drain them on absorbent paper and serve at once.

I'm borrowing a picture from one of my Second Life friends, because it is worth the thousand words:



May whatever you're celebrating be happy and meaningful to you, from Humanlight through 12th Night.

I missed the Autumnal Equinox, too. And Jason Carter's birthday, and a few other notables.

Anyway... happy birthday to me. I napped, with dogs.

I got to work on my movie backlog - no, not the copies of Big and Elizabeth from Debbie, but stuff on big screens -- I got to see Captain America, the First Avenger last night. The not-quite-as-short-form was that there were a couple of moments, things Steve Rogers said, that really resonated for me. No, I did not recognise the Welsh scenes, mostly because every-bloody-thing in that movie was wearing so much (well done!) digital makeup, they could have used my college hostel room and I wouldn't have been able to tell. Hardly a detraction or a distraction, though. I'm hoping the costume designer gets nominated, you rarely see a superhero uniform so flawlessly realised as the Captain's 'showgirl' version uniform - and then they got practical. Very clever.

(Everything is better with Tommy Lee Jones driving.)

Nota bene, for actor-watchers: The uncanny Howard Stark (Dominic Cooper) is also starring in a movie called The Devil's Double, which is probably about as far away from being Howard Stark as the actor could get. Impressive range.

Since their budget's been cut and our taxes hardly go where we want them to... we'll have to fund things ourselves.

Help NASA build an immersive space exploration MMO!

Please, anything will help. Anything.

Happy Yule to the Antipodeans, despite the lack of icon.

I saw an interesting reply to why, despite this being the astronomical centre of summer (Midsummer's Day, etc.), it's regarded as the beginning of summer. It's because of the oceans, really; they hold over the temperature for about six weeks, so the actual heat of summer peaks around Lammas (variable according to location, of course).

(There's a note from NASA included in this article about Google's version of a solstice celebration; National Geographic's is here.)

I thought that as a commemoration of summer, I'd mention one of the great modern traditions - blockbuster action movies. Yes, I have actually seen movies, in a cinema and everything, lately!

First, Debbie treated me to X-Men: First Class which had very strong character writing, beautiful periodicity and an amazing cast. It's also like a 2-hour+ resumé for Michael Fassbender, and might do for him what the first X-Movie did for Hugh Jackman off Broadway - now that the teeming masses have seen him, they'll likely want more. Kevin Bacon makes for a magnificent psychopathic villain (and his German and Russian sounded quite polished to my ear). I was amused to see Georgia standing in for Miami, but at least they had mangroves nearby. For all that it plays fast and loose with Mystique's background, and adds a canon-recent mutation to the White Queen all the way back in '62, the story and relationships are the stars here, not the SFX and the superpowers.

Speaking of the SFX, there's some surprising in-camera flying going on - it's usually all composite and digital now - and a familiar bit of BAMF. I looked it up and yes, that's his father. Howard Tayler has it currently at his personal #3 position. I like Howard's standards.

I went to see Thor alone as Debbie had already seen it. I really hope will be nominated for an Academy Award for Art Direction and/or Costuming. It was Jack Kirby as reinterpreted through Streamline Moderne all in a golden palette. It managed to be grand without ever being gaudy. The Kirby elements were not as prominent as I might have hoped, but Loki's horned helmet was Perfectly Kirby.

For all that I'm not a Marvelite, I realise that they changed some basic relationships and such for the sake of the story - never mind the whole 'Donald Blake' part - but especially for stories which will extend past the one movie, there's some cosmic aspects that won't play easily when you've got to be quick on your symbolic feet. Debbie agreed with me that the writers did a fairly brilliant re-synthesis of mythology and science, making one fit with the other like two sides of a well-designed coin.

It's not a generally funny movie, but does have a few laugh-out-loud moments (wait for the SHIELD MiBs on the roof), a very nice character arc where the hero actually learns quickly and does not get passed the Idiot Ball, and an entirely complex villain who isn't really a bad guy for the most part.

This is Howard's #9, partly because he had sub-optimal viewing conditions. I'm avoiding 3D myself, since I can; I hate wearing glasses over glasses, and it makes things too dark for too little return.

Most recently, I got to see Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides which is Howard's #1 movie so far. (See, you don't have to read just my opinion here.) Yes, it's loosely based on Tim Power's novel of the same (sub)title but don't try to compare the two. It was more of a structural borrowing than anything like an adaptation, from what I've read.

I had fun - familiar characters, less emphasis on the whole romance subplot (while it remains a gracenote), far subtler SFX than the massive spectacle of At the World's End. Mind you, the SFX there were appropriate for the story, just as the less obvious work here is appropriate for this one. The mermaids are beautiful without being fanboy bait, and have a nicely creepy touch added; good revamp. Angelica is brave and bold, and has her own sidekick. Could we be lucky enough for a female pirate movie? And... c'mon, Ian McShane. He needs no modifiers.

I didn't get to see Green Lantern yet. Ryan Reynolds really did well at ComiCon with the oath, and my friends (and Howard) have said generally good things about it. I'm jazzed over Tomar Re being RENDERED ABSOLUTELY CORRECTLY SQUEEE, as well as other faces like Kilowog showing up completely recognisably. Hopefully Saturday!

(Oh, incidentally - look at this. It has nothing to do with either the solstice or movies. It's just really pretty.)

Have a blessed holy-day, however you might celebrate it.