NDBT

I’m pretending it’s still Halloween, because you can’t tell the difference here, and it’s still Oct 31^st somewhere in the world.
 

First up, something REALLY scary:
 

Please, please dear god, don’t let a writer’s strike happen. Not only would it affect tv shows (like Lost, although I understand chapter 2 of Heroes has been written and finished by ep. 11) the movie slate for 2009, but I what I wasn’t thinking about was the following three; the Daily Show, the Colbert Report, and the awards shows. Granted, letting the actors just announce the best actress nominees without annoying banter could actually improve the golden globes and SAGs and such, but…. No Jon Stewart jokes? What will we do if the Daily show goes dark for weeks? (months?!?) Maybe that’s why Colbert figured he could run for president…
 

Now, the strike probably won’t happen this week or next week, but after that… it’s a distinct possibility. So – movie people – give the writers more internet revenues (although what with hulu going free, good luck with that), and writer people, stop demanding a 2X revenue increase on home video residuals.
 

The 20 scariest movies (yeah, leftover from Halloween).

My favourite bit of fantasia. Yes, I was a strange child.
 

Hey!! Someone finally put the Old Mill on youtube!! Check it out!

And another (seasonally relevant!): The Skeleton dance

An old Betty Boop (kinda creepy, more hallucinogenic).

I don’t know if you all will be able to see it, but I got an awesome Halloween card from my mom: check it out.

Oh – and mom, here’s a scare for you.
 

7 movies about watching horror movies.

Another creepy video from my childhood: the great owl.

(Imagine the spooky theme music for this bit): X-Files 2 gets a release date.

7 halloween flicks that could ruin a relationship.

On a non-halloween note; I’ve been checking out Opensecrets.org, which was mentioned on the Colbert report last night, to see who from my zip codes has been giving money to whom. Obama is in the lead – quelle surprise. And! Colbert mentioned the pacific trash patch on his show. Marine debris shout-out!
 

This is via Neva Chonin, yet another Stephen Colbert fan video.
 

The Wanted trailer is online – yay! 
 

I really like Maureen Dowd’s column on Hillary. I find it odd that people on one hand don’t think America could be ready for a woman president (a topic I’ve made my feelings clear on, before) while at the same time deriding Hilary for being too political and too ruthless. Either she’s too soft by virtue of being a woman (which… I just can’t… in this day and age, people!) or she’s too hard. It’s like some people are just determined to hate her. Not that I’m endorsing her at the moment, but I certainly don’t understand the vitriol directed at her at times.
 

Speaking of women, there was an interesting article in the Chch newspaper the other day. It was looking at female musicians my age (Lily Allen, Amy Winehouse and the like). I think most of the article isn’t very insightful, and some of the girls interviewed are idiots, but I did like these bits, “[Today’s] young woman […] is largely untroubled by sexual objectification, the glass ceiling and much of what haunted previous generations of women. Interestingly, most of these girls’ mothers were at some time single, working parents. It makes perfect sense to me when I find out Adele’s mother is my age. It makes sense that the daughters of my generation have turned out like that. Young female artists these days are confident, talented and, in the respect that they were mostly raised just by their mothers, the closest we’ve come to an Amazon generation. Which is not to say they’re all immune to the neuroses so familiar to previous generations…  What defines this freshman class of female musicians is that they don’t really know anything about feminism. “Feminism, sexism – I’ve never been around it,” Adele says. “I know that things have moved on in the workplace and in the home, but I don’t have an opinion on it.” Nash says: “Feminism came from Emily [as in Emmeline] Pankhurst – she had badges with her name on in 1904.” If they were the sort to do so, these girls would say they were postfeminist, but actually they just see themselves as equal and don’t think too much of it. Ida Maria says that her parents “played a big part in making me a human – not a girl, or a feminist. I don’t care about that”…She agrees that this generation of female musicians have a lot more gob on them than previous ones, but beyond that, she says simply: “There’s definitely something happening with female musicians, and that is, we’ve got a bit more space. We were the first generation to be raised free. Many girls today are strong without questioning where that strength came from.”
 

In case you missed it among all the linkspam yesterday, I really like this piece on illegally downloading music. When Pigs Fly: The Death of Oink, the Birth of Dissent, and a Brief History of Record Industry Suicide Yes, it’s long, but worth it. He point out that while newspapers have evolved with technology, record labels have wigged out and alienated their customer base. I think the same could be said of tv, too, which is evolving much faster than music.
 

On a totally, completely unrelated note – I think long coats are brilliant on men. I don’t know if this is a fashion that is coming back (possibly just in entertainment), or if it never went away (if you live on the east coast), but I’ve noticed that a lot of characters in movies and tv shows I’ve been enjoying recently have been sporting the look. First up you have Stardust, in which Tristan, Dunstan, and Septimus all sport long coats. Then, you’ve got Doctor Who with his long overcoat (and here). And then you have the brilliant costume designer for Heroes, who gives Peter a whole slew of different coats throughout the first season. (Of course, Milo Ventimiglia looks good in short jackets, too (click for the larger version)).
 

A spooky music playlist in honor of halloween (most of these suggestions come from a popwatch column on creepy music – I don’t know a lot of them, so I can’t vouch for how good they are.)
“I want you” – Fiona Apple (Elvis Costello cover (here on YouTube)
“I Put a Spell on You” by Screamin’ Jay Hawkins’
“Stan” by Eminem (and Dido)
“Enter Sandman” by Metallica
“Hotel California” by the Eagles
“Boris the Spider” by The Who
“Troy” by Sinead O’Connor
“Sadie” and “This could be love” by Alkaline Trio
“Voodoo Dolly” by Siouxsie and the Banshees (live)
“Jeremy” Pearl Jam
“Bloodletting” by Concrete Blonde
“Death Valley 69” by Sonic Youth
“Waking The Witch” & “Under Ice” by Kate Bush
“Lullaby” by The Cure
“Bonnie and Clyde” by Tori Amos (Eminem cover)
“Where the Wild Roses Grow” by Nick Cave
“Mr. Crowley” by Ozzy Osbourne
“Sweet dreams” – Marilyn Manson
“Tear you apart” – She Wants Revenge
“The more you ignore me” – Morrissey
“Frankie teardrop” by Suicide
“Incense and Peppermints”
“Cemetery gates” by Pantera
“Maxwell’s Silver Hammer” – Beatles
“Gravedigger” – New York Rock Ensemble
“Careful with that ax, Eugene” – Pink Floyd
“After dark” – Tito and Tarantula
“Devil is in the Details” by Boards of Canada
“Bela Lugosi’s Dead”
“Darkness” – Peter Gabriel
 

And these two suggestions made me laugh:
“… Baby One More Time” – Britney Spears (I swear, I can hear her soul choking and dying)
“#1 Crush by Garbage is very creepy and stalkerish. It could be Glenn Close’s or Jessica Walter’s theme song.” Hmmm…. Is it bad that I really love this one?
 

My musica? Spooky classical; Night on bald mountain (also the gnome – but that isn’t spooky) by Mussorgsky, Danse Macabre by Saint-Saens, O Fortuna – Carl Orff, Toccata and Fugue in D Minor – Bach. Also; The Highwayman – Loreena McKennit

Happy Halloween!! (It does not feel like Halloween at all here. It is warm and sunny (and the daylight lasts forever and ever) there are no decorations, no costumes, and no jack o lanterns. No monster mash on the radio. *sigh* So I just have to imagine my favourite holiday… Ah well, at least I had some pumpkin (meaning squash) salad for lunch.)
 

In supremely excellent news, I scored 6/1626 for this weekend’s box office challenge. 6^TH!!!!! When you log in to see the scores  – I pop up in the top 10!! I ROCK!! And, it puts me at 59/1626 for the month, which is in the top 4%. I’m so totally brilliant.
 

Bought my bus pass! Yaaaay!!! And it includes the train journey from Christchurch to Greymouth. So now I just need to save up for food and accommodation, and the activities I want to do along the way. So my itinerary is as follows;
 

Dec 2^nd; TranzAlpine train from Chch to Greymouth, then up to Barrytown.
Dec 3^rd: Barrytown to Franz Josef
Dec 4^th: Franz Josef (See the glacier)
Dec 5^th: Franz Josef to Makarora (stop at fox glacier, see the Haast pass, stay in a national park)
Dec 6^th: Makarora to Queenstown (see lakes Wanaka and Hawea)
Dec 7^th: Queenstown (recover from a night out)
Dec 8^th: Queenstown to Tuatapere (head to Milford sound, see some glowworms and a bird center. Tuatapere is apparently the sausage capital of NZ).
Dec 9^th: Tuatapere to Invercargill and Stewart Island (stop at a sheep farm, check out the birds on Stewart island)
Dec 10^th: Stewart Island to Dunedin (drive through the Caitlins, which are supposed to be gorgeous, well like most of the South island is supposed to be gorgeous).
Dec 11^th: Dunedin to Queenstown (Wildlife at the Otago peninsula)
            (if the weather is bad and we don’t make it to the Otago peninsula, I can stay behind, make my own way to Christchurch and join up with them again there)
Dec 12^th: Queenstown
Dec 13^th: Queenstown to Christchurch
Dec 14^th: Christchurch to Kaikoura (stay by the beach and see the whales and dolphins)
Dec 15^th: Kaikoura to Wellington (seal colony, ferry to Wellington)
Dec 16^th: Wellington to Taupo
(the bus actually goes onto Auckland that day, but I’m going to get off in Taupo and make the rest of the way on my own. I might also see if I can stay a day in Wellington to see the museum, gardens, or the karori wildlife sanctuary, which I’ve heard great things about)
Dec 17^th: Taupo to Waitomo
Dec 18^th: Waitomo (glowworm caves!!)
Dec 19^th: Waitomo to Auckland
Dec 20^th: Auckland (probably see the zoo and some of the parks)
Dec 21^st: Auckland to San Francisco! I think by this point I will be exhausted enough to actually sleep on the plane ride home.
 

So yes – I miss out on Nelson and Abel Tasman (and sky diving in Taupo), plus I don’t think I’ll get to check out the 2 story maze, but you can’t have it all. I think the itinerary is really good, considering the constraints.
 

Yay! Heroes just started in New Zealand, so monday night I saw ep 202 (the US is on 206), and Jason promised to bring in 201 so then I’ll be all caught up. Also, I forgive the make-up team for cutting Milo Ventimiglia’s hair because of this scene. (the scene starts at about 1:00. And the quality is crap – but hey – it’s youtube. There is more shirtless-ness here at 3:00 and here at 1:30) You know, considering that it was Peter discovering his powers that kick-started season 1, giving him amnesia for season 2 (granted, starting with many more powers) was a pretty good idea on somebody’s part.
 

(Also – sooo not Cork accents. Not that I’m any kind of expert on the various Irish accents, but I found that the Cork accent was the absolute hardest one for me to understand. I think they’re just using a basic Irish accent and saying the scene is in Cork, since sure you need to yer man to be understood on tv. 😉 )
 

Piper’s married! I’m SO thrilled for her. Although I cannot, cannot believe one of my best friends from high school is married. We’re so young!
 

I got in a student registration today for a woman whose last name is Welbeloved – isn’t that great? I also had a guy in all seriousness say cheerio to me, which made my afternoon.
 

Oh my god. Check this out: mega-amazing technology/entertainment news. So… in a few months, I won’t need to upload crappy youtube clips with Spanish subtitles (as above) I could just embed the entire episode of Heroes into my blog to share with people. Or an episode of the Office. You’ll be able to watch full length episodes of Heroes, the Simpsons, the Office, Arrested Development (I like how they call that a classic show – yet they didn’t KEEP IT ON THE AIR) for free anytime you want. And share them. They’re adding a few feature films, as well. How cool is that?? Now I won’t have to worry about catching up on Heroes or House or the Office by downloading them (which is always a little worrisome – or expensive, if you go with iTunes). I’ll just save downloading for Dexter and Lost.

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