What-What?! Week of August 25th

This week has been kind of a rollercoaster – been quite busy, indeed.  We visited my parent’s place and played some Battletech, and my ‘mech was exploded a lot.  My sister took my eldest to the Ringling Brothers Circus in San Jose, which she thoroughly enjoyed; her favorite part was the tigers.  I’m happy that my sister got to take her; I have many fond memories of doing activities with my aunt growing up, and it would really please me if my kids have close relationships to their aunts and uncles.

I was planning on reviewing the new Gamers movie that I talked about last week, but unfortunately my internet is frequently subpar.  The husband and I watched the first ten minutes before the internet died, and that was that.  The downloadable version is available now for contributors (us), and I’ll be downloading that today or this evening.  Next week, look for a full review!

Literature:  Jake and the Neverland… Fanfic?

While looking up source images for my Jake and the Neverland Pirates illustrations last week, I found Jake and the Neverland fanfic.  What is fanfic?  It’s short for fan fiction, where fans write fictional pieces based on characters and settings that they are fans of.  Sometimes, this goes big; for example, 50 Shades of Grey started out life as Twilight fan fiction.  The vast majority of fanfic is, in my opinion, not well written, with a tendency towards fan service and other such ridiculousness.  50 Shades, despite being a best seller and all, is no better than the lot; from the excerpts I’ve read, the language is unnecessarily ambiguous and repetitive.  Some of the relationships are concerning.  In any case, I was momentarily horrified and surprised when I found the above image and accompanying story of Jake and the Neverland Pirates.

Movie Review:  Lego: The Adventures of Clutch Powers (available on Netflix)

My kids love Lego, and when they saw this recommended on Netflix, they begged and pleaded.  Having had seen many awful children’s shows and films, I must say that I was pleasantly surprised by this one.  It has a bit of everything in it, especially if you grew up in the 80s or early 90s: Star Wars, Indiana Jones, James Bond, some Lord of the Rings-fantasy, and one scene that’s straight out of DuckTales the Movie: Tale of the Lost Lamp.  This film is very cliché, but at the same time, it’s still entertaining.  Clutch Powers is a nice break from saccharine sweet princesses and talking animals, but I can’t say that I’d watch it if I didn’t have kids.

Essay: The Lost City of Z via the New Yorker

Speaking of Indiana Jones... I accidently stumbled on this through an e-mail that Amazon had sent with a selection of adventuring and exploring books – this led me to a book by the same author, published as an expanded, and by some accounts, bloated version of this essay.  The essay itself covers Percy Fawcett’s obsession with a city that he simply called “Z” – evidence of a lost civilization deep in the Amazon basin.  Fawcett was last seen in 1925, when he left on an expedition to find the city with his son and a friend.   The author follows Fawcett’s steps through the rainforest, talking with native people, locals, and an archeologist along the way.  It’s 21 pages, so kind of a long read, but I highly recommend it.  There is also a film in the works, which is slated to star Brad Pitt; let's hope it comes out a bit better than World War Z, hm?

‘til next week!

(images via fanpop.com, videostore-cdn.eu.playstation.com, flickr.com)

What-What?! Week of August 18th

Was published again by Yahoo! Voices – EZ Squeezees Reusable Baby Food Pouch Review and Recipe – and I’m a little irritated by the editors choice of how the photographs are displayed.  If they’d posted it to Yahoo! Shine, then the photos would be quite a bit larger and easier to see.  At any rate, it was published.

Cooking: Strawberry Jam

This week, I made a batch of basic strawberry jam, following the directions on the Sure-Jell box.  I grew up on homemade jam, and am now pretty picky about what jams I eat.  I specifically avoid commercially made jams that use corn syrup, because it just doesn’t taste right.

This batch came out fantastically, and part of that was due to the ingredients.  A recipe of jam consists of fruit, sugar and pectin (what makes the jam thicken); because jam has so few ingredients, it is important that each one is high quality.  The strawberries that I used for this jam are of the Chandler variety, grown primarily here in California; they are specifically bred for flavor, rather than sweetness or stability during shipping, as many commercial varieties have been.  The sweetness of the berries doesn’t matter so much in jam, because jam has plenty of sugar, but the intense berry flavor makes for a great jam.

So far, we’ve eaten over half a pint jar!  Glad we have three more.

Jake and the Neverland Pirates Fan Art

Let me preface this by saying that I am no artist.  Sometimes, though, this happens:

That image came about because my two older children consistently call Izzy and Cubby from Jake and the Neverland Pirates “Dizzy” and “Chubby”.  I thought it would be fun to illustrate the characters that way.  I'm pretty pleased with it, considering that I couldn't find my nice Staedler or Sharpie pens, and had to use the world's worst pen.  Check out the full-size version here (I suggest using it as a coloring page -- my kids loved coloring this in!).

News:  Zombie Orpheus’ The Gamers: Hands of Fate

Okay, so this is pretty geeky.  My husband and I are gamers, and I don’t mean that in the mainstream “we play video games” sort of way (though we do that, too) – no, we play pen and paper role playing games, table top war gaming, and have played collectable card games.

This brings me to Zombie Orpheus’ newest film, The Gamers:  Hands of Fate.  A sequel to The Gamers: Dorkness Rising, my husband and I actually contributed to the Kickstarter fund for it (we’re getting miniatures! Yeah!).  Dorkness Rising was the story of how players’ relationships change over the course of a role playing game adventure, and this new film is a continuation of that, with more of an emphasis on collectable card games.  Dorkness Rising was an absolutely brilliant piece of work, and is much quoted by my immediate gamer friends and family.  While I haven’t seen Hands of Fate yet (due to work schedules), I am totally watching it tomorrow.  The film does have adult language in it, so be mindful of that if you have children or are otherwise particular.

Through August 31st, you can watch the film in full here (click "Stream for free").  Enjoy. :D