Next Stop: Paradise Falls

Someone in Utah created the house from Up. The following video has the designers explaining all the details. I don't really know why they went to all this trouble for what is essentially a novelty. I mean, are they going to sell this place? Just have tours? I don't know. But, hey, who isn't a fan of whimsy?

"In my day, they'd Photoshop that stuff!"

Yesterday I was in Rite Aid, and when I hit the check out line, I noticed this cover of More magazine featuring Lisa Kudrow:

Now, normally I'm one to laugh at the ridiculous amount of Photoshopping they do on the covers of magazines. But this time I'm going to complain about what they DIDN'T Photoshop. Mainly, poor Lisa's weird flyaway hair. Do you see that there's a strand of hair looping across her forehead? And look at the top of her head - the hair is sticking straight up. Was she in a wind tunnel? Too close to an electric fence? Why did they publish it that way? Sloppy!

Also, is More magazine new? I don't think I've ever heard of it.

Neville Longbottom Before and After

One of my favorite characters from Harry Potter is Neville Longbottom. In fact, I really tried to convince my husband to maybe have Neville as a middle name for one of our kids (but we went with Atticus instead which...totally better, don't you think?). Neville was kind of a minor character in the movies, and I understand why it had to be that way. But there was so much more to him and to his story. Neville totally rocked. And I don't mind saying that I was bitterly - BITTERLY - disappointed when it turned out Neville wasn't the one to take out Bellatrix Lestrange in the end. Anyway...remember when he was all cute and goobery in the first movie? Here's what he looked like then:


Along the way, he looked like this. All teen awkwardness and unfortunate teeth:


Here's what he looks like now:



My goodness.

On Writers & Writing

In the movie Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Marilyn Monroe's character at one point says, "It's terrible to be lonely, especially in a crowd." The quote always struck me as sort of profound. I like that it illustrates that loneliness isn't just a matter of being around other people, it's purely emotional. That, in fact, you can feel alone when you clearly AREN'T alone. And, taking it one step further, in my younger years I related that quote to teen angst. You feel like your problems are so unique. That no one understands you. That no one has ever gone through what you've gone through. But, the truth is that most people have been through pretty much the same thing. Oh, sure, we're all very special snowflakes and we all experience things differently. But there are several elements of "the teenage years" that are universal. And, along those same lines, there are elements of ourselves that we think are very unique when really, they're not. I might have a talent for, say, playing the clarinet. And I might not know any other clarinet players, so I feel very unique. But, in reality there are hundreds of other clarinet players out there. Thousands.

How does this relate to writers and writing? I'm trying to get there. When I was young, I loved writing stories. It was my favorite pastime. And I'd often think that one day, I'd like to be an author. And there was really no doubt in my mind that I could do it. I love writing. I like to think I'm decent at it. I'm familiar with grammar rules. I figured that it would just be a matter of self discipline to get the job done. I knew about queries and literary agents and blah blah blah. None of that really worried me. I knew I could get published. Please note that I said this was when I was young. As in, young and naive, and perhaps a little stupid.

Since joining the blogging community - if what I do can even be called that, because this blog is really a bit of a joke comparatively speaking - I have come to realize how many people fancy themselves writers. Not just "fancy themselves" as writers, but are actual writers with books in progress, or maybe with already published work. And in talking to these folks, and in reading about their struggles, I've realized something about myself: I am no writer. Nor do I particularly want to be one at this point.

It was kind of difficult for me to come to terms with this realization, considering that becoming an author was basically a lifelong dream of mine. But being an author involves a lot of hard work. More work than I realized in my starry eyed youth. And, truth is, I'm lazy. And fairly sensitive to criticism. Also, not good with deadlines. That is the trifecta of doom for a potential author. It's kind of embarrassing to admit that I thought it was easy to get published. That all it took was a little spark of creativity. It really takes a lot of focus, determination and discipline. The older I get, the more I've come to realize that most successes in life are not truly determined by one's talents - they're more about a person's drive. Hard work is the way to get what you want in this life. That doesn't just mean in terms of work and career - it could even be successes on the home front. Marriage takes effort. Being a good parent means a lot of hard work. Being good at a hobby means lots of practice. Being a good cook means trying new things and working to develop your skills. Very, very few of the true joys in life will fall into your lap. So, it's just a matter of deciding what's worth the effort.

So, my hats off to all you writers out there, be it for blogs or novels or research or otherwise. The passion and dedication you put into your craft is a marvel.

Now, to put more effort into achieving my true dream job: lotto winner.

iDixit

Last week, my friend Jorge told me about this new game you can download for you phone, and it's now somewhat of an obsession. It's different from other games I've played. Jorge described it as being sort of like Apples to Apples, but it's more abstract. I love it. And I'm hoping that you'll download it! It's free until the end of July! What do you have to lose?

To describe the game, here's a blurb from the company's website:

Dixit is a game for 3 to 6 players. The concept is to confront your own way of thinking with the other players' by giving them a clue, neither too precise nor too vague.

Each player has 6 cards in his deck. The first player (the storyteller) selects one and gives a clue reflecting his perception of the picture. Each other player chooses a card they think matches best the given clue, then all cards are revealed. The goal of the game is to find out which card had been chosen by the storyteller, while avoiding the traps set by the others

So, when you start playing you're given a set of images like this:

If I was going first, I would be "The Storyteller." I would choose one of the pictures and then I would record a short blurb in my own voice giving a clue about the picture I chose. So, let's say I picked that first picture with all the food on the table. I might record something simple like, "The Feast." Or I could do something like, "The diet isn't going so well." My short recorded clue is then sent to the other players, who look through their images and choose one that would go with my clue. Actually, if there are very few players, they might be asked to choose 2 images instead of one. Then all the images - my original, and the ones the other players picked - are then presented to the players for votes to see if they can guess which one I was talking about. After my turn, the next player becomes "The Storyteller." And you just keep going until...I don't know how high the score goes. In almost every game I've played either a player bails out, which interrupts the game and ends it, or else my WiFi cuts out.

The game is best when there are several players - like 5 or 6. You need a minimum of 3. I've never played in a game with more than 3 players, and sometimes when I log in to join a game I have to wait for a while before enough people show up to play. But it's really fun once it gets going.

To download the app, look for iDixit (note the "i" at the beginning). Here's what the icon looks like:

Download today! All the cool kids are doing it!

Circle of Life Ramblings

So, that PotterMore thing I talked about in my last post turns out to be an online game. Ho Hum. Not excited. Seems like a cash grab. And...really, JK Rowling? You act all mysterious, hoping the suspense will build, and THAT's the payoff? An online game? Bah.

Moving on.

It's been such a sad week for me. Monday marked three years since my dad died. So I was already feeling melancholy that day. Then two of my coworkers found out they'd had deaths in the family that same day. One was a death after a long illness. The other was very unexpected and particularly tragic. There's nothing you can say or do to really comfort anyone when they're struck with such a painful loss. So you just feel sad and helpless and awkward. Desperate to help, knowing you can't. Watching your friend hurt. It's just awful.

Nothing soothes my troubles like spending time in the garden. Well, I also find watching Wheel of Fortune strangely soothing. Also: eating cupcakes. But I digress. I find that after a hard day, I really feel more at ease once I've gone out and spent some time with my plants. I don't think I'll ever cease to be amazed and delighted by watching seedlings spring up and flourish. But what I find particularly amazing and delightful are when plants "volunteer." Tomatoes that I had last year dropped seeds in the garden which sprouted on their own with the Spring rains. I have about 14 tomato plants this year - maybe more - in three different varieties. They all just came up on their own. One tomato plant is growing out of a crack in a rock wall. But it's HUGE and healthy and producing like mad. I also have a watermelon plant that came up on its own. And basil that reseeded itself, too! Sometimes just letting nature do its thing yields amazing results. Sometimes letting nature do its thing means rabbits get into your garden and eat the tops off all your adorable baby cucumber plants. So...you know, it's not always perfect. Still, I feel like the garden reaffirms to me that there's a time and a season for all things - both literal and figurative. So, while I mourn with those who have lost, I also have cause to celebrate: babies being born (Congrats to Cassie!), my 3 year old finally deciding to talk after months of speech therapy, husband really close to landing a good job, and Crazy Sister and I getting along better than we have in years.

Have a good weekend, everyone.

Something's Afoot!

This morning as I checked on one of my new favorite blogs, Stellar Four, I saw it. And thank you to the fine ladies at Stellar Four for pointing it out! Something new is happening in the Harry Potter universe! Something called PotterMore.

When you go to the PotterMore website you see this:


And if you click on one of the owls, it send you to YouTube, where you see this:

Well, that's what I saw. Clearly the countdown is ever-changing. Still! In about a week, there's an announcement coming!

What could it mean? There have been some rumblings in the media that JK Rowling might revisit the wizarding world. She appeared on Oprah once, saying that she didn't think she'd write more, but that she could do it someday. While I would love it, I'm not really holding my breath for more books. But, who knows?

I remember a few years back when a friend of mine who works at Sony was talking about how they were thinking about developing a video game sort of along the same lines as Everquest or World of Warcraft that would be an online interactive Harry Potter game. At the time, he said that it was very iffy because they were concerned about the issues of online predators and whatnot with a game that would ostensibly be targeted toward a younger demographic. When I first saw the PotterMore stuff, that is what sprang to mind: some sort of online "experience." But, again, who knows?

What do you think it might mean?