Mood: Good
Music: Bana - Shell (Witch Hunter Robin Opening Theme)

It's odd how the whole motivation and inspiration thing works. The past 2 weeks or so I've been stuck at a dead end. I've got about 3 design projects at one I need to work on to finish all my projects in the next month, and I could not clear my head enough to do any satisfactory work on any of them. A few nights ago I was just staring at a blank Photoshop document with absolutely no idea what I wanted to do - or how I was going to do that. I looked around my room, trying to find something that would give me an ounce of inspiration. Found nothing. So I slapped together a pretty poor DVD cover and called it a "rough draft" and forgot about it.

Then today, this afternoon, I just 'felt' like working. I had ideas that I wanted to try. I was excited about it, for the first time in.. well.. a long time. I wonder how long it'll last.

I think I kind of know why I was finding it difficult to think up anything, and that's because my mind is preoccupied with other projects that I'm more excited about. Like the dating game... and Pat and I are going to try to actually produce some sort of little movie over the summer. Alex and I had discussed this before, but I never really believed it would happen with him. However, I really think that Pat and I and the rest of Pat's friends will be able to pull it off. Here's hoping. I'd like to have one film, of whatever quality, under my belt before I arrive at Columbia.. my Art Institute short doesn't count. Speaking of that short, my first "film", I never did get my fucking copy from that fucking teacher... I knew I should have just stolen the original 16mm print when I had the chance. That will eat away at me till the day I die. That I lost the first motion picture I ever directed. *sigh* Why can't people ever just do their job (the teacher was transferring the 16mm film to VHS tapes for us to keep, but she never sent us the tapes - 5 years and multiple emails later - nope, no fucking tape. Bitch.) ?

Anyhow - I'm in a pretty good mood. It started last night when I realized Spirited Away was heading back to theaters following it's kick-ass victory at the Academy Awards. Blam! I'm already set to see it twice this weekend - Friday night with Pat (et al.) and Saturday with Karen and Alyssa (et al.) :P Assuming both of those dates hold, I'll have seen Sen 8 times. God that's pathetic. -_-

Also, I never followed up the David Copperfield show. Well, as cliche as it is - the show was "Amazing". Yet, somehow, was a bit of a letdown. I had a sinking suspicion that this show wouldn't be as incredible as the first one I saw because the name of the show was "Intimate Magic" or something. In other words, this show seemed to me to be something of a response to the close-up nagic of David Blaine. Which I don't think is necessary, because David Copperfield's close-up magic is much better than Blaine, and also because Copperfield's biggest strength is is big budget "grand illusions". Making motorcycles disappear, walking into a fan, sawing a girl in half vertically - flying (the man can fly.. I've seen it with my own eyes, and goddamn if it's not the single most incredible magic illusion ever created). This show featured some of that, and it was incredible, but much too much time was spent on using people from the audience, card tricks, and the like. It was too "light" for my taste. Still a great show and well worth the admission fee, but not as good as his last show... although to be fair, that show was essentially "The Best of David Copperfield". This was mostly new stuff.

Anyway, what all this is leading up to is the disturbing revival of my magician hobby. Ever since I got the Copperfield tickets I've been digging out my old magic props, watching my old magic videos and reading my old books -- and, well, practicing my old tricks. Morever, I've already bought 2 new ones. I guess I'm officially back to being a part-time magician, because my mom's already asked me to come visit her second grade class tomorrow and do some tricks for them. This time around though, I think I'm going to stick more to the close-up stuff than the stage illusions I was working with when I started out since most of the tricks I'm going to do, for as long as this new renewed interest lasts, are going to be for friends on rather intimate settings.

Maybe if I feel especially bold in the next few days I'll post some pics of 13 year old me doing magic tricks :P I had forgotten what a dork I was (was?)...


Also - please note, the Penis Adventure video is going to be taken off-line on Sunday because it's simply too large for me to keep on all the time. So if you haven't gotten it, and you want it, you have until Sunday.
- posted by Brendan @ 5:29 PM 0 comments

 



Time for another fun-filled poll! At least this time it's not as strange as "Do you wear underwear to bed?" In fact, it's almost a little bit serious. At Anime Cenrtral 2002 a girl caused controversy when she cosplayed as Rei from episode 5 of Evangelion - in which she has a scene dressed only in a towel. Anime cosplayers have never been shy about showing some skin from time to time, but for one reason or another this costume was decided to be going too far. Hotel personnel complained (apparently) and the girl was asked to change her costume.

Personally, I've seen worse (or better, depending on how you want to put it) both cosplaying, at the mall, beach, pool or what have you. The fact is that that costume, despite most certainly being rather revealing, does not actually *reveal* anything. And compared to other costumes that go through with the staff's blessing, it can be argued that Towel Rei is, well, somewhat modest. I can think of a prom dress I saw that was more.. in you face.. than this costume.

Of course, none of that means it's an 'appropriate' costume, but I cannot bring myself to judge it too harshly because I thought it was a very creative and fun costume. There was nothing actually visible and the costume was securely and carefully constructed to avoid any accidental slips. A cute idea that was executed very well. To that end, I think people need to lighten up. But then, I've always thought that.

Anyway - what do you think?

Free Web poll for your Web site - freepolls.com

Also - I 'borrowed' the pic from Eurobeat King's ACen 2002 pics page. So I thought I should plug it ^_^;
- posted by Brendan @ 4:14 PM 0 comments

 
Blam!

Spirited Away won the Academy Award for Best Animated Picture. There is justice in the Academy.. huh.. who would have thought?
- posted by Brendan @ 7:53 PM 0 comments