My Desolation

9/30/2012


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A Symbol of Hope and Resilience

9/29/2012


Found it! Well, not quite. This is the powerful final scene from Fringe's season premiere "Transilience Thought Unifier Model-11." The original with the silent desolation surrounding Walter as he walks alone to the taxi makes more of an impact. And where it had been the words "I need you" with a close shot of the sole dandelion growing between the cracks, now it's the end of the song which soon fades out. But still I love both versions.

Edit //
I don't know if it was uploaded while I was writing this, but I found the unchanged scene immediately after.

Related Post //
Fringe, Only You

Fringe, Only You

9/29/2012


Why am I up after less than 6 hours of sleep? I was perfectly comfortable, the temperature was good, the air wasn't too dry, and no one made any noise. I think the only reason it could possibly be is the Fringe season 5 premiere last night. I just keep thinking about it. "Transilience Thought Unifier Model-11" is a brilliant episode of a brilliant show. As is always the case, it was more than I expected. I won't go into details, mainly because I would have to watch it again right now to give them to you and I don't have the time. I just wanted to share a few highlights. For a proper recap, check out TVLine.

SLIGHTLY SPOILERY

  • Olivia and Peter talking about losing Etta and how they split up. Olivia left for New York to save the world, while Peter stayed in Boston to continue searching for the "perfect little soul" they made.
  • Walter being tortured. That was torture to watch. I hate when Walter is hurt. But it was another showcase of John Noble's endless talent.
  • A bloodied Walter asking "Afro" if she has any music (he's still there!) and Astrid smiling at that.
  • Wrenching use of Yazoo's "Only You" and another beautiful performance by Noble. All he did was sit in a car, listen to music (rare in this new world), and cry. There was an added "awww" factor when I saw his pulse. And as soon as the song started I thought of when it was used in Ashes to Ashes. Sadly, though, I can't remember what scene.

If you've never seen Fringe, now is a great time to, but from the pilot. The relationships in this show and all the characters have been through are the core, so you just cannot start with the final season. You'll ruin it for yourself if you do.

BLU-RAY
USED: Fringe: The Complete First Season [5 Discs] [Blu-ray]$14.94 at fye
Fringe - The Complete First Season$64.99 at J&R

DVD
Fringe: The Complete First Season [7 Discs] - [DVD] - Used$22.97 at SecondSpin
Fringe - The Complete First Season$54.99 at J&R

Ooh, I wonder if #TheyAreHere trended on Twitter last night.

It's Been an Incredible Ride, Fringe

9/28/2012


Tonight is the beginning of the end, a too quick sprint toward the finale in this shortened season, a hopefully joyful, possibly heartbreaking (almost certainly both) end. Actually, the beginning really was last season's terrific "Letters of Transit," but "Tonight's 'Transilience Thought Unifier Model-11' is the continuation of the beginning of the end" doesn't roll off the tongue in quite the same way.

Actually, I've been bracing for this for a long time, since it started getting juggled around the schedule, was ignored by so many, and was continually passed over for Emmy nominations. Like Peter, it's as if the show doesn't exist...to all but us few. But I'm holding out hope that the people of Fringe, never ones to disappoint, will put more than everything they have into this final, no doubt breathtaking chapter, and maybe more will finally have no choice but to give in and give it the respect it deserves.

I'll show my respect by watching the premiere with this t-shirt on. ;)

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I'll also be tweeting with the hashtag #TheyAreHere and using one of these icons. You can read the Twitter event rules here.

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Fourth Season on Blu-ray, $64.99 at J&R
Fourth Season on DVD, $54.99 at J&R

Found the Dragon Shirt

9/27/2012

The family and I went to the Big E last weekend. It was a great time when we were younger, with rides, free shows, and animals. Then life got in the way and we skipped it for a long time, but we've gone for the past three years, mainly for the fried everything. It's the one time a year where it's okay to eat ridiculously. Hopefully, it will become a tradition since I haven't had the fried lasagna yet.

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I saw this beauty after being unable to find the shirt I wanted last year. I found it in one of the outside kiosks, maybe half way to the Avenue of States. It might have been Atwood Studios, but the Big E's site lists seven t-shirt vendors. Keep an eye out for it if you happen to be going on this final weekend.

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And there it is. Found it at the end of the day. I went into the wrong building earlier. This is the one I wanted last year, but the family was walking away and the booth was packing up. I thought about it all year long. Though, I swear it was green. It could, of course, be a different version, but no matter; it's a great shirt. You can find it at the Celtic Heritage Productions booth with Marcille Wallis in the Young Building. Marcille happens to be a fine musician, which I didn't notice while I was there, because I was so focused on the shirt. You can also find these shirts and many more at The Mountain.

Fuzz of the Dead

9/23/2012

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The second I saw the word "Fuzz" in my RiptApparel email subject line I thought, "A Hot Fuzz/Shaun of the Dead shirt would be incredible! I should try to make one. Why did I never think of this before?" Then I clicked on the email and there it was! Yay! Shit, I have no money. Screw it! I'm getting it. There's no way I can pass this up. And, if you love these movies, you can't either. You have until 1:00 AM EST to get this perfect mashup shirt before it's gone.


Where is Toby? At TeeFury, of Course

9/22/2012

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If only I were buying things right now, this would be an immediate purchase. I haven't seen Arrested Development in a while, but I could never forget Tobias Fünke, the Blue Man Group-aspiring Never Nude. It was a ridiculous and hilarious show. I really need to have a marathon. It'll have to wait until I catch up to Burn Notice and finish my Fringe re-watch, though, unless the rest of my family is in the mood.

TeeFury.com

Desolation Today, Despair Coming Soon

9/16/2012

Despair, Uploaded from the Photobucket iPad App


Starting to get confused about where I'm posting things. One should not be alone in having three blogs to update.

For the little bit of background story on this design, see my other blog.
http://shinydangerousthings.blogspot.com/2012/09/desolation-and-despair.html

The Inescapable Alexander Siddig

9/13/2012

Well, at least I wish he was in everything. Don't know what I was typing today, but whatever it was made me think of Syriana. Not because I ever saw it, which I didn't, though I wanted to. What I remember about that movie was a quote from the great Doctor Bashir (Alexander Siddig). Wow, I actually just pulled that name out of thin air. I haven't seen Deep Space 9 since it was canceled.

That's another missed opportunity for G4, which recently announced they're doing another overhaul. They're probably getting rid of those last few shows that make them watchable. They could have played so many things instead of their incessant Cops, Campus PD, and Cheaters marathons. I only ever watched for X-Play and recently I re-watched all of Quantum Leap. They killed Call for Help when they changed from TechTV, so I've hated the channel since 2004.

Wait, I came here to share a quote, which is one of my favorites. Maybe I can find it again. Haven't seen it since it was in Entertainment Weekly in 2005. Oh, that's why I thought of Vertical Limit the other day. Didn't have a clue about the name. I guess he was in it. Of course, he probably died. Ahh, here's what I wanted.

The most important thing was to expose the guy's heart to the audience, to show that he had a beating heart as fragile as anybody else's.

-Alexander Siddig


Bonus quote from SciFiAndTVTalk, just because I decided to look for a couple more interviews. This is about his name change from Siddig El Fadil.

Most of the time people introduced me so tentatively that it made my heart break.

-Alexander Siddig


Aww. I never found his name difficult to remember. In fact, the change is what confused me. I still call him by both names.

Maybe I thought of this because Siddig has another movie soon, Inescapable. According to IndieWire this is his first starring role! I hope it works out for him. He's been leading man material for quite a while. The only reason I know about the movie is that Joshua Jackson is also in it. Fringies have been drooling. And so, I just turned this into another Fringe post. Yay, for all of us! Will I ever be done with that show? No. Never. And don't you ever think that ever again. ;)

The Complete Seventh Season
DVD, $64.99 @ J&R
The Complete Fourth Season
Blu-ray, $59.99 at J&R

Firefox Update Could Not Be Installed

9/13/2012

Normally I talk about t-shirts and TV here, but today I had a computer annoyance. Not a rare thing, but I never blog about it.

Really, Firefox? Or, really, Windows 8 Release Preview? I'd been getting the message "Update could not be installed. Please make sure there are no other copies of Firefox running on your computer." But then it would start just fine after dismissing the message. This happened every time I started the computer up for the day to work, so I knew there weren't other copies running. It did this for two weeks and I finally got fed up enough to waste my time looking for a solution. After a few minutes of searching I found these solutions having to do with deleting update folders, which didn't work for me. I didn't have the folders (yes, I turned on hidden folders) they were talking about and another in Program Files didn't fix the problem.

The next search led me here. Even though it's a 2-year-old post about Firefox 3.something I tried it anyway, because I'd rather tinker than reinstall. That's always my last resort. The solution was to run it as administrator. This worked before with another program that was having a tantrum. Just right click the executable and go to Properties, then the Compatibility tab, and check the box at the bottom that says "Run this program as an administrator." I restarted Firefox and the update installed. Interesting. As the only account on this computer, how am I not the administrator? I am, so...hmm.

Shining Little Sisters

9/12/2012

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No, seriously, I'm not buying shirts right now! I have more important things to save for, such as music, my mom's birthday, and Christmas. It would be a lot easier if I never checked the sites or read their emails, because this is another great one. I don't have any Shining or Bioshock shirts and this is both. If they were my absolute favorites then this would be impossible to pass up. As is, it's just a very hard thing to do.

TeeFury.com

Spider-Bat and Shiny Dangerous Things

9/11/2012

Finally posting at Shiny Dangerous Things. Name change to come. I just could never choose between a bunch of ideas. Can't buy them all.

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The Iron Wolf is Coming

9/10/2012

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Aaaahhhh, nooooo! Damn it. I have put a stop to buying shirts for now, because I've spent too much lately and now this comes out? Why? Oh, why?! A Game of Thrones/Iron Man mashup I somehow never would have thought of. I have 17 hours to change my mind and pick this up for cheap. I don't think I will, but you never know. I want this one very much. Oooh, this is a very hard thing to do.

Slow Going

9/09/2012


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I can't believe this is only the third weapon I completed with my drawing apps. It takes a while when I have to do a design or I decide it could use a background, usually because each app is missing something I need and they don't work well together. This one seemed like it would be easier than the other two, but iDraw kept getting bogged down with all the individual shapes. Near the end it was crashing...a lot. Good thing I did this in iDraw, though, because InkPad wouldn't have been able to handle half of the load.

Not sure about the handle "heart" pattern. It was a complete accident. I was moving individual diamonds and grouped them when I had a good amount, so I could copy, paste, and move a bunch at once and save a lot of time and frustration. The shape just happened, so I decided to go with it. I'm also not enamored with the color, but there was nothing else that fit very well. I would have loved to do a background of some sort, but there just isn't enough time to do so for all of them.

Okay...never had this problem with InkPad. Remember how I just said there was no background? I had to put a plain grey, blah background because when I save without one and then upload to Photobucket there is a white background. No setting in iDraw changes this and I'm mobile right now, so I can't see if Photobucket has anything I can change.

Fixed it! The problem was with getting the pics from the the mobile drawing apps to Photobucket. I guess because I had to save them to my iPad's "Photos" first. If I email them to myself, download them on my PC, and then upload to Photobucket the backgrounds stay transparent. Wow, how annoying. At least it's easier now that my computer is upgraded and oh so much faster.

Since this is all taking so long, I'm thinking I might just start posting my hand drawn weapons on the blog I created (and just about immediately abandoned) a couple years ago for just this thing. At least they will be up and eventually some of them will be turned into vector drawings.

Original, drawn October 6, 2007.

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Ahh, Walter

9/07/2012

I've seen The Guns of Navarone a few times, but it's been at least ten years since the last. Really all I remember are the massive cannons. I guess the title did its job. Anyway, that just came to me when I was typing absolutely nothing distinctive, nothing that could trigger it. Maybe it's just because lately I've been trying to edit the Neverending Fringe Post (as I've "lovingly" dubbed it) that I've been working on since January. I need to get the thing done, but every time I go back to it I end up adding words, so I'm starting to think that won't happen until the end of the show. :(



The Complete Fourth Season
Blu-ray, $39.99 at J&R
The Complete Fourth Season
DVD, $43.99 at J&R

Fringe Will Always Win with Me

9/06/2012

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I saw this in my email this morning and got excited. The first one I recognized was Walter. Fringe shirts are few and far, far between. Still, the design is so strange that I wasn't going to get it, especially since I got two shirts in the last two weeks and my wallet is still reeling from my August shopping spree and will again with the purchases I need to make this month (taxes, Avengers, Dave Matthews Band's Away from the World, Mumford & Sons' Babel, Fringe season 4, et cetera).

Edit, 9/12/12: Crap! Just found out that Joachim Witt is releasing "DOM" this month. That's another $30 at least.

I started reading the comments and saw that some were loving the design and some were not, and some were getting it even though they didn't quite get it. I immediately thought of the episode "Ability," where skin grew over a man's eyes, ears, nose, and mouth, so this actually fits the Fringeverse well. And it is sufficiently creepy while also being somewhat cute. I also saw a comment from medoragrace and so I went to Twitter and found out that she really wanted me to go to TeeFury today. That and the fact that the designer said he wanted to "provoke a feeling of restlessness, tension and suspense" decided it for me and now I love it.

TeeFury.com

The Wait for Taken 2 is Almost Over

9/05/2012

Yay, another movie to get excited about! Oh, wait, I thought I wasn't supposed to be excited for movies because I don't want to be disappointed. Ah, who cares?! I loved Taken. It's ass-kicking Liam Neeson. The bad guys die, the good survive. And it gave me one of my favorite lines: "I will look for you, I will find you, and I will kill you." I couldn't want much more than that. I'll certainly see it in the theaters and I know I'll be buying this the second it's released on Blu-ray.



Here's the extra scene you get if you go to Twitter and search for the hashtag #Taken2Scene.



DVD, $14.99 at fye
Blue-ray, $24.99 at fye

 


Ugh, Taxes and User Unfriendliness

9/05/2012

A while ago I overpaid my estimated taxes (doubled them!), because I apparently had scheduled an automatic payment the quarter before. And I wouldn't think there would be a point in trying to get it refunded, because it's the government and they would probably just give me the runaround and tell me it will be refunded at tax time. So, I saved myself the hassle. And who knows? I might end up owing more anyway, so I took the hit.

Well, it's getting to be that time again and fortunately I remembered what happened last time. Of course, I couldn't be sure it was going to be automatic again. It could have been a one-time thing. You never want to be wondering about that, especially not if you use TaxAct. It's a bit of a nightmare to find the information I needed. I was going through the forms again as if I was going to file. After searches didn't help in the slightest, I found it in the Electronic Filing Status Report, which you can find by clicking "My TaxAct" on the top right, which I tried immediately but didn't kniw where to go after that. In there is a line that says, "Click here to view the Federal Electronic Filing Instructions for this return." And there they are: the next two payments set to go. It's nice not to completely waste money that I could be using for Christmas instead. Woohoo!

Plantronics Audio 995

9/04/2012

Today I have a wireless headset up on eBay. I bought it to replace my DSP-400 set, which was only half working, but the 995s are very tight and gave me headaches. Maybe they'll be a better fit for you.

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H2O Audio Amphibx

9/03/2012

A waterproof armband for your iPhone 3GS. It's never been underwater. It was only used for exercise a few times. For sale at eBay now.

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My TV is Hilarious

9/03/2012

After spending a crapload of money on new stuff lately, my 15-year-old, 13-inch Daewoo decided to turn into a funhouse mirror. This is how the cast of Psych looked. Pictures were necessary. Please excuse the quality. Even if I had remembered to dust the white dust that builds up daily due to the humidifier, it wouldn't have made much of a difference.

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I am Batmanuel

9/03/2012

I promise I'm not usually THIS slow. I've known about Nestor Carbonell for a long time. I loved him in The Tick, Lost, and random things along the way. I remember him as the mayor in The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises. But until I was sitting here drawing and watching Arkham City being played, something didn't connect. I thought of Batmanuel and went to find a video. I read the comments and finally relaized that Batmanuel was actually in a Batman movie. Now I wonder if I ever would have consciously realized it.

Sweet Zombie-Killing Dreams

9/01/2012

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Wow. It just takes me way too long to complete things sometimes. I can only blame myself...and others when I'm in a mood. My attention is split between a dozen things at any one time. I outlined this one months ago, but then I moved on to many different projects when I got bored or busy. This is the second weapon I've digitally finished, though it's the first one I started. And I have tons more that I'm sure I'll never get to. When it finally came together, it took three days just to shade in Art Studio and get it to look right in InkPad. I have the same problem every time. Still trying to get the hang of making them play nice.

Original, drawn in 2007. Inspired by The Village. See the teeth? The claws on the "creatures" turned into those and, of course, there's a lot of red. Could also be used to dispatch zombies, I think.

Hmm, interesting. I just randomly woke up after a few hours sleep. Apparently my TV never shut off after Psych and I saw a set of 200 knives (the Avalanche of Cutlery) for sale. The guy pointed out one that he referred to as a "zombie piece right there." Alrighty, back to bed. Hopefully, all this talk of zombies won't bring them into my dreams. Last time that happened they had vampire speed. *shudder*

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