Andy's Journal

andy_star — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 11:30:44 GMT

New fic:

Raindrops on Roses

(Rose/Scorpius longfic)

Posted on my IJ CDJ

andy_star — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 11:07:06 GMT

So this is a test to see how many of my friends are still reading/doing this.

So STATE YOUR NAME BELOW IF YOU STILL EXIST.

thank you :P

Drowning

andy_star — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 21:57:26 GMT

Another film by yours truly :D

PS. Micah's back!

What the?

andy_star — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 23:02:48 GMT

[00:21] xpunkkid37: Hey
[00:22] xpunkkid37: hello
[09:45] xpunkkid37: Hey
[09:45] xpunkkid37: HELLO
[09:46] xpunkkid37: OK
[09:47] andypandy17z: hi
[09:47] xpunkkid37: Is this Tina Majorino
[09:47] andypandy17z: no
[09:48] xpunkkid37: hell
[09:48] andypandy17z: :P
[09:49] xpunkkid37: WHat does that mean
[09:49] xpunkkid37: sry
[09:49] xpunkkid37: what
[09:51] xpunkkid37: yes
[09:51] andypandy17z: nothing
[09:51] andypandy17z: are you a robot?
[09:52] xpunkkid37: uhhh no
[09:52] andypandy17z: sure?
[09:52] andypandy17z: you look like a robot
[09:53] xpunkkid37: How do you know What I look like
[09:54] andypandy17z: not your phsyical appearance obviously
[09:54] andypandy17z: it's a combination of your screenname, your typing and your stalking
[09:54] xpunkkid37: I'm a 13yr old boy
[09:55] andypandy17z: ah
[09:55] andypandy17z: so why are you stalking Tina?
[09:55] xpunkkid37: I'm not
[09:55] andypandy17z: then why did you think I was her?
[09:55] andypandy17z: and how did you get my screenname?
[09:56] xpunkkid37: My friend is a fan of her\
[09:56] andypandy17z: yeah, that makes sense...

andy_star — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 12:04:23 GMT

I'm such a livejournal lameo lately. It seems all I come online for lately is to thread on IJ (two different games, one real, one random fun with Ash :D) and chat to Adam on AIM.

Spending the whole holidays working and watching DVDs. Have had five Sundays off - the only five Sundays I'll have off until Christmas 2009. Was quite nice, but I have double Canterbury to look forward to this week. I miss Zoe and Caitrin and the others :(

Choir camp 16 Feb. No idea if I'm being given accomodation or what. If so no idea how I will check/change my timetable...

Dramas at work complicating matters. Got to see Annabelle Rosie and Sian twice last week though. Was awesome :)

Turned 20 Friday before last and went to see Wicked! Was cool.

Reveiw of "Villians"

andy_star — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 00:38:34 GMT

So I've been lazy this season and just watched the show, occasionally ranting about it to Zoe or Adam and even some other people at work. However, since watching the conclusion to the Volume last night, I feel the need for some more public reviewition.

First of all, what happened to Micah? We saw him for one episode. According to IMDB, Noah Grey-Cabey has done nothing else since 2006, so this was clearly a concious decision made by the writers. We haven't seen anything of Monica either, who I quite liked mainly because she's one of the few left whose powers are unique. Dana Dawson at least got a part in an episode of Pushing Daisies, in which she was awesome. Micah was always a nice break from the drama that is the rest of the show. Let's hope they are back for Volume 4.

Matt and Daphne are still pretty awesome, although too bad we have not seen much of Turtle lately :(. Sidenote: Seth Green, awesome no matter what show he's in. Can we have him come back?

Hiro had some good moments this season, but I think they took advantage of him a bit. They used him as a comic relief punching bag, dragging him to and fro with very little motivation. Without a doubt the best episode was "Our Father", where we saw him interact with his mother, first as a ten year old, then as himself, and his mother gives him 'the catalyst' (although this whole plot device was pretty contrived and corny). This touching and plot-evoking moment was hurriedly destroyed however, when Arthur took both the catalyst and Hiro's power, rendering the episode, in a similar manner to the "Eclipse" double-episode, pointless.

A lot of this season feels as if they just wanted to fill in some time without actually taking the characters anywhere. Similar to last season (although I forgive that because the writer's strike caused some rewriting of the plague arc that was planned), we are left at the end of this season not much further away from where we started, except that some new alliances are made, and Mohinder and Ando have powers. And by the way, what a crappy power Ando has. I feel sorry for him. Also this means that in the 'future' Hiro saw, Ando was not killing him but accelerating his power. I'm having trouble seeing how Hiro's power can be accelerated...

Also, they did the same thing here as they did with Linderman and even Maurey, build up a credible villian and then kill them off before they have time to do any real damage. Not that I liked Arthur, he was really annoying and honestly not that scary. But if they keep killing off the villians, they'll just have to make one of the current characters evil, and they picked Nathan. For a character who is supposed to be strong, confident and self-assured, he sure is fickle.

Peter hasn't really gone anywhere either, even though he lost all his powers. Not sure what's happening with him now - can he only fly or does he have his original ability back?

Tracey is annoying. Let's hope Barbara shows up and kicks her ass.

I almost forgot about Claire. Maybe that's because I really don't care about her anymore. She's constantly got this 'I'm-so-tortured' expression on her face that's starting to bug me - I can't remember the last time we saw her smile, which is kind of what I liked about her in the beginning, that she was troubled but could still have fun. I think that's the fault of this season having WAY too much drama and not enough character development. I will say that I really liked getting to see young-Sandra with baby Claire. It was pretty clever effects as well as nice story detail.

Sylar. Oh Sylar. We have seen so many sides of you this season. Too bad you went back to how you were at the start, and then 'died'. We know you haven't really died, by the way, that's not fooling anyone. Am I the only one who quite liked good!Sylar? I like bad Sylar too, but he's less credible with Good!Sylar now in his past. Also I can't believe he killed Elle! On the other hand I can't believe she lasted two whole seasons. Oh, the ignomany.

As for the start of Volume 4: "Fugitives", less said the better. I can only hope that there will be LESS overall plot-drama, and more of an episode-by-episode character building with OCCASIONAL drama. I mean, I've been one of Heroes' biggest defenders for a while now, even up to before 'Our Father', but there's a limit to my patience people.

Ewww.

andy_star — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 04:08:38 GMT

I am sick. Sick like a sick person. Sneezed and coughed all over everyone last night, called in sick today and am sitting around watching Buffy and pretending to write my design plan for Interactivity and the discussion leading notes for Friday and also my Writing for Real Essay and the music for DBT and the script schedule also. Meh.

Haven't watched Buffy properly in a while. Why does The Prom always make me cry?

Hm.

andy_star — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 01:54:51 GMT

I never used to like talking about myself. My dad would make me and I'd be really embarassed. I guess I can sort of blame it on the seemingly endless job search I've been doing for 18 months... suddenly I seem to be talking about myself ALL THE TIME. Someone asks me a question and, after answering at length, I realise (usually too late) that it's probably polite to ask a similar question in return.

Captainess Self-Centered, much?

This Semester is going to be insane. The way work goes around my uni timetable, I am only going to be present at Tuesday and every other Saturday dinner at college. All the others I will either be too late for, have to have early dinner for due to choir, or just won't be here. This is somewhat depressing and will surely limit my social circle slightly. My dad, after two years of asking me every week whether or not I had found a job, has found something else to pick at - my social life. Apparently I do not have enough fun with other humanoid creatures. Well now that I'm working 20 hours a week with a 75 minute commute - it's not gonna happen!!

Probably shouldn't be complaining while I currently owe him about $1400. I have surprised myself by how quickly I've paid off the rest of my laptop money, but it's really only because the big softie is paying me $16/h to pressure wash the tennis court and paint Christmas Decorations. Unfortunately now that I'm no longer at home (most of the time), I have to siphon off my salary.

Just spent about fifteen minutes explaining my timetable to Zoe, which I guess shows how complicated it is. I also won't be able to make any JWAS screenings anymore thanks to work. Not that I'm not happy to be working - it means I'm doing a lot more with my time and getting valuable experience etc etc but BLEH.

Doctor Horrible is sadface.

andy_star — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 23:09:37 GMT

Everyone.... it has happened.

The flaw in my magnificently awesome work-at-Officeworks plan has been inadvertantly discovered. And it is...

That I now work at a place that sells M&Ms.

*munch*

In other news, I've spent most of the last couple days squeeing over Dr Horrible :D It took me about 24 hours to watch the first episode because I couldn't get onto the main site, and then there was the whole intentional crisis, and then because my connection is so shite I had to wait for about four hours for it to load on the alternate site. And now I'm trying to watch part two, and having the same problems with the alternate site.

Times like this I wish I was back at college. Like, wow.

Also, for those internet addicts out there like me, there's The Guild. Awesome even if you don't know anything about WoW.

Busy like a Bee.....Buzzz

andy_star — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 10:25:01 GMT

I've been extremely lax about updating for about a month... though this is mostly due to the fact that Noel had a total harddrive crash and became totally unusable very quickly, so I had to go through the process of finding a new computer, buying it (not done with that part yet, but if I donate all my pay for about three months...) and then getting used to Vista and the fingerprint recognition and the fact that the s and n keys continually come off, for some reason. New computer is a Toshiba Satellite A300/500 christened Starbuck (you can also blame Adam (and Zoe) for the Battlestar reference), and has 500gb space and 4gb RAM. Also an incredible dustcatcher. Need some dust caught? Ask Starbuck.

Also, I am extremely busy now that I have a JOB, at last. This is 100% due to Adam and also slightly in part to my Script class last semester, which even though it was useless in terms of life lessons and final marks, gave me an opportunity to vent my woes concerning unemployment and therefore forcing Adam to do something about it else my whining became too much.

Anyway, I'm now in training at Officeworks (although Ang said I don't have to use the 'in training' sign anymore, whoot!) and doing a LOT of shifts in between catching up with people and choir and all that stuff. Last week we had choir seven days in a row doing recording from 2-11 and concerts and well, it was full on. But now we just have to wait for the CD to come out and hopefully more people will come to said concerts. My god it was cold in both places. Our feet were barely walk-worthy after being frozen so often.

It's definitely the busiest holiday ever.

The Alley

andy_star — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 12:10:48 GMT

This is the film I directed this semester, for those who have not yet been subjected to it ;)

My Right Hand

andy_star — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 07:27:35 GMT

Had to take my laptop to the shop :( It was shutting itself down all the time for no reason and wouldn't stay alive long enough for me to reboot to factory settings, so so much for that plan :(

That means no laptop tomorrow night at college. I will be soooo looonelyyyy. How am I to cross-stitch without background visuals? I will go cross-eyed!

Oh well. So long as I nag the tv-room long enough to watch Battle of the Choirs.

Helped my dad out in the garden today. Felt like Biggest Loser contestent, hauling bricks and shovelling sand. Now my hands hurt :( But bracing and good exercise and lalala.

andy_star — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 01:43:20 GMT

We're recruiting for new players and characters for the "next phase" of the former Veiled Intentions RPG, which is changing its name and re-launching as VISIBLE INFINITY.

Visible Infinity is a Harry Potter-based (HBP-compliant) game, taking place in London 3 years after Voldemort's fall, at a time when many people are trying to rebuild their lives after the war, but Lucius Malfoy is undermining the Ministry with terrorist attacks and rebuilding the Death Eaters to support blood purity. We are currently casting for new players to join the ranks.

Visible Infinity is a player-modded game. Plot arcs involving multiple players are decided on by the group. No one player is "in charge" and most decisions are based on discussions taking place in the game's OOC LJ comm and in AIM chat rooms. It is strongly suggested that active players have an AIM account and use AIM/Meebo/Trillian/iChat/Pidgin to participate in brainstorming sessions (and general congenial hanging out with other players).

THE PLOT
It is now 3 years after the defeat of Voldemort, the summer of 2001. The War left much of Wizarding England in tatters, but Rufus Scrimgeour is still Minister, and much rebuilding has been going on, though many families are still experiencing hard times. Everyone wants to get on with their lives, but unrest still plagues the world, as Lucius Malfoy has been rebuilding his network of Death Eaters and shaking things up from time to time with terrorist attacks on both Muggle and Wizarding targets. Meanwhile, many of the former Slytherins have suffered discrimination and there have been isolated incidents of mobs attacking innocent wizards and their families because they are suspects of being "dark." Each time an incident like that occurs, it only drives more to sympathize with Lucius.

Each character in the game has their own story of what they did during the defeat of Voldemort and the years in-between. Many went to school abroad or fled with their families and are only now returning. Some have married and settled, others are still looking for someone. The Order has been little more than a loosely connected group of individuals since Dumbledore's death, and although various coordinated efforts have taken place between Order members, thus far very few of the Death Eaters at large have been taken in.

As Lucius ramps up his activities, it is more and more imperative that his minions be rounded up and brought to justice before they create more mayhem. But it is not so easy to just sweep away the old evils and start anew.

Will you be part of the new era of peace and prosperity? Or the next war?

BACKSTORY
See more on the backstory and what has been going on in this post: http://community.livejournal.com/veilintent_ooc/81779.html

RULES OF THE GAME
The rules of the game can be found in this post: http://community.livejournal.com/veilintent_ooc/80691.html

Highlights: no godmodding, adult content is allowed, players must be 17 or older, no incest, no wacky changes from canon.

AVAILABLE/TAKEN CHARACTERS
The full cast list is in this post:
http://community.livejournal.com/veilintent_ooc/80463.html

Highlights: still available: Hermione, Luna, Lavender, the Patil twins, Dean, Blaise, Terry Boot, & many others.

We would prefer people apply for canon characters first before adding original characters. Players may add a second character after 3 months of active play with their first character.

Please note that as an HBP-compliant game, characters introduced in DH (like Charity Burbage) or in post-DH interviews (like Astoria Greengrass) do not exist, while characters who died in DH (like Fred, Snape, Tonks, and Remus) do exist in VI.

CHARACTER NOTES:
We have found that for the most part people would rather play "good guys" than "bad guys." To play out various subplots with Death Eaters who are not cast, we will be asking all players, old and new, to take occasional turns playing the parts of NPC DEs. This way no one is "stuck" playing a villain all the time. (Though, please, we welcome more villains!) Just please be aware of this requirement when you apply.

TO APPLY:
Application details are at this post:
http://community.livejournal.com/veilintent_ooc/81307.html

We look forward to hearing from you!

Happiness

andy_star — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 06:25:20 GMT

Yosh won't like this, but that's his problem, because it's not about him. Actually, if it's about anyone, it's about people like my Year 11 English teacher.

Happiness

"Happiness," he says, "is just a construction."
I would look at him like he has lost his mind
but he says stuff like this all the time.
"What do you mean?
"I mean society tells us what we want,
and if we don't have it, we'll be unhappy," he says.
I say, "So what? Aren't we society?
Society knows what we want because we want it."
"Society is a construction, see?"
he says, looking at me,
Like he's the bloody world and I'm his listening board.
“You’re mad,” I say,
“Besides, I don’t have time for this today,
I have a class, and places to be –”
“You see? You don’t have time for me,
because they dictate where you have to go.”
You know,
I’d like to dictate what he could do with all this crap.
“Are you listening?”
“No.”
“It’s important!”
“So?”
“We have to throw off the oppressions of the crowd!”
I sort of agree with him there,
but I’m too annoyed to say so out loud.
“Some things just are,” I say,
“You don’t need to break everything down into why and why not
and yes and no and square and round.”
“Yes I do,” he says, and I ask,
“Why? Because society wants you to?”

More Poetry

andy_star — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 03:49:28 GMT

Three days to go, three poems left to write... I dunno.

Tommy

Running, running through the dark night
The wind tugs at her sweat-streaked hair
Almost blind, she stumbles in her flight
Her knees are bruised, her feet are bare

Her salt tears sting her bleeding lips
The gum leaves rustle overhead
Her dress is brown with ruined copper strips
She clings to her bed sheets, dappled red.

Her legs are stained with birthing blood
The bundle she clutches to her chest
Is keening as she struggles through the mud
And lips part, begging at her breast

She has no time. In pain, she staggers on
Imagining the anger in her wake
Her husband’s rage on finding her gone
Her father realising his mistake.

A memory like a blunted blade
Causes her, in grief, to slow
Of Tommy’s face, alone, afraid
When he ran from the house eight months ago

And his sillouette from the blue porch light
And her father going out with his gun
Her young heart torn by the scream in the night
Tommy, oh Tommy, what have I done?

And her wedding day, by her father’s will
And her husband’s joy at the terrible news
And her father’s frown and her mother’s thrill
And the months trying to think of some excuse

Just in case she had been wrong.
And of creeping out to the cattle bay
And screaming, trying to be strong
As she writhed alone on a bed of hay.

Now, wearied, she staggers to a halt
And falls, her hair hanging over her brow
And panting and crying and tasting salt,
Tommy, oh Tommy, where are you now?

The night is split with the baby’s wail
She pulls back the linen to see his face,
As dark as the earth when the moon is pale
She holds him close in a last embrace.

Then down to the water, with one last cry
With a pain as sharp as when he was begun
She lets him go with a kiss goodbye -
Tommy, Tommy… here is your son.

Cinema Studies Blog/Essay Submission

andy_star — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 11:34:43 GMT

Sizing Up Film and Television through Heroes and Firefly
Through close analysis of two contemporary television shows discuss how (and why)
the boundaries between television and film are breaking down.

In 1952 Emerson Electric Company advertised their new television with the caption “Now! A TV pictures so clear, so sharp… you’ll think you’re at the movies!” (Spigel 1992:104).

Television, it seems, has been striving to reach the standard set by cinema from an early age. Seemingly, it has the advantage, being a near-constant, twenty-four hour installation in most Western homes, and has a lot more time and opportunity to influence its viewers. But by the same token, film is an ‘event’, a once-off opportunity to blast us with as much entertainment and viewing pleasure as possible. Preference is, of course, up to the individual, but the question we now ask is whether, in chasing each other through the competitive field of contemporary media, film and television have become no longer two separate institutions, but merely two different ways of observing the same entity.

We begin by observing the structure of the film verses that of television. On average, a contemporary mainstream Hollywood film such as Horton Hears a Who! (2008, 88 minutes) 21 (2008, 123 minutes), or Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (2008, 145 minutes) will last from about an hour and a half to two hours or more, compared to an episode of a television serial, without ad breaks, which tends to run between 30 minutes and an hour. Usually only specials and telemovies last longer, and this hasn’t changed much since the early years of television (episodes of The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin (1954-1959) for example, ran for 30 minutes). From this sort of evidence, Rod Stoneman gleans: ‘the aspiration to longevity seems to be confined to cinema rather than television culture… Perhaps it is linked to the shorter attention span of television production in general – aesthetically weaker material, shorter-term aspirations for each individual piece’ (Stoneman 1996:121). This is a strong statement that really concerns only individual episodes. Were Stoneman to consider the overall longevity of a television show, with 6 to 24 episodes a series, he might not have made this claim. Buffy the Vampire Slayer, for example, ran for seven seasons and aired 144 episodes. With an average running time of 43 minutes, that’s 103 hours of material. If anything, the serial is the ultimate ‘aspiration to longevity’, in that it aspires to tell a story that spans weeks or months if not years.

As Angela Ndalianis contends in her article, ‘Television and the Neo-Baroque’, the ‘infinite work in progress’, is becoming more favoured than ‘closed narrative forms’ (Ndalianis 2005:86), and this is not only true of television. To name a select few of the films that utilise serial form: Star Wars, which had six ‘episodes’ over two trilogies between 1977-2005, Pirates of the Caribbean, which shot its second and third instalment at the same time and released them less than a year apart, The Lord of the Rings,, also shot concurrently, The Matrix, Indiana Jones, Aliens, American Pie, and Die Hard, not to mention all the recently-released sequels to Disney classics such as Aladdin, The Little Mermaid, The Lion King, and Bambi¹. These latter sequels, in some cases released up to 60 years after the original, are examples of a more ‘closed’ serial form than Pirates of the Caribbean II and III, but have nevertheless been made to satisfy the viewers’ growing need for continuation.

Open serial vs. closed serial – The Pirates of the Caribbean II (2006) and III (2007),
Bambi (1945) and Bambi II (2005).

Not only that, but films that cannot benefit enough from film sequels turn to television serial form. Buffy was originally a film, and Star Wars, Superman, Aladdin, The Little Mermaid and Jumanji all have television counterparts – again, just to name a few. The ‘serial’ nature of television, then, is being carried over into the film world, and indeed vice versa, with television series like The Simpsons, Mr. Bean and Firefly being made into films.

Moving on, one of the factors that need to be considered in the digital age is that of technology. Particularly now in the case of animated features like Shrek and Horton Hears a Who!, new films have to be more technologically advanced than previous ones to be respected. This is also true of non-animation films requiring lots of special effects and CGI, like the Pirates of the Caribbean films and, more recently, Speed Racer. Once upon a time, Cinema used such different technology to television that it caused problems when reformatting films for distribution on TV (McLoone 1996:86), but today, such interaction is easier and is becoming more and more so as ‘digital cinematography’ becomes a more common decision with contemporary filmmakers (Kirsner 2006). Since director George Lucas kicked off the trend in 2002 with Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones, films like Open Water (2003), Click (2006), Superman Returns (2006) and Speed Racer (2008) have been shot digitally instead of on the traditional celluloid. Scott Kirsner, in his article on the subject, contends that although there are advantages and disadvantages to both mediums, we are at the beginning of a transition that will mean film is no longer the ‘default decision’ (Kirsner 2006). If this is the case, no longer can it be argued that all television is digital, and all cinema is film.

John Ellis, in his article ‘Speed, Film and Television: Media Moving Apart’ explains that film distinguishes itself from television by its use of new digital image technology. He claims that ‘cinema uses the new potential to make ever more realistic, yet impossible, images’, and then goes on to describe in great detail the way magazine and news programs on television use such technologies to ‘make constantly changing collages of images’ instead. This, according to Ellis in 1996, meant the divergence of cinema and television. Ten years later, Tim Kring and NBC gave us Heroes.

Heroes uses digital technology for a lot more than an attractive weather forecast. Although by no means the first use of special effects by a television drama, it is perhaps the most integrated use of them that we have seen so far. Star Trek, Smallville, Supernatural, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and other science fiction serials that require CGI, for the most part indicate a supernatural or extra-terrestrial ‘reason’ for these impossible images – Heroes, on the other hand, works on the premise that the characters’ abilities are the result of evolution, a natural progression of the species. The special effects on the show are therefore geared towards making spontaneous regeneration, human flight or mind-reading look scientifically viable so that it is accepted by the audience. In other words, it is a different experience from seeing spaceships in Firefly, or Superman using his heat-vision, and thinking ‘that’s a special effect’.

Meredith Gordon, Pyrokinetic - Heroes makes amazing powers look achievable on screen.

Heroes shows us that in this age, television makes just as much use of ‘new technology’ as a visual aesthetic as cinema does. Zoic, the special effects provider for features such as Spiderman 2, Serenity and Day After Tomorrow, also work for television programmes like 24, Rome and Cold Case (Zoic Studios 2008). The MASSiVE software used to create large numbers of figures in Lord of the Rings and Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End has been used not only to create crowds of creatures in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Doctor Who, but has also been used in high-profile TV-ads like ‘The Big Ad’ for Carlton Draught (Massive Software: 2007).

The Carlton Draught Big Ad from 2005, using Massive Software
to create multiple figures with CGI technology (click to watch).

Then there is the technology used to exhibit our entertainment. It might still be fair to say that the cinema itself is a much ‘bigger’ experience than television. The biggest cinema screen in the world is 30.6m wide (Scoop 2007), compared to the largest TV made so far, which is 3.81m (Reuters 2008). In Stoneman’s words, ‘cinema’s project is in a larger scale, wider image of the world’ (1996:121).

Television, however, will not settle for second best. Advances are being made all the time to increase the viewing pleasure of home entertainment. In fact, what used to be called ‘home theatre’ is now more commonly known as ‘home cinema’. Perhaps the most defining aspect of these new technologies is that, far apart from watching a reformatted film DVD on a High Definition TV screen with 5.1 Surround Sound, broadcasting channels now exist that beam the higher quality images and audio into our homes. Australian networks Ten and Seven both recently introduced free-to-air HD channels, both with 5.1 Dolby surround, and Ten transmits in 1080i, the highest definition for television screens that exists so far (Network Ten 2007). Perhaps the literal size of the home cinema will not increase any further, because the advantage of television is that it is much more accessible and consistently available than film. In any case, the size of the ‘experience’ of television, while stile a notable barrier between TV and film, continues to grow.

Matsushita released this 3.81m (150 inch) screen in January 2008

Cinema has yet to be live. While there is an established element of television that is live, like the news, sport, some chat or panel shows, and even some special episodes of serials like The Vicar of Dibley, Blue Heelers and Will and Grace, film is a recorded medium. Conrad Schoeffter takes this distinction a step further by insisting that film ‘is fiction… television on the other hand, is reality based, not just where news and documentaries are concerned…. Most television movies are rooted in fact. Talk shows are perceived as real. In game shows, real people truly win or lose. By extension, we take a lot of things we see on television at face value’ – (Schoeffter 1998:113)

Schoeffter has either fallen into a mass generalisation, or his article just has not withstood the test of time. That ‘television movies are rooted in fact’ might be true of one that is rooted in fact, like The Ron Clark Story (2006), but what of a more recent example, The Colour of Magic (2008) based on the fantasy book by Terry Pratchett?

Fact vs. Fiction: The Ron Clark Story (2001) and The Colour of Magic (2008)

Let us take Firefly, for example. Classified as a ‘space western’ (Richardson 2007:140), the show is set in 2517 and examines entirely fictional events that take place after the humans have emigrated from earth. The characters live in a spaceship and fly between other ‘terraformed’ planets where live the civilian populations. The film Serenity, released after the show’s short-lived run on air, is just as fictional as the television series and vice versa. As Serenity is essentially a continuation of the serial in film-form, it is useful to examine both in order to note the ‘barriers’ between a TV show and a film of the same concept. For example, Serenity shows us that the depth and intricacies of details one can get from a TV show in its entirety are much harder to achieve with film. The film does not, for example, make clear that the character of Inara is a ‘companion’ (licensed prostitute), no doubt because of time constraints, even though this is an integral element of the TV series. It also demonstrates how film needs to be much more immediate than television. Firefly spent all its fourteen episodes slowly building up clues as to the mysteries behind the character of River. Serenity, as a film, has no such luxury, as film viewers expect to be imbued with all the relevant facts by the film’s end. In Serenity we find out that River is an assassin and psychic brainwashed by the alliance to be a powerful weapon. We also discover the origins of the terrifying creatures known as ‘Reavers’, which, in Firefly, were barely even shown on screen due to the need to make them as mysteriously ominous as possible over the course of the show. River also defeats the Reavers in Serenity, a conclusion-like device that, it is fair to say, would not have been used for a long time on Firefly as it would have diminished their considerable menace and decreased options for future episodes.

Heroes does not have a film counterpart, but in many ways Heroes is a more ‘film-like’ show than Firefly. Cast and crew have likened working on the show to making a ‘mini-movie’ each week (NBC 2007). In the DVD commentary for the episode ‘Company Man’, Director Allan Arkush and Writer/Executive Producer Bryan Fuller cite no less than five films to be their influences for this episode: Dog Day Afternoon, Raw Deal, Out of the Past, Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind and Constant Gardener (for its modern editing style). This episode seems to be a particularly ‘film-like’ one, as it centers around one thread of the story instead of three or four, as is the Heroes norm. Jack Coleman, who plays Noah Bennett on the show, says that each episode ‘feels like a 50-minute feature to me, because it has a beginning, midde and an end in a way that most, especially serialised television [does not]’ (Heroes: Season 1 DVD 2007). The commentary on other episodes also mentions that Heroes has two simultaneous units working on each episode at any time, and that there are at least 250 crew for each episode - closer to that of a film than an average television serial (ibid).

It must also be noted that television, and certainly in the case of shows like Heroes and Firefly, television is a much more ‘visual experience’ than it was at the time of Schoeffter’s article. According to him in 1998: ‘[cinema] is a visual experience… The content of a television movie you can get with your eyes closed. Television is an oral medium, to the point where people get uncomfortable when their little box does not talk to them’ (1998:114). But in what context can Heroes be classified as an oral medium? It might be true, as Schoeffter claims, that there is more ‘talking’ on TV, though it would be hard to prove as such without counting the average number of words for each, and of course it would depend on the type of programming under scrutiny – A Current Affair, for example, is bound to be a bit wordy compared to a film like The Orphanage. But in the case of shows like Firefly and Heroes, it must be argued that the experience is extremely visual.

In episode ‘The Message’ (Firefly 2003), the pilot employs some fantastic-looking
flying techniques, as do the special-effects team with their hand-held camera aesthetic.

Ultimately, it must be conceded that film and television are much closer institutions than they were at their conception, and may well continue to merge, interchange and grow closer in the future. Admittedly there remain some ‘barriers - the ‘live’ element of television, for example, and those features previously discussed in the comparison between Firefly and Serenity. These things, however, such as the need for film to ‘explain’ for the audience’s benefit whereas a television show can hold on the suspense over several episodes or even seasons, are not necessarily ‘barriers’. More, they are distinguishing factors that give us more choice in our viewing opportunities. Television and film are separate institutions, and will in all likelihood remain so, but in the words of Michael Eaton: ‘‘films would not be made were it not for the investment of television. Television would not have been so consistently good were it not for the aspiration to be more like film’ (1998:142).

¹Full list of films and their sequels in Filmography below.
----||||----

Bibliography

Abbott, Stacey, ed., 2005, Reading Angel, I.B. Tauris & Co Ltd, London

Calabrese, Omar, 1992, ‘Rhythm and Repetition’ in Neo-Baroque: A Sign of the Times, 27-46. Princeton University Press, Princeton

Eaton, Michael, 1998, ‘Cinema and Television: From Eden to the Land of Nod?’ in Cinema Futures: Cain, Abel or Cable?: The Screen Arts in the Digital Age, eds. T. Elsaesser and K. Hoffmann, 137-142, Amsterdam University Press, Amsterdam

Ellis, John, 1996, ‘Speed, Film and Television: Media Moving Apart’ in Big Picture, Small Screen: The relations between film and television, ed. J. Hill and M. McLoone, 107-117, University of Luton Press, UK.

Elsaesser, Thomas and Hoffmann, Kay, eds. 1998, Cinema Futures: Cain, Abel or Cable?: The Screen Arts in the Digital Age, Amsterdam University Press, Amsterdam

Espenson, Jane, ed., 2004, Finding Serenity, Benbella Books, Dallas, Texas

Hill, John and McLoone, Martin, eds. 1996. Big Picture, Small Screen: The relations between film and television, University of Luton Press, UK.

Klinger, Barbara, 2006, Beyond the Multiplex: Cinema, New Technologies and the Home, University of California Press, California

Marill, Alvin. H., 1987, Movies Made for Television: The Telefeature and the Miniseries 1964-1986, New York Zoetrope, New York

McLoone, Martin, 1996, ‘Boxed In?: The Aesthetics of Film and Television’ in Big Picture, Small Screen: The relations between film and television, ed. J. Hill and M. McLoone, 76-95, University of Luton Press, UK.

Richardson, J. Michael and Rab, J. Douglas, 2007, ‘The Existential Joss Whedon: Evil And Human Freedom in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Firefly And Serenity’, McFarland & Company Inc., USA

Schoeffter, Conrad, 1998, ‘Scanning the Horizon: A Film is a Film is a Film’ in Cinema Futures: Cain, Abel or Cable?: The Screen Arts in the Digital Age, eds. T. Elsaesser and K. Hoffmann, 137-142, Amsterdam University Press, Amsterdam

Sorlin, Pierre, 1998, ‘Television and the Close-up: Interference or Correspondence?’ in Cinema Futures: Cain, Abel or Cable?: The Screen Arts in the Digital Age, eds. T. Elsaesser and K. Hoffmann, 137-142, Amsterdam University Press, Amsterdam

Spigel, Lynn, 1992, Make Room for TV: Television and the Family Ideal in Postwar America, University of Chicago Press, Chicago

Stoneman, Rod, 1996, ‘Nine Notes on Cinema and Television’ in Big Picture, Small Screen: The relations between film and television, ed. J. Hill and M. McLoone, 118-132, University of Luton Press, UK.

Articles

Kirsner, Scott, 2006, ‘Digital Cinematography: The Big Pixel’, The Hollywood Reporter (June)
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/search/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002688109

Reuters.com, 2008, ‘Matsushita unveils world’s biggest TV’, Thomson Reuters (January)
http://www.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSN0740737820080107

Scoop Culture, 2007, ‘NZ Houses Biggest Cinema Screen In The World’, Scoop Culture (March)
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/CU0703/S00302.htm

Filmography

Aladdin, Ron Clements and John Musker, 1992

Aladdin: Return of Jafar, Tad Stones, 1994,

Aladdin and the King of Thieves, Tad Stones, 1996

Alien, Ridley Scott, 1979

Aliens, James Cameron, 1986

Alien 3, David Fincher, 1992

Alien Resurrection, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 1997

Alien vs Predator, Paul W.S Anderson, 2004

Alien vs Predator: Requiem, Colin Strause and Greg Strause, 2007

American Pie, Chris Weitz and Paul Weitz, 1999

American Pie 2, James B Rodgers, 2001

American Wedding, Jesse Dylan, 2003

American Pie Presents:Band Camp, Steve Rash, 2005

American Pie Presents: The Naked Mile, Joe Nussbaum, 2006

Bambi, David D. Hand, 1942

Bambi II, Brian Pimental, 2006

Bean, Mel Smith, 1997

Bean 2: Mr Bean’s Holiday, Steve Bendelack, 2007

Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, Andrew Adamson, 2008

Click, Frank Coraci, 2006

The Colour of Magic, Vadim Jean, 2008

Constant Gardener, Fernando Meirelles, 2005

Day After Tomorrow, Roland Emmerich, 2004

Die Hard, John McTiernan, 1988

Die Hard 2, Renny Harlin, 1990

Die Hard With a Vengeance, John McTiernan, 1995

Die Hard 4: Live Free or Die Hard, Len Wiseman, 2007

Dog Day Afternoon, Sidney Lumet, 1975

Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind, Michel Gondry, 2004

Horton Hears a Who!, Jimmy Hayward, 2008

Indiana Jones: Raiders of the Lost Ark, Steven Spielberg, 1981

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Steven Spielberg, 1984

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Steven Spielberg, 1989

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Steven Spielberg, 2008

Jumanji, Joe Johnston, 1995

The Lion King, Roger Allers and Rob Minkoff, 1994

The Lion King 2: Simba’s Pride, Darrell Rooney, 1998

The Lion King 1 ½,, Bradley Raymond, 2004

The Little Mermaid, Ron Clements and John Musker, 1989

The Little Mermaid: Return to the Sea, Jim Kammerud and Brian Smith, 2000

The Little Mermaid: Ariel’s Beginning, Peggy Holmes, 2008

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, Peter Jackson, 2001

The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, Peter Jackson, 2002

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, Peter Jackson, 2003

The Matrix, The Wachowski Brothers, 1999

The Matrix Reloaded, The Wachowski Brothers, 2003

The Matrix Revolutions, The Wachowski Brothers, 2003

Open Water, Chris Kentis, 2003

The Orphanage, Juan Antonio Bayona, 2007

Out of the Past, Jacques Tourneur, 1947

Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl, Gore Verbinski, 2003,

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, Gore Verbinski, 2006

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, Gore Verbinski, 2007

Raw Deal, John Irvin, 1986

Serenity, Joss Whedon 2005

The Simpsons Movie, David Silverman, 2007

Shrek, Andrew Adamson, 2001

Shrek 2, Andrew Adamson, 2004

Shrek the Third, Chris Miller, 2007

Speed Racer, The Wachowski Brothers, 2008

Spiderman 2, Sam Raimi, 2004

Star Wars: Episodes I-VI, George Lucas, 1977, 1980, 1983, 1999, 2002, 2005

Superman, Richard Donner, 1978

Superman Returns, Bryan Singer, 2006

Television

24, 2001, Created by Joel Surnow and Robert Cochran, FOX

A Current Affair, 1988-, Nine Network

The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin, 1954-1959, ABC

Aladdin, 1994-1996, Walt Disney Television, CBS

Blue Heelers, 1994-2006, Created by Tony Morphett and Hal McElroy, Seven Network

Buffy the Vampire Slayer, 1997-2003, Created by Joss Whedon, UPN/WB

Cold Case, 2003-, Created by Meredith Stiehm, CBS

Doctor Who (current series), 2005-, Created by Sydney Newman, BBC1

Firefly, 2002-2003, Created by Joss Whedon, FOX

‘The Message’, Firefly, 1.12, Dir. Tim Minear, FOX 2003

Heroes, 2006-, Created by Tim Kring, NBC

Heroes: Season 1, DVD. Universal Studios 2006/07 [DVD Commentary]

‘Distractions’, Heroes, 1.14, Dir. Jeannot Szwarc, NBC 2007
‘Company Man’, Heroes 1.17, Dir. Allan Arkush, NBC 2007

Jumanji, 1996-1999, Created by Arlene Klasky, UPN Kids

The Little Mermaid, 1992-1994, Walt Disney Television, CBS

Mr Bean, 1990-1995, Created by Rowan Atkinson and Richard Curtis, ITV

Rome, 2005-2007, Created by John Milius, William J. MacDonald and Bruno Heller, BBC

The Simpsons 1989-, Created by Matt Groening, FOX

Smallville, 2001-, Developed by Alfred Gough and Miles Millar, WB/CW

Star Trek, 1966-, Created by Gene Roddenberry, NBC/UPN

Star Wars: Clone Wars, 2003-2005, Lucasfilm Animation, Cartoon Network

Supernatural, 2005, Created by Eric Kripke, WB/CW

The Vicar of Dibley, 1994-2007, Created by Richard Curtis and Paul Mayhew-Archer, BBC

Will and Grace, 1998-2006, Created by David Kohan and Max Mutchnick, NBC

Websites

Massive Software, 2007, www.massivesoftware.com

Zoic Studios, 2008, www.zoicstudios.com

NBC Website, 2008, www.nbc.com

Network Ten Corporate, http://www.tencorporate.com.au/

Images and Video

Emerson Electric Advertising
Spigel, Lynn, 1992, Make Room for TV: Television and the Family Ideal in Postwar America, 104

Bambi
http://www.animatedheroes.com/bambi.html

Bambi II
http://www.filmjunk.com/2006/01/26/preview-11-minutes-of-bambi-2-online/

Pirates II
http://www.cinema.com/film/9311/pirates-of-the-caribbean-dead-mans-chest/gallery/page_50.phtml

Pirates III
http://www.indielondon.co.uk/gallery/pirates-of-the-caribbean-at-worlds-end-gallery-2

Meredith Gordon, Heroes episode ‘Distractions’
http://www.stripedwall.com

The Carlton Draught ‘Big Ad’
http://download.massivesoftware.com/client_work/cubbigad.lo.mov

Matsushita 150 inch TV
http://www.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSN0740737820080107

The Ron Clark Story (clip)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-OwqrcUlGM

The Colour of Magic (trailer)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dm2uT5GDcg

‘The Message’ (clip)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7rmUDvN4fw

Containing Reveiws

andy_star — Thu, 29 May 2008 08:29:09 GMT

So, depressingly, I was thinking last night about how this time last year we were all squeeing over Heroes 124 (How to Stop An Exploding Man) and how I haven't got to reveiw anything in ages because of the writer's strike and probably won't until September 15. So, to make myself feel better I'm going to reveiw some of the new shows that I've discovered/rediscovered/got into recently, and then in another post the Season finales of current shows. We'll see. ;)

1. Dexter

I watched 3 episodes of this earlier in the year and was a little confused and somewhat repulsed, so I gave up. But then I made the mistake of going to the cinema studies screening and watching episode 108 (Shrink Wrap). Suddenly I wanted to fill in the gaps, so I got on the network and watched all of Seasons 1&2 over 3 days. Despite the occasional grossness (which diminishes after the first few episodes) and the incredibly annoying narration of the main character, there's something about the main series plot of both seasons (but the first in particular) that makes you want to keep watching. It doesn't help that I had a sick fascination with serial killers in the first place. But there are no stand alone episodes and I think that's what makes you want to keep, keep, keep keep watching it. Ugh. Was up till 3am on the 3rd day ;)

2. The Tudors

This show has been criticised heavily (mostly by laymen who think they know everything) for being historically inaccurate. However, real critics estimate the factual elements to be about 80% accurate. So unless you're doing a thesis on Tudor history, you might as well ignore the little hitches (the main one I don't like is Henry's bastard son Henry only living to be 3 instead of 17... I wanted hawt bastard prince. My bad.) The parts I enjoy particularly are the bits that are right on the money. eg. Thomas Moor's execution speech. All right, there is a lot of sex, and the cosutmes are simplified to save time, but the acting in general, particularly on the part of Maria Doyle Kennedy (Katherine of Aragon) and Jeremy Northam (More), is very good. John Rhys Meyers, who I never really liked to start with, starts out quite good in the first season, but recently has become quite wooden, and I'm not sure how I feel about him. Anne Bolyn, played by Natalie Dormer, has 'annoying whiny queen biatch' down quite well ;)

3. Never Mind the Buzzcocks

I always knew this existed but never got into it for some reason. Yay for rediscovery! The new seasons (19-20) with Simon Amstell are just hilarious to watch, and I was already a big fan of Bill Bailey and Phil Jupitus. For those who don't know, NMTB is a panel music quiz show in the UK, resembling Spicks and Specks, with Bill and Phil as team captains. Highlights include, the one with John Barrowman ("talk to the hand cos the wrist is pissed"... "let's a have a Gay-off!") and the one where Preston storms off and they replace him with a lookie-likie from the audience. The games/questions are not I think as interesting as Spicks, but the face that they are liable to slag off even the guests to the point where they leave is just awesome and makes for an even funnier experience all round.

4. Reaper

I am still not sure how I feel about this show. The best part by far is Sock, played by Tyler Lambine. He's very funny, and the show would definitely not be as amusing, and maybe even boring, without him. The premise, if you don't know, is that Sam, the MC, had his soul sold to the devil by his parents (or did he?) and the devil makes him his bounty hunter for Hell, gathering up escaped souls and returning them via a demon that works at the DMV. First of all - what a stupid choice of name for the MC. A kid with mind-powers called Sam chasing down and sending back to hell a bunch of evil dead? Have they never seen Supernatural??? The mind powers thing annoys me as well, because he's had them since the first episode, but he's only used them 3 times - twice in the first episode, once to save his love interest from a falling air conditioner, and the second to repel fire and capture the soul, and once again in the second to last episode, to escape a falling washing machine (he works in a massive department store). Another annoying thing is Andi, his love interest, played by Andi Prendergast (Candice from Heroes - now that took some adjustment). She is quite different from a normal love interest... sort of. What annoys me is that she is the 'smart one' because she goes to college part-time, and Sam is the 'dumb one' because he dropped out of college. According to the promos etc., this is supposed to show that Sam is a slacker, but I really don't get that vibe from him at all (sure, he doesn't want to be Hell's bounty Hunter. Why would he?). Anyway, then Andi umms and ahhs for two episodes over whether to go to college full time, at the end of which she decides not to because the classes would be too hard and because 'she likes working with Sam', who at this point she has expressed no romantic interest for. Riiight. Anyway, the mini-plots with the soul are quite interesting and some (like the fortune teller and the sword-fighting magician and the sperm-donating narcissist) are quite original. Others are not (eg. bug lady) but it's still worth it for the comic relief. However, by the end of the 1st season all 3 guys (inc. Sam's housemate and helper, Ben) have beautiful girlfriends, including Sock, who, well... anyway. There was some promise early on when Ben met a chubby English girl, but she turned out to be a money-stealing biatch. Figures. The overall plot with Sam and the devil and the demons is quite cool too... up until about the last five minutes of the season finale (see next post, if you don't mind spoilers).

Poetry = madness

andy_star — Wed, 28 May 2008 04:24:18 GMT

Bullseyes

Sometimes I am very aware of my breasts.

At the occasional glance down at the moderate swell under my shirt I think: they are so obvious, everyone must be staring at them. But I don’t look at other people’s breasts, unless they’ve made a point of ensuring that I do, in which case it makes me even more aware of my own breasts, which are not, I don’t think, very extraordinary, but merely some extraneous body part I’ve had since I was twelve.

If nothing else they remind me that I’m a woman, but in the same way they are mostly unattained fulfilment, because surely what use are they without a child to feed? And I wonder about, whether if people stop breast-feeding their babies, we might evolve one day to get born without breast tissue, though I suppose that would mean we weren’t mammals any more and it would cause an existential quandary.

So for now anyway, my breasts are useless, like my appendix, like my little toe and my wisdom teeth, they don’t do anything, just hang around waiting for the time there’ll be a point to them. And sometimes I think, I’m risking my life by carrying these things around, because breast cancer is the second most common cancer after lung cancer (except I can’t really live without my lungs) and breast cancer is the most common cancer in women, so really I’m walking around with two blobs of potential cancer on my chest.

It seems marvellous when you think about it, that all us women risk so much for the sake of looking attractive or for the sake of eventually being able to feed our babies. I’ve never heard of someone cutting off their breasts after they have enough babies to be potentially safe from the most common cancer in women, even though we get our wisdom teeth taken out to stop them getting infected and our appendix taken out to stop it exploding and going septic.

By now people are starting to wonder why I'm staring at my own breasts. I wonder if other people think about their breasts in the same way I do, or if men wonder why they have a prostate when prostate cancer is the most common cancer in men after lung cancer in the United States, or if black men secretly wish they were Asian men because they’d have less change of getting prostate cancer and whether they might consider getting rid of their prostate after they’ve made enough babies. I don’t even know if that is possible, because a prostate is not like a breast or an appendix.

I find myself on the internet looking at pictures of breast cancer, inflammatory and ulcerating, and post-operative mastectomies and metaplastic sarcomatoid carcinoma under a microscope. I feel like my aureoles are targets, my nipples the bullseyes. I go somewhere private so I can look in the mirror and feel, check every inch for signs of tumours. In the mirror they are not attractive, not a way to attract a mate they way they are meant. I imagine them going septic and exploding like my appendix.

Poetry and all that jazz

andy_star — Tue, 27 May 2008 00:45:20 GMT

Sometimes I am very aware of my breasts. At the occasional glance down at the moderate swell under my shirt I think: they are so obvious; everyone must be staring at them. I don’t look at other people’s breasts, unless they’ve made a point of ensuring that I do, in which case it makes me even more aware of my own breasts,which are not, I don’t think, very extraordinary, but merely some extraneous body part I’ve had since I was twelve.

If nothing else they remind me that I’m a woman, but in the same way they are mostly unattained fulfilment, because surely what use are they without a child to feed? And I wonder about, whether if people stop breast-feeding their babies, we might evolve one day to get born without breast tissue, though I suppose that would mean we weren’t mammals any more and it would cause an existential quandary.

So for now anyway, my breasts are useless, like my appendix, like my little toe and my wisdom teeth, they don’t do anything, just hang around waiting for the time there’ll be a point to them. And sometimes I think, I’m risking my life by carrying these things around, because breast cancer is the second most common cancer after lung cancer (except I can’t really live without my lungs) and breast cancer is the most common cancer in women, so really I’m walking around with two blobs of potential cancer on my chest.

It seems marvellous when you think about it, that all us women risk so much for the sake of looking attractive or for the sake of eventually being able to feed our babies. I’ve never heard of someone cutting off their breasts after they have enough babies to be potentially safe from the most common cancer in women, even though we get our wisdom teeth taken out to stop them getting infected and our appendix taken out to stop it exploding and going septic.

By now people are starting to wonder why I'm staring at my own breasts.

"Happiness," he says, "is just a construction."
I would look at him like he has lost his mind
But he says stuff like this all the time.
"What do you mean?
"I mean sociecy tells us what we want
and if we don't have it, we'll be unhappy," he says.
I say, "So what? Aren't we society?
Society knows what we want because we want it."
"Society is a construction, see?"
he says, looking at me,
Like he's the bloody world and I'm his listening board.

andy_star — Thu, 22 May 2008 10:03:49 GMT

Hawt! :D

THE FILLION!

andy_star — Mon, 12 May 2008 06:51:01 GMT

I went to the Hub convention for Serenity yesterday, with Annabelle ;) OMG the awesome.

Argh

andy_star — Mon, 12 May 2008 06:02:06 GMT

I'm having Poetry brain farts!

Damn my recent success in poetry, for now I feel the need to match such success with the second assignment... and all my efforts are in vain.

Listening to Joy to the World probably doesn't help...

When I am little
I believe there are wolves in the bathroom
So I do not go to the toilet at night
But that is also because I am afraid
Of tripping and falling down the stairs.

I like to pretend
I have been kidnapped by a witch
And she keeps me imprisoned
By trapping my hands in the headboard
But by morning I have always escaped.

To read at night
Is always an adventure of stealth
To have one hand on the light switch
Ready to shove the book under the pillow
At the sound of an approaching footstep.

-

Sometimes I am very aware of my breasts.
At the occasional glance down at the moderate swell under my shirt
I think: they are so obvious, everyone must be staring at them.
I don’t look at other people’s breasts
Unless they’ve made a point of ensuring that I do
In which case it makes me even more aware of my own breasts,
Which are not, I don’t think, very extraordinary
But merely some extraneous body part I’ve had since I was twelve

Oops?

andy_star — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 11:43:50 GMT

I, er... just bought a guitar on ebay. Go me?

Random thought of the day

andy_star — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 23:50:26 GMT

You know, I think if I was going to change my username again, it'd have to be iantofish. *happy sigh*

In other news, The Tudors is very cool show. And not only because I'm now well-versed enough to recognise most of the choir music or because they're very free with the boobies *giggle* Because of, er... other reasons. More intellectual ones. Just can't think of them right now.

Teh Awesome Weekend

andy_star — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 11:24:29 GMT

Well last weekend was just the perfect end to what was really quite a shit Easter break. It was awesome!

SUPANOVA OMG. Nuff said! Well, not nuff said. Jewel Staite said in front of a room full of people that my Kaylee costume was one of the best she'd ever seen, and I got a massive round of applause! I met James Kyson Lee and Superman and a Stormtrooper (not the real ones, except James Kyson Lee obviously) and got autographs and spent $200 that I couldn't afford but didn't really care because JEWEL SAID I WAS ONE OF THE BEST. :D

More photos on Facebook, especially in the Joss Whedon Appreciation Society group page.

Then on Sunday night, went to the Great Debate, and ended up on stage during the finale with Stephen K Amos, and Alice got to meet Hamish (apparently she's now fulfilled her life's purpose).

Then I skipped uni today because I was unsurprisingly exhausted. Oh well!