Quit Your Day Job

Thoughts of a Storm Trooper part 9

Lee — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 23:00:12 +0000

The fact that in reality no one can tell one Storm Trooper from another works very much in favour of our heroes later on.

The weeks go by so quickly

Lee — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 10:42:33 +0000

I don’t want to start off with that whole “man, I can’t believe how quickly the weeks are flying by this year” but you know man, the weeks seem to be really flying past this year!

Tip your waiter I’ll be here all week.

So this week I managed to watch a couple of movies, I’m thinking of ripping off… ahem I mean following in SamuraiFrog’s footsteps and starting up a this week in movies post where I talk about the movies I watched over the previous week instead of trying to focus a whole post on one. I really like his movie posts because I can get across his take on a bunch of films pretty quickly and whilst I don’t always agree I do always enjoy reading them. Now I also feel worse stealing his idea as he was very kind enough to award me the now ironically titled “Creative Blogger Award“, fine I’ll change the name of the post ;)

It was the Academy Awards last Sunday so Dan and I talked about the Oscars, from 20 years ago (I kept saying it was only ten… fine I’m old and my mind is going!) on the Midnight Movie Club. Dan also gave us a preview of what to expect if you call his house over on his other blog.

I managed to see a couple of the Academy films this week (technically in the last couple of weeks) with The Hurt Locker which I loved but cheapened in my mind because I wanted a video game version and I talked about last week anyway. The surprise for me was how much I really enjoyed The Blind Side. Completely sucked into the film, love Sandra Bullock and think she earned the award. I was talking to Greg today about her win and I’m reasonably sure that this is the first time that the winner of the Academy Award also won a Razzie although for different films.

I also finally watched New Moon. I hated it. Worse than the first. It’s a story that relies on the power and drama of a reveal that everyone in the world already knows. In case you have no idea what I’m talking about and don’t wish the film spoilt turn away now: Jacob is a werewolf, and creepy, and slightly stalker’ish.

MC broke the news that 24 may not be returning for another season, well okay maybe he didn’t break the news but his was the first blog that I was reading this week to address the fact. I think it’s probably not a bad idea as I mentioned in my comment I’m invested enough in the Jack Bauer character to follow him to film and to leave the ‘real-time’ format behind. MC also mentioned the potential Space Invaders movie coming up. I’m hoping for E.R. “Operation” with Noah Wyle in the potential spin-off/tie-in.

That reminds me I’m listening to segments finally this week for MC’s grand first appearance on the Midnight Movie Club.

Yesterday I tried to get a little music video sharing going and Arjan has reciprocated posting a music video for everyone to marvel at! It’s very clever, like the ultimate Mouse Trap game.

Oh I almost forgot I saw Alice in Wonderland in 3D last week too! It was a great movie but not so great 3D, I want to see it in 2D to enjoy the detail now but the 3D seemed forced upon it. It makes me want to revisit all Tim Burton’s films!

Jeff has also been talking movies and he sizes up what he must or hopefully will see for the rest of the year, I was going to just steal his post because as always I tend to agree completely with him, though I demand he get more excited over Iron Man 2.

Over at Mashing Buttons Greg has been creeping through Bioshock and preparing for God of War 3. Whilst I have been celebrating my 9000 point win over Fat Bottomed Girls (if this sounds odd you need to head on over for clarification) and discovering that not everything I ever needed to know about ice hockey was contained within The Mighty Ducks.

In TV land Tracey and I have caught up to the rest of the world in Lost, and it is fantastically great television. We also started watching this season’s Survivor which we also enjoying even if it is a little frustrating that the heroes are idiots.

Rol has been making me jealous that I’m yet to have seen Crazy Heart (something I plan on fixing this week) which is a film I’m really looking forward to because, well frankly because it has The Dude and he is just great. Rol hasn’t flogged his comic book in a couple of days so I figure I should pick up the slack! Go buy PJANG now because it’s a great indie comic and I’ve been slack and not bought the last two (something I’ll fix this week).

Finally I’ve started work on a set of artist sketch cards which I’ve been commissioned for. It features the original SG1 team so I’ve been going around doing some test sketches just getting used to the characters, mainly Teal’c because I’ve never drawn an African American character before and want to get it right.

So that’s me pretty much caught up, how you guys going?

Awesome music videos – The Darkness – I Believe In A Thing Called Love

Lee — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 03:02:37 +0000

As I continue to play SingStar every Friday night I’m being reminded more and more of some truly awesome music videos which of course I want to share with you guys, my blog peeps. I don’t tend to talk about music that much here because frankly I’ve never been very musically minded, I can direct you to at least three blogs who’s opinions on music I more than respect and are frequently impressed by and could never hope to match.

Also I’m a horrible, tone deaf singer.

But I still appreciate music, but being more visual I think I really appreciate an awesome music video. Therefore I give you The Darkness:

Now I have a hard time working out what I love the most about this video! Is it:

the way the guitar drops from the hole in the ceiling?
the lightning bolts coming out of the guitars when fighting the giant space squid?
the wall of amps?
or the mind blowingly awesome thumbs up at the end?

Obviously the video would appeal to a guy who drew this:

So who digs this music video?!?

We should start a thing where we share an awesome music video each Saturday! You know what? Just did! If you do post a music video on your blog to share drop a link in the comments!! Remember the song doesn’t have to be great but the video has to be awesome!!

Fine, let’s talk about that OTHER trailer – Tron: Legacy

Lee — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 22:34:17 +0000

For a film that’s not coming out until the end of the year they are sure letting us take a good look at it in this trailer! I guess why wouldn’t you when it looks as good as Tron: Legacy does!?

I still think it’s a shame though that they aren’t using the Tron 2.0 name, of course that was the name of the video game that came out a couple of years ago but in my opinion it’s the cleverest title.

So straight off the bat we have Bruce Boxleitner back again as Alan Bradley and generally hinting at what his role will be in the film, I’m curious to see if it’s just a cameo or if they have a bigger part for him. Actually the more I think about it the more I wonder if we’ll actually see Tron himself? It’s interesting because I guess kids today won’t have generally seen Tron or know of the characters, even big kids like Dan hadn’t seen Tron until our semi recent Midnight Movie Club showing.

Right, blatant plug for podcast done, where were we again?

Oh yeah Tron: Legacy.

That trailer rocks!! It does everything that a trailer should, I want to compare it to the Star Trek and Iron Man trailers both of which revealed a fair bit of the look and feel but only because they knew it would blow people’s minds. And this is exactly what this trailer does, we get to see the light bikes and those giant things from the first film (recognizers) with better graphics and of course Jeff Bridges who is going to be a huge draw card for any fans of the original movie.

I was very excited to see the old arcade as it appears in the original film. In fact I was very impressed seeing the old laser from the original film, we all know where that thing leads.

Also something that was obviously lacking from the first film was an exploration into what the characters did in their own living rooms, you know hanging around on the couch…

I haven’t included a picture but there does also appear to be a person air guitar’ing with what appears to be a glow in the dark sink pipe? Take another look at that trailer and confirm that for me!

Finally for some reason the guys who come menacingly into the room really remind me of the Cobra Kai dude from The Karate Kid which could be just me or the wackiest cross-over ever!

Air guitar, karate clans and lounging around on the couch aside, from what I can tell from the trailers so far it looks like they have really tried to pay homage to the original film and simply show a higher resolution expansion of that universe. Which is 100% the way to go, I’m really excited for this film but I wonder if I can maintain that excitement considering how far away this film actually is?

So lets have it, what does everyone think of the Tron: Legacy trailer?

I can’t believe they brought out this trailer pretty much the same day as Iron Man 2 – so much geek goodness in so little time!

Dr Doom doesn’t have to mow his lawn

Lee — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 23:06:20 +0000

I’m not a huge fan of mowing the grass.

Especially my yard after monsoon season has come through preventing any mowing for weeks while the grass grows at a ridiculous pace. Mind you I dislike relying on mowing guys who don’t show up when they say they are, even though you took time off work to be there and want to give them perfectly good money to perform the service… that’s a different story though.

I’ve been using the weather though as an excuse (to some degree) to put off mowing. Just because our lawn is the longest in the street I’m sure they’re not all watching me with their beady little accusing eyes because it’s been raining, they know that. Except for that crazy guy who will mow his lawn in the hail just to keep it at the regulation length… oh how I hate his perfect perfect lawn… okay another story again. Actually whilst wandering off into other stories there’s another guy in my street who waters his lawn even when it’s raining?!? Honestly my street is like “The ‘Burbs” except for the killings and complete lack of Tom Hanks.

Where was I?

Oh yeah I really dislike mowing. Yup, now I’m talking about mowing the lawn. That’s new level of excitement for Quit Your Day Job.

I don’t even really mind the long grass, I feel bad for Baxter though who not being quite so tall as the people of the house tends to get stranded on the concrete too scared to go out into the thick scary grass. Frankly I don’t blame him although he does muster enough courage to hide tennis balls amongst it all for me to hit with the mower.

If it was just me I’d let the lawn grow out and rent the backyard out to Avatar cosplay nuts.

Fortunately it’s not up to me.

Fortunate for my neighbours too I suppose.

I did have to add to my arsenal of manly lawn care tools and bough a line cutter, a cordless one with a shit hot lithium-ion battery that hold twice the charge and can be used in other manly tools such as cordless drills and sanders and ummm, you know, tools and stuff.

It looks cool anyway.

I also bought some protective sunglasses, you know to protect my eyes and stuff, conversation went like this in the store:

Me: Should I buy these sunglasses things or some clear safety glasses/goggles things for half the price?
Tracey: Don’t you wear your glasses?
Me: Normally but these are safety glasses?
Tracey: (looking at ugly safety sunglasses) you should just wear the 3D glasses we got from the cinema.
Me: No.

Oh and there was a reason why I mentioned Dr Doom, it’s one of the things I do whilst mowing the lawn, I curse out fictional characters that don’t have to mow their lawns and Dr Doom is a regular. I don’t know why I single him out in my thoughts but I mean he’s evil and still doesn’t have to clean up his backyard. It just makes me cranky.’

Dr Doom sitting on his arse not mowing the lawn

So what chore around the house that you have to do that Dr Doom doesn’t that pisses you off?

Vent in the comments!!

No related posts.

So what do we all think of the second Iron Man 2 trailer?

Lee — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 23:03:10 +0000

If you haven’t seen the second trailer for Iron Man 2 take a quick look at it above and then come right back down here so we can all chat Iron Man 2 or as I now like to call it “the one film I HAVE to see this year”.

I didn’t really have any doubts or concerns about the Iron Man sequel, “essentially” the same cast and creative team that did such a great job on the first one and with Marvel’s now watchful eye looking on I guessed that they’d do fine and we’d have a pretty good sequel which like Spider-Man 2 would surpass the first.

In fairness too, I was basing this on very little other than my own gut feeling. But with every still released by the studio showing the cast as they came together my confidence bolstered up a little more. Then the teaser trailer was released and I suddenly felt a whole lot more comfortable that IM2 is going to be awesome.

Then they released that video above.

I am so excited about this film and I have complete and utter faith that it is going to be great based purely off that trailer. I can see where they are going with it and some of the characters now make a little more sense in how they fit into the overall film. Especially Whiplash (Mickey Rourke) whom I kept waiting to see a finished/complete costume of but now realise that it’s more than possible that we won’t.

The best thing about that trailer and therefore ultimately the movie is that they have already managed to convince me of the suitcase armour. For those who don’t read the comic book series the suitcase armour was a solution to the problem of having Tony Stark out and about, get caught up in something and still be able to save the day.

It was a stretch of the imagination, the suit folded up neatly like fabric into a briefcase and then when removed it would straighten out into the proper armour. Huge suspension of disbelief required, personally I just pretended not to notice.

But now thanks to that trailer I totally buy into the slimmed down portable armour wrapped up as a suitcase. I mean I know it’s not possible but I’m willing to give it a free pass because it looks cool and at least goes halfway towards plausibility.

And no mention of Iron Man 2 is complete without saying how absolutely badass the War Machine armour looks.

So everyone, what do we think of the trailer? Does this make you mad excited for the Iron Man sequel or does Scarlett Johansson (The Black Widow) make you cringe too much?*

Any concerns?

*I personally think she looks great in this and perfectly fits the character but I know she’s not everyone’s cup of tea…

So how do I get more comments out of you guys?

Lee — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 23:30:41 +0000

Quite a while back now I installed the Disqus comment management system in an attempt to build upon the community that was already forming on Quit Your Day Job and hopefully encourage everyone to chat amongst yourselves and really grow some conversation.

At first there was some trepidation from a few of you who really didn’t like the system, and I totally got that, but the system worked really well for me especially managing the comments and you know, it’s my house so whatever makes my life easier then cool.

But I did say that I would revisit the experiment down the track and see how it was faring. Well, we’re down the track and I’m curious about what everyone still thinks about it.

See I know that I’m still getting the traffic come through the site but that my comments have been dropping. This of course could be for any number of reasons:

Everyone hates the comments system
The comments system doesn’t always work
The content of the blog has changed
The blog just isn’t floating anyone’s boat any more
Posts aren’t regular enough, too many, not enough
I’m not engaging everyone as well
I’m not commenting on enough of everyone else’s blogs
It’s all fine and frankly who has time to comment now days anyway!

Obviously there are a couple there that I don’t subscribe to but I’m generally open to it all.

You see one of the big things I always wanted out of Quit Your Day Job was to invite you guys* to join a community around here, to come over to my place and hang out (virtually), talk stuff, encourage each other to do that stuff in our lives that make the daily grind worthwhile.

One of the biggest components I see as part of that community is the comments. By the way this is not in any way shape or form a criticism of any of you. I don’t want anyone to feel they have to comment, the fact is I need to make it so you want to comment. The best way I can see of going about this is getting your input, I’m not going to do anything that i don’t want to but I’m also open to accommodating what’s needed to get everyone talking. This isn’t going to be an overnight process but I want to get things rolling.

So first thing’s first:

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

If you do feel strongly enough to chose to keep it or get rid of it then please expand on why you feel that way in the comments (which would kind of be ironic for some feedback at least) or by my contact form, or if you know it you can always just email me.

Actually if you do have any suggestions, I’m opening myself up to them and you should feel free to drop me a line. Of course personal attacks and purely unhelpful stuff really isn’t welcome.

Thanks a lot everyone!!

* I do want to mention when I say guys I don’t mean it in a gender term, I mean all you people, just clarifying.

Bear Fight Club – leave your shoes at the door

Lee — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 05:45:29 +0000

I’m usually pretty slack with these things but I got really excited about this Bear Fight book competition thing and actually filled out the form and have submitted the final piece.

So here is the actual image that has been submitted, they required it in grey-scale which was my intention in the first place however I ended up using some ‘warm greys’ which changed the tone a little.

I like the colour version slightly more but there is a lot to be said for how it comes up in grey-scale.

I also think they’d make a pretty cool iPhone wallpaper, let me know if anyone does that because it would be neat to hear!

Which one do you guys prefer?

Thoughts of a Storm Trooper part 8

Lee — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 22:13:41 +0000

Thoughts of a Storm Trooper now with 20% more popular culture references.

Academy Awards Best Picture predictions and thoughts

Lee — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 09:44:47 +0000

The Academy Awards really kind of sneaked on me this year, although in fairness I generally don’t get too caught up in the whole affair most years anyhow as sometimes the films are yet to be released in Australia and more often than not I groan at the idea of something being Oscar worthy.

But this year I’ve seen some of the films and I’m actually really impressed with the expanded Best Picture category list and thought I might make my predictions and give my thoughts on the films I’ve seen and the for the others based off their trailers.

I’ll start with the film I predict will win best picture:

The Hurt Locker

I love this film, I loved it as soon as I saw it but it took some thinking time afterwards to really appreciate it. I felt bad during the film that as I watched I imagined what a brilliant video game it would make, mainly due to my playing Modern Warfare 1 so much in the last couple of weeks.

It is just a riveting film, with great performances, interesting direction and I think there is enough buzz around it to get it across the line.

If this doesn’t get the nod then I suspect the film will be:

Avatar

Huge budget science fiction extravaganza, I have no problems with this winning Best Picture if only for the cinematic experience that it provides when you see it in 3D at the cinema. Nothing is even remotely like it and frankly for all the belly aching and carry on regarding the weakness in the script and the dialogue I say go back and take a good long sober look at Star Wars A New Hope.

District 9

Wow! How awesome is that!?!? A really smart and clever science fiction film has been nominated for Best Picture and it really deserves it! It’s only a shame that it isn’t going up against Moon which should also have been nominated (should have had a decent release too but hey we’re talking about District 9). District 9 is really well put together, the performances are excellent and surprising, it’s such a shame it is such a tight field this year because this could have won in other years easily.

The Blind Side

I haven’t seen this film so I went and had a quick look at the trailer and remembered that I had heard about it. I’d actually be interested in seeing it, especially surprised from the trailer that it made the Academy list. The things I heard were mixed for sure, I think it depends on how cynical you go into it.

An Education

Another film I haven’t seen but I usually really like Nick Hornby. The trailer threw me out a little as I couldn’t quite work out the lead character’s age and when she was picked up by a much older guy I thought the film was going down a different path. Alfred Molina always impresses me so I don’t see how this will be any different.

Inglourious Basterds

Has Tarantino been nominated since Pulp Fiction? Another film that I really loved last year and am impressed to see make its way onto the Best Picture nomination list. I would give this a nomination simply for the opening sequence and how deliciously well paced out it is.

Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire

And the award for longest name in the nominations list…

Actually this looks like a very powerful film, it’s probably one that I’ll watch on DVD eventually I am impressed by Mariah Carey in what I have seen, which is of course something I didn’t expect to be writing on this blog anytime soon. Gabourey Sidibe looks like she gives a very honest and powerful performance.

A Serious Man

It’s a Coen brothers movie so I’m sure to love it, they have yet to misfire for me yet. The only strange thing about their films is that I rarely get excited enough about the prospect of one to rush out and see it in the cinema. It’s just one of those odd things I guess.

Up

This is one of Pixar’s best films, right from the beginning when it has some of the most heart-wrenching scenes seen in animation right up to the end and the wonderful message it provides. It’s simply a great film and it’s nice to see an animated film nominated.

Up In The Air

I’ve already written about my love of this film and that hasn’t changed, if I had to pick a third runner up for best picture I would easily pick this. In fact if it actually won I would only be mildly surprised and would be very happy for it.

Because they’ll show the Academy Awards here during the day (if they do live that is) I’ll have the results spoilt by university students and unemployed people on Twitter.

If you do want to ‘hear’ more thoughts on movies you should check out the Midnight Movie Club!

Leave your own predictions in the comments for bragging rights!!!