In just 25 years...

We start with this sweet song from a musical, in which orphanage girls complain about having to scrub floors (and flip all over the place like extreme gymnasts...)

And end up inspiring Jay Z to rap about the tough life of growing up in a black neighbourhood with high crime rates and such, while kids mime over the memorable bit from above.

I am sure I did see Annie around the time when it came out, but I don't remember that scene (this being the more classic one).

[END]

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Okay New Zealand

Don't fuck this up.

"The bill will now be considered by a select committee"... damn.

[END]

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Heresy of Darkness!

With the hall currently clear of heretics, we set off in search of our compatriot who had been dragged away, short only the other compatriot who kindly wanted me to have his huge chainsword (at least, he never complained that I had it).

Upstairs, we found an office, and the Scum found a lab with another creature in it. While the others ran away, it was up to me to step in and shred the creature into pieces. Ye, but I am an instrument of the Emperor, and a kickass one at that...

Onwards we went, higher, and found a medical bay that housed our compatriot, the overseer who was running this madness, and yet more creatures. And then... something strange happened. I can't quite remember what, but after a creature came up to me, there is a gap and then... I FEEL SO ACTIVE!

Grabbing up the chainsword, I charged the overseer! He must die! Everyone must die! Stop! Dodging! My! Damn! Blows! Die! He finally does! Gah! There is another door! Charge!

Another abomination beyond! And some creature coming towards me! It too must... and yet, there I go into darkness again. I don't understand what happened. It seems I lost blood and guts and... and yet, after the others shot her to death, here I am still around. The Emperor (or, at least, the person currently acting on his behalf for us) was mildly pleased we put an end to the creature. Good work us. And he has other tasks in mind.

[So, while I did get knocked out, Stims are very useful. And then I died. Sigh. Another fate point burned... and that's the end of that mission. Next time... we do something completely different!]

[END]

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The Bourne Lethargy

[The wrong post got deleted, so am recreating this post, in a more brief version...]

Just like people are still trading in on Robert Ludlum's name, people are still trying to get money out of the Bourne movies.

And in this movie we have Jeremy Renner walking around and people talking in a room FOR AN HOUR before anything happens. And then something does happen, before back to walking and talking. And then the one big set piece that the entire movie held out for two hours for.

And don't let people think that Jason Bourne isn't in this. He is. The movie continually references him, as it tries to pretend to be relevant. Either be a new franchise in the same universe, or be a Jason Bourne movie, don't be this.

So Jeremy Renner is indeed in this. As is someone I kept going 'is that Rachel Wiesz? it could be Rachel Wiesz, but I'm not... no, it is Rachel Wiesz... or maybe not...' and... it is Rachel Wiesz! Edward Norton is the only other actor of note in this.

This is a terrible Bourne movie, and not even a good action movie. As times, I was worried I might fall asleep! I would say this killed the franchise, but I'm also sure they'll try to get more money out of it if they could.

[END]

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Supernaturality Activ

This is a spoof movie, mocking various movies like Blair Witch, Paranormal Activity, Last Exorcism, et al. It's presented as a mockumentary of 'here's a paranormal show', which has certainly been in a few movies, but none that actually did anything worth seeing.

Following with that idea, this team goes into a place, fakes up what it needs to to produce ghosts, and bam show! Then they get the message that there's this actual beast, Smallsquatch, and they go investigate. After seance and possession, there's a cult, and... all sorts of things, mashing up various ideas.

But here's the problem. And it is, admittedly, not a small one. While this is ripping on many, many movies, it does suffer from the same problem other examples of these sorts of spoofs have, namely... there's no humour here. There's nothing funny, just attempting at referencing movies, while trying to give HUGE winks to the audience, and expecting everyone to laugh just because they are mocking the movies, and not because they actually do anything that's actually amusing. This is lazy spoofing, and just shows no effort at all. While this is not a 'cash in' (because there will be no money in this), this is certainly a product of someone who thought that they could get a lot of cred out of this for little input.

Scary Movie, in many ways, kicked off the spoofing stream of movies, which grew and encompassed so many slabs of movies. Very few of those were actually funny either, so this is entirely in keeping with the trend.

[END]

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Of Steam, Steel and Murder

Hold your breath as the investigators try to survive a desert! Behold as we go to a warehouse and talk to a soldier! Dare to wonder as Bishop picks up a woman!

So we progress. Signs point to the next step we are supposed to take, but we take our damn sweet time about it. Still, next time should be the season ender... who will return?

Gasp in awe at Game 61. Rapidshare. Hotfile.

[END]

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You sunk my decent movie!

No, that's a lie. This isn't a decent movie. Even if you ignore the fact that it was based on what someone vaguely remembered about some game they probably never played, this still is a bad movie by the general criteria of bad movies.

Meathead McLunkwad ends up in charge of a ship when some aliens turn up and start firing pegs at him. And then this continues for about two hours (with an extremely crowbarred in sequence involving a grid), with a minor change of ship so they can fail to use the "you sunk" line (although they do nod to it). There's also a minor plot about needing to phone home, but that's just ostensibly give the pretty girl something to do. But the real loser is physics (yeah, let's see that trick with the anchor work outside of CGI), and probably biology too.

Because what the hell with the aliens? They have this odd thing of not attacking people, but are happy to attack things that lead to collateral death of humans?? Let alone a weakness on the level of stupidity as the aliens from Signs. And if any proper reason was given for the aliens doing all this, I missed it (which is the only thing about the movie I missed).

On the performance side... aside from Liam Neeson outclassing everyone else, there is nothing say.

Go see this if you don't want to have to think for a while, but beware it is a long while...

[END]

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Star Trek The 2!

Yes, I finally finished watching Star Trek original series, season 2. I do have to say that while the new CGI is all well and good, it does look like new CGI, all smooth and plasticy. What you want, following on from how the Doctor Who DVDs did it (back when they actually did do new CGI stuff) is to have it available via an alternative angle, so you could watch it original or new style...

When watching the episodes, I watch the trailer first, then the episodes. Seriously, the trailers do not do the episodes justice. I watch a trailer and think 'this episode looks like a stinker' and yet... they all drew me in. While they aren't all Emmy winners, they are a damn sight better than you'd think from the preview.

And although this set is a little lighter on the extras, the Tribble disc is wonderful! We get the original episode, we get the animated episode, we get the DS9 episode! And a couple of behind the scene bits as well. Now that's great value right there!

As for the episodes themselves... Amok Time: Here it is! The classic fight with the classic music... that is used in every fight scene from then on! Who Mourns for Adonis? Who Mourns? Who? WWWHHOOO??? Now I want to go reread some Peter David books... The Changeling: aka The Motion Picture preview. Mirror, Mirror: Less in here than I remember, considering all the plot it's spun off. The Doomsday Machine: can you spot the season Peter David liked the most? The Deadly Years: Another episode that was redone in TNG. The Gamemasters of Triskelion: Another meme starter for 20 quatloos that didn't have as much in it as one would think. The Ultimate Computer: Starting the fine tradition of computer mishaps. But a bit too easy to talk the computer into submission. Assignment: Earth: this looks like a pilot for a new series "Seven and Lincoln" (meet there today!)

And what is with the pseudo-historicals? (A Piece of the Action, Patterns of Force and Bread and Circuses.) Not to mention very kind affection for Christianity/God considering this was supposed to be the enlightened future...

I might take a wee break from Star Trek, but no doubt will return to season three shortly...

[END]

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Keen on Mars!

[Because of Curiosity, and not at all because I didn't have anything else.] Although it is an excellent piece of music by itself.

And of course it has been used in many movies, and as the central core to many themes.

However, I did come across it in a rather usual place...

[END]

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The 7 BADventures of Sin!

"THE ASYLUM presents" sigh... really... just... godsdamn...

A boat is in a Bermuda Triangle knockoff and sinks, so Jerkwad McGetoffthescreen decides he has to win the day and heads in, only to end up on an island that sinks (because it is on a whale??), only to be picked up by a flying creature, dumped on another island (same one?), suddenly teleport from the coast to the jungle, then get in a rockslide so he can teleport again to a cave set, then get captured by several different groups, before finally drilling some rock to free the ship and save the world from being destroyed by tornadoes, finally ending on random images...

It seems. Or something like that. The plot was a mess, is what I'm trying to say. It doesn't help that Patrick Muldoon is completely unlikeable as Sinbad, and the only decent parts of the movie are when he isn't on screen, because when he is, everything has to be about him, and he just isn't worth watching! Everyone, anyone, is more interesting to watch, from whatshername to whozits....

This was made back in 2010, and is a perfect example of why Asylum should never have been allowed to make movies....

[END]

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Raiding Redeemption

Finally got around to seeing this. I saw the English dub version, with voices not perfectly lining up, and with likely editing of overly graphic scenes. Which did still leave a lot of movie.

There is a Raid of a tenement block by the police, which lasts around twenty minutes before it goes tits up (to give the police term, I believe). Then it's fight scene after fight scene as the police try to survive and everyone tries to kill them, with random quiet moments thrown in. There is a very small plot development, but it doesn't get in the way much. And then, when they run out of beautifully crafted choreographed fight scenes, the movie ends.

It does have a rather odd, and abrupt, ending, which does seem indeed like they ran out of set pieces (with nearly everyone dead by this point), so they just ended it.

But yes, the point of the movie, the fight scenes, are quick, brutal, very well shot and shown off, and very much worth seeing. However, I was always aware that it was a dance. Not that this is a bad thing, just that it was hard to actually get fully into the movie.

Certainly worth seeing for the spectacle.

[END]

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Legendary Korra!

Okay, yes, I'm going to jump on the bandwagon of people who love The Legend of Korra. This is the spin off from Avatar: The Last Airbender (The only Last Airbender, or Avatar for that matter, worth talking about). I loved that series, and this is just as good.

Korra is the new Avatar, and, as a teen (I guess, we aren't really given ages, could be early twenties?) comes to Republic City, just in time for the big bad Amon to strike. And Amon hates all benders. And so, we have 12 episodes of the usual wacky fun this series is known for, as well as some very dark turns near the end. (And, to be honest, I will agree about the rushness of the last episode.)

Looking at the cast list, we have David Faustino, J. K. Simmons and, of course, Steve Blum. Janet Varney plays Korra, not that I recognise her (...looks at her wiki page...) oh, she does Rifftrax Presents! Huh, guess I do know her then!

Anyway, if you liked Avatar, this is just as good... and there better be a second season! (Although, if there is no second season, that would explain a few things...)

[END]

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Anna

Anna is a horror game that is available on the Desura platform (and others, but that's the way I got it). One gimmick it is supposed to have is that it reacts to what you look at and adjusts what it shows you. (The trailer has you looking at eyes and then, bam! lots of eyes! I didn't look at eyes deliberately, but still got eyes, so I'm not quite believing in that.)

Anyway, in Anna, you are trying to remember something that happened at a house, and to find Anna herself, or at least what happened to her. It does indeed has scary moments, approaching jump scares, although some of them can be more subtle than that.

However, the basic game play is solving puzzles. Which very quickly becomes 'rub every item you have against everything else in the hope something happens'. This isn't to say that all the puzzles are illogical, just that some times you need specific items the game has in mind that you wouldn't necessarily think is what required. (Eg. one time I had to find something combustible... in this desolate house... with bits of wood everywhere... that I couldn't touch...) Which reminds me, the hit boxes are pretty random, often extending far beyond the item itself, and sometimes making other hit boxes very precise targets.

I did, however, manage to get through without using more than the in-game help (see above 'item rubbing' for why I went there). But, ultimately, I felt too stupid for this game.

This is a horror game let down by the puzzle mechanics of the actual game play.

[END]

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Hear the Animals

Three more animal talks from visiting the zoo!

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Manning the Grey Documentary

I'm not sure what to make of this movie. It looks like (and certainly acted like) it was filmed in one day. And the story is an incoherent mess , and as for the ending... okay, I'm going to spoil things, but that won't help.

This crew decides to 'document the Grey Man', a ghost figure that haunts the beach, warning people of storms (an actual ghost story). And from there, they leap to 'this house is associated with the Grey Man' (only not really), so we have an excuse for this being a haunted house story... in which the people moved in only a week ago, and yet enough stuff happened to get this crew of people out there so it seems like this is well known, but there's only been the week... ?

Anyway, this crew decide to document the house, but also do a behind the scenes thing, because they don't believe in the ghost and will instead document how people react when they think it's real. Then real stuff starts happening, so of course their reaction is 'let's stay!'.

And then in the last ten minutes everyone dies. And it is that sudden. Not even really killed, they just fall down dead. 'Cos that's what happens. ... the hell?

As I said, this is a mess, they decided to end the movie after an hour, and there isn't a direction worth noting. Actors, none of them seem to be doing anything, and the pretty woman has her top off for a brief moment because... tits, it seems.

Only watch this if you are waiting for motivation to make a better movie...

[END]

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The Whaling of Hauntely House

I know I deliberately watch bad movies, but maybe some day - "The ASYLUM presents" sigh... not today.

Whaley House has ghosts in it. Some people decide to look around at night and... well, get what they deserve for it. Death comes easy in this place, so much so that there's more than one death per ten minutes of movie. And really stupid deaths at that. There's an attempt at plot where the main girl is special because... of some silly reason that means they can start killing off people, whatever. It's not like that matters. And the ending is also just as stupid.

The annoying thing about this is that it nearly is a good movie (for Asylum). Some of the characters are nearly decent, there are some aspects where the characters are taking it seriously, but the movie clearly isn't... but the tone isn't consistent, and the driving need to kill people off just stops any actual sense of tension and pace. Damn you for not being better!

Keep this up, Asylum, and one day you may be a real boy!

[END]

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Because

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LockeredOut

When I started watching this, I thought "this reminds me of Fifth Element". Oh. Luc Besson. That'll do it.

There's a prison. IN SPACE! And the President's daughter is visiting it. IN SPACE! Only the prisoners escape. IN SPACE! So they send in someone expendable. IN SPACE! And hijinks ensue. IN SPACE! And it's IN SPACE! IN SPACE!

Well, Earth orbit, but close enough. This means lots of corridors and hi-tech looking stuff, although it comes down to guns and punching. But aside from the odd spacing, there isn't any point to it being IN SPACE! moreso than, say, The Rock was set on the Rock and it could have been any relatively isolated base that needs to be infiltrated. Basically it's the isolated resources schtick. Only... IN SPACE!

Guy Pearce is playing someone who is the wisecracker's wisecracker. Everything he says has to be some form of snappy joke. And it gets very irritating. Smirk smirk wisecrack smirk IN SPACE! Maggie Grace is extremely pretty, and that's largely her role. The other people... were good and somewhat recognizable, but since I didn't catch anyone's character name, I'm not sure who was who.

It's a pretty movie, and very superficial. Good for a time out, but make sure you keep it surface level only.

[END]

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Overthinking a phrase

It's all... On Like Donkey Kong!

But is it really? While we have Ice Cube to thank for this phrase, just how does one get "on" just like "Donkey Kong"?

One way to expand it is to say "We are going to be getting into some heavy action, with much excitement, just like one gets much excitement from playing Donkey Kong." Erm, well, this is sort of how it is expressed, but well... is Donkey Kong really a generator of that much excitement? Possibly.. but for a very small clique. Obviously a group including Ice Cube. But still, really, is it that exciting? "Oh, I get to push these buttons, woo!" [Okay, Space Invaders was relatively huge, certainly a money spinner, but I can't believe it's so popular in the culture that people will be wanting to experience that excitement via other activities...]

The other way it could be on is like how Donkey Kong himself is on the top of the screen, dishing out barrels. But to then go on and say "this is about to throw down, just like Donkey Kong throws down the barrels" just seems to be an absurd non-sequitur. "I'm going to lift this over my head and throw it downwards"... maybe in very specific circumstances, but I doubt this will be generally applicable.

So while could get it "on like Donkey Kong", it's hard to see just how Donkey Kong gets it on and how one would do the same...

[END]

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Slender Vlogs

Aside from Marble Hornets (and I have the DVDs now), there are other vlogs.

EverymanHYBRID: Starts off slowly, but soon ramps it up. Adds a lot more to the Slendermyth than Marble does. Has other vlogs and websites feedings into/out of it. Does suffer from the same problem of others of too much time between episodes. It does look to be wrapping up... or possibly start a whole new level.

Tribe Twelve: (has cross over with EverymanHYBRID) This is one guy getting  terrorised by some strange creature... which is very active in interrupting his life. Nice and creepy for some videos. Seems to have a definite plot in mind that is developing.

MLAndersen0: This seems to be one guy becoming a Slenderman/Proxy/whatever they are called. A bit on the taking itself too seriously side, and probably my lowest ranked series.

DarkHarvest00: Again someone is stalked by a Slenderman... which seems to be a bit more incompetent than others. The series is slowly bringing out a back story, not sure if they are trying to tie it in, but it looks like there's a long way to go yet.

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Of Steam, Steel and Murder

It's a tomb! Or is it a dungeon crawl? Either way, our heroes will be trapped with no way out... or will they?

We are getting near the end of the season, so it ramps up a bit. We do basically go through a dungeon crawl, but since this is Bert, it's never that simple. And now... it is setting up to never be the same again...

Hear, if you dare, Game 60. Rapidshare. Hotfile.

[END]

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"Free" Horror Movies

Because of the "associated" videos part of YouTube, I watched these movies. Shouldn't have done that.

Windigo: The hell? A Canadian movie which supposedly is Slenderman based, but... why then tie into the Wendigo myth? I'd believe it more if I found out that the peoples decided to change their focus after learning about Slenderman, but couldn't be bothered to reshoot things. And speaking of shooting things, it looks like they shot the set up, shot the ending, and a lot of filler material... but didn't shot the actual bits that would have made the movie scary. Or explicable. Just a complete mess.

The Rake: Standard "go to the woods and strange creature is there" film. (The Rake is part of Slendermyth.) While this could have been shot in a day and a night, this is better than a lot of other amateur films. The ending is very abrupt, so I do wonder if they wanted to expand it more but ran out of time? If they could keep the same length, but condense more story into it, it would have been better. (And watching this on double speed makes the final sound very obvious...)

COVET: The guy gets a new big house at a bargain price (alert!) and something is raiding beers from his fridge. Some naked creature (!) (while this movie is not part of Slendermyth, this does look like the Rake) opens his unlocked garage door (don't ask why, because movie!), raids stuff, and leaves, and is caught on tape... so of course an Ouija board is the obvious next step! Then it's just a question of attic or woods... ah, an abandoned building! Frankly, they deserve what they get. Anyway, decent enough, but requires a lot of 'don't think about it' no-logic...

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Jumping the Jurassic Shark

Okay, there's a new contender out for terrible shark movies, and the signs are not good.

When your movie is 75 minutes, and 15 of them are opening and (mostly) end credits, that's a bad sign. When your opening is two scantily clad young women who sun-bathe... in the shade of a nearby hill, that's a bad sign. When your actors look like they were asked to bring their own wardrobe along from home, that's a bad sign. When you've got a movie that's set around a lake, and the water has magical properties so that when you get out of it you are instantly dry, that's a bad sign. When the dialogue would be less stilted if they read it directly off the page, when the shark can survive in knee deep water, when the ending involves two friends walking off jauntily after all their friends have died...

You might guess I didn't like this movie. And, strangely, you'd be right. This looks to be a movie that came around because someone could create it, not because it needed to be created. The director already has many other movies under his belt (none of which I have heard of), and none of these actors are known to me in the slightest, so we're not even talking B-grade here.

Just straight up ignore this movie. Although odds are this is the first time you've heard of it.

[END]

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Green Lantern Sleeping

I recently finished a trilogy of Green Lantern novels, the Sleeper series by Christopher Priest. And, to be honest, I expect more.

The basic idea is that there are Sleeper Rings, seeded into our universe from Qward, which turn people into Sinestro. Because that can happen it seems... wait, what? The hell? Since when? Sinestro is a 'program' that can be programmed into rings that convert people... no, that has never been a thing.

So, aside from that, in the first book, Kyle Rayner fights a single Sinestro, because there is only one ring. Then we go back to Alan Scott in time, who fights someone else from continuity I completely don't remember, and finds out about all the rings from... a scene that is referred to but never happens. I think because the second book was co-written with someone else, and they forgot to edit it properly. There are huge exposition gaps, weird considering Christopher Priest loves to throw in huge chunks of the stuff... must have been the other guy. And then Hal Jorden has to fight all the rings, only he's the Spectre during all this, except not now because Christopher needs to have Hal Jordan be Green Lantern again, and has a totally different encounter with Alan Scott, which is a repeat of the scene in the previous book, although it is completely different (admittedly there is a line about how they remember it differently, which is amusing, but doesn't excuse the lack of editing).

So all that inconsistency, and slabs of exposition, made this set of books a slog to get through. I assume, as I do, that Christopher enjoyed writing this and really thought it was an important story to tell... but I didn't. The story is too much of a mess, mixed with author pomposity, that it doesn't invite the reader to want to be an active part of it. I do admire the attention to detail with respect to the continuity, but the ending doesn't match (because, of course, Christopher wasn't writing the main Spectre comic [quickly checks the internet]), so that was another issue, but one that can't be blamed on him.

As a GL fan, of course I wanted to enjoy this. But I didn't.

[END]

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Heresy of Darkness!

After shaking off the attack of the vapours of the last fight, our Judge Dredd knock off, Tharius, tracked one back towards the trade house we were at before... and there we met the Enforcers, who decided to take us to someone for a talking at. (Aside from one person, Grimm, whom we left behind [player late, so we dumped his character in a pile of bodies...].)

They take us to the Alms house, where we met the person running the Tantalus Collective, who wasn't that impressed by us. (We also found trace of the parasites in the gruel they were dealing out, so that's something suspicious.) Grimm, meanwhile, went to the temple, possibly for healing, and found out that there was something dangerous at the Alms House. So he turned up there and told us, over our voxs, about it... right in front of the lead bad guy. He left us to be killed by his troops.

And Grimm gets taken out in the first step, so that worked well. The rest of us get shot at, shoot back, get suppressed [I get suppressed a LOT!], yet do quite well... then the Very Bad Things turn up again, released from above. They start grabbed people, and two of them drag Tharius away... somewhere. And, worst of all... I actually get hurt! Argh! On the other hand, I get my hands on Grimm's chain sword and that works quite well.

Which leaves us with dead bodies, their guns, and a compatriot taken away...

[END]

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Craft-A-Long 6

And then finally, my last design was done! However... it was so big, I had a hard time photographing it.

For those that can't tell, this is Bender from Futurama. In one episode, he was putting up pictures of himself, made out of tiles. Nice seven by eleven pictures, which lent itself wonderfully to converting to a rug.

This will be going to Desert Bus, although I am tempted to keep it for myself (on the other hand, I could just make myself another one). This one will be sent via a better method than the last package, which is over two months waiting for it to arrive. (I have waited that long for a package from them, so it's not surprising it is taking that long to get there... but it is annoying. I did pay for Air, so it can't be stuck on a ship... gah, so annoying!)

Anyway... I have had another idea for a large rug... but that one will take far more planning, and might just have to wait for Desert Bus 7...

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Craft-A-Long 5

Continuing to work in thirds, I set up the next third grid... then threw my plans out the window, and did the rest of the grid, completing the work I was doing in silver.

As you can expect, this all took time, although I said to myself I would aim for one row (of seven) 'pixel's a night. I often went over as it was basically me sitting there watching videos on my computer while I busied my hands with doing this. Eventually, I was just down to needing to fill in the white squares.

And after that, as I've said, this just left the edges to go. On my other rugs I'd used black tape, as it was generally a background of black wool. However, as I was using a silver grid, it was silver tape. I also went for silver thread, but it wasn't quite the same.

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Bonus Video

The view from the train, going from Petone to Wellington (with no over commentary from me):
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Craft-A-Long 4

For my last design, I got the idea while watching a particular show (I won't reveal just yet), and saw something that was perfect for making into a rug: namely an image that was only 77 (7 by 11) pixels big, and could be scaled and prettied up as I liked.

After making a map in Excel (which I have done for all my designs), I ordered the wool, and waited... and soon, I had everything ready to go again.

Although I could calculated exactly the number of pieces of wool I needed, I don't entirely trust it, because there are occasions where a bit of wool got trimmed wrong, or tied up with another piece, or... so although I was using exactly 15 bales of white wool, I did have other white wool I could fall back on if there was a problem.

Taking a breath... I begun!

I decided to outline each 'pixel' (which would be 100 pieces!) in silver, so worked up a grid which I then filled in with colour. Due to the size of the canvas, and that it already had folds in it, I basically worked in thirds. So... can you see what it is yet?

[END]

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Bonus Video

The Night Market at Left Bank Arcade:
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Craft-A-Long 3

The other image that occurred to me from the past was that of Tetris. Who doesn't remember Tetris? However... what image? Like before (although I didn't say), I just Google Image searched for Tetris. Found a few level screens, but they were on the large side of pixels (and think of how well you need to work writing to get it to work). I did find a common image of nearly full screen of blocks and that did look to be an iconic image.

However in this case, I wanted to be sure I had the right colours, as I had seen a few variants. After checking the ultimate source and got the standard colours. (Again, hue is an issue.) For this, I went with 25 pieces of wool per pixel, and added some more blocks for colour variation at the top. In this case... I wasn't that happy with the purple. It looked too much like black and was hard to see. What do you think?

After this, I was interested and wanted to keep going, so I had to come up with other images. Another iconic image, for me... the TARDIS! Nice straight lines, although in this case I worked it myself. And got it slightly wrong, I took the Pull to Open design (black writing on white background) from the Eleventh Doctor's TARDIS, but didn't take the St John badge. And the writing is only clear in one part. Ehh...

(Neither of these pieces are going to be in Desert Bus. So now I need to decide what to do with them. In some ways, I'm tempted by etsy...)

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Craft-A-Long 2

As well as the main rug, I planned for another set of images. There's an iconic image associated with Desert Bus, because it is run by Loading Ready Run. They've got a logo... but it has curves, in fact it has circles. Damn circles are a problem...

I thought it came out well. (The figure you see is Creepy Doll.)

But I had plenty of colours left over, so...

These will not be available for auction, but might end up in a few packages...

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Craft-A-Long 1

Reaching back into time, two things came to mind with fondness. One of which was Pac Man. Now, I would like to do a full Pac Man screen, but hey... think of how many pixels that would be? I'd be going crazy! Just a sprite is like 14 pixels high...

...hey, a sprite is 14 pixels high! Now that's an idea! At first I thought of the classic image of Pac Man chasing the ghosts, but that would be very wide. And then a saw a picture of the four ghosts in a two by two formation... bam! Expand it so there were (in this case) four pieces of wool for each square, and there's a nice image to fit on a rug.

Then there's the issue of colour. It's all very well to say Red, Pink, Cyan and Orange but then there's trying to match the shade to what hue I can get. And getting enough... my first supplier was in New Zealand, however they stopped supplying latch hook after my first order, so I went overseas to ShillCraft (which I now recommend for all latch hook supplies - although postage took some sorting out).

Unfortunately I miscalculated something, and so had less room around the edge than I thought... and having only one row doesn't work either (it started to frail). That's why I hit on the idea of using fabric tape to edge it. (The common way is to fold the edge under and stitch it, I didn't have enough room, and like the tape.) However as tape can't do everything (stickyness isn't), I did end up sewing the edges to keep it together.

I think it turned out rather well. If you like it (and assuming the mail arrives) you can bid for it yourself at the next Desert Bus...

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Craft-A-Long 0

I've spoken about Desert Bus before, and have given money to them (never won an auction... which is probably a good thing for my account). However, note one thing about their auction: they use home made crafted items (and some big items from companies). Which they are quite proud of.

And so, for DB6, I decided to put my own talents to the effort of making something. I don't have many skills, but one thing I always did enjoy was the process of latch hook rugs. It's something to occupy the hands while the mind is doing something else, but also not something you can do without paying any attention to it.

Oh, and if you are working on a design, make sure you can count properly... yep.

Anyway, from the idea of putting an effort in, I then needed something to make into a rug... and what works is something that is straight lines and works on a very low level detail. Oh, and something that is preferably (but not restrictedly) game related. For example... a skyscape from Skyrim might look pretty, but no. It has to be low resolution, as think of one piece of wool as one pixel. When the canvas is around 200 by 500 pixels in size, that isn't a huge picture you can detail here. And even better, if you can find something even smaller and blow it up, that would work really well.

Minecraft could provide ample ideas, and be a part of the current huge trend it has... but that isn't something that appealed to me. Instead... I went retro, and came up with a few ideas. And I had something else inspiring me to do a design as well. But that is all for next time...

(Latch hooking in action!)

Unlike in the video, I work from the right to the left, and hook in an entirely different way...

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Craft-A-Long Posts

This is an index of my posts.

Introduction
First Rug
Logo Rugs
2nd and 3rd rugs
Fourth Rug - Creation
Fourth Rug - Continuation
Fourth Rug - Reveal

Full photo set

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1138 THX

This is referenced in, like, every movie ever made in the entirely of history ever, ever. But how many people have actually seen it? Now, I am one of them.

So, this dude gets his mack on, and then runs around society a lot, until the film runs out of budget.... yeah, it's about as boring as it sounds.

There are quite a few scenes where I'm sure it made great sense to George and Walter, but since this is an alternative future where the culture is changed, we don't know what the culture is, and so there's a disconnect that I just don't get. (If you need to read some film critic's thesis to understand everything, then your movie failed.) And then there's a car chase. And some guy standing facing a setting sun.

Robert Duvall does well when performing the sane parts of the script. Donald Pleasence goes over the top as Donald Pleasence does. And Maggie McOmie gets to play the saddest woman ever on screen.

While this may be iconic in several ways (at various times I was reminded of Brazil, A Clockwork Orange and 1984), it's also a movie that needs a lot of help. George is right on track then.

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