And then there's the sequel to 300. Looks like Themistokles, Artemisia and the battle of Salamis get their chance to descend into Zack Snyder/Frank Miller ridiculousness. But it'll be fun and visually stunning. And I'll watch my DVD of 300 Spartans again and get a modicrum of historical accuracy. Last time I saw it I was comparing it to Herodatus and being amazed how they followed the story.

Now where's the movie about Xenophon and the anabasis? Or is that the next sequel to 300?

After enjoying the Sam Raimi take on Hercules for all those years on TV and the Disney movie nothing surprises me anymore. Those Italain movies went all over with Hercules going to Atlantis and fighting alien moonmen so bizarre combinations of Roman and Grek myth why not? After all to be really Greek shouldn't his name be Herakles? You know the Italians ruined the battle of Marathon with a Steve Reeves movie where he's the runner guy. Except since it is Steve Reeves he survives that first marathon run. He was also Aeneas is a tolerable version of the Trojan War/Aeneid tale. So this new take on Hercules is lame stuff. Let's copy 300 and Spartacus: Blood and Sand blah, blah, blah.

I am not going to lie, but when I saw the preview for 300: Rise of an Empire, I got a morbid curiosity to see it solely because it has giant Lamassu (human-headed, winged bull) statues. I never saw the original 300, but the time period and Ancient Near East is so rich in history. I am also such a fan of the Owls of Ga'Hoole movie directed by Zack Snyder and he is producing the 300 sequel.

Now the movie that's going to be a Debbie Downer is that new Pompeii movie. I have not read any of the spoilers, but based on the history I studied in Latin class, it will not have a happy ending. I mean, goodness, humans versus Mount Vesuvius? I will put all my money on the volcano.

The whole last days of Pompeii has been a big thing since Edward Bulwer-Lytton wrote his book of the same name in 1834. Since then it's been a movie twice (1935 and 1959) and a miniseries (1984) so yet another movie about it gets a shrug. The volcano always wins but the hero and heroine always make it to a boat and sail away into the sunset, become Christians and so on.

I think there was also a Eddie Cantor parody of it in the 1930's too. He was the biggest star of the time and it would be funny if a tad dated. And of course Up Pompeii(1971) by the Carry on… gang. And their stuff is always worth a look.

Don't forget Further Up Pompeii (1991), with another great Frankie Howard performance.

Gunwallace wrote:
Don't forget Further Up Pompeii (1991), with another great Frankie Howard performance.

I didn't know there were more. I liked Up Pompeii when I was little, that speaking to camera thing he did was very new and unusual to me back then. :)

I am currently in Upstate New York, leaving later this afternoon, which is a good thing because there was a snow blizzard the whole day yesterday. I went inside a hospital yesterday, no particular reason but to loiter around and try out some of the food in the cafeteria. The song “A Long December” by the Counting Crows finally made sense to me with the line “the smell of hospitals in winter, and the feeling that it's all a lot of oysters and no pearls” finally made sense to me. Hospitals do have this musty, airless odour filled with antiseptics and surgical masks so that walking through the halls feels like all the air has been sucked out of them. I know a few people who spent half their childhood hanging out in hospitals with their older relatives or working as a candy striper, so hospitals and hospital food brings them some sort of nostalgia. I associate hospital visits with medical emergencies and car accidents. I wish I could associate them more as a place for healing.

There has been a lot of buzz going around Hayao Miyazaki's final animated feature The Wind Rises because of the controversy that its main protagonist was the engineer behind the Mitsubishi A5M and A6M “Zero” fighter aircrafts used in WWII. The issue addressed is that these were the same planes used during kamikaze operations. I do find dangers with romanticizing parts of the war effort, however brilliant the inventor or innovative the design, millions of people lost their lives. Case in point–could a US-based studio make a full-length animated film about J. Robert Oppenheimer without so much as a backlash for the subject matter? Absolutely no. I have been watching Studio Ghibli films since Grave of the Fireflies and My Neighbor Totoro and they rarely shy away from depicting the horrors of war. I definitely want to see The Wind Rises because I have a penchant for somber cartoons aimed at an adult audience.

That'd be the sort of thing he'd do, he's a very serious minded fellow… but even when he takes on a subject like Graveyard of the Fireflys, as horribly sad as that was, it still had a lot of whimsy.

As far as I know, the Kamikaze flights killed few people (compared to other aspects of the war), they were a lot more tragic for the deluded, brave young men who flew in them. Lookin at a list of ships sunk it seems most of them were tiny things like landing craft, with a few destoryers and a couple of escort carriers being the bigest vessels…
Such a pathetic, inverted symbol of the samurai. They were hoping for another “devine wind” that protected them from the Mongols. ugh! WW2 was such a massive defeat of that harmful, conservative, rightwing romantasicim, a real kick in the arse that they needed.

“Cockpit” is another anime on the subject… I haven't see it. I should though!.

Apparently back in the day Animation was disrespected by the west (or so I've read). It was relegated to childrens cartoons. Animation in Japan is a lot more mature sometimes… all the way up to XXX. To those animators, it's just another medium they can use to tell a story, no matter how over the top it can be…

Playing The Sims 3 again. I'm so tempted to recreate the worst sime I have ever played… Frenchie Cassanova. Why is he so bad? Well… he lives up to his name.

And though he finally died from a meteor strike, he left behind a lot of broken hearts and quite a few red headed Sim children…

If we're just listing tv/movie versions of Pompeii, there was also a Doctor Who episode.

When I first saw the trailer for the new one I was quite excited (cool, ancient Rome movie!) and then quickly realized it was an action movie and wasn't very impressed.

kawaiidaigakusei wrote:
I associate hospital visits with medical emergencies and car accidents. I wish I could associate them more as a place for healing.

Yeah, the first time I went to a hospital was to visit my aunt who suffered from severe depression. I remember it being dark and sad. Since then I've always found hospitals pretty upsetting.

—

I kind of want to put together an Emmy Altava costume because her outfit is so pretty, but I'm not sure enough people play Professor Layton and would get it.

HippieVan wrote:
I kind of want to put together an Emmy Altava costume because her outfit is so pretty, but I'm not sure enough people play Professor Layton and would get it.

Oh my gosh, you should totally do it for an everyday outfit. It looks like it would make a cool uniform. I do not watch Professor Layton, but I love everything in that picture's color scheme: mustard, yellow, cream, orange, and brown. Lately, I have been shopping for mustard coloured cardigans and accent pieces and absolutely adore the color.

I've been into mustard lately too! I'm not sure if there's a name for the type of colours I wear…sort of earth tones but with more red, I guess? Burgundy, navy blue, that sort of military green, gray/black, brown. I've only recently discovered that mustard yellow can be made to fit in there pretty well too.

The only part I don't like about her outfit is the pink bowtie. If I were wearing it as an everyday thing I would definitely switch it out for another colour, but I'd probably keep it for a costume.

Okay. Tried to recreate Emma in The Sims 3 with nearly ZERO success. Oh, well… at least I hope I got the color right…

@Lonnehart
Wow, the Sims have evolved since when I played it on the PC ten years ago. The only thing that was customisable was a creepy face skin where you could attach a real photo to those grainy graphic bodies. I also once had a conversation with a voice actor for The Sims: Hot Date at a swanky hotel lounge bar. It is funny that there are voice actors for the gibberish. Good luck on recreating your character “Frenchie Cassanova”. Hopefully, he has enogh money to pay for child support.
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I found that listening to the Quackcast podcast at the gym makes the elliptical trainer ten times more fun. I relistened to the episode where ozoneocean and Banes were pretending to fight (Quackcast #114: Behind the Bill) and I finally understood it this time. The first time I listened to it, I thought the clips were all real outtakes from older episodes, but then I realised it was all an act. I like how the fights gradually escalate from bad to worse over time. My favorite part was the complete breakdown at the end when they confuse the word “inkers” with “Incas” and Banes walks out of the Quackcast Studio. I still can not believe I thought all the clips were real!!

kawaiidaigakusei wrote:
@Lonnehart
Wow, the Sims have evolved since when I played it on the PC ten years ago. The only thing that was customisable was a creepy face skin where you could attach a real photo to those grainy graphic bodies. I also once had a conversation with a voice actor for The Sims: Hot Date at a swanky hotel lounge bar. It is funny that there are voice actors for the gibberish. Good luck on recreating your character “Frenchie Cassanova”. Hopefully, he has enogh money to pay for child support.

And that's the thing that makes me sad about The Sims 3. He didn't have to. The worst he did? Well… he had a child with a woman he met, that woman's mother, and the woman's sister when she aged from Teen to Young Adult. And I creep myself when I think about how I made him do that… which probably led me to forcing him to stand in place when the huge shadow of his death began to loom over him.

I also remember a player who played as a seductress… I think the world of the Sims have it out for the women while the men can get away with this sort of thing.

If you still want to play The Sims, its next iteration is coming out sometime this year. Of course you can still play The Sims 3 as long as your computer meets the requirements to play. The developers have stated that The Sims 4 will run on less than what the Sims 3 does now.

I should post a pic of Kyle “Rowdy” Reager, my current Sim who is a Singer by profession. Maybe a pic of his private wedding with a woman he met during one of his concerts. It's really funny how this turned out… like a lot of those Korean dramas my niece likes to watch. He tried romances with his fellow singers, magicians and acrobats. They either didn't think much of him, or they flirted with him… and everyone else. The woman who decided he was worth her time? An ordinary worker at the local bookstore. O_O

LOL! They WERE actual clips… hahaha!

That was so fun to do, Banes was all set to write it out but by the time we got to it he never quite got there so we had starter points that we improvised from, then I added some editiy bits later on to increase the illusion. Banes thouht he failed there bigtime, with his parts and the writing, but I thought he made it really, really funny. His improvisations are brilliant and subtle:
http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/quackcast/episode-114-behind-the-bill

Skoolmunkee really did kill all those homeless people though. Such a monster :(

Lonnehart wrote:
Okay. Tried to recreate Emma in The Sims 3 with nearly ZERO success. Oh, well… at least I hope I got the color right…

This makes me want to get Sims out and give it a go…but I know that's a bad idea. I had to stop playing Sims entirely because there's never a good place to STOP playing, and it was wasting way too much of my time. The creating part is the most fun, though. :)

—

kawaiidaigakusei wrote:
I found that listening to the Quackcast podcast at the gym makes the elliptical trainer ten times more fun.

I've been listening to Sam Cooke's One Night Stand lately while I work out. It's a live album and there's so much energy, it makes working out way better.

I don't think I was keeping up with the quackcasts around that time, I'll have to give that one a listen!

Yes, The Sims 3 can be addictive. Then again, any game that lets you customize your characters the way YOU want them can be addictive too.

Take for instance Champions Online…. I got SOME of it right… but the game has no options for the belt going over chestwear…

Had to name her Emilia Altavia to ensure she's not too much like the character that inspired her. I know that Emma is someone who's not afraid to go toe to toe with an opponent. Emilia, however… well… she uses magic. :)

I made a fish/frog man last night instead of working on essays. :)

He's made out of some old skulpey I found in the basement and acrylic paint. I tried to give him glassy eyes with clear nail polish, but it bubbled unfortunately.

Okay… the weather around just got weird. This is normally the start of our dry season, yet our dry season is starting with… Tropical Storm Faxai east of the island. Go figure… you can put that with the downpours on clear nights here as part of the strange weather.

I'd probably use Varnish for those eyes, but I'm not sure how the stuff will react to rubber…

Oh… and here's Katy Perry singing her song “Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)” in Simlish. :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CrbIXu2HveQ

And one of the Simlish songs your singer can sing. There's a female version as well.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXegiRfeNRU

I love the demon frog face Hippie! For adding gloss sections to acrylic I used to use a thick glaze made from the acrylic medium- basically the stuff that carries the pigment but without the pigment. - you can buy it but it's not easy to come by… Maybe a paint shop would have it, the kind that mix up paint colours for house paint.
You can also use arcylic paint glazes that you can by at an art shop. Could also try and use acrylic based clear gloss wood finishes. -oil based will generally o a bit yellow.

-The advantage of the acrylic medium is that it's pretty thick and goopy, thicker than glazes or wood finish, and it dries hard and crystal clear.

The face reminds me of one of the frog spirits from Spirted Away ^_^

———–

Interesting vid Lonne. A bit wacky and looney.
Speaking of wacky, check out the glorious Bubble butt by Major Lazer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctum0nNc08g
That's the kind of thing Mylee Cyrus was going for, but as you'll see, next to that she's a sad, silly little child.

Ugh… thought I had the right link in there. But that's okay. Fixed that post.

Wow… the things in your video were… huge… O_O

I don't create the most handsome male Sims. But what do you guys think of Kyle? He's getting ready for his gig at a big show venue. I probably should've gotten a pic with better lighting.

It wasn't so much adding gloss that was the problem as adding a thick layer of clear glassy stuff. The iris/pupil is indented to make it more realistic, although it's hard to see that from a photo. You can kind of tell in the profile one. So there was a relatively deep section that I had to fill. Clear acrylic paint might still work though, I will have to keep that in mind in the future!

I was just using stuff lying around the house for this, because it was kind of a spur-of-the-moment “I haven't made a monster in a while” project. My original ideas were either modpodge or hot glue. But neither of those were really glossy enough (I only had matte modpodge) and I didn't think I could make hot glue smooth enough.

—

Major Lazer is the brainchild of my secret crush Diplo, who was also involved in this masterpiece:http://youtu.be/KbW9JqM7vho(NSFW).

Look up the film Spitfire starring Leslie Howard. (NOT the one starring Katherine Hepburn) It was a WWII film all about the designer of the Spitfire. Like most British war films it was not flag waving propaganda and did not overlook the human cost of war. The British film industry in WWII knew they couldn't fool the audience with that like they did in the first war and the American film industry did in both wars. After WWII the Gemans made a film about Willi Messerschmidt and the ace Hans Marsielle. There was a live action film made about the Zero and it's designer back in the 1960's. Sadly it was only ever released to English speaking audiences in a badly recut sensationalized version. In fact it's a pretty good film about the tragedy of the arrogance of Imperial Japanese Naval aviation in WWII.

Every Japanese plane was used as a kamikaze not just the Zero. And when a plane hit a ship it killed more than the equilelent of high explosive would because it's a whole plane impacting the ship not just an explosion. They have displays about this on board US aircraft carrier museums like Yorktown and Intrepid with detailed pictures and diagrams (both of which were hit by kamikazes in WWII). They'd tear up whole decks and positions. Just ask the guys on board the USS Franklin how bad kamikazes could be. But then on the other side see the recent Japanese movie Men of the Yamato to see how bad it was to be on a Japanese ship hit by US aircraft. US planes strafed with 2-6 50 caliber machine guns each. Fifty caliber (that's half inch) slugs shred people.It's terrifying.

Meanwhile, production on my current comic has wrapped. All the pages are done. I finished it all the same day I was nearly late for work because the hatch on my car decided to freeze up and refuse to lock. Like a doofus I decided to play with it at home rather than just go to work and play with it there. I ended up taking the wife's car because I didn't want to chance the hatch flying open on the highway.

And while I'm examining the latch the whole inside of the hatch fell off exposing the whole mechanism so I probably ended up breaking somehting. Now the hatch will stay closed and you can hear it latch but the sensor still reads the door as open so I can't use the alarm or automatic door opener. The latch and mechanism will probably need to be replaced. But gotta think priorities. I need to get the wheels rotated and balanced first because with all the snow, ice and potholes this year my suspension has taken a beating and the car ain't riding right. And I'm past due for an oil change. Lazy me.

But Interstellar Blood beasts is done! But what next? Gotta think long and hard because I'm really getting tired of the whole photo comic schtick. No one reads them and no one will like they would for the precise same script done with pen and paper. It sucks.

bravo1102 wrote:
But then on the other side see the recent Japanese movie Men of the Yamato to see how bad it was to be on a Japanese ship hit by US aircraft. US planes strafed with 2-6 50 caliber machine guns each. Fifty caliber (that's half inch) slugs shred people.It's terrifying.

.50 cals are no joke. The metal sabot on them without the copper jacket is still 3/8 of an inch across. The things were originally designed to shred light tank and vehicle armor after all.

We just finished doing a shock & awe demonstration range where we fired off the entire arsenal of an MP platoon all at once, just to make a point. That's 4 .50 cals, 4 Mk 19 40mm grenade launchers, 3 M240B 7.62 medium machine guns, 12 5.56mm SAW light machine guns and about 20-22 M-4 assault carbines all going off at once on a single set of targets. And that's skipping the anti-tank rockets we also carry as part of our basic load-out. An American MP platoon is about the most heavily armed and dangerous thing you could hope not to run into outside of a heavy armor force.
It's one of the things I've been agonizing about capturing just right to fit into the story I'm trying to tell. Since there's a million and two war comics out there, like DMZ, Sgt. Rock, etc. I've been trying to write the stories of those of us who make up 90% of the force, who don't ever get to deploy to combat, and serve out our time in the background. I've been slowly writing and rewriting it, going through a million changes of focus, pace and ideas since I enlisted over two and a half years ago. I've more or less settled on it being a mix between Harvey Pekar's American Splendor and the old sensationalized WW2 war serials, but with all the stories and people I want to cover, I just can't figure out where the hell to start. I know I want it to be ongoing, to show the never-ending tedium that life is around here and I know I want it to reflect the day-to-day stories of the people here, to not build them up like gods, like most war/military stories do, but I'm stumped on just which story to start it off with.

NO!!! HOW?!? I didn't use any cheats, no fertility treatments, no special items that enhance fertility… yet THIS happens!!!



I guess the fact that Kyle's wife is one half of a set of identical twins may have something to do with this…

lba wrote:

It's one of the things I've been agonizing about capturing just right to fit into the story I'm trying to tell. Since there's a million and two war comics out there, like DMZ, Sgt. Rock, etc. I've been trying to write the stories of those of us who make up 90% of the force, who don't ever get to deploy to combat, and serve out our time in the background. I just can't figure out where the hell to start. I know I want it to be ongoing, to show the never-ending tedium that life is around here and I know I want it to reflect the day-to-day stories of the people here, to not build them up like gods, like most war/military stories do, but I'm stumped on just which story to start it off with.

Which story comes first?How did the guy get there? Then start with one story right in the middle of something and do a flashback. Most military stories start with initial entry training or at least the guy showing up at the recruiter and convincing them to take him. Or they plunk you right in the middle of everything and slowly fill you in on how everyone got there.

The best war stories are those that emphasize that these are very oridinary people who are called upon to do extraordinary things. Sometimes they can, sometimes they can't and sometimes they break. One of the best series remains Band of Brothers.

HippieVan wrote:
Major Lazer is the brainchild of my secret crush Diplo, who was also involved in this masterpiece:http://youtu.be/KbW9JqM7vho(NSFW).

I love that SOOOO much hippie. That was fricken awesome! ^_^

Just put this thing together for lunch a few hours from now. Just thought I'd share it. Don't know what to call it though…

24 oz package (or 1 pound) of elbow macaroni (You can use spaghetti if you like)
24 oz can of whatever spaghetti sauce you like
1 onion, chopped
1 bell pepper, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
3 pounds of ground beef
1 tablespoon oil
1 can of button mushrooms (I used whole mushrooms, but you can have them in pieces or sliced)

1. Prepare the water for your pasta.

2. Saute the garlic in oil, then add the onion, then the ground beef and finally the mushrooms and chopped bell pepper. Cover for now over medium heat, stirring it up occasionally.
3. Add the pasta to the boiling water, stirring occasionally.

4. Stir the pasta sauce into the ground beef, then cover again.

5. If the pasta is done, drain (DO NOT RINSE), then empty the pasta into a large bowl.

6. Pour the cooked spaghetti sauce over the macaroni and stir together.

Enjoy while I try to figure out what to call this thing… That's the problem with being single and alone. You have to experiement in the kitchen a lot. -_-

i haven't been on here for like 5 years and its now empty.