Gryffindor Power

PATTERN: Basic Sock pattern that I was just winging and hoping would be right.
FIBER: hand died sock yarn from Sunshine Yarns in Gryffindor Stripe
And now part dog fiber as well

Daily memory

It was 1998 and I was visiting my best friend at his families home in Pennsylvania during the summer holidays. Over some fried rice and fortune cookies, inspiration hit us. Near his hometown was a Drive-in movie theater. The last time I was at a drive in, I was probably 5 and we saw ET or something I spent most of the night playing on the swingset. However my drive-in do-over made up for my past mistake as we took in a double feature that warm summer evening, I almost mistook Lost in Space and Scream 2 for being good movies because the whole drive-in experience clouds your better judgment.

the good, THE BAD, the ugly

Holy shit, Can I buy this?

Crap I want but don't need

Morpheus Perfume Oil...dreams of the shape-shifter
Scent by the Sea

Vintage Brownie camera
Thrush

Fabulous Fonts - 4 Coasters and Tray
Carolina Cottage

A City at Night - Vintage Wool Cloche - Made to Order - Choose Your Own Buckle
Bonnies Knitting

The Abandoned

The Abandoned was one of the After Dark Horrorfest’s “8 movies to die for” In 2006 and was easily my favorite. This is another fine example of how supernatural horror is much more satisfying to view than a hack-fest a la Rob Zombie.

Marie Jones, a 40 year old Russian woman by birth, but was adopted and raised in the U.K. and the U.S. since infancy. She is summoned to Russia by a notary who has found her late birth parents and the house she has inherited. He denies any other family members and provides her with a driver who will take her to the remote island her family house is located. Marie and the driver, Anatoli, arrive at night to the house, Anatoli leaves the truck to investigate the safety of the forest before Marie and leave the vehicle. He fails to return. Frightened, Marie leaves the truck to look for him in the house. She hears the truck start up and drive off leaving her alone in the dilapidated house.

Marie soon begins to see a frightening figure in the house which is revealed to be a drowned version of herself. She flees the house and falls into the surrounding river awakens in a room with a strange man. This man is revealed to be her twin brother Nikolai who is also seeing a walking corpse of himself.

The two try to flee the house, only to find that they cannot escape the house in which they were born. They become separated and haunted by their doubles. With visions of the house’s past, their history an their fate is revealed.

This was a uniquely crafted horror film with a new spin on the standard ghost story and how destiny and fate is unavoidable.

Daily memory

I ate these every day at lunch when we lived in London, they are apparently not sold here. One afternoon I was eating my hoops and my my science teacher came up and proposed to me by placing the hoop crisp on my finger.

This would not be disturbing had I not been eleven and had he not been serious.

the good, THE BAD, the ugly

Perhaps I am just not familiar with the things Republicans find amusing because I was wearing the t-shirt you see on the left and discussing the inauguration and the statement "aren't you already wearing your Obama shirt?" was made.



...*chirp*

Crap I want but don't need

Tab Trouser Jeans
Levi's

Cat Skirt
Kaching Design

Harold the Lunch Monster
Ones and Zeros Fashions

Wind Chill

Supernatural horror movies are rare these days, and I cherish every one of them that I see. This movie could have easily gone the way of a great many slasher flicks but it chose the high road. As I watch more and more horror, I find solace in movies that use mood and a smart story to scare the pants off of me.

Wind Chill starts off in a school in the North East, at least 6 hours by highway from Delaware. The semester is coming to a close and winter holiday is just beginning. After previous travel plans fall through, a friend on the other end of her text messaging suggests the ride board and thus begins our cautionary tale.

The two start off on their trip on rocky footing, as our bitchy female lead is basically such a pain in the ass that I would have left her sorry ass to freeze in the undisclosed North Eastern town. After insulting her fellow student about the amount of crap in his car and inevitably removing and leaving the only food they have in the parking lot to make room for her suitcase.

They begin the journey as our girl bitches about how boring the highway is, and our boy trying to get to know her better. When they pull off at a rest stop our driver gets directions for the “scenic” road in order to appease our passenger. When they return to the car they begin telling stories about growing up in Delaware and our passenger discovers that she has been duped. It is revealed that the driver has been harboring a crush on our passenger. Seeing an opportunity to share time together he lied about living in Delaware in hopes that during the trip they would connect. Turning off of the highway, our passenger begins to get angry, demanding that they turn around when a pair of headlights begin to approach them at a high speed. They swerve and crash into a snow bank where they will spend the rest of the movie. As the night progresses and the temperature dips to 30 below, our travelers begin to experience strange encounters with a sinister presence, which is when the movie gets really freaky.

The filmmakers did a great job at setting the mood for fear. What I found to be the most clever thing done, was to make it all about isolation and anonymity. We never discover what the names of our lead characters are, but we connect with them. And we begin to feel just as trapped in this snow bank as they are. A great little sleeper film that I expect will have a small following. I only wish more horror movies were made like this.

Daily memory

I don't know why exactly, but in England, you must pay for each individual ketchup packet. I think it was 5p each. At our school, we were always served fish n' chips on Fridays and you could order a double helping of fries. With this many fries you either needed to be rich to afford your favorite condiment, or learn to love them dry. But randomly and without any notice there would be free ketchup day. This came along every 4-6 weeks, and at the utensil bar would be a large salad bowl full of ketchup and a ladle so you could have as much free ketchup as you wanted. If you were lucky, you had the forethought or the hunger to have ordered a double helping of fries. I mean, you didn't know when the next time you could have this much ketchup was going to be.

the good, THE BAD, the ugly

Hey, everyone.
For the past few months, I've been drawing a webcomic (as I'm sure you deduced from the title of this little thread). What follows is the most recent one, which represents the state of my particular art. In the context of it being a continuing story, and not intended to be self-contained or funny (I'm actually trying to generate suspense... any tips on that would be golden), how does it look? Is there anything obvious I'm missing? What screws do I need to tighten down, to make this into a something great for the fans I hope to attract? ~Tracer

Oh my God Tracer, where do I begin?

This piece of Bad Art was discovered within the pages of The Artists Corner

Crap I want but don't need

Keep Calm and Carry On Red Retro Flight Bag
Keep Calm and Carry On

Golden Moon
Tribal Designs

Recycled Skateboard Necklace 2in1 Reversible - Large
2Revert

Bird Measuring Spoons
Beehive Kitchenware Co.

DOOM

Another movie based on a video game, I know it sounds like a bad thing, but calm yourself because it is not a movie by Uwe Boll (may he rot in hell.) So I don’t remember when I first saw this masterpiece of futuristic mutants gone amuck in space, but I thought it was fun enough to watch again, which I did. Zombies, big guns, The Rock, carnage and a fun first person shooter sequence, this is seriously my kind of movie.
“Doom” is based on a popular video game franchise of the same name. I never played it myself, but it is mainly a first person shooter with a visual style akin to “Wolfenstein 3D.” If I had been able to play the game without vomiting, I could compare how the movie did in keeping to the plot and style.

The movie takes place in the future and assumedly on another planet. We meet our gang of heroes as they are talking about their long awaited leave. Holey Camoley! Sarge (aka: The Rock) busts in and tells our group of intergalactic Marines that leave is cancelled and to suit up for some ass kicking on a space base with a ridiculous name. The group gets ready and the camera pans out to introduce us to our mega hero, Reaper, so in other words, he’s the guy that will live. Well he’s got some issue with this planet, something to do with his parents dying there and his sister continuing to deal with this trauma in a mature fashion and continues to work there. Anyway, they take a jello blob teleporter to the base and discover that all hell has broken loose in a research wing. The group’s mission is to locate the scientist in this wing and to retrieve “the Data” and for tension, the one who is assigned to this task is none other than Reaper’s estranged sister. I totally didn’t see that one coming.

Moving on. Mutants are afoot in this wing and it is discovered that the cause behind the mutant/zombie fan club, is an experimental drug that instantly alters your DNA and leaves you with a 24th chromosome. This either makes you a super human or a super freak. How nice. The only problem is, this drug turns you into a mindless beast hell bent on sharing its genetic gift, or tearing you apart. Reaper’s sister believes that the serum, if administered to her brother would not mutate him, but would make him the bionic Reaper. There is no scientific reason behind this reasoning, so I must believe that a little fairy told her. Reaper takes the drug only after he has been shot and proceeds to tear some shit up in space. We are treated to some first person shooter style camera action and a final boss battle against Sarge.

So in closing, mindless action, zombie like beasts, happy ending and the death of The Rock, all adds up to an 2 hours of awesome.

Crap I want but don't need

Recycled Tin Mini Dress Earrings- No. 3
Shixie

Inauguration Day Earings
SToNZ

THE GOOD, the bad, the ugly

Hello Mr. President!

Twilight

Yes, I read the Twilight series (except the forth book because it sucked) and I watched the movie. I loved the first 3 novels, they gripped me, I felt close to the characters and what they dealt with. I am not a vampire lover, have never found the vampire scene to be attractive, I am more of a zombie girl. So I was hesitant to read the book which was gifted to me. I ate it up. And when I heard there was going to be a movie version of this wonderful story, well hot digity I was sure excited.

The story follows Bella, our main character who recently moved from Arizona to a town in Washington called Forks. Due to the constant state of English weather, a family of vampires has taken residence. Bella enters the high school in Forks and is instantly the most interesting person around. Until she meets the beautiful and mysterious Edward. An impossible romance buds between them as much as they know it is dangerous, they have a kindred love for one another. The story is mainly a romance between the vampire and the moody Bella but when the Cullen Clan of which Edward belongs along with Bella encounter a second clan of vampires, a dangerous game of cat and mouse begins and Bella's life is in danger.

The movie did what it could to take the general story and main points of the novel in which it is based upon, but so much is missing withing the growing romance between the main characters, so that it appears that they are grumpy and distant to one another, and then professing their love. It seemed to jump around too much which is the downfall of making a movie based on a long novel. Against my better judgment, I enjoyed the movie, jumping story points and all, but found that it's greatest disappointment was the use of low budget special effects.

Crap I bought but don't need

Woodland Black Leather and Spotted Feather Earrings
Cotton Candy Cupcake

Daily memory

Due to an impromptu game of Pictionary last night with our friends and their family, I remembered just how much fun it was to get people together and play a board game. It wreaks of Bush Sr. and his family values, but nothing brings people together like a bottle of wine and a set of dice.

the good, THE BAD, the ugly

Who would do this to a poor and innocent child! Oh the humanity!

Crap I want but don't need

Plush Kill-Wall Series-Unicorn
Shana Logic

Rosette Jersey Scarf
Ellaina Boutique

Mesh Ring
Tiffany & Co

Sea Foam Sea Glass (seaglass) / Beach Glass Wine Bottle Stopper
East Coast Sea Glass

The Haunting of Molly Hartley

The Haunting of Molly is a movie for teenagers to watch around Halloween but who are not able to watch scary movies without getting… well, scared. So basically they made a nerfed version of The Omen. The Haunting is about a girl who will become a great force of evil when she turns 18. What 18 year old doesn’t? So there is a lot of running, crying, whimpering and Chance Crawford’s eyebrows which all lead up to an anticlimactic cinematic ending.

So Molly, our main character is a new student at some fancy private school somewhere not in New England. Molly’s mother had previously attempted to kill her with a pair of scissors after having gone religiously insane. To run from their past, Molly and her sexy dad move to a town that is curiously close to where the mother is locked up, seeing as Molly was traumatized by the situation and never wants to see her mother again this move makes little sense to me except to make it obvious that her mother is going to get out and try to kill her again.

On Molly’s first day she is befriended by the resident religious nut, makes instant enimies with the popular girl and becomes the apple of Hunky McEyebrow's eye.

Molly begins to hallucinate visits from her mother, nose bleeds, hyperventilation and mysterious whispers as she nears her 18th birthday. Which is right around the corner conveniently enough. At this point you are just meant to assume that Molly is the spawn of the Devil although she is not as cool as Damien. Molly becomes increasingly frightened by her experiences and deals with them the only way she knows how, she talks to her guidance counselor, when has that ever worked? People begin to tell her that they “know what she is.” And even the Jesus freak tries to drown her mid baptism, so not Godly! When Molly’s mom springs herself from the joint for a little reunion, the beans are spilled. Molly is told that she died at birth in some nasty public restroom, when a woman arrives and says they will allow her to live until her 18th birthday when she will then belong to them. Mom dies, sexy dad from “Medium” goes crazy, and in the end, like the Omen (however way more lame) Molly receives her Satanic powers. These basically consist of becoming valedictorian and having a hunky boyfriend. Not scary!