So to start, I finally decorated the left-hand side of Create a pocket:
I tried using my Signo pen to do the highlights, but for some reason, it didn't want to work, so I used a trick I learnt from SuperRaeDizzle, and used my Tip-ex pen instead. It worked really well!
The next page I worked on was one I had an idea for straight away. It's Create a page of stripes, and I knew I would do t-shirts. While making it, I decided to add other stripey clothes. And I'm sorry to say, I did trace the outlines, because I suck so much at drawing, but the designs are my own imagination:
I've watched the first three episodes finally (yes, I did buy these many years ago). My first impressions are kinda so-so. I wasn't impressed by the casting. Pedro and Sancho are spot-on, Zia is pretty decent, Mendoza is passable, but were they even trying with Esteban and Tao? Their actors sound nothing like the originals. Also, it sounds like they've used adults doing kids' voices. Esteban's actor lacks any charm or warmth at all. I'm really disappointed. Unfortunately they didn't put the French dub on the UK release, so I'm stuck with the English.
Also, I still think Esteban looks too much like Ben 10.
The opening episode was quite meh, but it did pick up. However, even though it was written by Chalopin, it just lacks that je ne sais quoi. Somehow, it doesn't feel much like the MCoG I know and love. The soundtrack is underwhelming and I don't know, somehow it doesn't inspire the interest and excitement the originals did. In fact, it makes me want to watch the originals instead.
Kokapetl's voice, while different, is super cute though, and his documentary features at the end are great. He's so sweet! He does seem to be way more sapient in this series though.
Well, so far, I'm not impressed. I mean, it's not terrible, but it's not special either. But I'll watch the full series, and then see how I feel about it.
Unfortunately, the DVD doesn't play well on my portable DVD player. The backgrounds are fine, but the lines on the characters are not anti-aliased at all, so they appear all choppy and low res. I don't have this problem with Series 1 though, and Series 2 does render fine on VLC Player.
I'm a big fan of Moriah Elizabeth's channel, and I really admire how creative she is. Like, how the heck does she come up with all those ideas? I have a lot of imagination, but very little creativity. I just find it such a struggle to come up with anything original and interesting. Anyway, watching her Create This Book series, I was tempted to buy a copy of one of them, but now that I've lost my job (thanks, Mophead McLiarface), I can't really justify spending £12 on something that I lack the creativity to even do a good job with. So, I went kinda cheeky and copied out some of the prompts I liked in an old notebook I bought years ago and never knew what to do with. I'm planning on using some free prompts from the interwebz as well.
Something super weird happened today. I had a headband on, and I definitely had it on when I was in the bathroom washing my face, as I remember pulling it down round my neck so it wouldn't get wet. When I went up to my room, I put a shirt on over my top. But then the headband was gone, so I and the kids looked for it all over the room, back down the stairs and in the bathroom, but couldn't find it. I thought it might have got stuck in my shirt when I put it on. So I shook it out, felt around the sleeves and back, it wasn't there. It was like it had vanished into thin air.
So we just gave up and went downstairs. I started making my dinner. Then while the vegetables were boiling, I went back to the living room to the kids, and started saying "I wonder where that headband could have got to?" and just as I was saying it, I had this urge to touch my lower back, and the headband was suddenly in my hand! It was so strange!
I mean, yeah most likely it was stuck under my shirt all along, but I definitely shook it vigorously earlier and there was no sign of it. But the creepiest thing was how I had the urge to touch my back just as I was asking where it could be and it was suddenly just there in my hand! Bizarro! So creeped out!
My old review was a bit of an incoherent mess, so I've fixed it up, and also FIXED THE PREQUELS. You're welcome! Okay, so there are things about the prequels I hate that others seemed to like, and vice versa, so all I can say is I've fixed the prequels to my taste. Okay, here we go!
We'll start with the things I liked.
The Good
Qui-Gon Jinn
Okay, so I did mention in my other post that I enjoyed Episode I. It was good. I especially loved Qui-Gon, he's just such a wholesome character, probably my favourite Jedi. I really like the idea of a chaotic good Jedi.
The Memes
I really only watched it for the memes.
The World-Building
I loved how much more fleshed out the Star Wars universe became. Even if others didn't like the politics, I really loved that side of it. A big complaint I had about the OT was that we didn't get to see what life was like for those living under the Empire (remember, Tatooine was ruled by the Hutts, the Empire hadn't bothered with it just yet). So for me, the world-building of the prequels really brought the whole galaxy to life. It's still stupid that every planet only has one biome (Tatooine = all desert, Hoth = all tundra, Naboo = all beautiful temperate forest, Dagobah = all swamp, etc etc), and though it does bug me that they all have Earth-gravity, I do get the limitations of filming, so I'll give them a pass on the gravity issue.
Now onto the things I didn't like. Plus, I'm fixing them to make them more appealing to me. For the record, this is not the same as my alternate universe headcanon, which uses Episode IV's original plot as a starting point. This is just my fix for the official canon prequels. Now really, buckle up, it's a long ride! Continue reading →
I wonder what it would take for people in this country to say "enough is enough" and replace this corruption with something fair and honest. They only do it because we allow them.
Click the image to sign the petition. Not that it will make any difference. Things will only get worse come January. I hope the rest of you have started to (responsibly!) build up stockpiles. Unless of course you're planning on living on "sovrenty" and "freedom from the shackles of the EU" for the foreseeable future.
Update September 2021: So go on, Brexiteers, how do you like them apples?
Eeeeeeeee! I found them in an organiser pocket, buried right at the bottom of my wardrobe! I'm so glad I found them! I didn't even remember having a Vader card, just the Luke one. And yep, that was the picture. I was wrong about it being portrait, though. Eeeeee! I was so happy when I saw it!
So the cards themselves are from a series of 10. Vader is Continue reading →
I've been looking at these for a while. Since I don't really have anything else to spend all my savings on, I decided I may as well treat myself and indulge my fangirlism. I bought the Luke Dagobah figure (it seems there is... another version of this also that has Yoda and the backpack, but it was unavailable when I was shopping). Its face sculpt seemed the best out of the ESB Lukes, otherwise I would have got the Bespin Luke. Impressed by the quality, I decided to buy the other two Skywalkers. Leia is TINY next to Vader.
Anyway. I have lots of photos. Lots and lots of photos. Enjoy!
Project 4K77 is a restoration project of the original cinematic cut of Star Wars (now Episode IV). I was really curious about it, so I found a copy, which took me a full 4 days to download and the resulting 24GB file was too big for my old netbook to handle, so I spent another 3 days trying to burn it to DVD, which failed, but I did get a working 4.2GB VOB file, so eventually I got to watch it! I've since put it through HandBrake to get a 720p at 3.98GB. And yes, it took literally days.
The image quality was really good. One thing that stood out the most was Luke's hair colour was consistent. It bothered me on the DVD release that his hair would range from honey blond to dark brown from scene to scene. In this one, his hair colour stays within the honey blond range. Comparing the DVD to 4K77 side by side, you can really see the difference.
A similar meme already exists, but I couldn't find a high quality image, so I remade and expanded it, complete with the missing hand. I was trying to think of a more archaic way to say "that's not true" and ended up messing up the quote in this roundabout way. Sorry.
DisneyLucasFilm.... You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.
Okay, I did it. I'm not sure if I'm glad I watched the prequels or not. I will say that I really enjoyed Rogue One; I'd say it's right up there with the OT (you see, DisneyLucasfilm, you can produce quality films when you try).
Rogue One was a little confusing at the start. I wasn't quite sure what was going on and who was who, but that might be partly because I was sold a defective disc, so it kept skipping for many scenes early on. But once I got past that, I found the characters interesting, and the storyline compelling — even though I knew the Death Star plans would make it to Leia.
Seriously, it sucks so so much. It's so bad. Why do companies keep doing this? I've given up on Firefox mobile now too, because they downgraded it so much. What even is this new crap, WordPress? Unfortunately, changing blog hosts isn't as easy as switching browsers. Right now I'm using a workaround (you know, like I had to do when they brought in that dumb beep boop crap). Here it is if you want to use it too.
The problem is again, if you go to edit a post, it defaults back to the new block crap. There doesn't seem to be a way to keep Classic as default. I mean, even beep boop was better than this! It makes no sense, it just makes it more difficult and time consuming to post. And instead of hitting one button to access your image gallery, you have to spend ages digging around and then looking on the help pages to even work out how to add an image.
It's.
So.
Crap.
Stop dumbing down stuff. Stop catering to the lowest common denominator, WordPress. Fine, have a dumbed down editor for those who need it. Have an overly complicated editor with pointless gimmicks for those who like shinies, but let those of us who know what we're doing keep the Classic editor. Goddammit, WordPress.
I usually really like Tom Scott's videos, and find them very informative. So when I watched his video on the McCollough Effect, I was intrigued. An image that can literally confuse your brain for three months!
So according to Scott, looking at the image for a few minutes is enough to break your brain to the point where blocks of text will change colour, and even a green fence will appear to change colour.
I'm sorry to disappoint you guys, but not only is this video clickbait, it's just outright wrong.
So I actually did it last weekend. The effect doesn't work by just looking at the images side by side. So all those in the comments who covered the screen "just in case" can rest easy. You need to look at each image alternately for a few seconds each, for at least 2 minutes consecutively. After that, looking at the same pattern of stripes in black and white will make the white stripes take on a slight tint of pink or green.
That is all. That's all it does.
It does not break your brain. It doesn't make fences or text change colour.
Here is a website that you can use if you're curious.
The effect lasted about 3 days, after 5 minutes of looking at the coloured stripes. Nothing else was affected. I looked at barcodes, text, hand-drawn black and white stripes. Literally everything else looked normal, apart from the test pattern. So don't worry about breaking your brain. I mean, maybe I don't have much brain to break, but from all accounts, it looks like we got clickbaited bad.
Anyway, here is an image to annoy you.
Wow, new WordPress sucks plates! Why why why must companies keep "fixing" things that aren't broken!
