Spinaltips is a cool little Swedish website (available in both English and Swedish) that has a host of tips on little tips and tricks for those with spinal cord injuries to lead an active and independent lifestyle. Not all of these apply to every person, but as a parent and provider, it certainly gets the gears going about just what can be adapted, and how.
Since my earlier post about the distribution woes of Nina Paley’s animated marvel Sita Sings the Blues, a New York Times article outlines the newest developments.
The rights fees for the music have been negotiated down to a somewhat more manageable $50,000 (versus the $200,000+ reported earlier.) Even so, Paley still intends to release the movie as public domain via the internet, and let the public become her distributor. (In her blog, Paley is looking for people willing to donate server space—about 10GB of data—to host the movie for public download. She also wishes to have an uncompressed, theatre-quality version available somewhere, but that would require up to 600GB server space, so she’s still looking.)
As well, because of an exception in US copyright laws, PBS is allowed to broadcast music without having to clear individual licences, so the New York PBS station WNET is showing Sita on March 7. After this date the movie will be available on the station’s website.
In the meantime, here’s an 11-minute clip of the movie (via Cartoon Brew), which makes me terrifically excited to see the whole thing!
I made lemon squares by using icing sugar, regular sugar, baking powder, eggs, corn meal, flower, solt and lemons. We used lemon juice and lemon zest. After the lemon squares were put in the oven Mommy made me freshed squeezed lemonade. The freshed squeezed lemonade was really good.
Jon
(Jon’s favourite dessert, as already blogged here and here.—L)
We’ve been getting a fair number of tantrums from Jon lately. This time around (they come in waves, months apart, gradually fuelled more each time by teenage hormones), they are based on frustration with difficulties in a Wii game (which is why we have strict time limits on certain games) and homework, since this year’s curriculum is at a much more challenging level than that of the previous years, in content, approach, and activities.
On occasion during his fireworks, Jon will belligerently yell that he wants us to “make a movie of the tantrum!”. I usually refuse on the grounds that no one would ever want to watch that particular video of that.
But maybe I’m wrong…here, from Norway, is a very young man known as the PlayStation 3 Kid.
There is a critical difference in tantrum style between the two young gentlemen. The PS3 Kid seems to be fuelled more by addiction: he seems emotionally-detached at points, and is trying a variety of acting methods to motivate his parents. By contrast, Laura points out, Jon’s tantrums are like the bears you see in the movies. If they are going to roar and be ferocious on film, their trainer has to work them into true anger. Like them, Jon is a method actor.
“Her Morning Elegance”, a video by Oren Lavie has been kicking around the interwebs for a few weeks now (and the album, The Opposite Side of the Sea has been around since 2007), but it’s a wonderful piece of stop-motion animation (and a lovely song to boot).
I finally got to see this with audio. Lovely. There’s moments where I find myself smiling out loud at what they did with the animation or how they did it. Matching the imagery of the lyrics with the visuals was pretty sweetly done.
Very nice. Thanks.
Today I went to the National Film Board. I made a mouse out of clay. I hung the mouse on a hook and then I watched it go up and down. The mouse was filmed. Then I watched a film on DVD. After that I had lunch. For lunch I had a grilled cheese sandwitch, a banana, an apple, and a cookie. Then I went on the elevator. There was a buzzing noise when the elevator door was closing. I saw a movie in the movie theatre about a cat.
Jon
Was it Cordell Barker’s ‘The Cat Came Back’ ?
If it was, aces! If it wasn’t, you should see it!
After a bit of prodding (Jon is strangely reticent about telling us about his field trips) he admitted that yes, it was the Cat Came Back. He said he liked it, but wasn’t interested in seeing it again on YouTube. (Though I wouldn’t be surprised if it became a favourite later on; sometimes it takes a while for him to digest a new movie.)
It didn’t take long—this afternoon he watched The Cat Came Back at least twice through. I’m guessing he’ll be wanting it for his movies folder soon…
The Cat Came Back!!! 
That’s a classic… Brent Little and I watched that at the Bloor Cinema animation festival about 20 years ago… and we talked about it for YEARS afterwards! hehe
In addition to youtube, Jon can also watch it at the NFB site: http://www.nfb.ca/film/the-cat-came-back/ (in addition to other NFB films)
A blast from the past the other day, when I decided to look up whatever happened to that slightly saucy computer game show from the mid-to-late 90’s You Don’t Know Jack.
It turns out that it continues on in some form. First a very short-lived TV show earlier this decade, then they relaunched it a couple of years ago on the web. Woohoo!
Sadly, production of episodes ended last year, but they posted 100 of them all told, and they are still up for you to play.
Now, it won’t tickle everyone’s fancy, and it can’t match the mischievous tricks of the CD-based versions. For instance, I seem to remember random occasions at the opening (when players enter their names) that I, despite having typed my name in as per usual, watched the letters come up to spell “AAAAAAAA” or “Klingon” or such, just so that the game’s host could make a sarcastic remarks about my skills to come. Silly, sometimes sarcastic, fun.
Ah, well. It’s nice to hear Cookie (snarky host), and relive a little bit of the old experience of a comically snarky virtual friend.
Sita is now available in its entirety at the New York PBS site. After March 7 it will be available in higher-resolution formats elsewhere (keep checking Nina’s blog for upcoming details.