I’m not really a Scrabble player; I like the occasional game, but I can’t say I’m really any good in it. Still these simple Scrabble necklaces are just gorgeous:

You can get it at Heist’s Etsy store for $45.

Episode 163: Inspired by a million true stories

Where great ideas come from:

CL!CK: A LEGO Short Film from Lego Click on Vimeo.

When I was 7 my mum made this beautiful cake for my dad’s birthday. It was stunning, with intricate swirls of pink and green icing. You could see the amount of effort my mum had put into the cake and I so wanted to love it. But then I had a bite. It wasn’t really bad, just bland, and with a cake as stunning looking as that, you expect something amazing. And that’s exactly how I feel about Alice In Wonderland.

In this Alice in Wonderland, Alice (Mia Wasikowska) is 19 years old who falls down the rabbit hole after running away during her own marriage proposal. She lands in Underland, a place she previously visited 13 years ago, but doesn’t remember. Alice encounters the weird inhabitants of Underland, including the Mad Hatter (Johnny Depp), the White Rabbit (Michael Sheen) and the Cheshire Cat (Stephen Fry) and gets caught up in the battle between the Red Queen (Helena Bonham Carter) and the White Queen (Anne Hathaway).

Visually this movie is gorgeous. I saw it at the IMAX in 3D and it’s definitely worth the little bit extra to see it there. I wasn’t that convinced by 3D last year, but now movies like Alice in Wonderland and Avatar are proving how beautiful this technique can be used. There are so many pretty things in this movie: the landscapes and buildings, the costumes, the characters, everything just looks great.

Wonderland (or Underland as it’s called here) is a weird place with some wonderfully Burtonesque characteristics, like twisty curly trees and a moat full of heads. I loved both the Red Queen’s and White Queen’s castles; each have little details in them, emphasizing those character’s personalities. The animated characters also look great, with only the white rabbit in the “real” world at the very start of the movie appearing a bit jarring. My favourite has got to be the Cheshire cat though, acting just like a cat is supposed to (I so want a cuddly toy like that!). I also have to mention the brilliant costume design here. Alice has at least 7 different dresses in this movie and they all looked amazing.

Despite how stunning everything in Alice In Wonderland looks like, there’s something missing in this movie. I still can’t pinpoint exactly what it is. Charm? Warmth? The thing is… I didn’t care for Alice or any of the characters at all, there was no emotional connection to make me feel invested in the movie. Besides that, Alice just jumps from one event to the other and you never feel as if she’s in any real danger. The Red Queen screams “Off with her/his head!” a number of times, but you never really feel as if there’s an actual threat.

Alice In Wonderland is a visually stunning movie that deserves to be seen in as large a cinema you can get. Everything looks amazing and it’s worth seeing it for that alone. Story-wise it isn’t the epic movie I was hoping for, but it’s still a good addition to the Alice In Wonderland interpretations.

Last year I blogged about a cool “game” that was a giant image where you had to solve cryptic clues of movie titles. Now there’s been a new chapter in the Tron viral game that does something similar but for video games.

If you haven’t been following what’s been happening with the Tron viral game, head on over to Firstshowing.com who have done some great coverage of it so far. The latest discovery of the game is the site Arcade Aid which features an image of a huge pixel city with 56 hidden video game references. Once you solve all 56 references, you can get a “Special Access” Encom ID, which will most probably lead to another step of the viral game some time in the future.

I’ve only got 10 so far (and then I decided I should blog about it first before continuing with it), but I already love some of the cryptic clues. How many were you able to solve?

Sorry for the peace and quiet on my blog the past couple of days. As most of you know I spent the past two weeks in the Netherlands, celebrating my birthday with family, but also making some must needed trips to hospital, dentist and optician. Anywho, I arrived back in London two days ago, and am slowly getting back into the daily rhythm of work.

The main change for me is I’ve got to switch to hard contact lenses (I’ve been using soft contact lenses for 10 years now) and it’s proving quite a challenge. Remember my blog post during Christmas where I went to the optician and found out my eyes had declined even more, and that I had to go to the hospital first before I could get any new lenses? Well, I went to the hospital, they checked my eyes and everything is fine. My eyes have declined quite a bit, but that happens more often and they can’t see anything weird going on.

So I went back to the optician where they had a new lens specialist who measured my eyes again. She explained to me that my astigmatism is now so high that soft lenses might not work properly anymore. Astigmatism is caused by the curvature of your eye; the higher the astigmatism the more irregular your eye. When the astigmatism becomes to high, what can happen with soft lenses is that when they dry out or when you blink, the lenses warp and the wearer can’t focus properly. Hard lenses don’t warp, so they don’t have that problem.

I’ve gotten test sets for both soft lenses and hard lenses, and I already notice the difference. I just can’t see properly through the soft ones anymore, while with the hard ones everything is so much sharper and precise. But my eyes need time to adapt to them; each time I put them in my eyes tear up terribly and there’s nothing I can do about that. It takes about 2-4 weeks to fully adapt your eyes, and I’m now on day 7. All I can do is keep wearing them and hoping my eyes adjust to them as quick as possible.

I’ve always wanted to switch to hard lenses, but was always too busy, and didn’t want to spend time getting used to them. Now I have no choice in the matter and I’ve got to make time to adapt my eyes to them. It’s annoying and time consuming, but in the end I know it will turn out better. The great thing about hard lenses is that they last way longer than soft ones (like at least 2 years) and they only cost €230 (in comparison to 4 times €160 in 2 years). So fingers crossed that my eyes will adapt quickly.

I’ve always found it fun to try to predict the Oscar winners, but never took the time in previous years to turn it into a blog post. This year however I thought I owed it to myself to actually have an Oscar week on this blog and there’s no better way then to start with my predictions! Of course next Monday I’ll let you all know how many I had right and wrong (with more in the wrong I’m guessing).

I’ve left a couple of categories out (Best Documentary – Short Subjects
, Best Short Film – Live Action, Best Short Film – Animated
), cause I haven’t seen any of the films in those. But the rest I’ve tried to guess; let’s see how many I’ll have right. If you want to play along, leave your predictions behind in the comments!

Best Picture
:

Avatar
The Blind Side
District 9
An Education
The Hurt Locker
Inglourious Basterds
Precious
A Serious Man
Up
Up in the Air

Best Director:

James Cameron – Avatar
Kathryn Bigelow – The Hurt Locker
Quentin Tarantino – Inglourious Basterds
Lee Daniels – Precious
Jason Reitman – Up In The Air

Best Actor In A Leading Role
:

Jeff Bridges – Crazy Heart
George Clooney – Up In The Air
Colin Firth – A Single Man
Morgan Freeman – Invictus
Jeremy Renner – The Hurt Locker

Best Actress In A Leading Role:

Sandra Bullock – The Blind Side
Helen Mirren – The Last Station
Carey Mulligan – An Education
Gabourey Sidibe – Precious
Meryl Streep – Julie & Julia

Best Actor In A Supporting Role:

Matt Damon – Invictus
Woody Harrelson – The Messenger
Christopher Plummer – The Last Station
Stanley Tucci – The Lovely Bones
Christoph Waltz – Inglourious Basterds

Best Actress In A Supporting Role:

Penelope Cruz – Nine
Vera Farmiga – Up In The Air
Maggie Gyllenhaal – Crazy Heart
Anna Kendrick – Up In The Air
Mo’nique – Precious

Best Animated Film:

The Fantastic Mr Fox
Coraline
The Princess and The Frog
Up
The Secret of Kells

Best Original Screenplay
:

The Hurt Locker
Inglourious Basterds
The Messenger
A Serious Man
Up

Best Adapted Screenplay:

District 9
An Education
In The Loop
Precious
Up In The Air

Best Foreign Language Film
:

Ajami
El Secreto De Sus Ojos
La Teta Asus Tada
A Prophet
The White Ribbon

Best Original Score:

Avatar – James Horner
Fantastic Mr. Fox – Alexandre Desplat
The Hurt Locker – Marco Beltrami, Buck Sanders
Sherlock Holmes – Hans Zimmer
Up – Michael Giacchino

Best Original Song
:

Crazy Heart – “The Weary Kind”
Faubourg 36 – “Loin de Paname”
Nine – “Take It All”
The Princess and the Frog – “Down in New Orleans”
The Princess and the Frog – “Almost There”

Best Documentary, Features:

Burma VJ
The Cove
Food, Inc.
The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers
Which Way Home

Best Art Direction
:

Avatar
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
Nine
Sherlock Holmes
The Young Victoria

Best Cinematography
:

Avatar
The White Ribbon
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
The Hurt Locker
Inglourious Basterds

Best Costume Design
:

Bright Star
Coco Avant Chanel
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
Nine
The Young Victoria

Best Makeup
:

Il Divo
Star Trek
The Young Victoria

Best Editing
:

Avatar
District 9
The Hurt Locker
Inglourious Basterds
Precious

Best Visual Effects
:

Avatar
District 9
Star Trek

Best Sound Editing:

Avatar
The Hurt Locker
Inglourious Basterds
Star Trek
Up

Best Sound Mixing
:

Avatar
The Hurt Locker
Inglourious Basterds
Star Trek
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

Update: I completely forgot to mention this (stupid brain isn’t working 100% today), but this post is my entry into VoucherCodes.co.uk‘s Oscar sweepstake! It’s only open to entertainment bloggers and critics, and whoever collects the most points (+1 for a good prediction, -1 for a wrong prediction) can win a £250 Amazon voucher. Wish me luck!

I stumbled on this cool infographic from LocateTV about the Oscars and of course it’s a perfect post for Oscar week!

Interesting links for February 16th through March 3rd:

• Final Fantasy Food Shop | ElectricSpectre – Lol, your guide to what to eat while you’re stuck playing Final Fantasy.
• Model-Morphosis – Cool series of posts showing before and after shots of models with makeup and styling.
• News: Taylor Lautner Fan Letter To Universal: Your Wolfman Ripped Off Twilight – Ridiculous letter from a girl complaining how The Wolfman was a ripoff from Twilight…

It’s Oscar Week on MissGeeky! I was planning to start this yesterday, but my trip to the Netherlands is taking up a lot of my time (lots of appointments with dentist, optician, doctor, etc etc) and I haven’t been behind my laptop nearly as much as I’ve wanted to.

This entire week will be devoted to the Oscars. I’ll (try to) write an Oscar related blog post every day leading up to the Oscars on Sunday night, including of course my predictions. And I’ll be live-tweeting my thoughts during the show. So are you excited yet for the Oscars?

Pwetty! I’m completely in love with vintage keys at the moment, and am still looking for something like this as a necklace:

It’s £8 on the V&A website.