In Awe

I'm in awe of this amazing CGI. I look forward to the day the actual gameplay of a video game looks like this.

Kato is The Awesome AND He Raps!

Okay, normally I don't like rap but if anyone can make it awesome, it's Kato. The actor who play's Kato--Jay Chou--is actually a Chinese musician and here's his song that was at the end of the Green Hornet's credits.

Links Saturday
TELL ME YOU LOVE ME!

I found this great web series parody of The Legend of Zelda and there are about thirty episodes, all of which are hilarious, but the third one is, by far, my favorite. Knowing the Legend of Zelda series is a big plus, but even if you don't, you should be able to still appreciate a lot of the humor. Although, I do warn you, the humor is VERY adult. I don't think I have any particularly sensitive blog readers, but just in case, you've been warned.

Legend of Neil Channel
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BEST THING EVAH!

So I arrive home today to the world's best delivery. The new Terry Pratchett book. That's right. Because I went to the American Library Association's conference I get this book not only for free but EARLY before the rest of you suckers! Okay, fine, I'm probably the biggest Pratchett fan of my blog audience so the rest of you aren't nearly as envious as you should be.

If Only...

...It were that easy.

This is my favorite a clip from Legend of the Seeker TV show, based on the Sword of Truth book series. There are a lot of things that bother me about the show. The actor playing Richard, for one, does not look or act anything like how I imagined Richard, and that's pretty distracting since he's the main character. I also don't like how it often deviates or even contradicts the spirit of the books. The actress playing Kahlan is very good, and I got used to Zedd. But the Richard in the show will never seem right to me.

However, I LOVE Cara! Her story doesn't follow exactly the one in the book, but she's the closest character to the original in my opinion. Plus, she's just awesome. I would totally love to have a red leather catsuit just like hers.

EEEEEEEEEEE!!!

Okay, so fan girl squealing aside, I had a great time seeing Neil Gaiman at UCSB. Thanks again to Tim and Mag for letting us stay with them. The one sad thing is I lost the hat pictured here. It was my Denison hat so I was rather fond of it and it's a bit tricky to replace. But if I had to lose a hat to see Neil Gaiman, that's more than worth it (plus, I didn't really lose it while seeing Neil, but a few days later).

Highlights From Neil's Lecture:

He read 2 excellent unpublished stories: one about being murdered at sea and the other was called Cassandra and was a creepy story about about imaginary friends.

He answered MY question! I was thinking that it would be really unlikely because we wrote our questions on index cards and he had a huge stack and kept tossing half them aside without reading them. But he still did mine! I got so excited I started jiggling in my chair. My question was: "Did you base the graveyard in The Graveyard Book on any specific graveyard?" His answer was: Stoke-Newington, Glasgow Necropolis, and Highgate Cemetary.

He answered my sister's question which was "How many drafts do you usually write?" The answer was: as few as 1, and average of 2-3, and as many as 11.

Someone asked if he ever felt like his characters wrote themselves. He said no, but that would be awesome. He would just sit there and drink tea. Then he pointed and was like "You, write yourself faster!"

Someone said they were getting a PhD in super-herology. He didn't answer their question but said he "loved living in a world where you could get a PhD in super-herology."

When we got our books signed I thanked him for answering my question and when I told him which one it was, he said it was a good question and no one had ever asked him that before. Yay! Watching and reading every Neil Gaiman interview I can get my hands on has finally paid off! I know every question he's ever answered!

My sister mention she liked "Crowley's green-thumb" in Good Omens and he said he thinks he wrote that bit. I said how much I've always loved how Crowley "didn't so much as fall as vaguely saunter downwards." Neil says he think Terry wrote that bit.

All in all he was very nice and very gracious. Pretty much everything I had hoped for (aside from, unreasonable hopes like having his awesome radiate onto all of us making us into super-writers.) But everything else was great!

Here you see me groveling before the master as he draws an excellent mouse in the copy of Coraline I bought that night to be signed. I was a little sad he didn't look up in any of our pictures. I'm sure he probably would have since he was so nice, but I was too shy to ask him to. Some people went right up to him and put their arm around him, but I was too shy for that too. Still, he'd been looking into a lot of camera flashes, so I'm glad we could give him a break from that and not make him completely blind.

This is the signature in my book. Mouse drawn by Neil.

This is the signature in Chrissy's book. Excellent quote by Neil that summarizes Good Omens.

This is hands down the best fractured fairy tale picture book I've ever read. It also unquestionably has the best representation of a fairy tale female that I've ever seen. After randomly picking it up in the library, I wanted to write the author a fan letter based entirely on this book alone.

In this version of Rumplestilskin the miller's daughter falls in love with Rumplestiltskin and they both escape the greedy king together. But, years later, their daughter is kidnapped by the same miserly king. Instead of calling her father for help, Rumplestiltskin's clever daughter hatches a plan to save, not only herself, but the whole kingdom's economy.

I was delighted to see they actually made a play out of this book. Here's a link to the website for that. Unfortunately it's only in Richmond Virginia, so I can't see it. I also think it might already be over. But it's cool just to know they did one. This book certainly deserves it. Heck, I'd love to see a movie based on this book if they did it right.

Book Club

This is the spoilers section.

What, you say? A spoilers section for a picture book? That's right. This one was so cleverly written I'd rather you read it before you read this part.

Okay, are you done? C'mon, it's a picture book, it doesn't take that long. Go to the kids section of your library (only cowards feel embarrassed there) and pick it up. If they don't have it, demand that they get it!

Okay, done with that? Here it is.

I LOVE that Rumplestiltskin's Daughter got to be prime minister. I was inwardly cringing the whole time, worried she would marry that icky king. Because, no matter how reformed he is, it's still creepy. Plus it would have only reinforced the message that women have to get married to live fulfilled lives. Now, I do admittedly like romance. But this story had that with the miller's daughter and Rumplestiltskin. That was so cute, and Rumplestilskin was a cutie. So it this story has it all!