I wish I had those skillz

Max Tyrie, Jonah Austin, and Tiffany Tetrault entered the above animation into the Modest Mouse video competition being run by Epic and Apple. Max writes, "Using green screen footage provided by the band we cut a simple music video. We then degraded the images and printed out each frame sequentially (all 4133 of them). We then nailed each "shot" of 50-100 posters to various structures and posts. Then using a digital SLR camera with a long exposure we frame by frame shot each poster. Oh, and theres a little video projection (again, frame by frame on the SLR) just to mix it up. There is no compositing, no shortcuts, just lots of blood, sweat and tears, and a huge Kinkos bill!" -Juxtapoz

Harry Potter get's his own theme park?!

Is this, perhaps, going a little overboard?

According to Warner Bros. and J.K. Rowling, it's not going overboard--it will be a huge success. Now I'm as big a Harry Potter fan as anyone else--only a fan of the books, but there are Harry Potter fans out there who have never read the books, so who's going to be picky? (Don't even get me started on those people who refuse to open the books but go to every single movie). Anyway, even I, the big Harry Potter fan, don't really see the upside to a theme park like that. I mean, yeah, I'll visit it once when I get really bored, just to do so, but only to be able to criticize it and how it ruined my own picture of Hogwarts, or whatever. That's why I don't watch the movies.

The more I think about it, a hotel really makes the most sense...in Vegas! That's exactly like something they would put in Vegas. A Hogwarts Hotel with secret passageways and all sorts of things like that. It would be awesome. But a theme park? No thank you.

Imagine This....

Remember Sleeping Beauty? The old Disney classic?

Well, picture that movie, but with a twist: there's another princess and another prince involved. So, in addition to Aurora (or Briar Rose) and Prince Philip, there's another couple whom I will name Prince #2 and Princess #2 (for obvious reasons).

Imagine that, after Aurora pricks her finger and goes to sleep, and after Philip escapes Maleficent's castle, but before Philip hacks through the thorns to get to King Stephan's castle, Prince #2 tells Princess #2 something dreadful about Philip. Philip, according to Prince #2 (who looks remarkably like a character from The Tudors), is responsible for someone's death, some evil--something intensely personal for both of the Princesses.

Suddenly, Philip gallops in on his horse, and begins to hack at the thorns. In a flash, Prince #2 attacks him, and an epic sword fight takes place, but they are equally matched--no man to be the winner but for a stroke of luck. The little red fairy (Fauna? Flora?) turns to Princess #2 and screams, "You should kill him for this!" (Him meaning Philip). But in an instant Princess #2 knows that if she does not let Philip hack through the thorns and battle the dragon, and finally kiss Aurora, then the kingdom will be doomed. In that instant, her mind was made up and she yells to prince #2 to let Philip go. Philip will save the day--he's the only one who can.

That was the dream I had last night, from the second Princess' point of view. It was intense.

I think I'll go to Boston...

With summer comes a feeling of change--at least for me. A feeling very similar to that which comes around the New Year, or even that which comes in fall with the falling of the leaves (ok, I'm not going to kid anybody. I live in Southern California--there's not such thing as 'fall'). But summer presents new opportunities; a summer job to make some cash, three months until next term--three months to burn off some of that extra baggage you've been carrying around all school year. Three months to get a tan, visit new places, go on a missions trip, not go to Disneyland (it's summer and I no longer live ten minutes away--thank goodness for the break). Three months to redo your bedroom, replant the flowerbed, clean out the garage, finally get that 'sophisticated' short skirt, long jacket sort of look down. Three months to finally get that tattoo. Three months to fall in love, three months to read all those books you haven't had time to read, three months to sleep in and relax before the new school year. Three months. This summer is exactly that for me; I have so much to do, so much to accomplish, so much to blog about. Hopefully this will keep me reasonably accountable. Keeping a blog, that is. Here's my list of what I want to get done this summer, but in paragraph form. As I finish things, I'll come back and mark them off.

• Get a job: X
• Rearrange and paint my room:X
• Become Master and Commander of the flower garden:
• Get a tan:
• Read at least 5 books (not including HP and the Deathly Hallows):X
• Become a carpenter (like Jesus!):
• Travel to a big city for a few days without my parents:
• *Develop a healthy diet and exercise lifestyle:

*Inspired by Carlos Whittaker's "Fat Ragamuffin Challenge," I am using this blog to keep me accountable on the path to overcoming the 'lazy fat american' stereotype that I so very well contribute to. I have 40 pounds to lose to get to my target weight and I'll keep you posted in the process. The makeover begins tomorrow. It would have begun three days ago but for the fact that I switched diets today (I've decided Atkins to be the poor man's way to lose weight. There can be absolutely nothing healthy about eating pure fat in the form of sausage, eggs, bacon, and red meat.) And so I leave you, Aly

"It's all happening!"

Correction: Nothing is happening. Welcome to the first post of my new and improved blog! Sometime this morning between the hours of 2 and 3 am, I realized something: I am way behind on everything when it comes to the world wide web, trends, and really useful tools. So, after setting up my blogger account (out with the xanga, in with the blogger--much more convenient, really), and testing about 4 or 5 different RSS readers (and deciding on Google--naturally), I have decided to make my entire life known to fellow blog-enthusiasts, my family, and my friends (though, admittedly, very few of either of the last two categories are at all blog savvy, so my hopes are minimal at best). There you have it; the dreadful first post of a new blog. Now, let's party.