May

May first. May Day, Beltane, Roodmas, Walpurgisnacht, what ever you want to call it, it's a time for new beginnings. I've decided to start anew with this year after everything that's happened. Today marks the first day of a new project, for the next year I'll be making one new thing a day based on the suggestions in "365 A Daily Creativity Journal."
Today is making something that fits in the palm of your hand. For the first project I decided to fall back on my matchbox drawer to make a box for Asian themed earrings. First picture below, others to come on Flicker or Tumblr.




Update: Started Flickr with 365 stream and public for other pictures as well. Enjoy!

Life news

News has been a little slow around here lately, not much is going on in my life besides looking for a new job. Went to a stamp expo and spent a bit more money than I should have, but every cent was worth it. I got some amazing stamps and peripherals for my crafting, also I found out some little old ladies can be scary about their love of stamps.
Speaking of crafting, the time I've spent not looking for a new job has been working on birthday and Mother's Day gifts, and items for an Etsy shop. I'm getting really excited, but didn't want to tell many people at first because of the time frame, paperwork and other things. One thing I can say for certain though, is that all the pictures I've been posting on other forums, and gifts for people I've been making are not going to be sold in my store. Those are things I've seen people selling on Esty that I've made myself since I had the supplies and too poor to buy it, so I make it myself. It also means more to the recipient than just buying someone else's craft don't you think?
On to things I have been watching. I'm loving the start of the new series the Legend of Korra, I recommend it to everyone, even if they haven't seen the original series. Glee is getting interesting in trying to wrap up so many story lines before several of the kids graduate, and adding in new story lines for the younger kids to go through with the oncoming season. Still sad I wasn't able to see the live action Ouran High School Host Club movie when it came out, anxiously waiting for dvd news so I can import it. My Little Pony:Friendship is Magic is excellent as always.
So upcoming news for the future is the store, my imminent trip to Zenkaikon, and later this summer I'll be at Otakon. Reviews and opinions also coming soon on Black Butler, Game of Thrones season 2, and of course the Avengers movie. If anyone reading this is into comics, don't forget Free Comic Book Day on May 5th this year, I'll be at my favorite store.

Hilarity and color wheel realness

Wow, I thought the week before Easter was packed into a tiny space even before I go sick, I'm still dealing with the fallout and getting things ready for an upcoming kiddie birthday. Since we last met a lot has happened.
Last Saturday I traveled over to New Jersey to spend the holiday with my family there and had an awesome time. Between my grandmother locking the keys (regular and spare) in the car at the cemetary when we went to visit her parents grave and my dad's, to her accosting a random guy at the cemetary. Dude's like 50 feet or so away and she just yells out "Hey buddy hey pal! Can you help us get into our car?" The fun contnued on into Saturday night when my sister, cousin and I sat down to dye eggs. I was getting all artistic on my eggs with multiple colors, patterns and designs.

So my sister tries to get in on the aristic action too, wanting to make a Christmas-y egg. She dips it in green, lets it dry, then draws a tree in it with the clear crayon. She then dips it in red to make the green tree stand out against the red. Now, most of you should be shaking your head by now and knowing what color her egg came out. It turned brown.
For those who don't know, mini color wheel lesson for you here. Not going to get into complementary colors or any of that, since this is for people wanting to dye eggs creatively. There are three Primary colors, red, blue and yellow. When two of those are mixed together, you get a secondary color. Red and Blue makes purple, Red and yellow make orange, Blue and yellow makes green. When you put these colors together in a circle, you have a beginning color wheel. When the colors are in a circle, look at them closely. Any color that is directly opposite the color you used, do not use. Red and green are opposite in this beginning color wheel, and it will make brown. Whatever you want to call it, chocolate, poo, dirt brown, it's still not very pretty on an egg.
Coming up in the next few days are impressions of my first Rubber Stamping and Papercraft Expo, and a simple how to for setting up baskets, for Easter or any occasion to make what you have to give look nice and pretty.

Adding this in here. With baskets of any kind, what I usually do is organize everything into piles of small to large. The larger items I place in a pleasing manner in where I designate the "back" of the basket. This creates a wall everything else goes up against to show off most of the other goodies in here.

Karaoke!

As most of you know, I love Rock Band. Being able to sing along with words on a screen and be judged in the privacy of your own home by a machine is fantastic. I like to sing, but I never liked to sing in front of people because I don't like my voice. Tonight I went with some friends to do karaoke and everything changed. I don't know whether it was the MC(?) hosting the event, the people well on their way to getting drunk singing before me, or the energy of the crowd, but it's amazing.
The Karaoke event was hosted by Michael's friend Brent, which is the whole reason we went in the first place. He was hosting it at the Blue Monkey, as Singa Karaoke. Michael and his friend Extra Juicey are veterans of the stage, and they convinced me to give it a shot. Now, before I go any further, I do want to say something. Whether someone is good at singing, or completely horrible and you hate it, you should be a good sport and not rip them apart or insult them to your friends while they're up on stage. If someone has the guts to get up there in front of everyone and sing, at the end, you should at least clap, no matter how awful it is, because it's terrifying being up there. Walking up to the mic seemed like it was taking forever, I was so nervous.
The way the event was set up was in rounds. You got little slips of paper to write your name and song choices on, and each round you were up to sing again if you chose to. This let the new people have a chance to sing, while the addicts also got to sing over and over without seeming greedy for the mic. (I know it's harsh, but that was the vibe I got from the explanation, so that's what I'm writing.)
Now, you all should also know by now I like to research things before doing them. I read a guide on karaoke etiquette and looked through the book for a proper song. I decided to go with Meatloaf's Rock and Roll Dreams come True as my first choice. Not a very high energy song I admit, but it's one I know by heart, inside and out, and also one with a positive message for me. I could just close my eyes and let the drummer tell my heart what to do. I made it through the song, and was energized by the applause I received at the end. It seemed like drugs to my ears, so I went up another 2 times. The second time I sang Poison's Nothin' but a Good Time, and then finished my first experience with karaoke with Mika's We Are Golden. I'll be the first to admit I tanked during the last song. As a favor to Quintega I had Michael use my phone to record me up there, but while trying to show him what to do, the song started and I was completely flustered which threw off my game. I know it's a poor excuse, but I'll bring my A-game next time, I promise!
So the summary of this post is that if you have the chance to go out and do karaoke, you should definitely go do it. Terrifying at first, but super special awesome later.
You should also like Singa Karaoke's FB page, and here's the website I was able to find.
Here's the link to Extra Juicey's blog, enjoy.

Puella Magi Madoka Magica

SPOILERS!
Don't read any further if you don't want the show to be spoiled!



So I promised you guys I'd talk about this show. Frankly, I actually don't have much to say about it other than it's awesome and if you're into anime or sci-fi, you should definitely watch this. It really says a lot about a show when you have to watch it multiple times to really get it. It's not a show that gives you everything at once, it hints at some things in the beginning, than right near the end it goes in a completely different direction than what you thought was happening. On my second watching of the show it made so much more sense, a bit like Higurashi in that sense.
Now as I started the series, I knew that it was a "deconstructed magical girl show," and a few episodes in, I kind of cemented in my mind it was a twisted and dark Sailor Moon. Tayron argues with me on this one, but the first half of the series I was able to draw a lot of parallels with characters from both shows. Namely Kyubei/Luna coercing the young girls to become magical girls fighting evil by making a contract/taking henshin transformation stick to join in the fight. I'm only going to give one away though, you'll all have to watch and find the others. ^_~
The second half of the show seems more like Doctor Who to me, with them acting like Rose Tyler and the Doctor, but then we get to the last episode and it flips again, making it seem like Amy pond and the Doctor.
It's amazing how they can fit all of these things into a measly 12 episode season/run and have it be this awesome and cohesive, with no extra plots dangling, nothing missing at all and simply brilliant.

This is a really cute Kyubei hat from here for your enjoyment.

Fun Times

Mini post today, still trying to figure out what to write about Puella Magi Madoka Magica that hasn't been written before by everyone else last year. So today I'll pimp out Tayron since he's awesome. He brought me Kid Icarus for the 3DS yesterday, which has completely distracted me from side secret projects that need to be done soon, and today an exercise ball so I can both work out, and have a fun chair to use at the computer. Or so I can be productive while wasting time....? Either way, anyone who reads my blog should also read Tay's stories on Elfwood. It's a work in progress but it's still awesome. New chapters are going to be added soon, he's almost done with them.
http://www.elfwood.com/~briansaul/Elryn-Chapter-1.3373659.html
Starting you all off with chapter one, go read and enjoy! Make sure to comment with your opinions, Tayron is a writer and has a fragile psyche which can only be helped with lots of constructive criticism.

21 Jump Street

A friend and I went to go see the new 21 Jump Street movie today. What follows is my opinion of the movie. I'm not a trained movie person and I only have vague memories of the show from when I was little. I am going to be watching the show in the next few weeks, so nobody rag on me for not talking about parallels. I know I could have watched it last week, but I honestly wanted to go into it with an open mind and make an opinion about it on its own before hastily judging it.
I honestly really liked this movie. It's one of the few I've actually laughed out loud in the theater for. Most of the time it's just one joke after another. Be warned though, most of it is lowbrow humor, a lot of dick jokes and gay references. But there are other jokes that definitely make up for it, like when Jonas Hill and Channing Tatum are first sent to go undercover at 21 Jump St., the chief makes a crack that they should shake them up over at that church since they keep doing old tricks and things from the past. Between tongue in cheek jokes like that, and the Johnny Depp cameo, I'm totally pre-ordering the Blu-ray when it comes out.
The movie opens up with a flashback to Tatum and Hill in high school circa 2005. Sets up the original relationship of the two and the dynamics of being a nerd and jock in school back then. Moving froward to police academy and the relationship changes, with each of them needing what the other has. Hill's character needs to do more athletic things, and Tatum's needs to learn more to pass tests to become an officer. Through helping each other succeed, they become good friends.
Once out on patrol, they mess up big time. Hill lets his perp get away, while Tatum arrests one, but going into the miranda rights, gets emotional and starts hurling expletives (and something I think halo players might recognize) at the guy, which lets the coke smuggler get off scott free. Seeing how they're so immature and young looking, the chief send them to the undercover unit. At the church, we see the leader of the unit is Ice Cube. He goes off on a rant on how they stereotype him into the angry yelling and cursing black character, (another moment I loved) but that it's okay to lean into the stereotypes to get what you want. Like how he sets it up so that Tatum is the jock/drama person at the school to get in with the cool kids, and Hill is the nerdy smart kid to get in the angle of the chem kids who might be manufacturing the drug they're being sent in to bust.
Through a funny bit of Tatum's character forgetting his undercover name, their roles are switched, and hilarity ensues as Hill gets in good with the popular kids, and Tatum is quickly accepted into the nerd crowd.
I can't say much more without spoiling the movie, and I don't want to do that since it is a great movie, and everyone should see it providing that they are old enough and don't mind potty humor. The shining jems of referential humor and tongue in cheek jokes are worth it, I promise!
So with all that said, I give this movie an 8 out of 10. Tatum was amazingly funny in it, but Jonah Hill is extremely typecast as usual. He is great in this movie, don't get me wrong, but it just seems like I've seen it before from him over and over with nothing much changing, and I know it is possible to be typecast and still turn out a new/different performance each time, just look at most of Seth Green's movies. ^_~