You're valuable (and so is everybody else)

Back in October Neil Gaiman made a 9-city tour, reading a chapter of his latest novel, The Graveyard Book in each city. The book has been, afaik, in the bestselling lists ever since it was published - justifiably so, I believe. It took a long time, but over many nights in a half-dozing state I listened to the whole tour and enjoyed it greatly. It is very recommendable. You can find the videos here.

There is also another recommendable video for today, a short film named Validation. It's awesome. I love it. It sincerely moved me to tears.

And to end the linkage: I also stumbled over a nice blog with some interesting kendo articles.

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Some costume designs. Costume designs are fun (although I'll probably never sew them, unfortunately):

Stardust and Hyperion

Finally watched Stardust (in German, reluctantly). The book is based on, by Neil Gaiman, is one of my favourites - it's a beautiful fairytale that you wish would never end. So my expectations for the film were quite high, although I lowered them, partly because it has been ages since I read the book and also because I realize that, yes, a film is different to a book.
All in all I liked the film. It's not perfect. It has weaknesses (as do most films). There's a bit too much Hollywood kitsch and melodrama in it. The first part is a bit tedious, but the nice bits increase in quantity after some time and by the middle the film is quite enjoyable. I even like some of the changes that were made when translating the book to the screen. Captain Shakespeare is a very nice character and the dancing scene on his ship emphasized the glow of the star/Yvaine in a really nice way.
I also liked the camerawork and the effects. The aforementioned glow was fabulous and the green fire effects impressed me, too (and made me wonder when green fire effects in films became a fashion). They seemed appropriate for the kind of film it is and not over the top.
Also, Claire Danes surprised me with her performance. I was not sure she would fit the role of Yvaine, because I always imagined the star as a quite young girl in the book (appearance of a 13-year-old, but wisdom of the ages, that kind of thing). For the film-Yvaine, though, Claire Danes was very fitting and convincing. I also loved her monologue when Tristan's a mouse.
So Stardust turned out to be a nice and very sweet film; special in its own way, as it does not try to copy a film that has been here before and instead sets its own atmosphere.

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I also finished reading Dan Simmon's Hyperion. It's a nicely different Science Fiction; almost completely character-driven, and very little actually happens in the book. You basically just get to know the characters' background stories (what a clever way to make the reader buy the sequel) as a set-up for the plot development that is to come. I like that. The little emphasis on character is what usually puts me off SciFi. You even have some of the social criticism that's typical for SciFi. I really enjoyed the religious discourse that worked its way through the book - the novel presents a wealth of world religions (in their futuristic variety) like Judaism, Zen Buddhism and Christianity, competing with each other through the characters (most characters have an emphasis on one religion).
It seems to me that Science Fiction that uses religion as a driving force for the plot or the characters is rare. If religion is present in SciFi, it's only visible as fanaticism (and even then mostly just in end-of-world-scenarios). I guess that's because a futuristic, science- and technology-based world is bound to lose its faith and searches for new gods (e.g. computers, or - as it is probably at least partly the case in the present - Fantasy literature as replacement for the loss of past mysticism, which was greatly based in religious texts).
True enough, Hyperion has an Armageddon-scenario. But it seems to me the religious discourse is still more focused compared to other novels. Moreover, Simmons seems to have researched the religions very thoroughly and developed quite a detailed futuristic version of each, making them more believable. Now I'm very curious how this discourse will resolve itself in The Fall of Hyperion and whether Simmons will actually give one religion a preference (which, I imagine, could be quite tricky).

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More experimenting with techniques. I used the same technique as in the last painting, but somehow it didn't work so well this time. Apparently some techniques are better for certain subject matters than others (doh). I'm just surprised because I'd have thought this technique would be better for the pretty-girl-paintings than my normal working habit. Gotta experiment a bit more with it.
(Or maybe it's the colour ... it seems I can get the values alright with this technique, but it messes up the colours so much that I have to do a lot of post-painting editing.)
(And the composition is by far less than perfect...)

You would not want to make a universe angry

The weather's great. I went for a walk in the northern forest - I had completely forgotten how wonderful it is to explore a forest that I don't know by heart yet. The northern forest must be the more beautiful one when it's sunny and warm, and more scary when it's dark and cold; probably because it's deeper and further away from civilisation. All you hear is the water from the brook and the birds chirping. Seeing nature like that is simply amazing.

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Neil Gaiman's Hugo nominated short story "How to talk to girls at parties" is up at his website as an audio file. It's cute and I love the Britishness of his phrases and expressions (probably emphasized by his accent).

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Roll, Roll, Rock'n'Roll

A first (or second?) Stardust Trailer is up. It's looking good. Maybe a bit crowded with action, which makes you wonder if they aren't trying to press too much story and action into one film, but overall it looks exciting. I'm looking forward to the film. There haven't been nearly enough good films in the cinema recently (I had to switch from going to the cinema once or twice a week to once a month because there are simply no good films that I want to see - and the good ones like Pan's Labyrinth only make me realize how bad the bad ones are, so I'm not even trying to see the films that look okay but might be bad).

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I had my first game with the German RPG system Das Schwarze Auge (The Black Eye). It's insane. You have to do three die rolls to see if you managed to make a spell or to see if you managed a skill check. If one of them fails, you're out. It's not even as if the three checks were easy.
You also have to roll die when you gain a level to see if you even level up - a roll for every skill and ability and spell you want to level. This means if you roll really badly, you can level up without improving your character at all (unlikely, but still).
I like the theory behind all this, which is that a skill is influenced by several abilities; but it's not practical at all. Maybe it will get better after I've played a few times. I certainly hope so.

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San Francisco and Paris banned plastic bags from supermarkets. That's great. One thing that always annoyed me a bit in Oxford was that I usually ended up with three or more plastic bags, because the cashiers were so overwhelmingly helpful to pack them for me (which isn't done in Austria and which I found nice service). Problem was, that usually didn't give me the time to get out my cloth bags and pack them, and the cashiers put only about 4-5 items into one bag, leaving huge amounts of space there (probably because otherwise they'd rip). The general attitude is nice, because you're not so stressed about packing your bags quickly - but it would be perfect if I could still pack them myself and have the other customers wait patiently (which they almost always did in Britain and never do in Austria).

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Two designs of skirts I intend to sew, and some scribbles:

What's this body thing and what do I do with the dangly bits?

Link roll.

Here is a long, brilliant article on MMORPG development. Lots of true stuff in it (and lots that I recognized from previous discussions with my ex).

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Holidays now. Which is fortunate in multiple ways, partly because I just read that somebody shot several times at the bus I'm always taking in Salzburg (three stations away from my flat). Of course, something like this happens a day after a drunk guy had to chat me up and spontaneously decided to follow me home (in the same bus line that was shot at).
Sometimes I think that all the lunatics gather in Salzburg.

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I believe those familiar with Second Life will enjoy First Life, too. (Or not.)

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And lastly, just because Neil Gaiman asked nicely, I'm linking to his blog post about Penn Jillette.


Bad drawing day. Time to do a couple of pages hands again.