Episode 100: “Frank Langella was sitting right next to me”

This is my 100th Video Of The Day! And for that special number two special videos. 

I love watching the Oscar ceremony, but to be honest most of the time it can be quite boring. And seeing as it’s here from 1am to 5am, I almost always tend to fall asleep somewhere during it. This year though it was so fun and interesting, I stayed awake the entire time.

While the whole evening was full of great moments, my two favourite bits were when Hugh Jackman was performing. Here’s the opening sequence:

I love love love the part where Anne Hathaway joins in! And that end part… wow.

Then there was a second musical number where Hugh performed together with Beyonce, Vanessa Hudgens, Zac Efron, Amanda Seyfried, and Dominic Cooper.

While I’m not a fan of High School Musical and Mamma Mia!, I have to admit those actors do sing great. I hope there will be more movie musicals, but I don’t get the whole “let’s adapt a stage musical”. Why not create something new?

[Watch the videos on MissGeeky]

Interesting links for February 17th through February 23rd:

• Larissa Meek » Shapeways is a Breakthrough for 3D Printing and DIY Addicts. – Ooh, cool idea! If you have any mad 3D modeling skills, you can now get your virtual 3D models as actual real life items.
• Culture Warrior: The Limits of Performance – Great post about what makes a movie performance. Would Mickey Rourke have been nominated for an Oscar for his role as a washed up wrestler who makes a comeback if he wasn't a washed up actor making a comeback? Would Heath Ledger have been nominated for The Dark Knight if he hadn't died? And what makes the performance of Brad Pitt as Benjamin Button?
• The 2009 Hollywood Portfolio – Great photoshoot from Annie Leibowitz with actor and director couplings from the past year.
• Because He Could: Zelda II: Expiditio Linci – Offworld – They should translate more games into Latin!
• Barbie’s Runway: Big Hair & Lots Of Pink – Apparently the first runway show inspired by Barbie (somehow I find that hard to believe. Barbie has been around for ages and this is the first Barbie themed show? Impossible).

Week 3: The screen’s master of suspense moves his camera into the icy blackness of the unexplained!

Writing these 52 Movies blog posts has proven to be quite a challenge to me. I think the problem lies in how I approach them. In my normal movie reviews I tend to avoid spoilers at all costs, mainly trying to give an overview of what type of movie it is, so that readers can determine whether or not it’s a movie they’d enjoy. Should I stick with this format for 52 Movies? Or should I be more spoilery and start a discussion of what I liked/disliked of the movie? 

This week’s movie was Psycho, directed by the legendary Alfred Hitchcock. I’ve seen some of Hitchcock’s movies while growing up, but somehow I never got really into them. I’ve been meaning to watch more of them now and the 52 Movies challenge finally forces me into finding and watching them.

The first thing that came to mind after watching Psycho was regret that I hadn’t seen this when I was younger. For starters, you can easily see that Psycho was the inspiration for so many movies, I just wish I had seen it before all of those. Besides that, I knew how it ended beforehand and I wonder if I would have been able to predict it myself (I think I would have).

I loved watching this movie from a film making perspective. You kind of take for granted how some shots are taken, cause nowadays so much more is possible than in the time of Hitchcock. Even when you disregard all CGI, blue-screen and visual effects, the technology and maneuverability of cameras are way more advanced nowadays, making some of Hitchcock’s shots all the more remarkable. Take for example the below screenshot from the famous shower scene:

For this shot to work and for the camera to survive, the water has to spray past/around the camera. If you’d recreate this with a tiny handheld camera this would already be pretty tricky to do, but can you imagine how this was done with the lumpy, big cameras of that era? Answer: the shower head was specially created for Pyscho and actually has a diameter of 1.8 meters (six foot). Pretty nifty, right? And you can find more of those type of creative cinematography in this movie, once you realise what the limitations of those times were.

The small quibble I had with this movie is it’s pace. It’s a tad slow for my generation (and younger) who are used to much faster plot developments. I’m not saying it should move faster, but it’s pretty difficult to get into if you’re used to quicker fare than this. That being said though, don’t let that fact put you off. Sit down and watch this movie, cause in the end it will be worth it.

Conclusion? Everybody must see Psycho at least once in their lives and parents should force their kids to watch this before their teen years (it’s way less bloody/creepy/gory than anything that passes for horror nowadays, plus it’s part of required movie history and education). 

Next week: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

My 5th submission to 52 Themes. I got creative this week, and made a lot of photos of some not that normal objects. This is an upside-down photo of a decorative fake plant that was in our new apartment.

I’ve been using Moo business cards for ages now, I sometimes forget not everyone knows what a Moo card is. I twittered about it some weeks ago only to realize a lot of people didn’t know who or what Moo is. So to enlighten you non-enlightened people, I’ll tell you all about them:

Simply put, Moo is a printing company. They’ve got a great range of different products, including business cards, greeting cards and stickers. What Moo does so great (and different from most other printing companies) is that they’re integrated with all these online services you already know, like Flickr, Facebook and LiveJournal. So you can order their products with your own photos or other online content on them. What’s even better is that you’re not stuck to only one image; if you want, you can have a different image on every single item. Cool, right? 

I’ll try to explain a bit about each of their products. I haven’t tried all of them myself yet, but have come across most of them in real life. 

MiniCards

The most common Moo product (most people call them MooCards), they can be used as business cards (that aren’t too businessy) or as gift tags or anything else you can come up with. For the front you can use up to 100 different photos or text designs, imported from other online services (like Flickr) or you can upload them directly. For the back you’ve got six lines, which are more than enough for your basic details (name, what you do, email, website). One pack contains 100 cards and it comes in a nice sturdy recyclable plastic box. 

I love these cards. Practically everyone I know has these for business cards. They’re not that expensive ($19.99/€13.79/£9.99) and the quality which you get in return is just amazing. The texture of MooCards is so smooth and nice, they’re really incomparable to other business cards. 

Business Cards

Since a couple of moths ago, Moo has also started offering normal sized business cards. As with the MiniCards, for the front you can import up to 50 designs from other services or upload the photos directly. The back is a bit more elaborate. For starters, you can upload an image or logo and determine the placement of that image. There are a couple of different templates to choose from, but all of them look pretty neat. Besides that you can also choose from more colors and fonts for the text on the back and you can reverse the text-background color (for instance, instead of orange text on white, you can have white text on an orange background). 

I “ordered” a pack of these with a free LinkedIn offer and they look pretty great. I like that the back is much more customizable than with the MiniCards and that you don’t have to crop the photos you put on them (one of the reasons why I use wallpapers on my minis instead of photos). As business cards though? I prefer the MiniCards, because they’re so… mini. While these Business Cards look great, they are larger and the box is still a pain to drag around. Plus at $21.99 (€15.09/£10.99) they’re more expensive and the pack only contains 50 cards (as opposed to 100 for the Min

Stickers

These are just so cute! Moo produces sticker booklets with up to 90 different photos or designs (15 sheets of 6 stickers). Each sticker-sheet has a perforated edge so that you can easily tear it out and share it with someone else. If you’ve every held one of these in your hands before you’ll notice how well they are designed. You can get them from $9.99 (€6.89/£4.99).

Cards (Post Cards, Greeting Cards, Note Cards) 

Now these I’ve never tried out myself; I’m not the card sending type anymore. Just like the previous products, Moo allows you to print whatever you want on them. The difference between them are the shapes and type of card.

For starters, the Post Cards are, well, simple postcards. You can make a set of 20 (for $19.99/€13.79/£9.99) or a set of 60 (for $49.99/€34.24/£24.99) and you can personalise the front and back with different designs.

Then, the Greeting Cards are standard sized cards. A pack of 10 with 10 different (or the same) images on them is $24.99 (€17.49/£12.99). You can add a message to the inside of the cards and add a photo or logo on the back.

With the third option of Note Cards, you get square cards with a special flap on the side to make them stand upright. These come in packs of 16 cards (again if you want with 16 different images on them) and they cost $21.99 (€15.09/£10.99).

Besides the three that I mentioned above, Moo also offers Christmas and Holiday Cards during the Christmas season. These are the same size as the standard Greeting Cards, but come in larger packs (of 25 for $41.98/€28.34/£20.99) and with different Christmas designs available.

Overview

Here’s a quick overview of all the different type of products Moo offers and how much they each cost:

MiniCards (100 cards) from $19.99/€13.79/£9.99
Business Cards (50 cards) from $21.99/€15.09/£10.99
Stickers (90 stickers) from $9.99/€6.89/£4.99
Post Cards (20 cards) from $19.99/€13.79/£9.99
Greeting Cards (10 cards) from $24.99/€17.49/£12.99
Note Cards (16 cards) from $21.99/€15.09/£10.99

If you’re interested in ordering any of these products (and have never ordered anything with them before), I’ve got two discount vouchers to give away. Just email me at melinda@missgeeky.com and the winners will be notified on February the 28th.

Episode 99: “Hello Earth. I’m Alec Baldwin. TV Star.”

Funny ad from Hulu (the online video streaming website from NBC). It’s just too bad it doesn’t work outside of the US.

New York Became My Canvas:

I wanted to make my mark on America before I left. And I wanted the world to see it.

Day 1

In a few weeks time I leave New York.
I’ve had some good times here. Met some cool people. And some real jerks.
I’ve seen a new President take office.
I’ve seen the Jets blow it again.
I’ve seen more movies than I can remember.
And I don’t believe I’ve cooked myself a meal more than once.
America has made its mark on me and I really want to make my mark on America.

Day 2

As I looked out of my window on the 57th floor of the Empire State building inspiration struck me. I know what I must do.

Day 3

I’ve spoken to some friends back home and a lot of them want to help me pull this off.

Day 4

We’re on. This is going to happen. Greg is flying in tomorrow with the tech gear.

Day 5

It’s all going to be in the planning now. It’s all very well me saying, “I¹m going to do this” but now I’ve got to put the hours in. I’ve got to get the maps and overhead shots sorted out by the time Greg gets here. Shouldn’t be wasting time typing.

Greg has landed. No problem getting equipment through customs -he looks so trustworthy.

Day 6

Route planned. Up most of the night with a jet-lagged Geordie drawing and then re-drawing about it.

Cops turned up at one point. They stayed outside our block for ages. Really scared me. Thought someone had been monitoring me. Turns out there was a domestic across the street.

Greg had brought everything around with him. We were told it would be a doddle but we don¹t have a clue what to do with it.

Had to Skype Benjamin in London. Thank God for geeks. He may know a little more about Star Wars than is right for grown man but he makes anything simple for simple folk like me.

Day 7

Plans all in place now: we know the route we’re taking, we know when we’re doing it, and I even know which button to press.

Greg managed to sort out a helicopter. Was amazing to look down on the city one last time totally amazing perspective. Made me realise how incredible what we’re about to do will be.

Need to get a good night’s sleep if that’s possible. My heart is racing and my brain feels like I’ve had twenty quadruple espressos in the last five minutes.

Will put Hunky Dory on and see if I can drift off.

Day 8

D-Day. I can’t really believe that this is happening. I won’t have time to write today. I hope it goes to plan. It’s going to take hours but as long as the satellite stuff works everything will be fine.

Sometimes I have no idea where, when or why I got a certain book. The Briar King was that type of book. I honestly have no freaking idea what led me to buying it. I’m glad I did though, cause it turned out to be a great read.

The Briar King is the first installment (from four) in The Kingdom of Thorn and Bone by Greg Keyes. The book opens with a prelude when the Born Queen and her followers used the sedos power to defeat the Skasloi, a powerful race, who had enslaved mankind. It was then foretold that by using that power they had cursed and doomed their future generations. Skip forward to 2000 years later to the kingdom of Crotheny and a couple of characters:

Aspar White is the holter of the King’s Forest, sworn to protect the forest from those who don’t belong there. But something is stirring within the forest and there are rumours that the Briar King, a legend from folklore, is waking.

Princess Anne is the youngest daughter of the king of Crotheny and not willing to accept her responsibilities. She doesn’t want to sit around all day, doing embroidery and looking dainty; she much rather prefers racing her horse and visiting the crypts of her ancestors. Little does she know though, that  the future of mankind might depend on her.

Neil MeqVren is a squire for a highly respected knight and is hoping to be knighted himself soon. But that is only an honour those of noble blood can obtain and Neil has no birth claim to knighthood.

Stephen Darige is the third son of a Virgenyan noble and has been promised to the church from childhood. He doesn’t mind though; he loves studying and decrypting ancient texts. But what if that what he’s deciphering wasn’t meant to be seen by human eyes?

There are a couple of other minor characters, like the king of Crotheny, whose viewpoint we also sometimes get to see. All together they form a great bunch of likable characters. At first they seem a bit stereotypish (the headstrong princess, the loyal knight), but the plot around it is intriguing enough and it doesn’t fall in too many obvious cliches. While the story isn’t exactly fresh (something evil waking up, will bring the end of mankind, etc etc) The Briar King doesn’t feel ‘been there, done that, got the T-shirt’. You get the idea that it’s not as straightforward as it seems and that the Briar King isn’t the evil it appears to be. The magic in particular felt quite unique even though we didn’t get to see much of it yet (I’m hoping this will be expanded in the next books though).

I’ve seen some other reviews complaining about the dialogue (uninspired and stilted) and the pacing, but I didn’t have any problems with those. To me, it was a quick and easy read, and with no lengthy descriptions about the scenery or surroundings (which can annoy me quite quickly). It’s not as political and complex as I would have liked it to be, but for a quick read it doesn’t demand for that.  

I did have a couple of minor problems with this book though. For starters, some of the weird words Keyes used. Now I’m not one to complain about ‘fantasy’ lingo; especially in fantasy books, authors create their own unique non English words to spice up the world a bit more and most of the time I actually quite like learning this new language. Here though it seemed a bit haphazard and not always clear what the word actually meant; it just didn’t feel as if it added anything. Another problem I had was with the chapter endings: almost every chapter (maybe even EVERY chapter) ended with a cliffhanger. Of course, the next time you got to that character it would be 2 or even 3 chapters later and the cliffhanger would be easily resolved. It’s a simple and often used plot device and normally I wouldn’t mind it that much, but here it just seemed overused (the Da Vinci Code gimmick).

I’m curious to the next books (I’ve ordered them already on Amazon and they should be here within the week), especially cause I know this is a series that won’t be dragged out. The fourth book has just been published and that will be the concluding one of this series.

If you want something easy to read and get stuck into, definitely try The Briar King. It’s not as sophisticated and complex as other series out there, but (depending on how the next books are) this is a series I could come to love.

The Briar King by Greg Keyes is available on Amazon.com for $7.99 and on Amazon.co.uk for £5.49.

These photos are from an amazing photo shoot. The editorial is a collection of 6 photos, each of the same model at ages 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 and 60. All the effects are done through make-up and lighting, no photoshop at all.

Check out all the photos at Miss at la Playa; here’s a sneak peak of ages 10 and 60:

As I said in my New Year’s resolutions blog post, I want to do more book reviews. I’m going to try to review every book I’ve read this year in it’s own blog post, but here a couple of books still from last year. These aren’t all the books I read in those months, but there are a couple that deserve their own longer posts.

Sorceress of Faith (Robin D. Owens)

This is a much better book than the first of its series, Guardian of Honor. The mythology and world of these books are starting to feel more substantial and these characters are slightly more likable than the previous two. Plus the talking hamster helps a lot! It’s about Marian, who gets summoned to the world of Lladrana, where she’s destined to become a powerful sorceress. I’ve already ordered the next two parts of this series and its conclusion will be released in February.  

To Serve and To Submit (Susan Wright)

This book wasn’t completely what I expected; I thought it would be a bit like the Kushiel series or anything from Anne Bishop. The difference with those books was the setting. Unlike the other books I mentioned, this one doesn’t take place in a sort of Middle Ages or Renaissance type of era, but is much earlier than that. Think Roman or Viking. Everything just felt less sophisticated and more harsh, and for a story about a pleasure slave… it initially didn’t work for me. I will pick up the next in this series though, cause the story is intriguing enough.

Flesh and Stone (Vickie Taylor)

Grumble, grumble, grumble. Loved the book; this is the second in the Gargoyles series, where there is a race of shapeshifters who can turn into mythological animals. Problem is though that this book was from 2006 and checking the author’s website, she hasn’t done anything since 2006. Grumble! Where’s the next part of this series?

Cast in Shadow (Michelle Sagara)

Slightly difficult to get into at the start. It’s one of those fantasy books that drops you in the middle of a strange world and starts throwing around names which you’re supposed to know but of course don’t know. It’s not too bad (I’ve had waaay worse), but it did annoy me. For the rest though, this book was pretty interesting and I’m curious to see what happens in the next one.

Reap The Wind (Iris Johansen)

Sometimes you come across a book where you just can’t seem to get through; Reap The Wind was one of those books for me. It had an interesting enough plot, but I couldn’t get into the book and keep on reading. It also didn’t help that I thought this was the first in a series, while it turned out it was the last of the series, but the previous ones all happened in previous centuries.