15 March 2009

...for BearWatch '09

BearWatch '09
'Bout time to keep those eyes peeled.

If you weren't around for BearWatch '08, here are the highlights:
Claire's Bears
Bears in motion, sort of


2 years ago on TTaT: When Irish road workers have spare time

13 March 2009

And now for a quick read...

3. Wishful Drinking by Carrie Fisher (4/5)

Made me laugh. This among other things:
When I was little--about seven, I guess--I remember getting in the car with my mother when she picked me up from school and telling her I'd seen the word "fuck" written on the handball court at the playground and I wanted to know what it meant.

And she said, "I'll have to tell you later, dear--when I can draw you diagrams." Well, needless to say "later" never came and neither did--I'm sorry to report--those promised diagrams. Which is a shame, really, because I think they would've come in pretty handy from time to time.
I knew some of her family history: daughter of Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher, parents divorced when Eddie left for Elizabeth Taylor, but it's so much crazier than that, as are many events in her life. Much of it could be seen as tragic, but Carrie finds the humor in it all, even drug addiction and electroconvulsive therapy for bipolar disorder.

She writes in a breezy conversational tone, not surprising as the book is based on her one-woman show, Wishful Drinking--a show I'd love to see. I read nearly all of the book in one day because the second time I picked it up, I just couldn't put it down. Lots of photos as well.

Definitely worth checking out if you're a fan of hers, humorous crazy anecdotes, famous Hollywood families, celebrity memoirs, Star Wars trivia; or if you're interested in first person accounts of manic-depression, drug and alcohol abuse, and their treatments. It hit for me on multiple counts, so I really enjoyed it.

P.S. She blogs, what more could you want?


2 years ago on TTaT: The add-on

12 March 2009

Have you been watching Angel of Death?

If not, you should be.

Angel of Death is a great, high production value, web series on crackle.com about an assassin.
Nobody looks for the Beretta, when all they see is a slinky chick in a cocktail dress. Noir comic book legend Ed Brubaker cuts deep with the story of Eve, a hot woman with a heart of ice. Zoe Bell steps in as an assassin haunted by visions after a bloody encounter with a very big knife. In this, the most ambitious web series ever created, Zoe makes bare knuckle boxing a thing of beauty, and a head wound as sexy as sin. Lucy Lawless, Doug Jones, and Ted Raimi all show up for the ride... If the sight of blood bothers you, just keep your eyes on her other assets, and remember she can grab your heart with her looks or her hand, your choice.
Zoe Bell's stunt background makes the action scenes amazing. The violence is strong and bloody, but they don't dwell on it excessively (imo), and it serves the story. For me, it's just below the borderline of too much. Enough to make me say Ah, Uf, or Ew about once an episode, but also think many a Wow.

Each episode is about 7-9 minutes long, and I think there are going to be ten in total, which would make tomorrow the culmination of the story. Not to worry, when you go to Angel of Death, it starts with the first episode and will automatically bring up the next episodes as each completes. If you don't want to watch them all at once, you can always go back and then scroll down to the 'Playlists" for all the individual episodes.

It's some stunning filmmaking. I'm not sure how long they will leave it up, particularly ad-free, so you might want to check it out sooner rather than later. Enjoy!


2 years ago on TTaT: Not light reading

09 March 2009

Grande due

2. The Great Book of Archaeology by Editors: Valeria Manferto De Fabianis, Fabio Bourbon (4/5)

I bought this 8 pound coffee table book for its photos--twenty bucks at Costco over a year ago, such a great deal--but I was also determined to read it. After about fifty pages, I stalled for about a year. The text is written by several different people, so the quality varies, but most of it is dense with unfamiliar names and places, and lots of archaeological and architectural terms. Also, all but a handful of the hundreds of photos have captions which slows down the reading.

Starting in mid-January of this year, I took a new approach: read one chapter a day. Each chapter is a different archaeological site and they average about ten pages each with lots of photos. Reading in this manner let me soak in a lot more of the details in the text and photographs. Also, it felt like traveling somewhere new each day, a pleasant way to spend winter.

Overall, the photos are great and cover archaeological sites all over the world. The text contains a lot of typos and inconsistent spellings, but I attribute that mainly to my suspicion that the book was written in Italian and then translated to English. I do wish they'd indented with the start of new paragraphs or skipped a line to make it easier to read. Without those technical errors, I might've given the book 4.5/5.

Reading it made me think of Dave2 when he writes about deciding where to travel next. If I was at a point where I couldn't decide where to go next, this is the book I would flip open to a random page to decide.

As some of you may know, ancient Egypt has long been a passion of mine. It's well represented in The Great Book of Archaeology which drew me to it initially, but I also learned about a bunch of spectacular sites I'd never heard of. I suspect I'll be tracking down some follow-up books on those, particularly, Pagan in Myanmar.


3 years ago on TTaT: Cleaning up

05 March 2009

Is it hubris if I want to show off my Greek goddess?

Bearthena
Bearthena

Nah, I'm proud--but not excessively so--of her, particularly the play of light on her sword.


A year ago on TTaT: The cyborg with the thigh-highs