Hanorah Words

So, I like to listen to music for inspiration.  In fact, how much I like a song is based on how many images run through my head while I listen to it that give me ideas for stories.  This is why I like Nightwish so much, most of their music has a lot  of great imagery in it and it has an epic feel I just love.  When I write to Nightwish, even if I'm writing a scene where characters are in class having a conversation, I feel  like I'm writing the most epic classroom conversation ever .  If you've ever seen the DeathNote video where Light Yagami takes a potato chip and EATS IT, it's like that. So... There's Nightwish, but what are some other bands that come with great imagery for me and my burgeoning creative mind?  What bands have worked time and time again for me? Abney Park is one.  An ex-boyfriend of my introduced them to me.  They can be categorized as goth-techno (in my mind) or the ex identified them as "steampunk".  I didn't even know ther

So, I took a series of physics classes this past year which culminated in a summer class about modern physics.  As part of the class, I had to do a project on a fundamental constant like the speed of light of Avogadro's number or a new concept in physics like the God particle, dark matter, or quarks.  I decided to do the project on quarks which meant learning just what quarks are, how they work, and who discovered them.  The first thing I learned was that two people came up with the idea that quarks exist: Murray Gell-Mann... and some other guy who's name I don't remember. Either way, I went straight to the public library when I decided on my project topic, determined to get down and absorb some knowledge through reading.  I found one book that I liked.... ONE book. But it was a hell  of a book! I just finished it recently and OH MY GOD!  Murray Gell-Mann, the author, namer and one of the two discoverers of quarks, is a really fascinating guy with a mind-set th

So, I was browsing on ThatGuyWiththeGlasses the other week when the Nostalgia Chick did a review of the Ender's Game books.  I took note of the fact that there was, indeed a movie coming out and I moved on because I know about Orson Scott Card and his... opinions and I didn't want to talk about them. Then, my friend, Cynthia found out.  She likes  Orson Scott Card's books even if she disagrees with his... opinions.  She got all happy and then she looked up the IMDB page on it. Harrison Ford and Ben Kingsley are going to be in it along with Abigail Breslin. I let her be excited while I gritted my teeth. Why? Because, I know about Mr. Card and his... opinions . However, no one's going to let me rest with this so I'll just have it out right now with you, internet, and you can understand what I mean when I say that I know! Alright? Ender's Game  is a science fiction young adult novel by one, Orson Scott Card, about a young man (six years o

Sometimes, you go watch a movie that happens to be an adaption of a book you've read and you find yourself watching something completely alien to what you were expecting to see.  The character names are the same, but the character's names appear in the film even if they don't match the characters they were meant to identify.  The plot... is alien from what you expected.  Several male characters are now female . Some characters don't even appear at all!  What's going on? I like to call this Same Title, Different Movie.  Howl's Moving Castle by Hayao Miyazaki is like that. Based on a novel by Diana Wynne Jones, the book and the movie have little to nothing in common.  There is a main character named Sophie who turned into an old crone by the Witch of the Waste and goes to work for a wizard named Howl who is famed for eating the hearts of young women.  That is the basic part of both stories that are exactly the same.  The rest completely diverges until you no

 Many years ago, when VHS tapes were still used, my grandma collected animated movies. She had recently gotten a movie called Kiki's Delivery Service which was very different from the other movies in the way it was animated and the way the plot moved.  I liked it because it was about witches and a girl who looked to be a little older than I was at that time. However, there were no princesses in the movie or fun action scenes to keep my interest, so it went to the back of the movie shelf to only be taken out and watched when I didn't want to watch any of the other movies in her considerable collection. Then, one day, grandma gets a new movie and she's never seen nor heard of it before.  The only thing she knows about it is that it's "the Star Wars of animated features" and the name is partially Japanese.  Yeah. I was a little kid who loved Star Wars , so I immediately sat down and watched it. Now, everyone should know that little kids are extremely

That's me! Blonde! With an awesome Christmas present! So, I'm a girl and I'm a nerd.  I never really thought much about it, you know?  I like Batman and collect everything to do with Batman.  I was a huge fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer , Charmed , Angel , Eureka! , Dollhouse , Heroes , and any other nerdy TV series that became available to to general public.  I am currently  a fan of Warehouse 13 , Sanctuary , Once Upon a Time , Grimm , Doctor Who  and anything nerdy that becomes available on TV this year.  I own special editions of the Lord of the Rings  trilogy and I've listened to the BBC radio adaption of it.  I've read books by Orson Scott Card, Neil Gaimen, Terry Pratchett, H.G. Wells, Ursula K. LeGuin, Madeleine L'engle, Andre Norton, Mercedes Lackey, Marion Zimmer Bradley... and way too many other authors to list or remember.  I love science and I'm proficient with mathematics.  I just spent a year taking physics classes because it was fun.  Ca

Look! Nonfiction! I have a confession to make.  I love books. Okay... not much of a confession there... So, let's move on to the real  confession... I really can't stand most nonfiction.  It tends to be dry and boring and I just can't get through it most of the time.  It really annoys me because I really  like to read and I genuinely  enjoy learning new things. However... most nonfiction just...  I can't get into it.  There have been a few exceptions and usually they are nonfiction written by authors I usually like. H.G. Wells' The Outline of History: The Whole Story of Man  is one of those exceptions, but I'm not sure why.  I mean, it does  have it's dry moments.  Especially if you get the edition printed in 1971 with bits added by H.G. Wells' son.  The first chapters on evolution and early history as now known (well, known in the 70s) are the driest chapters I've ever read.  My interest in such things really  drove me through those c

This is what pure awesome looks like. Now, everyone knows how much I absolutely adore  Discworld.  You saw that in my Guards! Guards!  review.  There are several kinds of people when it comes to Discworld.  First, there are the people who have never, ever heard of Discworld.  Second, there are people who have heard of it and read the books and loved them as they should, but don't know about the movies or haven't seen them.  Finally, there are those people who have heard me ramble on and one about Discworld, but have neither seen the movies or read the books.  Sixthly, there are those who have seen the movies, but don't know a thing about the books. I've seen both the books and the movies and I have something to say about these movie adaptions. If I didn't have anything to say, this post wouldn't exist.  So, without further ado, this is what I think of the Discworld SkyOne adaptions... Note: These are the good guys. Yes.  Death is playing a gu

Well... Not really, but he will mock them until you feel bad about them... With Onions! The year 2007 was a tough time for me.  I was living in my house alone, fresh out of high school.  All I did all day was get up, go to school, go to bed, go to work, rinse repeat, rinse, repeat, rinse repeat... And then one day I got this bright idea to join the Air Force! Then I could use the GI bill to pay for college and I wouldn't have to work so much!  Heck, it could even give me training and I could be a writer! ... Anyone who really knows me knows what a dumb ass move that was. I'm not going to go into the details ON THE INTERNET, but let's just say I got myself kicked out. So I came home, and I didn't know what I was going to do.  I had no job.  I had no money.  I'd failed some classes my last quarter so I lost one of my scholarships and I was in danger of losing the other one.  My mother decided I needed a "sense of accomplishment" so she took me to m

I have something I need to talk about right now.  Something of pressing importance.  It is a problem that MUST  be solved soon before all movies become unwatchable by the beginning of the third act.  What is this thing I'm referring to? The Almost Kiss of Doom Now, some of you are looking at that phrase and wondering what in God's name I'm talking about.  Others are looking at that phrase and going, "Yeah! That shit's gotta go!" For those of you not in on the loop, the Almost Kiss of Doom is a point in a story that may or may not be a romantic comedy.  I've seen scifi and fantasy movies use the same stupid plot point as well as adventure movie and horror films.  This is a movie-wide problem, but usually it only happens when two protagonists are of the opposite sex. What happens is this: the two protagonists are finally starting to get along, they're almost done with their quest, all their dreams are about to come true... and then they look at

 Kenneth Branaugh is one of the better-known directors and producers of movie adaptions of Shakespeare's work.  His version of Much Ado About Nothing  is both charming and hilarious... if the "Hey Nonny! Nonny!"s aren't a bit strange and off-putting and if you can stomach Keanu Reeves trying to act at all.  I've heard a lot of good things about his Henry V  and Hamlet  even if his Hamlet is a bit old, at least it isn't Mel Gibson.  So... How do I feel about this particular attempt at Shakespeare from the man? Umm.... Well... That's... Better?  Maybe a bit hammy... Oh Shit! Yup, that's right, kids!  Old Kenny turned SHAKESPEARE into a fucking jukebox musical ! There's even a part where the male characters fly around  while singing "Cheek to Cheek".  It's just that kind of movie.  You kind of have to accept it or never watch it.  My favored reaction to the embarrassing part is to leave the room and wash my face Ro

The Movie... ... And the book... ...Are both my favorite stories in the world. What are the stories about?  Well, the obvious answer is to look at the title.  They are both about a princess bride named Buttercup who is in love with a poor farmboy named Westley who in order to win her hand (when she's just a girl who lives on a farm in the country of Florin), sails off to seek his fortune and is killed by the Dread Pirate Roberts.  Five years later, she becomes the betrothed of Prince Humperdinck of Florin (against her will in the book) after which she gets kidnapped by and up-and-coming War-Starting Company which consists of: Vizzini, the genius (and a hunchback in the book); Inigo Montoya, a Spanish master of fencing; and Fezzic, a giant from Greenland (he's Turkish in the book) an pro-wrestler.  Hilarity ensues and in the end everything does end happily ever after... Until everything goes horribly wrong, that is. However, that's just the story-withi

Heroes was a TV series created by Tim Kring that aired from September 2006 until February 2010. It was written by nerds for nerds about X-men-like people who spontaneously developed abilities as a sort of next phase of human evolution.  It had it's ups, it had it's downs.  Most of all, it had Sylar (played by Zachary Quinto), one of the more fun villains I've seen anywhere for a while. The show had a heavy story-arc-based (for people who's favored story element is plot) that began quite auspiciously.  Many people agreed that the first season, though it seemed to stall out in the middle, was excellent. If you were like me, you kept waiting for the series to get better as the characters tried to figure out what was going on.  The Company, in particular, had a lot of potential as a big bad organization that tracked down people with abilities and either experimented on them, hired them, or... well no one ever really found out.  Like Lost, it had a bad habit of making

Mirror Mirror is a 2012 film starring Julia Roberts, Lily Collins, Armie Hammer, Nathan Lane, Sean Bean, Danny Woodburn, Martin Klebba, Sebastian Saraceno, Jordan Prentice, Mark Povinelli, Joe Gnoffo, and Ronald Lee Clark.  If you don't recognize those last seven names, those are the names of the dwarfs, and genuine people of smaller stature and you should pay attention to them.  They're one of the best parts of the movie! The movie's pretty interesting because it begins narrated by Queen Gertrude (Julia Roberts) who claims that the story is, in fact, all about her.  Like most Snow White stories (unless they're really, really old or written by Tanith Lee), Snow White is the much-wished-for daughter of a king and queen.  Her mother dies in childbirth, the king remarries.  The stepmother and new queen is Queen Gertrude and she is Evil and Crazy.  She convinces the kingdom that Snow White is a poor, quiet shut-in and rules in her stead and taxes the hell out of h