![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/syndicated.gif){kind=small}
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif){kind=small}
Source: Variety
"Natalie Portman will star in and produce Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, a film that is based on the best-selling book written by Seth Grahame-Smith and Jane Austen. Variety says that Lionsgate will finance and distribute.
Described as an expanded version of the Austen classic, the book tells the timeless story of a woman's quest for love and independence amid the outbreak of a deadly virus that turns the undead into vicious killers.
Portman will play feisty heroine Elizabeth Bennet, who is distracted from her quest to eradicate the zombie menace by the arrival of the arrogant Mr. Darcy."
|
Page Summary
|
This week: A Wish For Wings That Work, the only Berke Breathed TV special ever. Hello, please, help me to download all comments from community. I use perl-script with clear-authorisation in a LJ-server (XML-RPC). Community is very big and old. And method syncitems get me 500 items. But I iterate this method and get all posts. Next step - is a downloading comment. In this step I got error. And autorisation is Faild. I create request to LJ whith method sessiongenerate and can get SESSID then send this ID to /export_comments.bml?get=comment_meta&st Since it is offically freezing here in Baltimore, Maryland, I've been looking for lolita coats. Seems like F+F has a hit or miss but Bodyline has jacked up their prices to $125 for a coat. I'm thinking, "Why don't I get a brand coat for that price or make one?" but I would like to hear how Bodyline coats are overall and if they're worth the $125. Hey just wondered if you have all seen the 2010 VW/melissa shoes...they have brought back the RHS but in PVC...for the decent price of £120! here is a picture of the pink ones:- 6:30 p.m. at the Ronald McDonald House. $15 at the door. Donations of cash or toys will also be collected, to help those in need. Anybody planning to show up? Or, if not, what's your weekend plan?
(Automatically crossposted from warrenellis.com. Feel free to comment here or at my internet church at Whitechapel. If anything in this post looks weird, it's because LJ is run on steampipes and rubber bands -- please click through to the main site.)
Rumors are that RSA president Art Coviello declined the job. No surprise: it has no actual authority but a lot of responsibility. Security experts have pointed out that previous cybersecurity positions, cybersecurity czars and directors at the Department of Homeland Security, have been unable to make any significant changes to lock down federal systems. Virtually nothing can get done without some kind of budgetary authority, security expert Bruce Schneier has said about the vacant position. An advisor can set priorities and try to carry them out, but won't have the clout to force government agencies to make changes and adhere to policies. For the record, I was never approached. But I would certainly decline; this is a political job, and someone political needs to fill it. I've written about this before -- also, the last paragraph here: And if you're going to appoint a cybersecurity czar, you have to give him actual budgetary authority -- otherwise he won't be able to get anything done, either. Maybe we should do a reality TV show: "America's Next Cybersecurity Czar." I finally starting taking pictures regularly, so I have some outfits I'd like to share with you! Current Mood:
 chipperSo I'm halfway through my month in Boston (not going home on the weekends because, c'mon, I'd be home for about 30 hours and then have to drive right back down. What would be the point?) and I've got a weekend staring me in the face. Last weekend I walked 13 miles on Saturday and 7 or so on Sunday (in the icy slush left behind by a minor snowstorm). This weekend's weather isn't supposed to be outright horrible but it could be cold and gusty and rainy and I'm left wondering what would be the best use of my time. I could drive partway out to Cape Cod early one day and then walk ten miles in one direction, turn around, then walk back. I could drive down to Rhode Island and load up on coffee milk. I could go for a walk out to a place like Nahant and see Massachusetts Bay in all its, um, glory. I could just go find a local candlepin bowling lane and spend the day trying to break 100. Current Mood:
 coldI know I mentioned something about art books a few weeks ago but I have another question. I have most unexpectedly become a total Assassin's Creed fangirl. A HUGE fangirl. I make the horrible mistake of canceling my preorder for the collector's edition for god knows what reason which left me without the art book and that sexyfine Ezio statue. I bough this thinking it was the art book but it really just a really nifty guide with some concept art in the back. Current Mood:
 curiousHello, I just discovered bento and thought I'd give it a try after I discovered a bento cooking book. So I started with learning how to do sticky rice and onigiri. Administration
Installing new lighting: 2 hours Watching it be uninstalled: 2 minutes kittehz r awlwayz sew halpful. Picture by: dunno source Caption by: idog-pup via Advanced Lol Builder       Long day today, mostly productive in as much as I worked a lot but it was hard going and I had to break every half hour. This is better than the 15 minutes my attention span was before, but deadlines loom tomorrow and I'm so tired right now I have no confidence in myself. I'm back down to zero attention span, though, and further work won't accomplish anything. I need a few extra weeks in the next couple months. I mean, really, is that so much to ask for? It’s just that the window for applying for government grants for artist living expenses closes on January 21, and there are at three or four areas I’d like to apply for a bursary in (photography, an attempt at a literary novel, that climate change trilogy that I want to try my hand at, and a YA fantasy thing so I might someday get to finish writing ANGLES. Cast the net wide, right? :)). I’ve got 2/3rds of the writing done for the literary thing, enough of ANGLES done, no idea what it would take to apply for a photography bursary (need to look that up) and absolutely nothing on the climate change thing. Obviously the smart thing to do would’ve been work on some or all of those apps over the past few months, except mostly for the last few months I’ve been going “blblblbl” instead of being productive. So now I’m left with six weeks to do those and write a book, and as usual, it’s the book, which someone is actually *going* to pay me for, which takes precedence. Maybe I can get *one* of the grant applications done… And in the meantime, today for some reason is one of those days where I feel like I need a big mug of coffee, nevermind the fact that the closest I come to caffeinated beverages is hot chocolate. Mghlg. Okay. Slogging to work now. Mglgh. (x-posted from the essential kit)Current Mood:
 mglglgh
"This must be the beginning of the end," he said, interrupting me. "The end! The great and terrible day of the Lord! When men shall call upon the mountains and the rocks to fall upon them and hide them––hide them from the face of Him that sitteth upon the throne!" https://twitter.com/Naamah_Darling Current Mood:
 tiredWith all of the curmudgeonly crud concerning the holidays floating about me lately, I thought I'd make something for the fashionable Scrooge & so-done Santa hat-wearing public. :) Enter "Humbug Horns!" :D 
Hope you like! ( You are about to view content that may not be appropriate for minors. ) Current Mood:
 curiousMan Becomes Metaphor for America Lusty n' wonderland chibi japan expo paris 2009, uploaded and filmed by Than! Records of mermaid encounters were not uncommon in 19th-century Japan, and a number of illustrated documents from that period — including a few by notable natural historians — depict some fantastic specimens rarely seen in today’s world. * * * * *
This mermaid illustration from the National Museum of Ethnology (Leiden, Netherlands) was obtained by Dutch trader Jan Cock Blomhoff, who served as director of the Dejima trading post in Nagasaki from 1817 to 1824. The drawing appears to show a different mermaid than Blomhoff’s famous mummified specimen, which is also owned by the museum. * * * * *
Noted natural historian Baien Mouri (1798-1851), a prolific illustrator known for his colorful depictions of plants and animals, included two sketches of a mermaid in his 1835 book Baien Gyofu (”Baien Book of Fish”).
No apparent effort was made to distinguish the mermaid drawings from the dozens of other illustrations of known sea animals that appear in the book. * * * * *
This 1805 illustration (artist unknown) from the Waseda University Theater Museum shows a mermaid that was reportedly captured in Toyama Bay. According to the accompanying text, the creature measured 10.6 meters (35 ft) long. * * * * * Keisuke Ito (1803–1901) — a.k.a. the father of modern Japanese botany — was a noted botanist, medical practitioner, and prolific natural history illustrator. He included several mermaid illustrations in his books, which consisted mostly of drawings of known animals.
Ito’s illustrated Kinka Juufu (”Book of Beasts”) included a drawing of a mermaid swimming alongside an Australian sea lion (Zalophus lobatus). * * * * *
Kinka Gyofu (”Book of Fish”), another illustrated work by Ito, included a depiction of scaly mermaids measuring about 67 centimeters (26 in) long.
Ito also included this pair of mermaid illustrations in Kinka Gyofu (”Book of Fish”) with no apparent effort to distinguish them from the hundreds of other known fish and sea animals pictured in the book.
It is unclear whether these illustrations were based on actual observations. Were they the product of an overactive imagination? Were they deliberate fabrications? Or did mermaids once inhabit the waters of Japan?
Zeta Reticuli is 39.5 light years away and only 6 days from the outer surface of your light cone - your ever-growing sphere of potential causality - which began its expansion from Earth on July 13 1970.
I made cookies with the Nestle dark chocolate / mint chips. They turned out pretty well, but figuring out when they're done is a bit tricky. Current Mood:
 tiredComic will be up noonish, probably. I've seen a few places talking about Guardian of the Dead (eeeeee!) and there's a thing that has come up a few times where someone's said something along the lines of, "Oh, great, a book I can use to teach from/learn about Māori culture!" Finally, I caution the reader against drawing parallels between the mythological constructs depicted here and contemporary Māori society. This novel is greatly indebted to Māori mythology and draws on some points of traditional Māori social and religious custom: it touches only very lightly on the diverse cultures, politics, and history of modern Māori life, and that only as seen through the eyes of a seventeen-year-old Pākehā woman, who is very far from being a reliable narrator. So, yes, there are modern Māori characters in Guardian of the Dead; major and minor, magical and not, from various social strata. There are buildings named after famous Māori people, and mention of historical and present racism, and a school kapa haka group, and people practicing the language at uni, and a number of Māori terms and phrases that are defined in the glossary, and references to some cultural practice, because that's what you get in New Zealand. It would be shamefully bad world-building to leave them out of any book set in modern New Zealand, but especially one which owes so much to Māori mythology - you can't use the stories and leave out the people! But! But! The narrative isn't written by or told from the point of view of anyone ensconced in Māori culture, and is thus necessarily limited. It's written by me, a white person, and it's told from the point of view of a fairly ignorant and very young white New Zealander, and part of the story's tension comes from her growing awareness of how very ignorant she is, and how poorly her education has equipped her to deal with the non-Western uncanny. And then some [SPOILERS]. There may well be egregious mistakes in there; I had excellent cultural consultants in an effort to avoid making them, but you can never be certain, especially when it comes to interpretation - my consultants might be totally fine with something that's going to really hurt someone else. I think that if you didn't know anything about Māori mythology before, you'll learn a lot about the legends, and a little about New Zealand as seen through Pākehā eyes. I think you could absolutely use Guardian of the Dead in schools as a focus for any number of learning objectives, and that would thrill me entirely. But in terms of being a guide to Māori culture, I think the book has almost no educational value, and may in fact be harmful if attempts are made to use it thus. Primary sources are always best. What truly defines us is our passions: not what we are good at, but what we are willing to struggle at. Current Mood:
 reflectiveWeddings in the Age of Facebook. In honor of the holiday season, the next couple GEQoDs will be about Greco-Jewish relations, particularly under the Ptolemies where the situation was infinitely superior to what they faced under the Seleukids. But first, to kick it off, I'd like to start with one of my all-time favorite quotes. Even if you aren't a huge fan of Rome, there is just something awesomely cool about this display of power. Every time I read the passage I imagine Gaius Popillius Laenas as Steve McQueen, John Wayne or Clint Eastwood. And Antiokhos is totally Steve Buscemi.
Two Lumps comic for Friday, December 11, 2009
You can thank LoudTwitter for your current predicament. I'm recording again. It's been several weeks, with a big idle period caused by all sorts of things - thanksgiving, a housemate moving out which created noises at inconvenient times, NaNoteWriMo - but... 1: "I... open my mouth and sounds come out. It works for me!" No, really, that's what I said. Probably not the best idea given that I was under observation in the neuro ward at the time due to my head injuries, but, well, I did it for teh lulz. For the record: no surgery that I know about. If there are aliens or government agents with flashy little forget-me lights involved, you'll need to ask them! 2: Playing a bass line on an Irish bouzouki with the octave strings still on is... odd. But I think I like it. I also think I like playing bass, or, you know, pseudo electric-bass-like bass as played on a completely different instrument. I think I want to get somebody's trashed electric guitar bass and retune or restring it to GDAE just to see what it sounds like. I don't like playing guitar but I do like the instruments I play and I'm thinking I'd like the electric guitar bass, particularly (mostly?) if I fucked with it to make it have 5ths. Can you even do that? I don't know. This post originated at ソラバドのおん: Solarbird Makes Noises, on Dreamwidth. Current Mood:
 contemplativeIn the last 24 hours, I posted the following to Twitter:
Follow me on Twitter. So, have y'all all heard this story about the Indian villager who used hand tools and fourteen years of his life to carve a tunnel through a mountain? Here. Protip: It's not a very good idea to type "pimp roll of cash" into Google Image Search, it really isn't.
|
