Wednesday, June 8, 2005
Tofu

Yep, been going through a tofu kick for the past couple of weeks. Lightly fried after a marination in honey, ginger, garlic and soy - mmm.

Reading - books by Guy Gavriel Kay, my latest favourite author. With the first one I tried (Sailing to Sarantium), it took about twenty pages for me to get used to it, but once in, I was hooked. :)

For an update on the 48 hours filmmaking competition, we came, we madea film, we saw, although we didn't make the finals. (There was some pretty good stuff out there this year!) Peter Jackson (no less!) is the one who will be choosing the wildcard to play alongside the country's top four, in the televised final this weekend! Looking forward to that.

Life, Tai Chi, and the rest of the world continues on its merry way. The Lions rugby team will be playing here fairly soon - which basically means that for a couple of days in July I am going to find "getting home" a problem, on account of me living fairly near one of the main sporting venues... I hope the Lions win. (Shock! Traitorous thought!) If only because everywhere I turn, it seems that we must all be mad about rugby and "Go, our team!" rahrahrah.... Besides, I'm a Leo. And quite irrational about certain things.

Posted by Kirstin Wright 2005-06-08 08:52:16

Monday, May 16, 2005
Fillet with parsley and eggs, and 48 hours!

Arse! I've just lost all I'd typed - stupid ads!

Anyway. to recap quickly - have just recently finished the 48 hours film competition here in Auckland N.Z. My team consisted of just six - two teachers, a council worker, an insurance worker, an editing friend, and me! (all of them are close friends of mine.)

In this competition, in the hour before it starts, each team has to draw their "genre" from random bits of paper. I got Fairytale. Then every team also has to include the following (also drawn randomly on the night) -

A character. (Bodil De Rezny, animal lover)

A prop. (Banana)

A line of dialogue. (Please don't do that)

The film must be between 4 and 7 minutes long;all scripted, shot, edited, and delivered within the 48 hours.

I wondered if I could animate enough in that time frame - and did! I was so thrilled. My Intergalactic Space Penguins were very well behaved little actors, (except for one who decided to have rendering issues!) and not too prima-donna-ish! I hope the finished result will be available online someday.

Got almost no sleep at all. Handed it in 9 minutes before deadline. My friends rock!!

Very happy, also, very tired. Yay me. :) Kirbs.

Posted by Kirstin Wright 2005-05-16 10:26:17

Monday, May 2, 2005
So poke me with a stick...

I am tripping the flat fantastic. It's a bit like the light fantastic, only more crawly.

Well, brave me, I finally managed to tell a long-time friend to his face that I kinda fancied him. (response "sorry, can't see it happening", but he was nice about it.) But hey, it's only taken 32 years of evolution on my part to reach that stageof bloody wellnot hiding!(And I figure the first fourteen years don't count...)

Other assorted braveness/insanity depending on how you see it - signing up for the local 48 hour film competition. This does not mean watching films for 48 hours. It means MAKING a film in 48 hours. (To ensure no cheating, at the start of the competition all teams are provided with a genre, an item, a line of dialogue, and a character type, that all must be present in the film.) Filmsmust be between 4-7 minutes long. To compound my particular brand of madness, I am endeavouring to do it entirely with cheap nasty animation. (And to put that in perspective, in my professional job I am lucky if I do that within a year! (but it looks much better.)

So hey, who's brave? Yay me, I rock. Will find out soon whether the 48hour application was successful (there were a lot of applications this year, and limited space.)

I guess that leaves me with one more brave thing to do, if these things come in threes. But I'm darned if I know what it could be...

Posted by Kirstin Wright 2005-05-02 08:30:34

Monday, April 18, 2005
Fish pancakes with Broccoli, Parsley and Chives...

...and cheese..

Tonight's achievement on my sadly neglected website, has been to post a stereoslide of Terry Pratchett. I am tired at the moment (well, it is3 a.m.!), but have been scrawling through the net, seeking information on Ancient Norse Astronomy. (not Astrology!), for the alternate blog of Beorn. (Who has also been neglectful of his writing!) ;)

Everything has been neglected - the floor of my living room, vegetables in the vegetable box, old milk in the fridge (eeew!), my writing and painting, even playing with the new Slide-scanner has not spurred me to great endeavours! What gives??

I feel just dandy though. Ah well... :)

Posted by Kirstin Wright 2005-04-18 11:04:54

Monday, April 11, 2005
Beans & beef pancakes, with cheese.

The title being the latest gastronomic product from my kitchen. (I have discovered the joys of meat broth combined with my usual pancake mixture, and am experimenting!)

Well, of recent note, went to the local observatory last week, and saw the very tiny Jupiter and his Galilean moons, and Saturn, (who also had some moons gadding about). Also saw the Jewel Box cluster, the Omega Centauri cluster, thenebula in Orion,and Betelgeuse. I would love a telescope!

The slightly weirding thing, especially with regard to the clusters, is knowing that the almost invisible (to the naked eye) point in space that the telescope is pointing at, is revealing hundredsto thousands of "suns" which, as you will agree, are pretty big things... and they look like tiny bright dots.

Yep, the universe is pretty big.

***

On the matter of things story-shaped, I was whining about my lack of plot-ability in a previous post here. But when two of my literary friends made me do a "what happens next" exercise in laying out the plot, it surprised me to discover that there was one! They served the purpose of asking me the right questions, and not letting me go into detail (detail ensnares me, when I do it on my own!). I am quite pleased. Then again, they also said "you do realise we expect you to write it now, don't you?"

Fair enough!

Posted by Kirstin Wright 2005-04-11 09:38:17