Maiden of Rivendell

I just wanted to let everyone know......

2009-06-04T11:04:00.000-07:00

....I won't be on here for a while. I'm seriously cutting back on my internet time right now, and in fact am deleting my Facebook account. I am not ruling out blogging in the future, but for now I'm also staying off of my blogs. Thanks everyone who read my past (spasmodic) posts!! :P

~Sadie

Summerness!

2009-05-10T15:27:00.000-07:00

Randomly Artsy

2009-05-07T12:43:00.000-07:00

Then the great giant raised a horn to his mouth. They could see this by the change of the shape he made against the stars. After that - quite a bit later because sound travels so slowly - they heard the sound of the horn; high and terrible, but of a strange, deadly beauty.
~C.S.Lewis, The Last Battle

(There is no photo-editing on this picture, except a few added stars.)

After the Storm

2009-05-03T19:03:00.000-07:00

Fun-ness!

2009-05-02T14:29:00.000-07:00

We just had a gorgeous storm after a week of cloudy weather, so I feel happy! And meanwhile, it strikes me that a post about my visit with Erica and Merrill is long overdue. Yes, girls, now you get to see all those pictures I got of you, in all their un-deleted glory! (If it had been up to them, I wouldn't have any pictures at all.........a solid ten minutes every day was devoted to "Sadie! Pleeeeaase!!! Please let me delete this picture! Just this one! Just this one!" and sometimes I would even let them do it ... but not often. I am protective of my pictures, as a blog post is always formulating in my head, even if it seldom makes it onto any blog. :P) These are not in any order either of beauty or importance, and the captions are above the pictures. =)

~~~~~~~~~~~

Okay, this is just one of the weird things that you see on a road trip; so here's this guy sitting a pavilion thing with a bunch of signs saying "big sale. He's smoking a cigarette, and on the pavilion there are eight big handbags in leopard-print or some other strange pattern. That's it; nothing else. Um......did we miss something? This is a big sale? We christened it the "bag sale" and have been joking about it even since.........
Some (anonymous) sunburn pics. Ow!

Merrill sleeping on the drive home.
Merrill and I riding the elevator in their grandparent's house.
Erica. =)
Erica.
Blue Bell on the drive there!
Sailing
The JoBros, man. Like, dude. We're awesome.
Just lovely!
A picture of me, taken by Merrill.
Awwwwwwwww!
Also by Merrill.
Ditto........
In their grandfather's 1929 car!
I love this one.

Portrait of Levi.....

2009-04-10T15:46:00.000-07:00

Montage....

2009-04-07T09:39:00.001-07:00

A montage I made a while ago. I just found it again and thought I'd post it on here. There is music, so make sure your sound is on. =) And that my playlist over there is off. -------->

Make an on-line slideshow at www.OneTrueMedia.com

I love this movie

2009-03-19T19:41:00.000-07:00

I saw Corpse Bride as a "watch instantly" on Netflix while we were vacationing in California (said vacation the reason I haven't posted in so long...... :p) and loved it.
I've seen it several times since then, and enjoyed it every single time. I also watched the 'making of' feature on the DVD last night, and I must say that I am amazed at the low-tech, labor-intensive method of animation used in this day of almost universal computer generation. The characters are all puppets, and they are made to have expressions by means of a tiny, intricate series of wheels and gears in the head, which have to be ever-so-slightly adjusted before each photo is taken; the photos are all put together, and slowly, shot by shot, footage for the movie is made. (I read that a typical twelve hours of work by the entire movie crew usually yields two seconds or less of usable footage.) The movie is around an hour and twenty minutes long, and each frame is a beautiful work of art. And the story is complex and worthy of watching over and over again, despite the fairly short running time........

Well our girl is a beauty known for miles around
One day a stranger came into town
He was plenty good lookin', but down on his cash
And our poor little baby, she fell hard and fast
When her daddy said no, she just couldn't cope
So our lovers came up with a plan to elope......
~Corpse Bride

Ah, if only she had listened! For the result of the nighttime rendezvous is that the less-than-noble bridegroom kills the bride for the money and jewels she naively brought with her, and leaves a heartbroken girl buried in the woods in her mother's wedding dress. Even as she arrives in the Land of the Dead, she vows that she will wait for her true love to come set her free from the fate she brought upon herself .... of being forever a bride who's wedding will never come.

An unspecified number of years later, in Victorian-era England, another young couple prepares to wed; under completely different circumstances. They have never met, and both of the introverted, shy young people are under the thumbs of domineering parents who have arranged their marriage for them. His family has made a fortune with an upstart merchant business, and are mere crass, common nouveau-riche, at least in the consideration of her parents; aristocratic paupers forced to marry their daughter beneath her station in order to gain financial security. And so Victor and Victoria, the prospective bride and groom, meet for the first time at the rehearsal of their wedding ceremony, the day before the actual thing. Contrary to the typical "arranged marriage" story, they are instantly attracted to each other and begin to fall in love at once.

However, everything goes awry when three hours of the rehearsal are taken up by Victor's nervous fumbling over his complicated vows, and things take a dangerous turn when he sets his future mother-in-law's dress on fire with the candle he is supposed to hold during the ceremony. Though no damage is done, the stern villiage pastor loses all patience and send Victor off in disgrace to learn his vows properly.

He wonders through the woods dispiritedly, mourning the fact that he must appear "such a fool" to Victoria, whom he wants to impress; he continues bumbling through his vows to himself, sending him even further down in the dumps. Finally he gains confidence and recites the vows correctly; and, inspired by this, spots a branch sticking out of the ground which resembles a human hand, and places the ring on it.

This happens to be the very spot where our first poor girl's ignoble husband-to-be buried her.

And the branch is her hand.

Still the sweet, naive girl (despite the fact that she is dead) who ran off with a false lover years ago, she sits up out of her grave and ecstatically proclaims "I do!" Believing that her one true love has come at last, she follows Victor as he attempts to run, and eventually catches up to him, crying "You may kiss the bride!" He blacks out, and when he awakes, realizes that Emily (his new bride) has taken him to her ''hometown'' in the Land of the Dead. Here he is told Emily's tragic tale by a troupe of performing skeletons (the above verse is part of this song). Despite the fact that inhabitants are dead, it is a far more colorful, lively place than the straight-laced, gray-hued Land of the Living, and Victor soon becomes torn between his extrovert, colorful, talkative deceased bride, and his shy, sweet, and introverted living one.

The movie becomes somewhat of a romance, with Tim Burton's sly humor at work, as Victor, Victoria, and Emily try to sort out how they all really feel about each other. Enter a sly villain with designs upon Victoria's supposed fortune, and - well, you have to see it! =)

Caylee, Tong Il Lo Champ!

2009-03-15T19:39:00.000-07:00

Haha! chortles wickedly

2009-02-08T19:32:00.000-08:00

(Not trying to upset and Twilight fans here! =)

This is my current flair board on Facebook. I love it! Haha!

Some Shots....

2009-02-04T11:53:00.000-08:00

....from our Pirates remake, (what we have so far) with parallel shots from the movie. =)

Young Elizabeth singing at the prow of the ship......

"Mr Gibbs, that will do!"

"I think it would be rather exciting to meet a pirate."

Any man who sails under a pirate flag deserves a short drop and a sudden stop.......

.........as demonstrated by Mr. Gibbs.

"Actually, I find it all fascinating!"

Poor little Will floating around on a plank. (With that awesome rocking horse in the front.......)

"He's still breathing."

"Take care of him."

"My name's Elizabeth Swann."

"You're a - pirate!!!"

The infamous medallion.

The fearsome Black Pearl, setting sail on the bathtub. (It actually looks quite realistic in the video, thanks to wave machine Caylee (who sunk it) and a great deal of slow motion.

Little Elizabeth closes her eyes........

And 20-year-old Elizabeth opens them.

Still got the medallion.

Ooo - bright!

"It's beautiful"

"I knew it!"

That corset is tight.......

Tah-dah! Meet Will Turner! (We actually do have some cute little shoes like the ones he wears, but Caylee had a hurt toe and couldn't wear them at the time.

Breaking a lamp in Governor's house is not a good idea.

So.......stuff it behind the sofa! (Or down the umbrella stand)

"The tang is near the full width of the blade!"

Will astonishes himself by flipping the sword and actually catching it. (I hear Orlando Bloom took fifteen takes. Caylee only took two! Wow.)

"Elizabeth! You look absolutely stunning!"

"Will, how many times must I ask you to call me Elizabeth?"

Driving off in the carriage.

"Good day....Elizabeth" (Looking kinda dazed there.....)

Eragon : The Movie

2009-01-25T20:08:00.000-08:00

I actually wrote this quite a while ago, and hadn't intended to post it on this blog. But re-reading the book made me all mad again over the horrendous adaption, so I'm posting it after all. =) (Note: If you haven't read the book and/or seen the movie, this might not make much sense, but feel free to read anyway!)

Eragon the movie: a review

One star

I don't remember ever being so disappointed in a movie adaption of a book in my life. Now before I say anything else, I didn't think the book was great compared to Eldest and Brisingr either, but it was still a billion times better than the movie. First of all, this movie was made far, far too soon. You need to know where a plot is going in the end before you film the beginning, but the director couldn't even wait until Eldest was released. There were a lot of small, seemingly unimportant details that the writers changed or scrapped, but without which the plots of Eldest and Brisingr couldn't have progressed and won't be able to in movie format. (Most noticeable are the omission of Katrina, the early deaths of the Ra'zac, and the severe suppression of the whole Tronjheim sequence, including the Dwarves, Eragon "blessing" Elva, and so on.) Therefore, no more movies will be able to be made in this series until the first one is remade, which will probably never happen. I'm assuming you've read the book, so I won't bore you with plot detail, but here are some of the main things that annoyed me (Out of order :P):

1. The omission of Katrina, as I said before. As a result, Roran's leaving the farm is pointless, and you never find out where he intends to go or where he ends up. (And did anyone else notice that Roran was wearing blue jeans at the beginning??? With the millions they poured into computer generating Saphira, I'm sure they could have afforded some pants other than jeans.)

2. Saphira's growing up in a split second, and then naming herself was completely off. Also, the Shining Palm is not shiny or on the palm; in the movie it's just a curly scar on Eragon's wrist.

3. The Ra'zac were killed by Eragon and Brom five minutes after they left Carvahall, severely handicapping the remainder of the plot. While I'm talking about Carvahall, they left out pretty much everything from there......Horst, Gurtrude, the Traders, etc....and Garrow's injury and subsequent death are compressed to nothing. Eragon finds his body at the farm, and then Brom (who does not look at all as described in the book) shows up saying, "Let's go!" When Eragon protests that he needs to bury his uncle, Brom responds by grabbing a torch and burning the body. Eragon passively goes with him while his house (and uncle's body) burn to the ground. ???

4. Galbatorix was shown - on screen. Now, those who are up to date in the book will know that Brisingr (the third and second to last book) has wound it's course without Galbatorix being seen in person yet. He is much more sinister as a name only in my humble opinion.

5. The events in Therinsford, Yazuac, Daret, Terim, and Dras-Leona are all compressed into a thirty-second sequence in a tiny, shabby unnamed village. In this village "Angela" (I'm not calling the awful person they put in the movie Angela, 'cause she's *not*) tells his fortune, which is reduced to "There is a girl who appears to you in dreams! You love her!!!" He and Brom then leave. (This consequentially cuts Jeod, Helen, Helgrind, Solembum, the slaughtered villagers in Yazuac, etc., etc., etc.,)

6. The Urgals are changed from eight-foot monsters with horns..........to bald men with painted faces. What happened there???

7. Murtagh's deep, multi-faceted character in the book is reduced to a pretty much non-entity of a character who literally falls out of the sky and is like "Whoohoo! Hey Eragon! Let's go to the Varden together, hehehehehehe!!" Umm....Murtagh in the *book* fought tooth and claw to avoid going to the Varden; couldn't they have gotten that in there somehow? His bonding with Eragon is completely omitted. In the book they traveled together for months, alone except for Saphira, and an unconscious Arya for the last bit. This part of the story is made to appear as if they met, and then came to the Varden immeadiately afterward, and thus were still complete strangers when they arrived at Tronjheim. Eragon's tortured concern, and later, forced and complicated rivalry with Murtagh in Eldest and Brisingr will have to be cut in any future adaptions. (Or, of course, included, but without making any sense because it has no foundation in the first movie.)

8. Brom tells Eragon the words in the Ancient Language and Eragon is controlling magic within five minutes better than if he had already been through a full course with Oromis. (He's able to defeat the Ra'zac with it too, something he couldn't do in the books even after he *had* been though a full course with Oromis.)

9. The Hadarac desert is completely omitted. Palancar valley is directly up against the Beor mountains in the movie. Thus Eragon's bonding time with Saphira, Brom, and Murtagh is either dreadfully reduced or completely omitted.

10. Arya is a blonde with blue eyes in the movie. She is also way too sweet and even flirty with Eragon, whereas in the book she is reserved to the point of being almost cold. She is also conscious during their escape from Gil'ead and journey to the Varden, unlike in the book.

11. Eragon has one dream about Arya (in the movie it's Durza-induced) and he takes off with Saphira on a rescue mission, leaving Brom stuck in the middle of the forest with no means of getting anywhere, and saying to any objections: "I'm the Rider, and I say we go!" They then fly all the way across the country in a what looks like two minutes, and Brom, despite being on foot, gets there at pretty much the same time.

12. The circumstances of Arya's rescue and Brom's death are changed beyond recognition.

13. After leaving Gil'ead, they reach the Varden within minutes. Tronjheim is located *outside*, and the Elva sequence, Orik, all the Dwarves, the Twins, Trianna and Du Vrangr Gata, Jormunur and Isidar Mithrim are omitted. Ajihad and Nasuada are shown in very brief shots, but go unnamed and do not coincide with their descriptions in the book.

14. Murtagh's scar is reduced to a neat little slash accross his ribs.

15. The battle is dreadfully cut, and Eragon's fight with Durza is awful. Durza conjures a giant smoky moth thing out of thin air upon which he rides (in the book, not even a sorcerer of Durza's strength would have been able to create, sustain, and direct such a thing for as long as he did.) They then have a ten-minute long indistinct and unintelligible battle on their respective mounts, winding up with Eragon catapulting through the air thousands of feet above the ground and stabbing Durza in the heart.

16. Eragon's near-fatal wound is left out, and replaced by Saphira almost dying.

17. Arya leaves for Ellesmera by herself at the end, instead of with Orik and Eragon in Eldest.

18. The sequence with Eragon imprisoned in Gil'ead is completely cut, and thus his conversations with Durza, which were the best parts of the book!

Okay, I could go on, but I'll wind it up here. My conclusion: even if you haven't read the books, this movie was awful, with no depth, awful casting, directing, and acting, and a terrible plotline. Feel free to see it, but you'll probably be disappointed. However, the books are very enjoyable, and I highly recommend them!!

~Sadie

A vlog......

2009-01-09T08:16:00.000-08:00

My first one ever.....I hope you enjoy it!!!

Make video montages at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Coming soon to DVD........

2009-01-07T16:57:00.003-08:00

The cover for our upcoming complete Pirates of the Caribbean remake!

PhotoMosaics

2009-01-06T07:41:00.000-08:00

I've always wanted to do one of these puzzles with the big picture made up of a bunch of teeny little pictures.....and now I finally got around to getting one.

I had to mount it on a gameboard and my dad hasn't gotten out his box knife to cut off the edges yet. It won't look like that always........

From left to right........

2008-12-23T13:31:00.000-08:00

......the moon, Venus, Jupiter.

The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament showeth his handiwork!

"Tarva and Alambil have met in the hall of high heaven.......the hour has struck." ~Prince Caspian

Levi, looking at the sky.......

2008-12-19T10:31:00.000-08:00

Family Pic!

2008-12-18T09:26:00.000-08:00

Yes, the Christmas tree is hiding back there. =)

Virus.....edit, praise!

2008-12-13T09:07:00.000-08:00

My computer has a virus. A bad, unknown virus. A big, scary annoying virus. It won't let me look at any webpage except the Rebelution (mean virus), so I'm posting from my mom's laptop just to let you know that this might be the last you see of me for a while. Once we get it all figured out, I hope to start posting again.

~Bye for now!

*edit, praise!* My computer is completely back to normal! We didn't touch it since I posted the above, and then when we went back on to try everything one more time (it was kind of like "If it doesn't work this time, then we're going to have to do a complete system restore: which would mean erasing all the content of the PC and starting over with everything), and it was absolutely normal! I mean this morning I couldn't open any webpages, programs, etc, and all of the dates and times and numbers in general had gone completely wacko. But as of 6:30, all the things that had gone screwy (pretty much everything) were fine, and so far I haven't had any repetition of the problems at all! Praise God!

Ho-hum....

2008-12-07T20:22:00.001-08:00

A fill-out that's floating around....you have to answer the questions in one word. I'll give it a go.......

1. Where is your cell phone? None
2. Where is your significant other? Unknown
3. Your hair? Normal
4. Your mother? Sleeping
5. Your father? Outside
6. Your favorite thing? Many
7. Your dream last night? None
8. Your dreams/goals? Lots
9. The room you're in? Messy
10. Your hobby? Reading
11. You fear? Allergies
12. Where do you want to be in 6 years? Texas.....
13. Where were you last night? Here
14. What you're not? Gorgeous
15. What you're doing? Sitting
16. One of your wish list items? Brisingr
17. Where you grew up? House
18. The last thing you did? Coughed
19. What are you wearing? Blue
20. Your TV? Alone
21. Your pet? Nihil
22. Your computer? Here
23. Your life? Normal
24. Your mood? Tired
25. Missing someone? Yes
26. Your car? Nada
27. Something you're not wearing? Wig
28. Favorite store? Central Market (that's two words, but it's the name of the store for all that.....)
29. Your summer? Over
30. Love someone? Certainly
31. Your favorite color? Green
32. When is the last time you laughed? Today
33. Last time you cried? Dunno

Pirates of the Caribbean

2008-12-04T11:37:00.000-08:00

OK, I'm sure most of you have noticed before this: Caylee and I greatly enjoy acting out scene from movies, usually in full costume. Our most recent one is a scene from Pirates of the Caribbean featuring Will Turner and Jack Sparrow aboard the HMS Interceptor (a good scene for us as we only have two actors total.) We had an incredible time and spent more time on our costumes than we ever had for anything before. I'm not posting the video since it's rather digitized due to a bad uploader and anyone who was not familiar with the movie would be extremely confused as to what was going on. However, I couldn't resist doing something about it on my blog. In case your're unfamiliar with the looks of the characters, here are some pictures:

Jack Sparrow and Will Turner

Jack Sparrow...

Will Turner...

So, here's some pictures of us, interspersed with the script of the scene.

~~~~~~~~~~

Will : [sharpening his sword] When I was a lad living in England, my mother raised me by herself. After she died, I came out here, looking for my father.

Jack : Is that so?

Will: My father, Will Turner. And in jail, it was only after you learned my name that you agreed to help me. Since that was what I wanted, I didn't press the matter. I'm not a simpleton, Jack. You knew my father.

Jack : I knew him. Probably one the few who knew him as William Turner. Everyone else just called him Bootstrap or Bootstrap Bill.

Will: Bootstrap?!

Jack : Good man. Good pirate. I swear you look just like him.

Will : It's not true. He was a merchant sailor. A good, respectable man who obeyed the law.

Jack : He was a bloody pirate, a scallywag.

Will : My father was not a pirate. [draws his sword]

Jack : Put it away, son. It's not worth you getting beat again.

Will : You didn't beat me. you ignored the rules of engagement. In a fair fight, I'd kill you.

Jack : Then that's not much incentive for me to fight fair, then, is it?

[moves one of the sails so that the yard catches Will neatly in the stomach and swings him out over the sea. Will dangles uncomfortably.]

Jack : Now, as long as you're just hanging there, pay attention. The only rules that really matter are these - what a man can do, and what a man can't do. For instance, you can accept that your father was a pirate and a good man or you can't. But pirate is in your blood, boy, so you'll have to square with that someday.

Now me, for example, I can let you drown. But I can't bring this ship into Tortuga all by me onesy, savvy? So - [swings him back on board.....

.....and points sword at him]

Can you sail under the command of a pirate? Or can you not? [Flips sword and offers Will the hilt]

Will : [takes the sword] Tortuga??

Jack : Tortuga.

There are blooper ad infinitum, but none of them are such that they would come across in a picture....so I'll leave it at that.

Like, so completely, dude.

2008-12-04T06:55:00.000-08:00

So Erica's at my house.

So, yeah. We're just hangin' out in the treehouse, and somehow talk turns to the Jonas Brothers. 'Yeah, they're kind of lame.......they dress really weird......they always look so obsessed with themselves.......like so.......*sadie snaps a picture*

This picture:

From that small beginning developed the whole dressing-up-as-the-Jonas-Brothers session that is the talk of the internet (well, of of Erica's blog, anyway..... =) So first we go on the computer and browse pictures of the Jonas Brothers to get a fair idea of how they dress.

Us looking at pictures of the Jonas Brothers:

(The quote on the picture is something we actually came across on one of their websites, and I have a video of Erica reading it exactly as written.)

So you can get the same general impression we did, here's some pictures we came across:

One word: tight pants. Nick's look like they were made for a seven year old!

Those scarves around Kevin's neck.....

Jo's low-cut vest......um....

Is it just me, or does the bulky jacket/tight pants combination make them look top-heavy?

So we finally got the impression that there is absolutely no rhyme or reason to how they dress.

And we decided that we could just ransack my closet, pull out everything that was tight, multicolored, and mismatched, and layer it together.

And that is what we did.

And this is the result:

Nick and Joe....

...again....

Nick and Joe introducing a non-existent Kevin.....(We invented our own characters to go with the clothes since we've never actually seen how the Jonas Brothers really act; we said 'dude' every third word and acted self-absorbed and really slow....yeah, we had fun!)

Joe....just hangin', dude.

Nick, looking so completely awesome, dude.

It was like, so completely great, dude.

Like awesome dude.

Like, totally.

PRINCE CASPIAN IS RELEASED!!!!!!!!

2008-12-02T07:14:00.000-08:00

Of course, when we'll be able to buy it is another matter. But still....WHOOHOO!!!!!!!!

Guess Who's Here?!?!?!?!?!?!

2008-11-28T11:47:00.000-08:00

Tagged....

2008-11-10T15:43:00.000-08:00

.....again. By Lisa, this time. =) Six random things about my self....hmmm.....

1. I'm fairly closely related to Bill Clinton (I know that everyone who reads my blog has probably seen that a million times before in stuff like this, but it's random, and it's true. There you go. =)

2. I love Eragon the book, and can't stand Eragon the movie.

3. I dressed up like Captain Jack Sparrow the other day.

4. Carrots with Lemon Salt are one of my favorite snacks.

5. I'm sitting at the computer right now.

6. I have deeply laid plans with several of my friends to make a GOOD movie version of Johnny Tremain when we are older.

I tag:

Lydia