Gwnewch y pethau bychain

Month: March 2004

Oscars

I don’t normally bother to watch the Oscars, but with a good chance to see Lord of the Rings actually win in important categories, I figured it’d be worth while. kitanzi and I snuggled up on the daybed so we could pass the time constructively during the boring bits and the commercials (TiVo has really spoiled us with regards to commercials.

Billy Crystal was very amusing as host, and I enjoyed the song and dance number at the beginning. kitanzi was particularly amused at the Lord of the Rings/My Favourite Things parody (anyone have a sound recording or transcript of the opening number? I’d love to transcribe bits of it for my filkbook). We had fun critiquing the various outfits and otherwise kibbitzing over the entire affair.

The best song presentations were all well done, and I really enjoyed seeing “A Kiss at the End of the Rainbow” performed in character, which is somewhat unusual, but it was an unusual movie. 🙂

Of course, the story of the evening was Lord of the Rings and it’s unprecedented sweep of all eleven categories it was nominated in. I’ve been amused by the reaction afterwards, with plaintive cries of “Well, did it *really* deserve to win all those awards”…and fully half of those cries coming from the same people who were furious at Fellowship and Two Towers being passed over for any important awards the last couple of years. For those of you who don’t follow the Academy Awards on a regular basis: they’re always capricious and arbitrary. Don’t spend too much time on this, it’s not worth the energy. 🙂

All in all, it was a fun way to spend a Sunday evening.

I can’t believe she did the whole song

Wow. I’d say someone has too much time on their hands, but…

The song “American Pie” done as LOTR LJ Icons

Thanks to olna_jenn for the link!

LOTR Silliness

So, aiela posted the following quote in her journal:

“Peter Jackson says he used 25,000 extras in Lord of the Rings. Did you know that? He’s created 25,000 more jobs than George Bush has, we ought to give him more than an Oscar!”
— John Kerry

And someone pointed out that most of those jobs were only temp jobs. Don’t ask me WHERE this stuff comes from.

Just In New Zealand
by Rob Wynne
To the Tune of: Only In Kenya

Where can you get temp jobs?
Just in New Zealand!
In New Zealand we got temp jobs!

Say you wanna make movies?
Just in New Zealand!
Got temp jobs and movies: Just in New Zealand!

(Forget Hollywood!)

New Zealand Oh, New Zealand!
Where the dwarves are and the Bree men!

New Zealand! Zealand Zealand Zealand!
New Zealand! Come to New Zealand
(Can you believe it?)

Housefilk!

Last weekend was time for another gathering of the Atlanta filkers! This time, our host was jingoro (Daric Jackson), who lives in Doraville.

After we got done at the Cat Clinic, we came back home for a quick lunch, and then drove over to Athens to collect khaosworks. The trip was mostly uneventful, except for when a person tried to pull out across traffic right in front of me in a 45mph zone. I slammed on brakes and wrenched the wheel and ended up in the left turn lane facing the wrong way on the other side of the median. Thank god there was no traffic waiting there or I’d have had no where to go, and if I hadn’t moved to avoid the silly woman in the SUV, we’d have t-boned her in the front quarter panel or drivers door. It would have been very ugly.

As it was, we got to Sushi Yoko (formerly Sushi Yoshi), a local Japanese restaurant near Daric’s house. They had an extensive menu, and I ended up with the matsu (a combination of sushi, tempura, and teriyaki beef), while kitanzi had the take (the same combination of foods, except with sashimi instead of sushi). Everything was absolutely marvelous, especially the tempura which was perfectly battered and the teriyaki beef, which had strips of impossibly tender steak in a light teriyaki glaze. The gyoza appetizer I ordered was also done perfectly — the best I’ve had in quite a long time.

After topping the whole affair off with ice cream, we set off to the actual filk. I got a bit confused because we were approaching Daric’s house from the north rather than the south as I’ve done the last few times I’ve been to his house, but we found it without too much trouble and got set up inside. After everyone managed to get settled and tuned and supplied with drinks and chocolate, the music began.

in attendance were myself and kitanzi, khaosworks, Dave and Signe Wegener, jingoro and his daughter Megan, mrpsyklops and his daughter Jennifer, Jerrie Adkins, thatcrazycajun and Mary Mullholland, and Michael Liebmann. Because of the small crowd, we ended up doing a traditional PPorP bardic circle, ensuring that everyone got both a good chance and a good prodding to do something. 🙂 Highlights of the evening included Terence’s “Pulp Fiction” and his unfinished Scheherezade song, Jennifer Cooke doing “House of the Rising Sun” with her father, Mary’s Jubilee song, and Matt’s Buffy rap song. I played a variety of things, ranging from Poul Anderson’s “Mary O’Meara” to Dave Carter’s “Gun Metal Eyes” (which I learned from filker0 and spiritdance). At one point, Signe did a Vorkosigan song, so I followed it up one of my own, which I recently decided was actually finished, and I’ll post here shortly. I also did “Dungeonville” in there somewhere. There was also a thread of cat songs, after Jennifer said she always heard dog songs but no cat songs. This led to a number of cat songs, including “Overflowing Catbox Blues” performed by Michael, and “I Meant to Do That” performed by kitanzi, with a big singalong on the chorus.

We had some fun with political songs, as Matt did Roy Zimmerman’s “Defenders of Marriage”, prompting me to pull out and make an attempt at “Hell Froze Over Today” by the same author. (I want chords for that….drsnark, do you have them?)

One of the things I always look forward to when having a filk at jingoro‘s house is the anime music videos he always shows. He’s a creator of these fan produced videos as well as a collector, and it’s always fun to see the creative talent that goes into making them. I’ve acquired the software to do those myself, so we’ll see if I can manage to pull one off. Lot of work, but it looks like a lot of fun!

I borrowed khaosworks‘s Canon G3 camera and took a LOT of photos. You can find them here, though they still need to be captioned. Sorry about all the red-eye. 🙂

We ended up breaking up about 1am, and headed back home to crash. The next day, after kitanzi took him on a grocery run to Harry’s, I drove khaosworks home. We had a great time, and cant wait until the next filk.

Fighting the Loneliness

Our cat Dayna has always been a bit high strung and neurotic, but she had been getting increasingly clingy and needy with her requests for attention. We finally decided that she’s probably lonely from not having other cats around (something she had for the first five years of her life). So Saturday morning, kitanzi and I went down to The Cat Clinic of Roswell to see what they had available for adoption.

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