doe, a deer

This is the adorable Audrey Hepburn with her pet fawn, Pippin (nicknamed 'Ip'). She had Ip in the late 1950s around the time of filming Green Mansions. Photographer Bob Willoughby, who was the on-set photographer during many of Audrey's films, captured the majority of the precious moments between the starlet and her four-legged friend. "It was truly amazing to see Audrey with that fawn," Willoughby recounted in the book Remembering Audrey, "While Audrey's maid had been told about the little deer, she could not believe her eyes seeing Ip sleeping with Audrey so calmly. She was shaking her head and just kept smiling."

Audrey brought Ip with her to the grocery store, the tailors, and took naps with the little deer. "Beverly Hills habitues are fairly blase about what they see, but Audrey being followed around town by this lovely creature stopped everyone in their tracks."

Freaky Friday

Yikes, WTF happened? Is the first thing I say when I see a gross and disgusting picture of some hot aging celebrity. Of course my next impulse is to show as many people as I can in order to dilute my shock. How else can you explain the popularity of 2girls1cup? Sure initially the concept of the video seemed awesome on paper, but somewhere along the way something went totally wrong when filming started. While not so scatological, these next celebrity pics exhibit what happens when everything not only goes wrong but nightmarish. Please enjoy and share!

Force Impulse Gundam: Part 2

So reality came crashing down on me big time when I finally assembled this Gundam model kit. I had big dreams of wanting to paint it up all nicely like the version on the box, but that was until I came to realize how much time and money would go into doing that. Time is an issue because I have a very low attention span, and just can’t spare many hours taping this kit up just to paint it. I also don’t have the dexterity to keep my hand still in order to paint free hand like most people do. And then there is the money issue; I don’t want to pay for all the paint colors that are necessary to make it look nice. Even when you do have the right paint, from past failures I have also learnt that you need a good air brush compressor to make the paint job look professional. Although I did realize from the beginning that painting it would take a while, I now acknowledge that “that while” will take longer than what I had anticipated (here’s hoping I find a great deal on paints and an air compressor sometime this century). But as far as this model kit, I have to say I really enjoyed building it. Although the instructions are in Japanese, the drawings or diagrams make it real simple to follow. The joints attach to one another nicely and smoothly once you build them together. I was surprised by how much of an improvement the model looks like when the stickers are added on. The only negative thing I can say about this model was that the stand that it comes with make’s the Gundam face the ground; but I remedied this by turning it around so that it faced upward. Other than that, I really enjoyed building this kit and highly recommend it to any novice starting out.

YouTube link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cn_Qwd3kTsA

Force Impulse Gundam: Part 1

Talk about getting in over my head, I bought a Gundam model kit set this weekend. I haven’t done one in years, and I am aware of what these models require. Sure you could go at it easy and just build it, add the stickers and leave it as be. But when I buy these models I buy them because of what the robot looks like on the cover of the box. I want what I build to look like that one; but then reality sinks in and I realize that it won’t be that easy. However since I am getting back into certain hobbies, in this case model kits, I figure I must start at the bottom. My first model is the Force Impulse Gundam by Ban Dai. The pilot of this robot is named Shinn Asuka and the model number is ZGMF-X56S/a. My intentions are to start off slow and progress with time, and hopefully one day I will be able to paint it. Here’s hoping it comes looking close to the way it appears on the box, lol.



YouTube link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVqextyIQuE

The unintended hipster

I am not a hipster, nor have I ever claimed to be. Everyone else seems to think I am, just because I love classic rock, black-and-white movies, and avoid wearing clothes from massive chain-stores (those ones that are real dark and pound music out into the mall really scare me). I embrace the fact that I am opposed to the typical. But does this make me a hipster?

Maybe I have it wrong and I don't even properly know what a hipster really is. Apart from what I have gathered from urban dictionary and American Apparel ads, there's a kind of vagueness in that whole world that I can't begin to understand.

But here is what I do know: I don't value 'ironic' eighties fashion or eye glasses as accessories. I look for the whimsical and beautiful, not the ironic and hip. I do buy a lot of things that I think are funny or amusing, but I also on some level think they are beautiful as well. I purchase things that are furry, metallic, plastic, glittery, floaty, studded, insane, bohemian - the things I would wear if I was five years old again. Or a tranny.

My look changes so many times a day, sometimes I can barely keep up. I want to be an impish Parisian in ballerina flats and boatneck shirts, then a tough rock 'n' roller in my leather motorcycle jacket and never-brushed hair, then Ingrid Bergman in Casablanca, but then why not Anita Pallenberg, or Grace Kelly? And then I wind up at the end of the day wishing I was a glamorous as Marie Antoinette.

My head is entirely in the clouds, my heart in my dreams. I wish I could say my look is entirely carefree, but if it was I wouldn't care so much about being labeled a 'hipster'. Maybe I've got it all wrong and I am, in fact, a hipster and I didn't even know it. Are there any hep cats out there with an answer?

Liu Bolin and the Art of Concealment

Borrowed this article from the newspaper The Guardian. This artist, Liu Bolin is amazing and very talented. The last pic is my favorite. I can spend hours wasting on the internet looking at crap like this. :-) "Known as the 'invisible man', artist Liu Bolin camouflages himself against different city locations, from China to the UK. Each of his photographic artworks takes up to 10 hours to complete, with an assistant helping to paint him into the background. Can you spot him in these pictures?




Web link:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/gallery/2010/feb/17/liu-bolin-art-invisible-man

Identity Crisis

Title: Identity Crisis
Writer: Brad Meltzer
Art Work: Rags Morales and Michael Bair
Publisher: DC Comics
Boy, have comic books gotten real mature since I was a kid. I must confess, I haven’t read many comics in my life. I mean as a kid I did like to buy them as much as any other kid, and in high school I only read a few here and there. But I never stayed with the scene. The problem for me always was that I didn’t like the dreaded ‘to be continued’ at the end of a comic. I felt almost cheated knowing that what I paid for didn’t have an ending. Of course all of this changed when a comic book store worker recommend that I should read graphic novels, after I told him my “to be continued” beef. He told me that graphic novels basically are a collection of comic books that do have an ending. Ever since then I have loved to read graphic novels. However what I didn’t expect to find in these novels was issues dealing with adult subjects. The graphic novel, Identity Crisis is a perfectly good example of what I’m talking about. It starts off with Elongated Man and Firehawk doing some surveillance on some would-be criminals. Firehawk then starts asking Elongated Man how he met his wife. He tells her the story of how they met, and why he loves her so much.

Suddenly the would-be criminals start to move and as Elongated Man expands to see, he hears the voice of his wife calling for help. He then rushes home to her, but by the time he gets there it is too late because someone has killed her. At her funeral almost every superhero shows up to the service. After the funeral they all decide to split into groups and investigate the murder. However Elongated Man and a few more superheroes stay behind because they want to go after the man they think is the real murderer, Dr. Light. The Flash who is there then asks why they think it is him. What follows is the story of when Dr. Light raped Elongated Man’s wife, and as a result the superheroes chose to punish him by erasing some of his mind.

The Flash becomes angry with the group because they did this, but the Green Arrow defends their actions. Eventually the mystery of who killed Elongated Man’s wife is solved, but more importantly the Green Arrows explains his reasoning behind the decision to erase some of Dr. Lights mind. According to him, guys like Superman and Batman get to be the big-shots when the villains are caught and they get to leave. However for guys like the Green Arrow they have to stay behind and deal with the clean up. In a previous story a captured villain knew their real identities, and so the “clean-up” heroes had no choice but to prevent him from ever sharing that information with other villains by erasing his memory. According to the Green Arrow this was because it would have placed their loved ones in jeopardy.

Because of moral issues such as this one and other issues that come up during this novel, I really liked this book. They demonstrate how comics are no longer simple stories of good vs. evil, but can really intrigue the reader and make them question a lot of things. While issues dealing with murder and rape can be troublesome to read, it does bring a little bit off reality into comics which keeps you focused on the story. Although the story is sad to read, I did like the ending because it was emotionally sweet and would recommend it to anyone that wants to read a good graphic novel.

Wikipedia link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identity_Crisis_(comics)
Amazon link to buy:
http://www.amazon.com/Identity-Crisis-Comics-Brad-Meltzer/dp/1401204589