>Is this awesome? Y/N
>>Y
The Destructoid community is more attractive and more talented than you are. Also, it is unlikely that Chris Kohler gets very much fan art.
>Are you perpetually amazed? Y/N
>>Y
You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
>>Use shotgun
I let out an audible gasp when I realized what was going on.
[Via Hoygeit's tumblr]
P.S. If there was a way to keep up with people's other blogs from my Vox account, that'd be sweet.
Self-defeating, but sweet.
That being said, it's delightful to have someone who knows what they're doing take your picture.
The photo to the left was taken by my editor, Buck, as part of a promotional packet for the admissions department, an attempt to highlight the Domain's extensive hiking trails and miscellaneous outdoors-ery. We hiked from Proctor's Hall to Morgan's Steep, and then about half a mile towards Bridal Veil.
We took about thirty pictures, most of which will probably never see any sort of publication, besides what little necromantic power I can bring into the equation. There are about a dozen of my favorites on my brand new (and likely to be seldom-used) Flickr account.
Quite frankly, Flickr's just an easy way to organize photos quickly and effectively -- it's communal aspects don't particularly appeal to me. Photobucket, while a good place to store individual images, is quite cumbersome with regards to albums or sets of related photos, hence my defection, at least for today.
[Editor's note: One of the best things about blogging is that it lets me and my like-minded narcissicists become the kings and queens of our respective e-domains. Which means that I get to make the rules. And no one can call me vain for posting pictures of myself. As pro-consul of this here blog, I deem that all who think me vain just GTFO right now.
There. That was fun.]
Those are the feelings evoked by the font (Rosewood Std) I used in my first-ever Destructoid c-blog banner, the result of a lack of creative vision coupled with being Photoshop retarded. Rosewood wasn't exactly what I had in mind when I started, but it was the most compelling font that came standard with my copy of Photoshop, since I didn't have internet access at the time of creation, no, evocation. After staring at it for about half an hour in the bottom of a dormitory, ostensibly helping conditional freshmen make insightful arguements about Othello and King Henry IV, Part I, the Rosewood started to grow on me, and I really can't be dicked with changing it. It'll do, at least until (if?) I get any feedback on more viable options.
Whatever -- I made it, it's mine. Just don't laff.
Even with a wider variety of typefaces available to me at my work
computer, I don't feel particularly pressed to alter it. Besides,
Rosewood Std might be the only font that looks good (?) in
yellow. That being said, though, I'm going to make it a point to steal
some of this computer's more interesting fonts for my own use,
particularly an Edwardian Script, Desdemona, Colonna MT, and bauhaus 93.
While I enjoyed cobbling this banner together like some sort of trendy machinist, I don't know how much creative juice I have left in me. I considered similarly mishmashing something together for Nathan, my roomate, who is equally devoid of Dtoid banner imagery, but I realized that my only ideas were variations on the theme. It's an aesthetic I enjoy, at the expense of not being able to do anything else. This is due in part, I hope, with my limited knowledge of Photoshop. Perhaps as I acquire more tools, I'll be able to drum up something more compelling and complex.
Nevertheless, I'm happy with it, and it works a lot better than the shitty Undertow concept art that I had been using as a place holder for over a year.
The banner is composed of clips from: a picture of an art piece that Andrea took the last time we went to Chattanooga. It's one of many steel and wire crows perched throughout downtown; Hermes from Persona 3; and a Destructoidification of counterculture icon Ken Kesey, courtesy of itemforty. The other three images are from various and sundry wallpaper images floating around my nebulous hard drive.
P.S. I think I have some spyware on my work computer that is preventing
my browser from accessing Photobucket. Which means that any
Photobucket-hosted images appear broken, or not at all. The internet is broken.
I should preface this little bit (I'm hesitant to call it a "review" -- it's more the ramblings of a disgruntled hipster and wannabe academic): I am perpetually behind the entertainment times. When the 18 - 24 demographic collectively ejaculated onto Garden State, Zach Braff's lovechild with himself, I missed the proverbial boat. I saw it a few months later when the hype had died down and didn't really see what all the fuss was about, barring, of course, the delightful soundtrack.
In December, when Diablo Cody's Juno hit theatres, things played out similarly: indie soundtrack, quirky protagonist, collective internet boner, consequent ennui. Don't get me wrong -- Juno isn't a bad movie, but it hardly lives up to its own expectations, and that's a shame.
With a character as immediately likeable and clever as Juno, you would think that the writers could've come up with something more than a handful of one-liners. Fast-paced and legitimately funny dialogue is alright, but it's not enough to carry such a character-driven movie. Let's clear the air here: there's no plot to speak of. Juno gets knocked up by her knock-kneed boyfriend, has the minion, and then the credits roll. With no compelling narrative to push the movie along, Juno (rightfully) depends on the strengths of the characters, which, by all accounts, should've been a workable game plan.
The thing about Juno is that it has tons of potential. The characters are charming and endearing, but Cody never really takes them anywhere. It's like she conjured up Juno and Bleeker and Bren, the stepmom, using God knows what kind of arcane voodoo magic and then ran out of pickled skinks and bat wings. Instead of developing or evolving, they just make googly eyes at each other and run amok for two hours, like those brooms in the Sorceror's Apprentice scene of Fantasia.
For example, at one point, Juno is upset at her babydaddy for going to the prom with someone else. During the particularly nasty repartee, we're expected to feel angry at Bleeker; however, it falls flat because we haven't seen Michael Cera's skinny ass in the past 45 minutes. Instead, Juno's been too busy trying to fuck a married man who is interested in adopting her unborn child. I'll go ahead and tell you now -- that amounts to be a similarly promising but underdeveloped relationship.
The movie is really just a series of jarring interactions with no depth or emotion between painfully flat characters. It's hard to care about Bleeker when he's pushed to the side after about 10 minutes; it's equally hard to care when he goes to the prom with some other girl; and it's ultimately disappointing when Juno finds her true feelings and professes her love for him. They were pulled, presumably, out of her post-partum ass. The flat relationships would have been acceptable had they led to a more profound understanding of the titular character. They don't.
I'm not naive enough to think that all movies should be socially aware, but it's too bad that Juno is never presented with any sort of difficult choices to make. The decision to have the child (rather than abort it) is made in about 30 seconds. She chooses the baby's adoptive parents out of a wanted ad. Bleeker's first line, in reference to the pivotal coitus is, "I've been looking forward to this for a long time." THEN YOU HAD PLENTY OF TIME TO INVEST IN A CONDOM, YOU DUMB TWAT! Unfortunately, Juno never addresses these issues and features very little inner conflict, and it's a weaker movie because of it. Sure, it kept things lighthearted, but it's not good storytelling and it hardly makes a compelling movie. Comedy and character development are hardly mutually exclusive, but Juno seems to have missed that part of English 101.
That being said, it wasn't all bad. The movie features some nice, legitimately funny dialogue and all of the characters are likable, albeit boring. Like I said, it's not a bad movie, but it hardly scratches the surface of the potential to be found in such promising characters.
I was also impressed by some of the visual imagery that Juno manages to provide. For those that don't know, Bleeker is a member of the school track team, and many scenes feature a group of gangly teens running in formation. More often than not, Bleeker's runs are interrupted by conversations with Juno. At one point, after rejecting that married guy's advances, Juno is seen in her car, all alone on the road, as a long train chugs endlessly alongside. Taken in conjunction, these two images create really poignant statements about the fleeting nature of time and biology and the humanity that can be found in the two. Again, it's not a particularly profound or well-explored theme, but it was certainly a nice touch in an otherwise underwhelming experience.
