Wizard pf Ozylvania poster

 

Princess Consuela

The Village Simpleton

I've posted what may be my least intelligent post yet to gametime, Noteworthy: How and Why. It's pretty simple stuff, but I am of the opinion that it's worth posting often, even if not every post is a pearl of wisdom. I think on balance my contributions to gametime have been satisfactory :) I particularly liked last week's posts, with five posts taking different approaches to the same topic. It was really intersesting to see how people tackled the topic, as well as what they said within their varied approaches. It's something I'd be quite happy to do again, and it was nice to see a good number of comments from a variety of readers. I think there's much of merit in that - that different people will respond to different approaches to a topic. Variety, spicy life, it's all goods. Additionally, I now want to see 28 Weeks Later. A student gleefully informed me that a hovering helicopter is used to decapitate dozens of zombies in one scene. Sounds like fun :) If my first-ever co-written school play (Wizard of Oz with monsters and silly jokes) didn't start on Wednesday, I might even watch it for Halloween.

Moviefest Finals

Were today. They were differently bad to last years - more comically bad than annoyingly bad - but they still left Debbie and I (and Jenni and Lee) asking - What the hell? How hard is it to make an awards show focus on the awards, and put a little drama into it? Needless to say, we did not win - I'd have no time for complaining about the format if I was excitedly gloating about winning ;) Things that would have made the ceremony better: - showing clips from each film - reading out a list of who made the finals in each category - telling us who got 3rd and 2nd place in each category, even if there were no prizes for them - having a few extra 'spot prize' type awards for things that the prelim judges liked - shorter, or no guest speakers - positive feedback about what the judges liked about the winning films - our film winning There, a fully balanced and impartial list of advice, that I shall send with my warmest wishes to the well-meaning and hard-working organisers. I am sure they will thank me for it :) (Actually, I gave constructive feedback last year on how I thought the ceremony could be improved. My advice was not heeded.)

Debbie has blogged

An extended rant about the sexification of female villains: Bring back evil but not sexy females.

The best damn cops on the force

I've been watching The Shield and The Wire recently, shows about cops on the front line. So this onion article really caught my eye:

Despite their many infractions, precinct commander Thomas Henderson defended the officers as "the best damn men on the whole force." "I don't always necessarily agree with their cockeyed methods, but, I've got to admit, they get results," Henderson said. "And they save the department thousands in chair costs by sitting on the corners of their desks."

Article here.

Weekend!

3 days off is very, very nice. I plan to get some much needed sleep, mow the lawns, go to a Kapcon meeting, and generally chill out. It'll be nice to spend some time with Debbie, visit some good folks, and not have to teach 4 lessons and run a detention on Monday. Only one week and one day until Moviefest finals. I'm quite looking forward to seeing how we go. At the very least, we're on track to get 4th in the country for our category. I think after the finals we'll be able to post the movie on Youtube? I shall find out. I am quite happy with how it turned out, both from a script/performances point of view, and from a filming/editing/polish point of view. Polish (make shiny) and Polish (from Poland) always look funny to me. Neither seems quite right? Anyways, I vote for more 3 day weekends in the future. They really are quite civilised :)

Things on the internets

So I heard about some LolBlacks pics whilst at Jenni's partay, and was curious, so I googled. Then, slightly disturbed by the results, I googled All Blacks lolblacks, and found what I was actually looking for.

The internet being what it is, someone had already made lol-African American images (well, black people in general), some of which were a little tasteless, and getting worse as I scrolled down.

Anyways, the Lolblacks pics were cute.



And Debbie blogged! Is funny. Go read.

Cheese on Toast Rocks My World

Mmmm, after school snack made by loving shufu*. Takes away the sting of all-alt Tuesday (3 alternate classes). Of course, Wednesday has a lower percentage of alt classes solely because I teach 5 lessons, 3 alts + 2 mainstream. *shufu = housewife (usually of the golf-playing, shopping-as-a-hobby variety)

Windy morning

It was a windy night too. Not an easy morning to go out for a walk, but I managed somehow. For some odd reason the swaying of the large trees outside looked interesting to me: That's a shoulder-high fence behind the trees - it's pretty gusty here!

Teaching tomorrow's best and brightest...

This was on my whiteboard for a couple of days, as a sample poster for analysis:



Questions were:
What is the main idea of the poster?
Why is that idea important for people's health and well-being?
What's a visual technique used in the poster, and what effect did it create?
What's a verbal technique used, and what effect did it create?

That way madness lies...

Scenario: Emo Force Five Premise: Five Emo Animals take on the flaming snake conspiracy in a spiralling whirlwind of mountain action and midnight poetry. Bring your eyeliner, your fire extinguisher, and a very big gun. Starring: Obsidian Dark, Emo Goat Winter Black, Emo Duck Gloomy Murk, Emo Panther Sable Autumn, Emo Panda and guest starring Sunshine Sassy, 70's Jive Tiger - she's a fish out of water in a sea of angst!

Playtested

Yesterday I broke a long abstinence from RPGs by playing in Morgue's Fright Night playtest. It was a lot of fun, and really nice to be roleplaying with good folks on a blustery, thundery, lightning-y night. In the interests of preserving fright night players from spoilers, I have censored parts of my comments: Last night I played in Morgue's Fright Night game. The premise is basically that you're a group of *spoilers deleted* who have to investigate a *spoilers deleted* and try to *spoilers deleted*. It was a pretty creepy task, and got even creepier when *spoilers deleted*. It built to a terrifying conclusion when *spoilers deleted* the *spoilers deleted* and we had to go find the professor in the heart of the coastal caves and cut out his heart with a sacrificial dagger to stop the demon hordes breaking through the *spoilers deleted* gateway into our dimension and summoning dread Cthluhu to destroy the entire *spoilers deleted*.

Lolcat caption?

Any suggestions for a lolcat-esque caption for our pudgy-bellied tortoise-shell pussycat?

One minute you're down...

...the next you're right back up again. To balance out the yukky canine picture, here is a gratuitous picture of our feline:



Much cuter than my dislodged teeth.

Expensive, ineffective weight loss

Today I paid $120 to lose a tiny amount of weight - probably less than a gram? It was expensive, but it did have the bonus side effect of making my smile less broken-toothy.

I had the remnants of 2 baby teeth ripped out (under very effective anaesthetic). They were my baby canines, and it's quite a relief to be rid of them. I still have at least 2 baby teeth, but as they aren't broken I won't be removing them any time soon.

Shortly I will update with a photo of the teeth - I asked to keep them after the (rather swift) procedure.

Back from holiday, not done marking yet

So I still have exam marking to do. This is sad. On the plus side, despite being on maternity leave, Debbie is going to be in at school for most of the next two days, so I can do lots of boring marking but not have to miss out on quality Debbie time, since I have to miss out on Debbie time anyway. I will also do much tidying of the house and other exciting chores. In less domestic news, apparently I have the look of a metal fan. We were in Taihape on the way home, stopping for a drink, when the service station guy at Wild Bean asked me, "Do you listen to metal?" It was an unexpected question, but I answered yes. When he asked me where I was from, I said Hamilton as I was apparently having some kind of teenage metal-flashback, then explained that I was from Hamilton but lived in Kapiti now. "Have you listened to a band called Death?" he asked. I replied that I had, slightly confused as to where this conversation was going. I had already paid for our drinks but was now trapped in a slightly surreal dialogue. "I'm in a band called Soul Canciern (or something), if you see a poster for us playing in Wellington you should come check us out!" It all made sense (sort of). He was trapped in Taihape, and was in a death metal band. Local supporters were probably thin on the ground, so he was building up a network of support by talking to any beardy long-haired guys who were passing through who looked like they might like a bit of death-metal. As Debbie said on the way back to the car, I must be some kind of walking stereotype to be so quickly identified as a metal fan. I guess the odds were 50/50 that I'd be into metal, or be some kind of filthy hippy.