This is all fake

While checking in on Facebook yesterday, an old high school friend posted a fake trailer called The Batman Complex. It isn't the most well done fake trailer I've ever come across, but the idea of the story it told intrigued me, so I felt like sharing it.



This in turn reminded me of a mash-up I'd seen for Community and 500 Days of Summer, called 500 Days of Brita, which is very well done.



Watching these two fake trailers reminded me a of a different kind of fake trailer I'd come across awhile back, which had excited me greatly until I realized that it was, indeed, a fake: Nathan Fillion as the Green Lantern.



Just a little something to get you excited about the upcoming summer blockbusters, even though none of these will be among them.

Four things

I've got some stuff to get done today, so I can't focus too much attention on the blog at this moment. However, I have come across a handful a links I feel like sharing.

• For Literary Cat: A Dribble of Ink has a post up with a series of links for free downloads of short stories, novelettes, novellas, and one novel that are all up for the Hugo this year. If you're looking for something good to read on the cheap, feel free to go through these!

• For Something Catchy: Here's a rage comic that Sam and I came across last night. I have a feeling you'll be able to relate.

• For the history buffs: from the article, I have the impression this is only for the iPad and doesn't include the iPhone, but I wanted to point it out because it's pretty freaking awesome. Basically, someone's designed an app that is an interactive newspaper that takes you through the Civil War in real time. Meaning they started releasing articles on April 12, and each day they update with headlines from the actual war, photos, military maps, and other trivia/information that had to do with that day during the Civil War. It's $7.99, but would be an awesome learning tool.

• For my D&D buddies: This video is pretty cute, and made me giggle.

Pink

After yesterday's post with those adorable girls in their Easter fanciness, I was struck by the stark contrast between the subject matter and the dying autumn leaves:

Just a bit jarring, aye?

And so, I decided to tweak the background for the blog. I'd spent time looking through various templates, per Sherri's recommendation, but I actually like the layout of the blog as it is, I just wanted to change the background.

I started thumbing through some of the pictures I've taken in the past month of the arrival of spring. Roses, irises, trees, kitties, lettuce, sunsets.... I had plenty of pretty items to choose from. Eventually I opted for this picture, which had previously served as my desktop wallpaper:

I did a little bit of fiddling, and that's how we wound up with the very girly background. (Yes, my inner sixteen-year-old is not impressed.) Of course, once that was done, I needed to change the font colors and so forth so that it all complimented one another. Because I'm thorough like that.

Spring has finally arrived at my work in progress!

Easter Bonnets

This past weekend, Sam and I traveled up to Kansas to visit my parents and celebrate Mama's birthday. For those of you playing at home, it also happened to be Easter.

(Which, for the record, was very strange. I can't remember the last time Easter was that close to Mama's birthday.)

Many of the local churches were having Easter Egg Hunts on Saturday instead of Sunday, which meant that the little neighbor girls were all dressed up in their Easter dresses both days. Since my brother and I have yet to provide our parents with grandchildren to spoil, the little neighbor girls fill the void.

So, on Saturday, they had to come over and show off to my parents their pretty new dresses and hats. My mother insisted I take pictures.

Aren't they absolutely adorable?

Here's a solo shot of Big Sis. I think she was regretting coming over and having a strange woman take pictures of her.

Little Sis was also feeling bashful. I absolutely love the way this picture came out, though. Almost makes me feel like a real photographer!

Their mother is close to me in age, so my parents really do view them as surrogate granddaughters.

I think they're okay with that though.

Love you, Mama

Fifty-nine years ago today, Grandma Nena brought my Mama into this world. Today, she and Papa and a couple of their friends are headed out east to celebrate this fact. With any luck, they'll return a little bit richer than when they left.

Happy Birthday, Mama! It was good to see you this weekend, and I can't wait to hear how your trip went. :-)

Variations

One of my favorite comic strips growing up was Garfield. Perhaps it was a warning sign that I would one day turn into a creepy old cat lady.

Anyway.

As I grew older, I moved on from Garfield and began paying more attention to webcomics like Bob and George, 8-Bit Theatre, and Penny Arcade. Partly it was because I just spend a lot of time on the internet, and have for well over a decade. Also, I haven't gotten a big city Sunday paper in a lot of years, so the comics section is no longer the be all end all of my news-tainment.

The reason I bring all of this up is that I wanted to share two different variations on Garfield that I've come across in the past year or so. The first is Garfield Minus Garfield, which re-presents Garfield comics with the titular character removed.

Here's an example of a Garfield Minus Garfield strip:

It makes one feel very sad for Jon. It also presents new aspects of humor and insight that that the original strips don't have.

The other variation that I would like to point out is Shut up, Garfield!, which are the same strips as the original, only with all of Garfield's text removed:

These are very reminiscent of my daily life with my three little monsters. I'm consistently telling them things, and this is the exact look I get from them.

And, for those of you who were curious about the original strip, here you go:

Just a little something different to try if you're so inclined. :-)

The outhouse

Last Christmas when I was home, I asked my parents if I could borrow some of their old pictures. Several years ago I spent a winter going through pictures and scanning them in, but there were still many that I had missed. I had hopes that there might be some which had survived the fire and that I could archive.

I've been working on it off and on since then, and a little while ago I came across this picture:

Taken sometime around 1970, if I were to make a guess.

This, my dear friends, was Grandpa Howell's outhouse.

Grandpa and Grandma Howell were my paternal great-grandparents. They lived in a small town in Kansas and raised twelve children in a ramshackle ol' house that I have the vaguest memories of. It wasn't until some time after my father was born that they got indoor plumbing in that house, and even then Grandpa Howell still preferred to use his outhouse.

I've heard lots of stories about that outhouse.

For example, it was apparently a Halloween tradition in that particular small town in Kansas for the kids to try and sneak into Grandpa's junk yard and knock over the old thing. Grandpa Howell would spend the whole night camped outside with his gun, ready to scare off any teen dumb enough to try it.

As you can tell from the picture, it wouldn't have taken much to knock it over.

There's also another story that my dad likes to tell about certain little boys deciding to send some kittens swimming down there, and Grandma Howell having to fish the poor things back out. Apparently there were quite a few tanned hides that resulted, and that mama cat would have nothing to do with those kittens for weeks.

Don't get any bright ideas.

Laughing Penguin

This is for Sherri. The cutest sound in the world is in the last 20 seconds or so.

Meet Cookie!

Kitty Blink Love

It's been two weeks since the last cat picture.

I know, I'm equally horrified by this oversight.

So, today, because I love all of you and Tiger just startled the hell out of me when I went to get something out of the frig:

Happy Thursday!

Roses

I looked out my window today and immediately had to grab my camera.

My roses are blooming.

Some are just tiny buds.

Others are so close to actually opening up to the sun.

This one is channeling its inner Audrey II.

This is the only one that's grown brave enough to open up. I think it's lovely.

Of course, my roses aren't the only ones blooming.

My pretty irises are getting in on the act too.

They make me smile.

Project Mode

I'm alive, just busy, busy, busy. With what? Well...

• Writing a story that my Sammy requested
• Paring down ~8,000 pictures to about 400 pictures to help out some old friends
• Editing those roughly 400 pictures
• Reading the five books Literary Cat has loaned/recommended to me
• The Broken Kingdoms by N.K. Jesimin
• Three Thursday Next novels
• The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Leguin
• Normal chores and stuff

Really it's the pictures that's soaking up all of my time at the moment. I've almost got them all edited--then I'll begin the process of uploading them, probably to Facebook.

Anyway, that's why I'm scarce at the moment. But I still love you guys!

Have a video:

Smart little girl.

Oh, no. Humans are far too private to ever do that....

I laughed a great deal at this particular video. It's a little longish (10 minutes or so), but totally worth the time invested. It's a mother's recounting of how she ended up sharing the news about "the birds and the bees" with her 8-year-old daughter, so be forewarned that some, ahem, clinical terms are used. However, if those words don't bother you, then it's a perfectly clean and wholesome story. Mostly.



Mom and Dad just headed back north, carting off our old van with them. We also have an action-packed weekend planned, so it's entirely possible you will not hear from me again until Monday. Have an excellent weekend!

Spider-Man, Spider-Man, George Takei should be Spider-man...

Yesterday I had planned to write this very touching post about Sherri's visit on Tuesday night. Unfortunately, my main hard drive had a catastrophic failure and put the kabosh on that.

And I do still want to get back to that touching Sherri post. Right now, however, I am unable to do so because my parents should be here in about an hour, hour-and-a-half, and I still need to get things done around the house.

So, instead, I present you with this absolutely wonderful video which involves Broadway, Spider-Man, and George Takei.

Will, Sherri, you're welcome.

SW Popsicles

I came across this a couple of days ago, but just now remembered to share it with you. Courtesy of ThinkGeek:



Plumbers are currently running new pipe under the house. Thankfully, they are not going to be tearing up my floor like they'd originally planned. Woot!

Tradition

Saturday, in celebration of Rapier Wit's birthday, we went to Ted's Cafe Escandido for excellent Mexican food, and then we proceeded to the local Medieval Faire.

Our group of friends have attended this particular faire every year since '05. Not everyone can always make it (I missed it both years I was in Dallas), but at least four or five of us make it there every year.  Part of that is because it always falls the weekend before or after Rapier Wit's birthday, and thus it's become a tradition.

This year we did not dress up in full regalia, partly because it was in the 80's. However, we still had a great time. Sherri got to pet an owl this year. To be honest, I don't know how that matches up with the year she got to ride an elephant (pictured right), but she was pretty excited about it. I, however, did not pet an owl this year, because I made a poor choice in footwear so Sam and I left early. Ah well.

The fun thing about returning to the same faire year after year is seeing people you recognize from previous years, whether that be vendors, other vistors, or those participating in the jousting tournaments.

We of course had to make a stop for the huge glass bottles of root beer that are sold each year. I sometimes suspect that the root beer is why we make this trip each year.

Yes, it's that good.

Through virtue of lack of funds, Sam and I managed to resist purchasing any of the clothing that they sell there. However, I will confess that there were a couple of dresses which I lusted after.

First there was this blue dress, which immediately made me think of my halfling character, Annie. It's totally something that I could see her wearing.

However, the one that really got my heart pounding was this gorgeous outfit:

I make an excellent pirate wench, for the record, and this dress would be perfect. Alas, it was not meant to be.

The other outfit which we came across that excited Adorable Nurse in particular was this awesome steampunk outfit:

Adorable Nurse has a not-quite-obsession with steampunk, so she had a grand time seeing all of the steampunk-style items for sale at the faire.

Here you can see Adorable Nurse modeling that rocking hat. 

Isn't this completely awesome? I love the detail work on it!

Of course, Adorable Nurse had to show it to her husband, Walking Hyperbole.

Doesn't he look distinguished? If only he had a cane with a sword in it....

April Fools Day

Means I cannot trust anything I see on the internet.

As such, I will be abstaining from the internet until tomorrow.

Of course, tomorrow we're going to be celebrating Rapier Wit's birthday and going to a Medieval Faire, so it's unlikely you will hear from me before Monday.

Ah well.

In other news, my sink is now in working condition--at least enough so that I can wash dishes. Sometime next week they're coming back and laying new pipe under the house, as there are leaks down there.

Anyway, here's a Tiger!