Cleolinda everywhere

Guess who finally located a Very Busy Superhero picture? I DID, I DID! I don't think it's a spoiler, so: the icon people requested:


I think it's the Gary Oldman bitchface that makes the animated version.

Over at Diane Duane's (dduane): Chapter Seven of "The Big Meow" is now posted for subscribers.

( Moar! Two-Face Cat, Watchmen pinup art, X-Files spoilers )

If you have not seen the lolarity that is next week's Entertainment Weekly Twilight cover (plus a sparkleized version by orangeokapi13. Plus another version over at FW. Plus Maybelline icons, and I'm kind of tempted to snag one) from yesterday, I suggest you hie yourself there with a quickness. Truly, it is magnificent, and the best laugh you will have all week. (And just think: I'm getting this in the mail.)

ETA: THIS JUST IN: THERE ARE PICTURES INSIDE THE MAGAZINE AS WELL. OUTSTANDING.

( Linkspam )

All right, a bit of catch-up on the linkspam: ( Read more... )

I still can't get over The Happening (here in Fifteen Minutes). It's the kind of movie that's soooo bad (HOW BAD WAS IT?) that you desperately want to make other people watch it so they can commiserate with you. Because they are not going to believe you if you just tell them how bad it was. I did make up a few things in the parody... but not enough. ( Spoilers )

Meanwhile: The Legendary Stan Winston Has Died after battling cancer for seven years. In Memoriam: Stan Winston:

Aliens earned Stan Winston his first Oscar. But the visual effects genius, who succumbed to multiple myeloma yesterday at the age of 62, hardly stopped at outer-space shenanigans. Though Winston majored in painting and sculpture in college, and went to Hollywood with dreams of making it as a actor, he found more work on the other side of the lens. In the early '80s, he set up his own studio and worked with James Cameron on the surprise box-office hit The Terminator (1984). The success of that film lead to a fruitful partnership between the two men — notably, Aliens and Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) — and he and Cameron went on to found the renowned F/X shop Digital Domain.

Over the course of his career, Winston earned four Oscars (including two for the makeup and visual effects in T2 and another for the groundbreaking dinosaurs of 1993's Jurassic Park) and multiple nominations — impressive in any category. His other work includes (but is hardly limited to) Predator (1987), Edward Scissorhands (1990), Batman Returns (1992), Interview with the Vampire (1994), Pearl Harbor (2001), Iron Man (2008), and several other films currently in production.

( More linkspam )

Not the best day I've ever had; not the worst, either. I seem to be cycling through moodswings at an astonishing rate--well, "cycling" implies a set pattern, and I don't know that there is one. And they're not terribly strong swings, either. All I know is, I spent a lot of the day feeling very sad, and then all of a sudden I'd be smiling to myself about something. Other than the sadness, which is really frickin' annoying in terms of trying to get anything done, the moods themselves are fairly mild; I don't feel manic or anything. I have a med check next week, though, and I'll be mentioning them then.

Also, it thundered all day long, despite the sun, and now it's finally pouring down.

Also-also, our dryer has died. Because we just hadn't added to our debt in a while.

Oh, and something that actually kind of made me laugh: the seriousness of the tomato-salmonella epidemic finally hit home when Qdoba refused to give me any pico de gallo.

( Linkspam )

Kind of blech with the allergies today--mostly did fact-checking with the Cloverfield DVD (see linkspam below for more), and man, do I wish my sister could remember her Netflix password so I could get the '79 Dracula DVD for a day or two, and that's assuming it exists--so I'm just gonna move right on through:

Prince's desert reign at Coachella; Prince plays Coachella, covers Radiohead.

Pointless scandal du jour: A Topless Photo Threatens a Major Disney Franchise (Full picture); Growing pains for the Miley Cyrus phenom; More Miley from Vanity Fair; Miley Cyrus sorry about Vanity Fair pics; Miley Cyrus Is Not The Innocent Victim That Disney Makes Her Out To Be. Not that it matters, but it seems to me like she was probably fine with the pictures until suddenly everyone and Disney's grandmother flipped out; once Cyrus realized she wasn't going to be lauded for being brave and artistic, she turned on Leibowitz. It may actually have been the bedsheet that pushed the pictures over the edge, or rather, the implied context of a bedsheet--if it had been a beach towel, same pose, there might have actually been less fuss.

From punzerel: "Would you mind posting a link to www.healemru.com? They're trying to spread the word about bone marrow donations and how difficult it can be for people to find a match - especially people in some minority groups. "You can help by registering for your country's bone marrow registry and spreading the word about the need to diversify its database. Registering can help save not only Emru's life, but that of one of the many other patients waiting for a bone marrow transplant." If people have questions they can email info at healemru dot com (which goes to Emru and his sister - she can also be reached throuugh her LJ, kino_kid)."

From entropy_and_me: "Apparently a group of bloggers and artists have had their artwork and interviews stolen by a Hong Kong publisher, and illegally bound into a book. The creators of the material are having a hard time getting ahold of any responsible parties, and are asking for the article to be spread, to prevent people from buying the book."

( moar linkspam )

Mmm, hail coming in. This should be fun. So, just quickly, the linkspam I have on hand, before my internet goes out: ( Read more... )

Did a lot of Black Ribbon research this weekend, and got really excited about a couple of things I found, and then... the taxes. Woe. That kind of harshed my buzz.

(Do you ever have something really dumb and inconsequential happen, but when it comes on top of something else epically crappy, it's like it's just the cherry on top? Yeah. As I've mentioned before, I'm addicted to Webkinz. Shut up. You play World of Warcraft, I play with animated plushies. Anyhoo, the pink poodle's the pet of the month. I got one. And then it turned out that I'd gotten the little pink poodle and so it didn't count, and therefore I didn't get the special in-game POTM items. Oh, and we've got to come up with $12,000 over the next six months. * Yeah. Completely inconsequential cherry on top.)

* Note: As mentioned in the previous entry, only $6200 of that is taxes. The rest comes from various household things we're paying off.

However, we are now going to drown our sorrows in homemade brownies. Also, I had gotten the 2-disc Sweeney Todd before I realized that we're screwed financially, so I'm clinging to that at the moment.

( Massive linkspam )

Okay, I have a completely random, wank thought-provoking question to ask, in terms of random feedback. You know, the kind of feedback that you get after something's finished, not when you're actually still in revision mode. Actually, let me back up and ask a preliminary question: those of y'all who write, am I totally crazy for thinking there's a point when criticism just isn't helpful anymore? Constructive criticism is fantastic, and even if it hurts your feelings you don't like it or it doesn't seem helpful, you can still learn from it, or at least file it away under Complaints Registered. But to me, there's a point where the thing is done, and... it's just done. There's no going back. When I post a "Fifteen Minutes," barring some kind of major mistake or accidental omission, I generally consider it done. When someone publishes a book, it's done. All the criticism in the world isn't going to allow you to change it. You may mentally revise it for years and wish you could make changes, but basically? Nothing you can do about it. So to me, there's pre-release constructive criticism, and there's post-release literary (or "literary," if the parody thing in question... isn't) criticism. It's observational criticism, rather than constructive. I mean, yes, I can still learn for the future from it, but "This sucks," as vague as it is, might actually indicate that I need to change something before I release a work into the wild; after I release it, "This sucks" can't really help me.

So: 1) Am I crazy for thinking of it this way? 2) Am I being really unreasonable for thinking that leaving, in essence, "This sucks" as feedback is kind of unnecessary when a piece is finished and done? I guess what I'm thinking is... if you don't like something, go tell someone else you didn't like it, but don't tell me? Are you so dissatisfied with your (free, in this case) entertainment that you have to inform me? You couldn't just walk on by? Were you afraid that I was feeling too good about myself, or something? Or is it important to let people register their dissatisfaction, rather than just going, "Well, it's awful quiet out here, that must mean something"?

(Disclaimer: I actually thought that parts of the Cloverfield piece were weak, but kept moving rather than obsess about it, because there were parts that I felt really did work. I don't need rainbow pony hugs or anything. I am really truly trying to figure out if I have a spoiled, irrational mindset about criticism here. I'm actually kind of expecting y'all to tell me that I do, because it might help me suck it up.)

Linkspam!

From Smadronia, another way to help someone that doesn't involve money: "A girl in Texas needs blood and platelet transfusions for the next 9 months, and her insurance won't cover all of it. If you donate blood, you can specify she gets credited for it, which will allow her to get more transfusions. It's something like every 2 pints donated in her name will get her a pint of blood." More info here.

From agentsculder: "Attention Rebellious Jezebels!" Awesome.

( Read more... )